Month: November 2020

Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Blog Hops> Giveaways> Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop, hosted by  The Mommy Island & The Kids Did It!

The cat pictured in the hop image looks just like my first cat, Licorice. I still miss that cat. A lot, because he was with me through a lot. I still tear up just thinking about him.

But this is not a time for tears, or at least not for sad tears. The holidays are coming! And even though the days are getting shorter, the long dark night feels like it’s finally coming to an end.

This is a time for celebration, even if it is a socially-distanced one.

What would you most hope to see in your holiday stocking this year? Even if we celebrated Xmas, I can’t quite imagine hanging stockings from our mantel. George and Hecate would conspire to bring them down. It would be hilariously messy, but seriously not conducive to putting anything in them – not even coal. Especially not coal! Lucifer’s solid coal coat is gorgeous on him, but getting actual coal dust on everyone else would just be a disaster.

Yes, our cats rule our house. If you have pets in yours, is it any different?

But back to the hoped for contents of those holiday stockings. Let us know what you’re hoping for in your holiday stocking for a chance at my usual prize, the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card (or equivalent from your country’s Amazon) or a book up to $10 from the Book Depository.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more wonderful holiday prizes, be sure to check out the other stops on this hop!

Review: The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney MilanThe Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical romance
Series: Wedgeford Trials #1
Pages: 311
Published by Courtney Milan on September 22, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Miss Chloe Fong has plans for her life, lists for her days, and absolutely no time for nonsense. Three years ago, she told her childhood sweetheart that he could talk to her once he planned to be serious. He disappeared that very night.
Except now he’s back. Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, has returned to the tiny village he once visited with the hope of wooing Chloe. In his defense, it took him years of attempting to be serious to realize that the endeavor was incompatible with his personality.
All he has to do is convince Chloe to make room for a mischievous trickster in her life, then disclose that in all the years they’ve known each other, he’s failed to mention his real name, his title… and the minor fact that he owns her entire village.
Only one thing can go wrong: Everything.

My Review:

I couldn’t settle down to read any of the things I had planned this weekend (Gee, I wonder why?) and this looked like fun and fluff, and this was a good weekend to read something about a woman of color with agency in a time and place where it wasn’t the norm, because, again gee, there’s a lot of glass lying around from all the ceilings that got broken over the weekend.

The Duke Who Didn’t turned out to be the perfect thing to read this weekend. Not that it’s perfect, exactly, but that it had just the right mixture of fun, fluff, fantasy and romance to get me into it and encourage me to keep the smile that was already splitting my face.

There is just a bit of a fantasy feel at the beginning of The Duke Who Didn’t. That this story takes place in the southeast of England in 1891, in a village whose population is primarily British-Chinese seems just a bit outside readers’ expectations of late-Victorian era English-set historical romance. That the village has a well-known once-a-year contest – with slightly obscure rules – that temporarily explodes the population, sounds a bit like Brigadoon a place that only comes to life once a year. That’s not quite the situation here, but comparisons could be drawn.

That the contest has a basis in historical reality is kind of the icing on the cake. The story is definitely the cake. Or possibly it’s a delicious steam bun, a bao, filled with pork and exquisite sauce. Actually the story is a lot about the sauce. Because Chloe Fong is all about the sauce – especially when she’s trying not to be all about Jeremy Yu. And even when she is.

Escape Rating A-: I’m bringing in the rating early because this is a book that is just so much fun that I need to squee about the details. Not all the details, but enough to get you to pick up this book.

On the one hand, the community of Wedgeford doesn’t quite seem historically real, because of its mixed race, primarily Chinese-British, population. At the same time, I don’t care, although if such a community existed, I’d love to know. But if the options for representation in historical fiction involve a little bit of handwavium, I’m all for it. I don’t need historical accuracy in my historical fiction, I just need historical plausibility – and that is definitely present.

The story of the origins of Wedgeford as it exists in this story feels possible – maybe not likely – but possible. And it’s enough to make the leap into willing suspension of disbelief. Because the author doesn’t gloss over Jeremy’s, and Chloe’s, “acceptance” in the rest of British society – it’s every bit as awful as we imagine. The entire world isn’t different – just this one tiny corner of it.

A part of the premise of this story has been done before, and multiple times, including in A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian. Jeremy Yu is the Duke of Lansing, the man who in fact owns the entire town of Wedgeford, lock, stock, barrel and every single house and building in the place. But his estate hasn’t collected rents in over 50 years, and he has no plans to ever start.

