Stacking the Shelves (281)

Stacking the Shelves

It wasn’t a big week this week, but I definitely picked up a couple of real winners. I know because I’ve already finished one of them!

Tomorrow begins my Blogo-Birthday Week Celebration, kicking off in the wee hours with the April Book of Choice Giveaway Hop. There will be giveaways all week long, to be sure to stop by!

For Review:
Cyborg (Galactic Gladiators #10) by Anna Hackett
The Emperor of Shoes by Spencer Wise
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Untamed Cowboy (Gold Valley #2) by Maisey Yates
When the Men Were Gone by Marjorie Herrera Lewis

Review: Queen of the Flowers by Kerry Greenwood

Review: Queen of the Flowers by Kerry GreenwoodQueen of the Flowers (Phryne Fisher Mystery #14) by Kerry Greenwood
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical mystery
Series: Phryne Fisher #14
Pages: 256
Published by Poisoned Pen Press on November 7th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

St. Kildas streets hang with fairy lights. Tea dances, tango competitions, lifesaving demonstrations, lantern shows, and picnics on the beach are all part of the towns first Flower Parade. And who should be Queen of the Flowers but the Honourable Phryne Fisher? It seems that the lovely Phryne has nothing to do but buy dresses, drink cocktails, and dine in lavish restaurants. Unfortunately, disappearances during this joyous festival aren t limited to the magic shows. One of Phryne s flower maidens has simply vanished. And so, Phryne is off to investigate aided by Bert and Cec and her trusty little Beretta. When her darling adopted daughter Ruth goes missing, Phryne is determined that nothing will stand in the way of her investigation. Phryne must confront elephants, brothel-life, and perhaps worst of all an old lover in an effort to save Ruth and her flower maiden before it is too late. Queen of the Flowers is the fourteenth book in the Phryne Fisher series, with no sign of Ms. Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol yet."

My Review:

The more of this series that I read, the more amazed I am that they managed to film it at all, let alone that it is still possible to recognize the original in the changes – and vice versa.

I turn to Phryne when I need a comfort read, because she is guaranteed to whisk me away to Melbourne in the 1920s, whether the particular adventure is one of the better ones or merely a visit with old friends.

Queen of the Flowers is one of the better ones, and it is one of the occasions where the book is much better than the TV show – not that there haven’t been plenty of cases the other way around.

One reason why I marvel that the series was ever filmed at all is just how frank both the author and Phryne were about the seamy underbelly of life in general and life in Melbourne in the 1920s in particular. This story is one that pulls absolute no punches whatsoever.

But the way that it links back to both Phryne’s past and her adopted daughter Ruth’s certainly does tug at the heart.

The mystery, and the story, in Queen of the Flowers revolves around a series of abused young women. Not just the school of hard knocks that Phryne certainly graduated from, but also the house of ill-repute that her adopted daughters Ruth and Jane survived. And most important for this particular story, the house of horrors that young Rose Weston is so desperate to escape from, and the reasons for that desperation.

Once Phryne is on the case, there is no question that all of the young women in desperate trouble in this story, not just Ruth and Rose but also all of the young female servants in the place Rose escaped from, will all find safe harbor after Phryne finishes the case.

The only question, in the end, is just how much justice Phryne will mete out herself before she lets the police clean up the garbage. And the elephant poop.

Escape Rating A-: Queen of the Flowers is definitely one of the better stories in the series, at least so far. I’ll confess that I had a bit of a hard time getting into it at the very beginning, much as Phryne was having a difficult time at her luncheon with the young ladies who will form her “court” when she does her charitable duty as “Queen of the Flowers” in the upcoming parade.

But once she is woken up in the wee hours because Rose Weston is missing and her mother has gone mental, the story is off to the races, and just gets more and more fascinating as it goes.

While Phryne’s life often seems like a circus, the real circus has come to town for the fete and the parade, and has brought with it one of Phryne’s old friends, her friend’s three elephants, and one of Phryne’s old lovers – as well as a plot to ensnare her daughter Ruth and attempt to bilk some money out of Phryne.

The circus just adds to the confusion, as well as to the number of potential suspects and hiding places, once Rose and Ruth have both gone missing. However, the parallel cases provide ample opportunity for all of the regulars in the series to get plenty of chances to shine in a bit of the spotlight.

But as much as Ruth’s disappearance and/or abduction worries Phryne and her whole household, the real drama in this story is provided by Rose Weston’s plight. Because once Phryne begins her investigation, she keeps digging right to the bottom of every terrible thing that has happened to Rose to put her in this fix. And the lengths that Phryne is willing to go to in order to see right finally done take her to some very low places – where she always holds her own.

Which does not make Phryne’s foray into the criminal underworld of Melbourne any less daunting – or any less fascinating.

