Review: Big Little Spells by Hazel Beck

Review: Big Little Spells by Hazel BeckBig Little Spells (Witchlore, #2) by Hazel Beck
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, paranormal romance, urban fantasy
Series: Witchlore #2
Pages: 384
Published by Graydon House on August 29, 2023
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Is her magic a threat to witchkind…or is she simply powerful enough to save the world?
Rebekah Wilde was eighteen when she left St. Cyprian, officially stripped of her magic and banished from her home. Ten years later, she’s forced to return to face the Joywood Coven, who preside over not just her hometown but the whole magical world. Rebekah is happy to reunite with her sister, and with her friends, but the implications of her return are darker and more dangerous than they could have imagined.
The Joywood are determined to prove Rebekah and her friends are a danger to witchkind, and her group faces an impending death sentence if they can’t prove otherwise. Rebekah must seek help from the only one who knows how to stop the Joywood—the ruthless immortal Nicholas Frost. Years ago, he was her secret tutor in magic, and her secret impossible crush. But the icy immortal is as remote and arrogant as ever, and if he feels anything for Rebekah—or witchkind—it’s impossible to tell.

My Review:

In Small Town, Big Magic, the first book in the Witchlore series, there was something rotten at the heart of small, witchy, St. Cyprian Missouri. But by the end of the story it seemed more than obvious that what was going wrong was a big and nasty disturbance at the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and the hidden Illinois river that gives the town all of its witchy power.

It seemed obvious because defeating the nasty in the confluence was the big, climactic battle that nearly ends the book – at least until after it’s been subdued. Which is when that first book ended, on the mic drop that the powers that be had shown up to bring the hammer down because they didn’t do it the ‘right’ way with ‘approved’ witches – even as they proceeded to gaslight the newly formed coven about whether the evil that was about to literally flood the town ever existed in the first place.

And that’s where this second book picks up the action, as the ruling coven of witchkind, the oh-so-inappropriately named ‘Joywood’, brings that hammer down in a way that is so petty and such an over-the-top attempt at belittling AND gaslighting that the new coven knows that whatever this is all about, it isn’t about what they did so much as who they are – even if they don’t know why. At least not yet.

They don’t have much time to find out, either. Ten years ago, back when Emerson and Rebekah Wilde were both eighteen, the sisters failed their coming of age ceremony and were supposed to be stripped of not merely their magic but their memories of it. Emerson emerged as kind of a shadow of her true self – at least until the events of the first book when she not only broke the block on her memory but reclaimed her powers as well.

Rebekah never forgot a thing, because she ran into exile instead. She couldn’t practice her magic, she couldn’t come home, and she couldn’t bear to keep in contact with the friends she left behind because her sister wasn’t really her sister anymore.

Now she’s back, doing her level best, which sometimes fails, to not fall back into the destructive behaviors of her adolescence. Because that’s just what Joywood wants and she’s able to focus her rebellious streak on denying them that above all things.

The one thing from those years that she can’t seem to let go of is her ‘crush’ on the cold, powerful, gorgeous and immortal asshole, Nicholas Frost. Back then, he secretly trained her power but abandoned her when she needed him most. This time around he’s playing the biggest game of ‘come here no stay away’ that has ever been played.

But Rebekah isn’t a teenager any more, and she’s tired of being played – by Nicholas, by Joywood and especially by a fate that has kicked her around for the last time – no matter what it takes to bring it and her powers to her command and no one and nothing else’s.

Escape Rating B+: In that opening bit of petty bullshit, I began wondering if the reason that nasty showed up in the river was either because Joywood summoned it themselves – or if they were just so corrupt that like called to like. I’m still debating that particular question – but hunting for the answer certainly kept me turning pages.

In fact, I liked this second book a bit better than the first, because I felt for Rebekah and her snarky rebellion in a way that Emerson’s partially-manufactured goody-two-shoes perfection did not touch. What I liked best about Rebekah was that she never fell for Joywood’s act. It’s all a setup and she knows it’s a setup and she never pretends otherwise to herself or her friends.

Even better, it doesn’t take much to convince her friends that she’s right. It is not paranoia if someone really is out to get you, and Joywood really does have it in for the Wilde sisters. Even if the why of it all is still a bit TBD (to be determined).

A question that has yet to be completely resolved by the end of Big Little Spells. The question that DOES manage to get itself resolved is the romantic question, the one about what’s really going on in that hot immortal asshole’s cold, cold heart when it comes to Rebekah. For that, at least, we get the whys and the wherefores, AND we get a resolution that deals at least partially with what would otherwise be a vast power imbalance.