Jeremy has been coming to Wedgeford since he was 12 or so, once a year for the Wedgeford Trials. He’s never told anyone in Wedgeford that he’s the Duke. He doesn’t want anyone in Wedgeford to know that he’s the Duke, because they would treat him differently.

And he really, really doesn’t want to be treated differently. Wedgeford is the one place in England where he can be exactly who he is without apology, a young British-Chinese man who is proud of his heritage. ALL of his heritage and not just the bits that are acceptable to British so-called “polite” society.

In other stories, like the above mentioned A Duke in Disguise, the hidden Duke’s, well, ducalness, comes as a great shock to all when it is finally revealed. Jeremy’s story turns that on its head wonderfully in a way that I won’t reveal. It’s a way that should have been obvious to both Jeremy and the reader, but wasn’t. What it was was delightful. Absolutely.

Actually, delightful is the best word for the whole story. The portrait of the community is lovely, the trials themselves are an absolute hoot, and in the middle of it all is the oh-so-organized Miss Chloe Fong, her dreams, her ambitions and all of her lists, her love for her father and her need to help him get revenge on the British gentlemen who stole his work and his recipe and tossed him to the curb. And her lists. Have I mentioned her obsessive lists? Chloe certainly would. She’s never without them.

And then there’s the food. The descriptions of the food are absolutely mouth-watering, as is the romance between Jeremy and Chloe, the serious young woman and the trickster who adores her. To the point of willingly consuming endless meals of hot peppers in order to gain her father’s respect. Or at least his forbearance.

So come for the Trials, and stay for this saucy tale of love and tasty revenge. Revenge served not cold this time, but hot, flavored with the best sauce ever..

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 11-8-20

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Sunday Post

This is certainly a weekend of highs and lows. A light has been lit in what has felt like the long dark night of the American soul, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were finally confirmed (Yes, I know the media doesn’t confirm the results of any election but it still feels that way) as the President-Elect and Vice-President-Elect of the United States. We have four years to make normal, well, normal again before the next election – which has the potential to be just as acrimonious and contentious as 2016 and 2020. But we have hope.

(I break with one of my long-standing traditions in celebration of that hope. Normally, the book cover to the left of the recap is of the highest rated book that week. But today, the only cover that’s appropriate is the one for Hope Rides Again. Because it does.)

But a light has also gone out. A light that has lit our television screens for the past 36 years has died. Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy, the quizmaster to end all quizmasters, lost his fight with pancreatic cancer earlier this day. He’ll be missed.

The picture below is from last night. No one in this house got much of anything done except glee-scrolling. as Freddie settled in on the couch for a much-needed nap, while I tried to settle down to read something, anything for Monday’s review.

Blog Recap:

B Review: Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer
B Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper of Whitechapel by M.K. Wiseman
B Review: Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris
A- Review: The Patriots by Winston Groom
A Review: Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi
Stacking the Shelves (417)

Coming This Week:

The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan (review)
Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop
The Forgotten Sister by Nicola Cornick (blog tour review)
The Fate of a Flapper by Susanne Calkins (review)

Stacking the Shelves (417)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

As I write this on Friday, the U.S. Presidential Election has turned into more schadenscrolling than doomscrolling. Still, we all want this to be over so we can get on with what happens next. Even if the next two months are likely to be chaotic. At least an end will be in sight.

But speaking of ends in sight, today’s kitty picture is from a few years ago. 12 years ago, to be precise. The cats pictured are Erasmus, the orange cat of little brain but much pencil stealing, and LaZorra the fox-bitch, queen of all she surveyed including Erasmus and most definitely us. They are perched on a CRT-style television as their humans watched the first Inauguration of President Obama. I miss all of it. I miss the joy and celebration. I also miss those two cats.

Now that it’s all over but the shouting – and even though there will be a LOT of shouting – maybe I can get back into reading again. The TBR piles are towering ever higher!

sweetshop of dreams by jenny colgan
under a winter sky by jeffe kennedy et al
blacktongue thief by christopher buehlman
nightborn by isabel cooper
two faced queen by nick martell
firebreak by nicole kornher stace
death in daylesford by kerry greenwood
under a gilded moon by joy jordan lake
deception by nina croft
room with a roux by sarah fox
holdout by graham moore