In the end, as always, evil gets its just desserts and good in the person of Phryne Fisher definitely triumphs – in this case even more spectacularly than is usual even for Phryne. It’s not every heroine that gets to ride to glory on the back of an elephant!

Review: The Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff

Review: The Awkward Squad by Sophie HenaffThe Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Genres: mystery
Series: Anne Capestan #1
Pages: 272
Published by Maclehose Press Quercus on April 3rd 2018
Publisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

"A new crime series starring Anne Capestan a brilliant but disgraced police officer placed in charge of a team of department misfits to investigate decades old unsolved crimes...Suspended from her job as a promising police officer for firing "one bullet too many," Anne Capestan is expecting the worst when she is summoned to H.Q. to learn her fate. Instead, she is surprised to be told that she is to head up a new police squad, working on solving old cold cases. Though relived to still have a job, Capestan is not overjoyed by the prospect of her new role. Even less so when she meets her new team: a crowd of misfits, troublemakers and problem cases, none of whom are fit for purpose and yet none of whom can be fired. But from this inauspicious start, investigating the cold cases throws up a number a number of strange mysteries for Capestan and her team: was the old lady murdered seven years ago really just the victim of a botched robbery? Who was behind the dead sailor discovered in the Seine with three gunshot wounds? And why does there seem to be a curious link with a ferry that was shipwrecked off the Florida coast many years previously?"--

My Review:

I picked up The Awkward Squad because the description sounded an awful lot like one of my favorite British TV series, New Tricks.

It turns out that it sounds a lot like it because it is a lot like it, and that’s a good thing. There are certainly differences, and the cases they actually end up solving are nothing alike, but the premise is the same, at least in the important bits.

The Awkward Squad is the last hope for a group of police officers in Paris who have screwed up irredeemably in one way or another, but who also can’t be fired for one reason or another. The divisionaire (think Superintendant) has created this squad of misfits, stuck them in a run down apartment far from police headquarters, given them the worst of the cast-off furniture and equipment, taken away their guns, and dumped every box of cold cases that HQ can find on their doorstep.

They are all supposed to take their relegation as a sign that it’s time to quit, or retire, or possibly even die.

Instead, their Commissaire (think commanding officer) takes the relegation as a sign of hope. She believes that if they manage to do good police work and show up whoever originally handled some of those old, cold cases, they’ll all have a chance at returning to HQ where they belong.

Anne Capestan, every bit as disgraced as the unit she finds herself commanding, is both half right and half wrong. She’s right in her idea that if they take their no-hope unit and do some real policing with it, they can all earn back the respect they’ve lost.

But she’s wrong in thinking that they all belong back at HQ, or as part of the regular police force that has marginalized them. As her “awkward squad” of misfit cops bands together, they discover that they do their best work outside of the bounds of the regular force – and with each other.

It’s supposed to have been a dead-end job for dead-end cops. It turns out to be a home, and a family and a damn good unit.

And a setup from the word go.

Escape Rating B+: It’s hard for me to lose the resemblance to New Tricks. In the show, the misfits are all retired cops, admittedly sometimes forcibly retired for the same types of infractions and troubles that plague this squad. The new commander in both cases has been sidelined after a well-publicized action that should have ended their career. And in both cases, they investigate cases that the original officers either half-assed or willfully neglected.

But unlike New Tricks, all of Anne’s squad are still serving officers, albeit barely in some cases. They all still have a chance to resurrect their careers if they can face their demons.

And Anne’s squad was set up for a special purpose, in addition to the stated purpose of driving them all to leave. There’s someone at HQ who hopes that Anne will dive into the two murders that were hidden among all the boxes of old casework, and that she’ll figure out what all the investigators before her have missed.

Not because she’s good, although she is, but because she’s dogged, particularly in the face of officialdom saying “NO”. Which it does. Repeatedly and often. Which only makes Anne more determined to get a “YES” – or make one.

But what makes this book is not just the case, although it is fascinating and convoluted and keeps the reader guessing until the end.

What makes this book are the members of that awkward squad and the way that they coalesce from a bunch of misfits into a family of choice. The way that they work their way around the roadblocks in their path as well as the way that they work their way towards each other, is often lighthearted and frequently hilarious.

In the end, their family is centered around a dog, and the case is solved because of a cat. With a lot of sometimes rueful laughter along the way – and often at their own expense.

I had a great time getting to know Anne and band of misfit cops, and I sincerely hope that further books in this series are translated and make their way to this side of the “pond”.

Review: The Morcai Battalion: The Pursuit by Diana Palmer

Review: The Morcai Battalion: The Pursuit by Diana PalmerThe Pursuit (The Morcai Battalion #5) by Diana Palmer
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Morcai Battalion #5
Pages: 384
Published by Harlequin Books on March 27th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

The first time Mekashe, Captain of the Imperial Guard, meets blue-eyed human beauty Jasmine Donally, the two nearly come to blows. Forever devoted to the Cehn-Tahr, Mekashe is forced to sever ties with the object of his adoration. Years pass before their paths cross again, but Mekashe hasn’t forgotten what transpired—or the way she makes his heart race. But even if he can forgive the past, insurmountable barriers still threaten to keep them worlds apart. With their mutual attraction escalating quickly, they’ll have to find a way to bridge the gap—or be lost to each other forever.

My Review:

At first it seemed like this book had a vampire problem. Not literally, there are no vampires in this science fiction romance. (If you want vampires in space read Break Out by Nina Croft – it’s awesome) But The Pursuit still began with the same problem that most vampire romances have – what in the galaxy does a 250 year old male want with an 18 year old female? Beyond the obvious. But in order for this to result in a believable happy ever after, she has to be something really really special for this relationship to work. After all, what do they have in common? While her fresh perspective on pretty much everything may seem charming for a while, she will grow out of it. Will the person she grows into still fit into his already very much established life?

Just as I got frustrated with the corner that it seemed this book was painting itself into, it took a sharp turn and jumped completely out. And got a whole lot better as a result.

At first, the story in The Pursuit reads an awful lot like a old-fashioned Harlequin category romance moved into space. The hero is rich, powerful and much, much, MUCH older than the naive, innocent, sheltered, beautiful and virginal heroine. It’s only when the story breaks that pattern that things really take off.

So to speak.

Mekashe is the commander of the Imperial Guard on his home planet, a member of the mysterious and secretive race called Cehn-Tahr. He is also a member of the Royal Clan, but fairly far down the line of succession.

He is also 250 years old, but looks like he’s in his mid-30s at most. His race was genetically engineered and enhanced at a point far back in their history. While they appear mostly human in public, their real form is clearly derived from a giant and sentient cat species. By position, Mekashe is a high-ranking military officer. His would-be inamorata has problems with both.

His emperor (and great uncle) has insisted that he take some of the R&R he’s entitled to by traveling on a passenger liner from Terravega, now the human home planet, to Memcache, his home.

On that journey he meets the woman of his dreams. Quite literally. He has been dreaming of tall, slim, blonde Jasmine Dupont for years. She is the daughter of the first human ambassador to Memcache, and honestly, at the beginning of the book she’s the epitome of the TSTL heroine.

Not only is she basically a child at 18, she is self-absorbed and offensive at every turn, to the point where she commits a diplomatic faux pas so bad that it costs her father his job and eventually his life, as well as kills any hope for the budding relationship between herself and Mekashe. Her stupidity could literally have killed her, as the offense she committed usually carries the death penalty.

It’s only when things hit absolute bottom that Jasmine finally becomes the person she was meant to be – a person who might be able to stand beside Mekashe as an equal – if they ever find each other again.

Escape Rating B: The first part of this book is frustrating as hell. Jasmine may be 18, but she acts like a child at every turn. She is derisive of the military and she hates and fears cats. Poor Mekashe sees her as his fated mate, or at any rate his mate for life, but is rightfully worried that she will react badly when she discovers his true identity and form. And he’s right to worry. It’s a disaster.

But a disaster that she is still strangely shielded from. The Cehn-Tahr are so secretive that her father is not allowed to tell her the reason for his dismissal. She doesn’t know what she did and therefore can’t learn from it. Her parents have protected, indulged and cosseted her at every turn, and it has done neither her nor them any favors.

It’s only when she’s at the very real end of her rope that she really takes responsibility for herself and her own life, even if she still doesn’t know what it was she did wrong. She finally grows up. She also tells herself that she hates the Cehn-Tahr in general and their emperor in particular, but her feelings for Mekashe never die – no matter how much she wants to kill them.

Circumstances (with a little help from their friends) finally push Mekashe and Jasmine into each other’s orbit again. And while the HEA resolves awfully quickly and the problems are solved too easily (to the point of deus ex machina  or in this case, perhaps deus ex medica, easy), by the time it happens, Jasmine has grown into a person who is worthy of it.

About that ending and all the people in it, as well as those who help along the way… This book probably makes no sense if you have not read the first and foundational book in the series, The Morcai Battalion. Which was surprisingly awesome military science fiction. While the main characters in that book are mostly secondary or tertiary characters in this one, the worldbuilding is all done in that first book. The romances that follow it, including this one, are the wrapping up of the loose ends created in that original scenario. So while I don’t think you need to read all of the intervening books to get to this one – that first one is essential. And highly recommended.

Review: To Die but Once by Jacqueline Winspear

Review: To Die but Once by Jacqueline WinspearTo Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14) by Jacqueline Winspear
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: Maisie Dobbs #14
Pages: 336
Published by Harper on March 27th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Spring 1940. With Britons facing what has become known as "the Bore War"—nothing much seems to have happened yet—Maisie Dobbs is asked to investigate the disappearance of a local lad, a young apprentice craftsman working on a "hush-hush" government contract. As Maisie’s inquiry reveals a possible link to the London underworld, another mother is worried about a missing son—but this time the boy in question is one beloved by Maisie.