For Review:
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
Death in Daylesford (Phryne Fisher #21) by Kerry Greenwood
Deception (Dark Desires Origins #2) by Nina Croft
Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace
The Nightborn (Stormbringer #2) by Isabel Cooper
A Room with a Roux (Pancake House Mystery #7) by Sarah Fox
Sweetshop of Dreams (Novel with Recipes #1) by Jenny Colgan
The Two-Faced Queen (Legacy of the Mercenary King #2) by Nick Martell
Under a Winter Sky by Kelley Armstrong, Jeffe Kennedy, Melissa Marr, L. Penelope

Purchased from Amazon/Audible:
Under a Gilded Moon by Joy Jordan-Lake

Borrowed from the Library:
The Holdout by Graham Moore



Review: Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
Review: Murder by Other Means by John ScalziMurder by Other Means (The Dispatcher #2) by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto
Format: audiobook
Source: purchased from Audible
Formats available: audiobook
Genres: mystery, science fiction, thriller, urban fantasy
Series: Dispatcher #2
Published by Audible Studios on September 10th 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

Welcome to the new world, in which murder is all but a thing of the past. Because when someone kills you, 999 times out of 1,000, you instantly come back to life. In this world, there are dispatchers—licensed killers who step in when you’re at risk of a natural or unintentional death. They kill you—so you can live.

Tony Valdez is used to working his job as a dispatcher within the rules of the law and the state. But times are tough, and more and more Tony finds himself riding the line between what’s legal and what will pay his bills. After one of these shady gigs and after being a witness to a crime gone horribly wrong, Tony discovers that people around him are dying, for reasons that make no sense...and which just may implicate him.

Tony is running out of time: to solve the mystery of these deaths, to keep others from dying, and to keep himself from being a victim of what looks like murder, by other means.

My Review:

The character of Tony Valdez and the world he inhabits was introduced in the first Dispatcher story, fittingly titled The Dispatcher. And unlike this second entry in the series, The Dispatcher is available as a hardcover and an ebook, so if the premise sounds intriguing but audiobooks aren’t your thing, you can get a taste for the story that way. (Also, I don’t think anyone will be surprised when a book version of Murder by Other Means turns up. Eventually. But patience is not one of my virtues so I was haunting Audible as soon as I heard this was coming up so I could get a pre-order in.)

The world that Tony Valdez inhabits – or that produced him, take your pick – is fascinating. And weird. And yet, not all that different from our own. Except in one, rather singular, particular. One day, in the not distant at all future, murder becomes theoretically impossible. Suicide and accidents both still happen, but murder, not so much. 999 times out of a 1000 not so much.

Which doesn’t mean that killing people for a living isn’t still kind of a soul-destroying way to pay the rent. Even if it is legal. The person still dies. They still spray their blood and bone matter all over the killer. Then they vanish – along with the mess you made of them, only to reappear, whole and intact and alive, someplace they considered safe. Usually home. Always naked.

So dispatching people has become a job. A licensed, regulated and controlled job. And Tony Valdez is a dispatcher. Someone who dispatches people for a living.

As this story opens, it’s become a poor living. The legal and ethical markets for dispatching, mostly hospitals, have dried up due to budget cuts. Leaving Tony behind on his rent and his bills, and willing to do some dispatching that isn’t exactly on the up and up.

After all, dispatching business people so they can beat a competitor to a lucrative deal isn’t remotely covered by Tony’s license to kill. But it does pay a lot of cash money. And it comes with more headaches than Tony ever imagined.

Because someone has figured out a way around that whole people can’t be murdered anymore thing. And Tony has to prove it before he gets taken out the same way, murdered by other means.

Escape Rating A: John Scalzi has a very fine line in snark. In fact, his snarkitude is a good chunk of what I read him – or in this case listen to him – FOR. His characters generally do a marvelous chuckle-with-a-grimace job at making me chuckle with that grimace, because they manage to say all the clever things that most of us figure out long after a conversation is done while said conversation is still going on – when that smart-aleck-ness can be delivered with full force – even if it’s just within the confines of the characters own head.

Which is where we spend the entirety of Murder by Other Means. In Tony Valdez’ head.

There’s also usually at least one character in each of this author’s stories that feels like it’s the voice of the author’s public persona, and in this particular series, it’s definitely Tony. Meaning that if you like Tony’s “voice” in this story there’s a very good chance you’ll like the author’s other work as well, including his blog, Whatever. If Tony’s too snarky for your taste than probably Scalzi is too. I digress.

As I said, the snarkitude is what I read this author for.

Something that I wasn’t expecting, but loved all the same, was Tony’s Chicago. Even more so than the first book in this series, Tony’s Chicago sounded and felt like the Chicago I remember, to the point where I’m pretty sure that at one point I lived in the same neighborhood that Tony does.

Even the “L” stops are the same. So when Tony described buildings and places, it was more than just seeing them in my head. I remembered them in a way that invoked a profound familiarity as well as nostalgia. I was just there in a way that doesn’t happen often but was utterly wonderful.

This week has turned out to be bookended by stories set in Chi-Town, and that trip down memory lane – however twisted into fiction – has been lovely.

But this is, primarily, a mystery story – even if it does have a futuristic and/or urban fantasy type vibe. It honestly feels more like urban fantasy, as Tony’s Chicago doesn’t feel all that far away in time from the now. And there’s no science. No one knows why people stopped dying by murder. It could be science. It could be magic. It could be a deus ex machina. And it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the human response to the change. And that is something that we get a terrific perspective on through Tony’s eyes and in Tony’s voice. The fascination in the story is that the circumstances may change, but human beings are still totally screwed up.

And the way that they are – that we are – screwed up leads both to the crime and its solution in a way that keeps the reader in Tony’s head long after his voice (marvelously brought to life by Zachary Quinto) fades away.

Review: The Patriots by Winston Groom

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Patriots by Winston GroomThe Patriots: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the Making of America by Winston Groom
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: biography, history, U.S. history
Pages: 464
Published by National Geographic on September 8, 2020
Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In this masterful narrative, Winston Groom brings his signature storytelling panache to the intricately crafted tale of three of our nation's most fascinating founding fathers--Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams--and paints a vivid picture of the improbable events, bold ideas, and extraordinary characters who created the United States of America.
When the Revolutionary War ended in victory, there remained the stupendous problem of how to establish a workable democratic government in the vast, newly independent country. Three key founding fathers played significant roles: John Adams, the brilliant, dour, thin-skinned New Englander; Thomas Jefferson, the aristocratic Southern renaissance man; and Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the Caribbean island of Nevis. In this complex and riveting narrative, best-selling author Winston Groom tells the story of these men--all of whom served in George Washington's first cabinet--as the patriots fundamentally responsible for the ideas that shaped the foundation of the United States. Their lives and policies could not have been more different; their relationships with each other were complex, and often rife with animosity. And yet these three men led the charge--two of them creating and signing the Declaration of Independence, and the third establishing a national treasury and the earliest delineation of a Republican party. The time in which they lived was fraught with danger; the smell of liberty was in the air, though their excitement was strained by vast antagonisms that recall the intense political polarization of today. But through it all, they managed to shoulder the heavy mantle of creating the United States of America, putting aside their differences to make a great country, once and always. Drawing on extensive correspondence, epic tales of war, and rich histories of their day-to-day interactions, best-selling author Winston Groom shares the remarkable story of the beginnings of our great nation.

My Review:

One thing the play Hamilton got right – these three men really didn’t like each other much, although Adams and Jefferson did reconcile in old age. Which doesn’t mean that they didn’t manage to work together for the good of the country they helped to create.

There’s definitely a lesson in there. Maybe we’ll start acting upon that lesson again.

It’s clear from this book – unlike the U.S. History classes most of us took in school – that there was nothing inevitable about the American Experiment in general or the American Revolution in particular.

Every other country on the planet thought that the ragtag army of the fledgling country was going to lose. And by rights it should have. The British Army was the premier fighting force in the entire world in the late 18th century. They had us outgunned, outmanned, and out pretty much everything else.

But they also had a very long supply line in a war that was expensive to prosecute. A war over territory that their own people didn’t think much about or care much about. And we had George Washington, who knew that he just had to keep himself and some kind of army out of the hands of the British for the tide to turn.

Not the tide of war, but the tide of British willingness to prosecute that war.

But the country that the Revolution gave birth to was every bit as fractured as the country we live in today – if not more so. And along some of the same lines. Lines that were baked into the compromises made by the three men profiled in this book, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

They kicked the can down the road, in the sure and certain knowledge – from their perspective – that the most important thing was having that can to kick. They compromised to keep the American Experiment alive.

It’s time for us to do our parts.

Escape Rating A-: I read this on Election Day and Ballot Counting Day (11/3 and 11/4) and it is impossible to separate my reading from real life events, going on in real time, that are the direct result of the actions and compromises that fill this book and our history.

So this is a book that made me think and feel a lot about this country and where it currently stands. About the work the Founders left for us to do, and about the difficulties involved in doing it.

But I need to talk about the book. First, it is imminently readable. It was so easy to just get sucked in and stay sucked, making it a perfect read for the occasion in multiple ways.