My Review:

In the earlier books in this series, Maisie reminded me a lot of Bess Crawford, from Charles Todd’s series, or even Mary Russell from Laurie R. King’s Holmes/Russell series. Bess, Mary and Maisie are all contemporaries, and had similar experiences.

But Maisie’s series has moved on, from World War I through the between-the-wars period and now she has reached World War II. And now Maisie, 20 years older and hopefully wiser than she was in her earlier cases, reminds me all too much of Christopher Foyle in Foyle’s War.

While the scenario behind To Die But Once is straight from the movies. One movie in particular, Dunkirk.

The movie was set on the beaches as the men waited desperately for rescue. To Die But Once takes place on the other side of the Channel, on the home front, where Maisie’s friends, and therefore Maisie herself, worry about their hostages to a fortune that they desperately hoped never to see again in their lifetimes. A hope that has been miserably dashed on the rocky shore at Dunkirk.

As with Foyle’s War, while the background of war is ever present, the story revolves around events on the home front. Just because there’s a war on, even if in 1940 it was the “Bore War”, does not mean that human beings have refrained from their usual patterns of crime if not punishment.

The impending war merely provides yet more opportunities for nefarious activity, unfortunately not limited to graft, cheating on government contracts, selling secrets, and that age-old wartime pastime, the black market.

War makes very strange bedfellows, especially when there’s money to be made.

Maisie begins by investigating the disappearance of a young man. She, as well as the entire neighborhood, watched Joe Coombes grow up in his family’s pub. He’s a sweet young man, and at 16 he’s away from home for the first time, apprentice to a painter’s crew doing government work at RAF bases all over Britain.

While Maisie hopes to discover a boy out on a lark, she is prepared for what she does find – Joe’s unidentified body in a morgue. For Maisie, that is never the end of a case – only the beginning.

Maisie isn’t satisfied with the coroner’s ruling of death by misadventure. It is possible that this was the case – but it just doesn’t feel likely. And the more that Maisie looks into Joe’s life, the less likely it seems.

All she has to do is find the one thread to pull that will unravel this case – if the mysterious gentlemen in the black sedan don’t unravel her first.

Escape Rating A: This series is, from beginning to end, marvelous. It is a comfort read for me, having now read the first four books and the last five. I plan to meet myself in the middle sometime soon.

But this is a dense series. While the case in each book is generally singular, or at least all the cases that Maisie turns up are all completed within the volume, each entry requires at least some previous knowledge of Maisie’s background, her professional history, and an acquaintance with Maisie’s friends and associates.

In other words, don’t start here. Particularly as the series has been building towards the war for several books, since A Dangerous Place, if not before. Maisie’s adventures begin in the first book in the series, named for its protagonist, Maisie Dobbs.

Maisie is both a thorough and a thoughtful detective. She is also, as she describes her associate Billy Beale, a terrier. Once she has a case between her teeth, she doesn’t let it go until she has poked her nose into every single one of its dark alleys.

That’s certainly the case here. Joe is dead, but his death was caused as much by the tentacles of corruption that surround his family as it was by the sharp blow to the head that snuffed out his life. And Maisie uncovers a net that reaches from a small-time contractor to a big-time hoodlum to the halls of power and everywhere in between.

The case is twisting and convoluted, and keeps both Maisie and the reader captivated as she follows its turns to the very end.

There is so much going on here, with Maisie, with the case, and with the war. Maisie is often pushed to her limit, and in more than one direction. In the end, it is her willingness to confront the difficult, and her ability to see inside the human heart, that provides the answers – even if those are answers that no one wants to hear.

The Maisie Dobbs series is one of my favorite historical mystery series. I enjoy every entry, to the point where it is difficult to review the book. When I read Maisie, it feels like I am there. And I can’t wait to travel with her again. Even into war.

Review: Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai + Giveaway

Review: Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai + GiveawayHurts to Love You (Forbidden Hearts, #3) by Alisha Rai
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Forbidden Hearts #3
Pages: 384
Published by Avon on March 27th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Being bad never felt so good, in the third novel in Alisha Rai’s sexy Forbidden Hearts series!

Well-behaved women don’t lust after men who love to misbehave.

Heiress Evangeline Chandler knows how to keep a secret . . . like her life-long crush on the tattooed hottie who just happens to be her big brother’s friend. She’s a Chandler, after all, and Chandlers don’t hook up with the help. Then again, they also don’t disobey their fathers and quit their respectable jobs, so good-girl rules may no longer apply.