It probably helps that the story begins with Hamilton, and does so in such a way that it puts flesh on the bones of a story that we are now so familiar with. At this moment in time, Hamilton feels like the most accessible of the “founding fathers” so starting with him doesn’t just make sense but draws the reader right into the narrative.

So even though this book is heavily researched and has lots of footnotes and an extensive bibliography, it NEVER gets bogged down by that research. Instead it illuminates it in a way that brings these men, with all their flaws as well as their virtues, to life.

Although, speaking of illustrations, the print edition of this book is undoubtedly heavily illustrated. However, the eARC does not include the pictures. This is one of those times when I really, really wish I’d gotten a print copy to review, because the illustrations I have seen in various promotional materials for the book are both illustrative and gorgeous.

As I said, I’m writing this review on November 4, which is Ballot Counting Day or Obsessive Doomscrolling Day or a nauseating combination of the two. That we have a country to vote in and vote for is the legacy of these three men among many others both sung and unsung. The compromises that they enshrined in the U.S. Constitution in order to get both abolitionists and slaveholders, industrial states and farming states, those who feared the government would be overwhelmed by masses of urban voters and those who feared that lower-population rural voters would hold back progress brought us the U.S. Senate as it is currently configured and the Electoral College.

They respected each other – whether they could stand each other or not – and they compromised so that we’d have a country to improve upon. Their work is done. Our work continues. After all, they didn’t leave us “a more perfect union” – only the tools with which to achieve it.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey HarrisThe Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: family saga, literary fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 336
Published by Gallery Books on November 3, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

At Hatters Museum of the Wide Wide World, where the animals never age but time takes its toll, one woman must find the courage to overcome the greatest loss of her life—from the author of Goodbye, Paris.
Cate thought she’d met her match in Simon at university—until she laid eyes on his best friend, Richard. Cate and Richard felt an immediate and undeniable spark, but Richard also felt the weight of the world more deeply than most. As the three matured, he receded further and further into darkness until he disappeared altogether.
Now, four years after Richard’s passing, Cate is let go from her teaching job and can’t pay the rent on the London flat she shares with her and Richard’s son, Leo. She packs the two of them up and ventures to Richard’s grandfather’s old Victorian museum in the small town of Crouch-on-Sea, where the dusty staff quarters await her. Despite growing pains and a grouchy caretaker, Cate falls in love with the quirky taxidermy exhibits and sprawling grounds and makes it her mission to revive them. When the museum is faced with closure because of a lack of visitors, Cate stages a grand reopening, but threats from both inside and outside the museum derail her plans and send her spiraling into self-doubt.
As Cate becomes more invested in Hatters, she must finally confront the reality of Richard’s death—and the role she played in it—in order to reimagine her future. Perfect for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, The Museum of Forgotten Memories masterfully weaves life with death, past with present, and grief with hope.

My Review:

The Museum of Forgotten Memories sits on an uneasy border between literary fiction and women’s fiction. By uneasy, I mean one of those uncomfortable boundaries marked by a wooden fence, the kind that leaves splinters up your ass if you sit on it too long.

That’s appropriate, as the situation that Cate Morris is in when the story opens is uncomfortable in the extreme – and it looks like things will get worse before they get better. Not that she’s sure that they ever will. Get better that is.

And for a significant chunk of the story, they don’t.

When we first meet Cate, she’s in the process of packing up her London flat. She’s been laid off from her teaching position, she can no longer afford the apartment, and she’s been unable to find another position. She’s been forced by her circumstances to retreat to the only place she has left, Hatters Museum of the Wide Wide World in tiny, remote Crouch-on-Sea.

And that refuge that only exists because the museum belongs to her late husband’s family, and her son is permitted to live there whenever he wants to – or in this case needs to – as part of the trust that maintains the museum.

But this retreat is just as fraught as everything else in Cate’s current situation. Her husband committed suicide four years before, leaving her a mountain of debts and fractured memories of both their early happiness and his early life. The little he told her about Hatters and Crouch-on-Sea is sketchy at best and uncomplimentary at worst. And may have no resemblance to current or real truths.

Her son is 19 and was born with Down Syndrome. Leo lives a fairly independent life in London, but then Cate has crafted a circle of friends, activities and community in which he is occupied, stimulated and safe. The move, his reluctance to leave his friends and his incomplete understanding of the reasons why it is necessary only add to Cate’s stress.

As does her initial introduction to Hatters. The place is nothing like the trust agent told her, and the combination caretaker and museum manager is nowhere near as friendly or helpful as Cate was led to believe. And only seems too happy to inform her that her refuge may be even more temporary than she thought. The woman, who seems to be the proverbial old family retainer, tells Cate that the addition of herself and her son to the tiny museum household will push the budget so far into the red that they will be forced to close by the trustees who are eager to sell off the assets.

But it is those very assets that give this story its charm, and the secrets behind those assets that provide both the pathos and the ultimate redemption. Led by an entire host of strange, rare and wonderful animals, marvelously preserved, marching two by two into a brighter sunrise.

Escape Rating B: This is a story that needs an absolute ton of setup. It’s also a story where that setup just seems to pile the angst onto its protagonist, hence my early comment that this has a strong bend towards literary fiction. Not only is there a lot of setup in the first half of the story, but much of that setup consists of piling more stress and angst onto poor Cate. She just can’t catch a break and the story keeps pounding her into the dirt.

And then she gets a bit settled into Hatters and Crouch-on-Sea and things shift, in spite of her failed romance with a guy who turns out to be a con man and a thief.

As Cate finds her footing in the little town, so does her son. Cate begins to bring the museum out of its doldrums, and the town takes both her and Leo to its heart. The more that things seem to be getting better, the more forces seem to be arrayed in keeping them all down.

But they manage, with a lot of grit and a surprising amount of charm, to rise above and triumph.

In the end, the story which began as a deep dive into Cate’s many woes, turns itself into a much more interesting story about families and legacies, about the lies that bind and the legacies that strangle.

With that utterly marvelous museum sitting at the center of it all, and at the heart of what turns out in the end to be a terrific story. I just wish I hadn’t had to wade through that downer of a first half to get there.

Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper of Whitechapel by M.K. Wiseman

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper of Whitechapel by M.K. WisemanSherlock Holmes & the Ripper of Whitechapel by M.K. Wiseman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Pages: 214
Published by M.K. Wiseman on November 3, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

I am afraid that I, Sherlock Holmes, must act as my own chronicler in this singular case, that of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. For the way in which the affair was dropped upon my doorstep left me with little choice as to the contrary. Not twelve months prior, the siren’s call of quiet domesticity and married life had robbed me of Watson’s assistance as both partner and recorder of my cases. Thus, when detective inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard required a lead—any lead—I found myself forced to pursue Jack the Ripper alone and without the aid of my faithful friend. And all for the most damnedable of reasons:Early on in my investigations, Dr. John H. Watson, formerly of 221b Baker Street, emerged as my prime suspect.

My Review:

Jack the Ripper – whatever his real identity might have been – was most likely not the world’s first serial killer. But he lives in the popular imagination because his bloody spree happened at the dawn of the popular mass media as we know it today.

Between rising literacy, the increasing popularity of newspapers – including the gutter press – and the advent of the telegraph which provided the ability for words, for news to travel around the globe instantaneously, the Ripper murders in Whitechapel became the eye of a perfect storm.

Sensational news, an idea whose time had come but has STILL definitely not gone – and probably never will, combined with a series of absolutely gruesome deaths, an unsolved – still unsolved – mystery, and the ability for everyone who wanted to, pretty much everywhere, to read all about it nearly instantly turned Jack’s crimes into the kind of can’t print enough compulsive reading that has never ended.

Into that series of baffling mysteries at the very dawn of scientific detection, insert one Sherlock Holmes, who was at the forefront of that scientific detection and who, if he had been real and not fictional, would have been in his heyday as a consulting detective and would indubitably been dragged into the case – whether by Scotland Yard or by his compulsion to solve the unsolvable.

In this story, that perfect storm of mass media compulsion turns into its own kind of perfect storm for Holmes himself. Because Watson, his friend and faithful biographer, fits all too easily into Holmes’ profile of the killer. Something that Holmes the thinking machine can’t make himself ignore, no matter how much he wishes it were not possibly so.

Because his best friend seems to have a guilty conscience, or at least a guilty secret. Watson, nearly a year after his marriage to Mary Morstan, moving out of 221b Baker Street and setting up his own household and his own medical practice, is lying to both his wife and Holmes about his whereabouts on the nights when Jack has been out and about on his grisly business.

If Watson is not the killer, Holmes’ suspicion of him will break their friendship. If he is, it will break the heart that Holmes tries to pretend he does not have. Whichever turns out to be the real case, Holmes is certain that nothing will ever be the same.

He has no idea just how right he is. And just how wrong.