Gabriel Hunter hides the pain of his past behind a smile, but he can’t hide his sudden attraction to his friend’s sheltered little sister. Eve is far too sweet to accept anything less than forever and there’s no chance of a future between the son of a housekeeper and the town’s resident princess.

When a wedding party forces Eve and Gabe into tight quarters, keeping their hands off each other will be as hard as keeping their clothes on. The need that draws them together is stronger than the forces that should shove them apart . . . but their sparks may not survive the explosion when long-buried secrets are finally unearthed.

My Review:

This series in general, including this final book, is for everyone who loves an angsty romance. Because there has been plenty of angst to go around in this series. And it’s awesome.

Once upon a time, John Chandler and Sam Oka opened a grocery store together. Over the years of their extremely harmonious partnership, the C&O chain of high-quality stores spread across the country. They raised their two families together in side-by-side properties as one big and generally happy family.

Then tragedy struck. On a quite literally dark and stormy night, John’s daughter-in-law and Sam’s son-in-law were killed in a highway accident, together, not merely miles but entire states away from where either of them was supposed to be.

In the resulting chaos of gossip and recriminations, John’s son swindled Sam’s daughter out of her half of the family business, the Okas (now the Kanes) were left with nothing and the Chandlers were left in control of both the company, now renamed Chandler’s, and most of the small town they lived in.

But ten years later, the chickens start coming home to roost, and all the truths start coming out. In the first book in the series, Hate to Want You, Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler finally admit that they’ve never stopped loving each other. In the second book, Wrong to Need You, Jackson Kane and Sadia Ahmed, his brother Paul’s widow, reach out for a second chance at happiness together, in spite the ghost standing between them.

In the process of those relationships coming together, Brendan Chandler, the man who committed that swindle, is revealed once and for all as the complete asshole who caused more than just the mess that was obvious on the surface.

In Hurts to Love You, the full tale of just how badly he treated his daughter Eve, and just why his wife was on that highway with Robert Kane, is revealed in all its ugly glory.

This has been a story of forbidden romances, from the two sides of the family feud (Hate) to the relationship between a woman and her late husband’s brother (Wrong) to this one, where the good girl daughter of the Chandlers breaks out of the shell her father’s behavior put her in so that she can find her own happiness in the arms of the town’s bad boy, who has big secrets of his own.

And at the heart of the whole saga lies that oft-told-truth about the extremely short emotional distance between hate and love..

Escape Rating A-: Brendan Chandler doesn’t suffer nearly enough. From the very beginning of this series I wanted someone to take that man and stomp him flat, repeatedly, over and over, with extreme malice and utter disregard for the number of broken bones. Some characters are just plain unredeemable, and he was one. While he does get hurt where it hits him the most, in pride and reputation, he still doesn’t suffer close to enough. But everyone else gets their resolution and closure, so it will have to do.

This series may be “Forbidden Hearts” but the romance in this entry isn’t as taboo as the series title suggests, or as the first two entries in it certainly are. In this one, what initially keeps Gabe and Eve apart are their own internal conflicts, rather than the external conflict of Hate or the relationship taboo in Wrong.

Gabe has kept a secret all of his life. He’s actually one of the Kanes, and is Livvy and Jackson’s older half brother. Their father didn’t cheat, Gabe is the result of a brief relationship their father had before he met their mother. But circumstances at the time kept Gabe an unacknowledged part of the Kane family circle.

Keeping that secret has kept Gabe from revealing his true self to much of anyone, which has made relationships even more difficult than they generally are.

Eve, on the other hand, has spent her life hiding from her emotions due to her asshole dad’s emotional abuse. She’s locked herself down because that’s the only way she could survive. But with her brother Nicholas’ defiance in Hate, she’s begun to let herself out of her shell, at least a little. And that has allowed her to acknowledge that she has always loved Gabe, even though he saw her as a child. But now that she is an adult, their decade-plus age gap is much less important.

And once she figures out his secret, she becomes one of the few people he can reveal his real self to. The more he does, the more he wants to. And the more he wants Eve, though he believes that he’s no good for her. Of course Eve believes that she’s too damaged for him. It takes all the secrets coming out for them to admit that even though neither of them is much good at emotions or relationships, that they need to try – with each other.

I read Hurts to Love You almost as soon as I received it, even though the publication date was a couple of months away. I just couldn’t wait. And if you love angsty romance, you shouldn’t either. Be prepared to binge the series, starting with the awesome Hate to Want You and Wrong to Need You, and then move right on into the stunning and satisfying conclusion in Hurts to Love You.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

LINK: https://goo.gl/ifskNr
GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS: Open to US shipping addresses only. One winner will receive a paperback copy of Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR on behalf of Avon Romance. Giveaway ends 4/9/2017 @ 11:59pm EST. Avon Romance will send the winning copies out to the winner directly. Limit one entry per reader and mailing address. Duplicates will be deleted.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-25-18

Sunday Post

My Blogo-Birthday Celebration begins next Sunday. The opening salvo, so to speak, will be the April Book of Choice Giveaway Hop, but I’ll be giving stuff away all week long!