Escape Rating B: The initial premise for this story is obvious when one thinks about it. If Holmes had been a real person, he would have been active in 1888 when the Ripper killings took place. In the Holmes’ chronology, the Ripper killings would have taken place around the time of the stories The Sign of the Four and The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor. Stories that Watson faithfully chronicled.

If Holmes were real, of course Scotland Yard would have contacted him, expecting him to bring his singular genius to the solving of this terrible series of murders and mutilations, so it seems logical to place Holmes in the context of the investigation.

(In fact, it’s been done before, most especially in Lyndsay Faye’s utterly marvelous and highly recommended Dust and Shadow. If you liked this take on Holmes investigating the Ripper, you will LOVE that one. I digress.)

The thing that makes this particular version feel different from Faye’s version, or from many another Holmes pastiche, is that this is a rare story that is not chronicled by Holmes’ faithful Boswell, Dr. John Watson, for reasons that become obvious in the story.

But Holmes’ chronicle of his own investigation feels just the tiniest bit “off”. It’s utterly fascinating, and I had a great time reading it, but the Holmes of this version is considerably more angsty than is the norm.

On the other hand, the reason for the angst is also very much outside the norm. He suspects Watson, his best friend, of being the Ripper. That would be enough to make anyone resort to a bit of “purple prose”, even the usually unemotional Sherlock Holmes.

The case then becomes two-fold. Holmes is investigating the Ripper killings. Killings in which he feels that the perpetrator has studied his methods and is deliberately taunting him. Holmes is also investigating Watson’s guilty secret, as Watson is manifestly lying to everyone close to him, and is someone who most definitely knows Holmes’ methods.

So Holmes is working both for and against the police, the police are as competent as usual, meaning not very, and Watson is being furtive and looking extremely guilty about something. Holmes is not sure who or what he should pursue, while the police are following his trail and coming to the same conclusions, without that deep friendship that he needs to protect but feels betrayed at the same time.

But the case, as convoluted as  Holmes’ cases generally are, still manages to build itself slowly and methodically towards an inexorable conclusion – just not quite the one that anybody expects.

Readers who have delved into the many, varied and fascinating worlds presented by Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and those who are fascinated by the idea of the greatest detective attempting to solve the unsolvable Ripper murders will be on the edge of their seats until the very end.

Review: Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Hope Rides Again by Andrew ShafferHope Rides Again (Obama Biden Mysteries #2) by Andrew Shaffer
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: humor, mystery, thriller
Series: Obama Biden Mystery #2
Pages: 288
Published by Quirk Books on July 9, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Obama and Biden return in this thrilling sequel to the New York Times best-selling bromance-mystery HOPE RIDES AGAIN, this time in Chicago.
Following a successful but exhausting book tour, Joe Biden is looking forward to returning home. However, before he does, he's got one last stop to make: Chicago, where the Obama Foundation is holding its first annual global economics forum. Barack Obama has invited Joe to meet a wealthy left-leaning philanthropist, whose deep pockets Joe will need if he decides to run for president. Joe isn't even sure if wants to run...but he's not going to pass up a rare chance to reconnect with his one-time governing mate.
Joe and Obama barely have time to catch up before another mystery lands in their laps: Obama's prized Blackberry is stolen. When the suspect turns up comatose from a gunshot wound, local police are content with writing it off as just another gangland shooting. But Joe and Obama smell a rat.
In a race to find the shooter, Joe and Obama butt heads with their former compadre, Mayor Rahm Emanuel; follow a trail of clues through Chicago's South Side; go undercover inside a Prohibition-era speakeasy; and scale the Tribune Tower in a Die Hard-worthy final set-piece.
Robert Frost said "the woods are dreary, dark, and deep." So are the waters of Lake Michigan...and if Joe and Obama aren't careful, that's where they could wind up spending their retirement.

My Review:

This was the only thing I could face reading this weekend. Really, truly. Because…reasons. Obvious reasons.

When I read the first book in this series, Hope Never Dies, I read it for the nostalgia factor. Honestly, who didn’t? But at the time it was a bit like the joke about the bear dancing, in that you’re not surprised it’s done well, you’re pretty astonished that it’s done AT ALL.

And it was done better than expected. Not so much the mystery as recapturing the bromance between Biden and Obama.

This second outing is a bit more something. I’m not quite sure whether that something is serious or thoughtful or both. On the one hand, it’s hard to take either of these books seriously, and on the other hand, there’s quite a bit more of an attempt at capturing the actual moment in this one, where the last one was just pure escapist nostalgia.