But speaking of giveaways, I have three blog hops still going on, but they all end sometime this week, just in time for Blogo-Birthday Week. But there is still plenty of time to enter them all.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the All About Diversity Blog Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the March into Madness Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

C+ Review: Fast Burn by Lori Foster
A Review: Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell
B Review: The Darkest Promise by Gena Showalter
A Review: Hexed by Kevin Hearne
B Review: The River House by Carla Neggers
Stacking the Shelves (280)

Coming Next Week:

Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai (blog tour review)
To Die but Once by Jacqueline Winspear (review)
The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton (review)
Court of Lions by Jane Johnson (review)
The Morcai Battalion: The Pursuit by Diana Palmer (review)
April Book of Choice Giveaway Hop

Stacking the Shelves (280)

Stacking the Shelves

Happy First Weekend of Spring! Even if it doesn’t feel like Spring yet where you are, it has to be coming. Whether you’re ready for it or not.

It is definitely Spring here in Atlanta – to the point where we already have a bumper crop of dandelions in the backyard and need to figure out what to do about them!

Speaking of Spring, my 7th Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration is coming up really soon now, starting April 1. I’ll be giving stuff away every day that week. Be sure to stop by and check it out!

For Review:
Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot by Narelle M. Harris, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Jody Lynn Nye, R. Rozakis, Sarah Stegall, hildy Silverman, Daniel M. Kimmel, Stephanie M. McPherson, Derek Beebe, Gordon Lizner, Mike strauss, Chuck Regan, Nat Gertier
Between You and Me by Susan Wiggs
Brief Cases (Dresden Files #15.1) by Jim Butcher
Fall of Angels (Inspector Redfyre #1) by Barbara Cleverly
Half Empty (First Wives #2) by Catherine Bybee
Marek (Cold Fury Hockey #11) by Sawyer Bennett
Taking Chase (Chase Brothers #2) by Lauren Dane
Trial on Mount Koya (Shinobi Mystery #6) by Susan Spann

Purchased from Amazon/Audible:
Hammered (Iron Druid #3) by Kevin Hearne

Review: The River House by Carla Neggers

Review: The River House by Carla NeggersThe River House by Carla Neggers
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: Swift River Valley #8
Pages: 352
Published by Mira Books on March 27th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

In this charming novel about the search for love, home and family, New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers takes readers on a journey to an irresistible town they’ll want to return to over and over again

Felicity MacGregor loves organizing social events for others but her own personal life is a different story. After a brief but failed attempt at a career as a financial analyst, she returned to Knights Bridge where she enjoys running a thriving party-planning business.

Then Felicity’s life gets a shake-up when her childhood friend Gabriel Flanagan returns unexpectedly to their tiny hometown. Now a high-flying businessman, Gabe always vowed to get out of Knights Bridge, but he is back for the local entrepreneurial boot camp Felicity’s been hired to organize. Together again, they’ll finally have to face each other—and their complicated past.

Gabe and Felicity soon realize their reunion is stirring up long-buried emotions. While Gabe has big plans for his future, Felicity is discovering that hers doesn’t depend on fate—she must choose what’s right for her. But if they can find a bridge between their diverging paths, they may just discover that their enduring connection is what matters most.

My Review:

Knights Bridge Massachusetts is not just a nice place to visit, it also seems like a really nice place to live – except for those New England winters.

In this story, for both Felicity MacGregor and Gabe Flanagan, it is also home in the Robert Frost sense, the one about “home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

Felicity went back about three years before the story begins, opened up her own events planning business, and has been finally getting her life on track after a decade of doing what she was expected to do instead of what she wanted to do. Where she failed, repeatedly and over and over again, as the financial analyst her family expected her to be, she’s independent and successful in the career she found by accident.

Gabe Flanagan, on the other hand, has been a successful entrepreneur from the day he dropped out of college, or so it seems. He’s just sold his latest venture for “gazillions” of dollars, as Felicity put it, and he’s at loose ends.

Just in time to come home to Knights Bridge to speak at his brother’s one-day boot camp for budding entrepreneurs.

And to see if he can finally mend fences with the woman who used to be his best friend, Felicity.

They grew up together. They’ve been friends since nursery school. And once, just before they went their separate ways for college – they were lovers. They remained besties even through their first jobs, his ups and down with various start-ups and all her downs as she struggled through one financial analyst job after another.

Their breakup came when Gabe’s very tough love shoved at Felicity’s need for comfort and a place to land. She was broke again, having been fired from yet another position, and couch-surfing at Gabe’s apartment. He was in the midst of what turned out to be his first big success. And in his very blunt and possibly tactless fashion, he told Felicity the bald truth that she had been avoiding for a decade – that whatever she was meant to be and do, it was clear that being a financial analyst made her utterly miserable to the point of failure, and that she needed to get her act together – at something else.