The story here takes place on St. Patrick’s Day weekend of 2019, in a city that celebrates the day by painting the town red and turning the river green. Sweet home, Chicago, at least as the Blues Brothers used to sing it.

As this story goes, Biden is passing through Chicago at the behest of his friend and former boss, President Barack Obama, at the end of a long, grueling book tour. (A tour that in real life would have been for his 2017 book, Promise Me, Dad that reflects on the loss of his son Beau to brain cancer.)

But in this fictional version, the book is unnamed but Joe is at a real-life crossroads. He’s considering one more run at the Presidency – and we all know which way that decision went. How it all turns out is something we’ll discover tomorrow night, or Wednesday morning, or sometime later this month. (Also the reason I dug this book out of the virtually towering TBR pile in the first place.)

In the whirlwind 24 hours in which this mystery takes place, Joe and Barack keep taking turns, both with and occasionally without each other, to search for the President’s missing Blackberry, only to find themselves scraping the mean streets of Chicago, searching for the places where one kid went wrong, along with which of the adults in his life led him that way.

On the surface, it’s a story about saving the life of one young man. Underneath, it might be a story about saving the soul of America. Wouldn’t that make a great campaign slogan?

Escape Rating B: One of the things I was not expecting from this story was just how steeped in nostalgia for Chicago it turned out to be. Even if that nostalgia was a mixture of love for Chicago as it is now, in all of its sprawling, brawling and seedy glory, and the Chicago of popular imagination of its storied past, the Chicago of the broad shoulders and the even bigger guns.

Because in this story there’s certainly an element of the Chicago way from the movie The Untouchables, with its iconic line, “Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That’s the Chicago way,”

In Hope Rides Again, that’s still the Chicago way. The city is still politically corrupt, everyone is still on the take, and influence and justice are for sale to the highest bidder or the biggest gun. It’s the Chicago that the victim was in up to his neck, in spite of being tapped for the former President’s “Rising Stars” program.

It’s this Chicago that our surprisingly still dynamic duo have to investigate in order to find out who is really behind – not that theft of the President’s Blackberry – but rather a heist that has the potential to put a whole lot more unregistered guns on the streets of Chicago. There’s already more than enough violence in that powder keg, no one needs to throw more fuel on that fire.

In this middle of this rather crazed mystery thriller, complete with car chases, boat chases, the threat of swimming with the fishes in Lake Michigan (in OMG March when the lake is truly freezing) and the helicopter rescue featured on the book’s cover, there’s a story about the enduring friendship between two men who originally had nothing in common, with the surprising twist that the older man is thinking about continuing the younger man’s legacy – and not the other way around.

A lot of this story is just purely for fun. And nostalgia of all kinds. When this was published in July of 2019 Biden had launched his campaign, but even the Iowa caucuses were still months in the future. As was the COVID19 pandemic.

At the time this was published, it was more in the nature of fun speculation than anything else. And in that light the amount of time that the author spends inside Joe’s head feels a bit odd. I wanted more mystery and more banter. It’s possible the internal speculation just feels weird because this is a real person whose thought processes can only be speculated about, set at a time period when we have to wonder what was being pondered and decided. YMMV

Let’s face it, this is not a book that’s going to have lasting literary value – and it shouldn’t. It is still a whole lot of fun, although not quite as much fun as the first book. But it was definitely a good reading time and a great way to get my mind off of Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

More than anything, I can’t help but think of the title as both a description and a prayer. Hope is riding again. I want it to win the race.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 11-1-20

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Sunday Post

March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. 2020, being the thoroughgoing bastard of a year that it is, just comes in and takes all the lions. RIP Sir Sean Connery.

Speaking of 2020, if you are a U.S. citizen and have not already voted, make a plan to vote on Tuesday. Your vote matters. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to take it away from you.

Because of, well, everything, concentration is even more difficult than usual this week. Hence tomorrow’s book.

Winner Announcements:

The winner of The Light at Wyndcliff is Anne
The winner of the Thanks a Latte Giveaway Hop is Sara

Blog Recap:

A Review: The Secret Women by Sheila Williams
A++ Review: The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons
B+ Review: Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold
B Review: The Art of Deception by Leonard Goldberg
A+ Review: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Stacking the Shelves (416)

Coming This Week:

Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer (review)
Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper of Whitechapel by M.K. Wiseman (blog tour review)
Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris (review)
The Patriots by Winston Groom (blog tour review)
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi (review)