He was right. His delivery sucked, but he was right. And she was gone.

Now she’s living in Knights Bridge, the proud owner of the house that Gabe and his brother built on the site of their grandfather’s old campgrounds. The site where Felicity and Gabe’s friendship morphed into something more, for that one night. The place where Gabe was Felicity’s first lover.

They say you never forget your first. Felicity certainly can’t forget Gabe – he’s wrapped into all her memories of her childhood and adolescence in Knights Bridge. But when he comes back to town, the question is whether she ever got over him – and whether she ever wants to.

Escape Rating B: It feels like The River House is more of a women’s fiction story than a romance. While the relationship between Felicity and Gabe is front and center throughout the book, most of that story is about them rebuilding their solid and life-sustaining friendship. There is sexual tension under the surface, but for most of the story it feels like the focus is on whether they can be besties again, rather than either of them actively looking for more.

Not that more doesn’t eventually find them.

Because they were besties for over two decades, they have a lot of backstory together. And Gabe’s return to Knights Bridge brings up all the events since he left. That means there’s a lot of the past that gets uncovered and turned over. While longtime readers of the series may find the backstory repetitive, for those of us who have read few (one in my case) or none of the previous entries will probably see the backstory as a way of catching up to the cast of characters – which is fairly large and very interconnected.

I really liked the people of Knights Bridge and felt a great deal of empathy for both Felicity and Gabe. Like Gabe, I have also been accused, and rightly so, of being much too blunt. Like Felicity, my dad didn’t figure out what he wanted to do when he grew up until he was also about 30, and fell into the job that became his career with a similar lack of planning. I understood where they both were coming from.

This was the kind of story I happened to be looking for when I picked it up, and I fell right into it.

As much as I enjoyed the setting and the characters, there was one person in the mix whose involvement pushed the book down to a B, and that’s the intrusion of Nadia. She starts by trying to inveigle her way into the entrepreneur boot camp and never lets up until the very end. She comes off as “crazy stalker ex”, but she is not Gabe’s ex. Instead, she’s a former colleague and the ex of the douchebag who bought Gabe’s company for those gazillions of dollars and then left her without a job as well as a husband – not that he was any great loss.

But Nadia becomes a constant, niggling annoyance throughout the entire story. Her lies, her constant interference and her continued unwanted intrusions and overall shadowy presence cast a pall over a whole lot of the events. It feels as if she is being built up to be a villain – and then her plot line kind of fizzles. I’m not sure what she brought to the table and I wish she weren’t there at all. She’s a Chekhov’s gun that misfires with a whimper.

However, I really enjoyed the rest of the story and will happily look for an excuse to go back to Knights Bridge at some point, especially if I get to jonesing for something in the author’s romantic suspense series, Sharpe & Donovan.

 

THE RIVER HOUSE Review & Excerpt Tour Schedule:

March 19th

Nerdy Dirty and Flirty – Excerpt

Reading Keeps Me Sane – Excerpt

Reads All the Books – Excerpt

March 20th

Always a happy ever after – Excerpt

It’s All About the Romance – Excerpt

Ramblings From This Chick – Excerpt

March 21st

Devilishly Delicious Book Reviews – Excerpt

Nose Stuck in a Book – Excerpt

Novel Addiction – Excerpt

March 22nd

Hearts & Scribbles – Excerpt

LETSHAVEAKYA – Excerpt

Reading Between the Wines Book Club – Excerpt

What Is That Book About – Excerpt

March 23rd

Books n Wine – Excerpt

Cathy Reads Books – Review & Excerpt

Ficwishes – Excerpt

Reading Reality – Review

White Hot Reads – Review & Excerpt

March 24th

Nicole’s Book Musings – Excerpt

Shannon’s Book Blog – Review & Excerpt

Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews – Excerpt

Tfaulcbookreviews – Excerpt

March 25th

Book Magic – Under a spell with every page – Review & Excerpt

Evermore Books – Excerpt

Ripe For Reader – Excerpt

TBR Book Blog – Review & Excerpt

March 26th

A Literary Perusal – Review & Excerpt

Have Words Will Scribble – Review & Excerpt

Nice Ladies, Naughty Books – Excerpt

The Ghost Pepper Babes – Excerpt

March 27th

Book Nook Nuts – Excerpt

Kick Back & Review – Excerpt

Literary Misfit – Excerpt

The Bookish Sisters – Review & Excerpt

March 28th

JordansBookReviews – Excerpt

Read more sleep less – Excerpt

Read-Love-Blog – Review & Excerpt

Two Book Pushers – Excerpt

March 29th

Blushing babes are up all night – Review & Excerpt

Sip Read Love – Review

Thoughts of a Blonde – Excerpt

Words We Love By – Review & Excerpt

March 30th

Bobo’s Book Bank – Excerpt

Jax’s Book Magic – Excerpt

Kindle Friends Forever – Review & Excerpt

Scandalous Book Blog – Review & Excerpt

March 31st

Books are love – Review & Excerpt

G & T’s Indie Café – Excerpt

Inside The Mind of an Avid Reader – Review

The Fairest of All Book Reviews – Excerpt

Review: Hexed by Kevin Hearne

Review: Hexed by Kevin HearneHexed (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #2) by Kevin Hearne
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #2
Pages: 296
on June 7th 2011
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Goodreads

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn’t care much for witches. Still, he’s about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty—when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they’re badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.

With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence, and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbor’s rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex.

My Review:

The usual pattern with urban fantasy is that the hero or heroine finds themselves going into darker and darker places, fighting bigger and more powerful evils, as the series continues. But when you open the series by defeating a vengeful god, it’s a bit difficult to get anything bigger or more powerful.

That doesn’t stop things in Hexed from upping the darkness scale, finding Atticus and his allies fighting the witches that seem to have fanned the flames of World War II – with even more flames.

In this second entry in the series, the one and only remaining Druid, now calling himself Atticus O’Sullivan, is dealing with the fallout from events in the previous book, Hounded. And while I think that enough backstory is provided that a person could read Hexed without reading Hounded, I’m not sure why anyone who likes urban fantasy would ever want to.

Atticus’ epic battle with the Celtic god Angus Og at Tony Cabin in the Superstition Mountains created a whole lot of collateral damage, beginning with his Viking vampire lawyer (say that three times fast) and Leif’s hate-on for Thor. Not that there’s not a long line of people who hate Thor. He’s not a quarter as handsome or reasonable as the movie version.

But in this universe where not only all the pantheons but all the versions of all the pantheons seem to exist, Atticus is not exactly eager to step up to the plate and bat at all the various versions of Thor, one after another.

He has enough problems dealing with the version of Coyote who shows up at his doorstep, expecting Atticus to kill one of the leftover demons from his fight – the one that is messing with Coyote’s people in Tempe. Not that Atticus doesn’t get tricked in the process, because that’s what Coyote does.

In the end, the big bad that Atticus has to take care of in this story is one that he has wanted to beat on for years, decades in fact. There’s a coven of very evil witches that wants to move to Tempe to unseat the local coven. A local coven that is now vulnerable and at reduced strength, after having gotten caught in the middle of Atticus’ fight with Angus Og.

While Atticus doesn’t really trust witches, he is about to sign an alliance with the remainder of the local coven. He may not exactly trust Malina and her coven, but he is convinced that he, they and the werewolf pack are a big part of what’s keeping Tempe a nice place to live.

And he’s been hunting for their mutual enemies (and vice versa) since the dark days of the Holocaust. He wants payback – but so does everyone else. Even with the help of the local witches and that Viking vampire lawyer, the good guys may have bitten off more than they can chew.

They might get chewed, instead. And not in a good way. Not even like one of Oberon’s tennis balls.

Escape Rating A: If you are ever looking for an audiobook with while to while away untold numbers of hours while going from laughs to thrills to giggles to chills and back again, I can’t recommend the Iron Druid series as read by Luke Daniels enough. I listened to most of Hexed while on a treadmill, and it made the miles just fly by.

Admittedly, the people who were next to me probably wondered about the shit-eating grin on my face. The story is told by Atticus O’Sullivan in the first person, in Luke Daniels’ Audible Narrator Hall of Fame voice, and this is a case where the first person perspective really, really works.

Especially since the reader/listener gets to hear the thoughts in Atticus’ head, which are usually even snarkier than whatever comes out of his mouth.

As the second book in the series, Hexed offers readers an even deeper dive into both its main character and the world in which he lives, including much more information about his friends, associates and enemies. Including his nosy neighbor with the rocket launcher in his garage.

A big part of Hexed is Atticus being forced to look back at a past he usually buries – his actions as a maquisard in World War II, helping to smuggle Jews out of occupied France to reach the port in Lisbon where they could leave Europe’s charnel house. His recitation of this particular snippet of his history is absolutely riveting.

This story also marks a turning point for Atticus, as he comes to the realization that he is no longer on the run from Angus Og, as he has been for almost the entire Common Era. He finally figures out that he has put down roots in Tempe that are worth defending, and has made friends that he wants to keep and needs to protect from anyone else who might – make that almost certainly will – come after him in the future.

Hexed has absolutely everything that those of us who love urban fantasy read it to find, a terrific, kick ass, thoughtful and snarky hero, a great bunch of sidekicks and irregulars, and a world full of magic that just might be our own.

I can’t wait to get Hammered, and I probably won’t.