And it was great to see some truly epic UST get resolved, along with the processing of a whole bunch of suppressed grief as well as a bit of a stand up and cheer moment from at least half the town.

So stuff happened. In fact, this book in particular was more about the stuff happening, the things being done – or attempting to be done – TO Rebekah and company than anything else. It was, in a peculiar way, more than a bit political. And I was all there for it. Some readers did not like this as much as Small Town, Big Magic because it was more about witchy small-town politics and the mean no-longer-girls in charge of them and less about the romance. Personally, I liked this one better for the shift.

But the things that did not get resolved, that are still hanging over the series like the proverbial Sword of Damocles – or more like Chekhov’s Gun on the mantel waiting to be fired – are the questions about the true motivations and the depths of the corruption that Joywood has sunk to in their quest for power.

The answers to those questions seem to be being dribbled out slowly so as to be able to give each of the romances their chances to shine – and to put together the steps necessary to defeat the evil that Joywood represents. I liked this particular droplet of that part of the story more than the first. There are intended to be two more books in the series to finish things – and hopefully the Joywood – off.

So far, at least, I’m in for another round, because this was better than the first. We’ll just have to see how that goes as the series continues.

Review: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth Nix

Review: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth NixSir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories of the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer by Garth Nix
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, sword and sorcery
Pages: 304
Published by Harper Voyager on August 22, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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New York Times bestselling author Garth Nix's exciting adult debut: a new collection including all eight stories--plus a never-before-published story--featuring Sir Hereward and his sorcerous puppet companion Mister Fitz, gathered in one magical volume for the first time ever!
Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.
Mister Fitz: puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles.
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods.
Together, they are relentless travelers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder, and adventure.
Compiled for the first time ever, these eight magical stories--plus an all-new tale, "The Field of Fallen Foes"--featuring fabulous, quintessential Garth Nix protagonists Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz comprise a must-have adult fantasy collection for fans and those about to discover the witch knight and his puppet sorcerer for the first time.

My Review:

A long time ago in a galaxy not far away at all SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) Grand Master Fritz Leiber loosed a pair of anti-heroish-type heroes into the world of fantasy, and the genre was never the same. I’m referring to the immortal swordsman Fafhrd and his rogue companion the Gray Mouser, who together embodied the subgenre of sword and sorcery.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz follow in those bootprints, right down to the boots being rather large in the cases of both Fafhrd and Sir Hereward, and considerably smaller for the Gray Mouser and Mister Fitz.

Just as the earlier pair roamed the world of Nehwon, traveled through places strange, wondrous and frequently unpronounceable, tackling enemies both mundane and sorcerous, putting down old gods and monsters when needed, so do Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, their literary if not actual descendants, wander their own world of unpronounceable places filled with even more tongue-twisting gods, carrying out one mission after another for the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, tasked with casting rogue gods back to whatever corner of the multiverse they sprang from.

The stories here are just that, stories. This is a collection of nine stories that feature the titular pair, as they carry out their missions – sometimes deliberately and occasionally by accident – as they travel their world and keep very, very far from home.

In their very first adventure, “Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go To War Again”, originally published in 2007, we meet the witch knight Hereward and the puppet sorcerer Mister Fitz as they start out pursuing a bit of mercenary work to tide them over financially, only to wind up doing their real job when they discover a rapacious godlet who is draining all the lands around itself in a bid for more power. There’s a bittersweet tone to this story as Hereward knows he must deal with the godlet’s adherents whether they serve out of true belief or a sense of duty and wishes that it didn’t always end quite like this.

All of the stories in this collection, save the final story, “The Field of Fallen Foe”, have been published over the intervening years between that first story and this last – but hopefully not final – one.

Each story is an adventure in its own right, each stands very much alone as they were published with that intent, but together they build up a portrait of an all-too-often-literal ‘ride or die’ friendship as the knight and the puppet save each other even as they bicker together over and over.

It’s also a bit of a cast-against-type kind of partnership, as Mister Fitz is an autonomous puppet who has lived for so many centuries that he has passed into legend, while Sir Hereward is barely an adult – sometimes – at a mere twenty five. That Mister Fitz was originally Mistress Fitz and their relationship began when Mistress Fitz was Hereward’s nanny just adds layers to their partnership and their endless bickering.

And it’s considerably more common in their adventures that Fitz is the one who gets the job done and saves both the day and his partner, while Hereward plays the bait and has the credit thrust upon him in the end. Because Fitz is smart enough to hide the literal lights of his eyes and his sorcerous needles under his very tall and broad hat.

Any reader who remembers Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and the genre they embodied will love Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, while anyone looking for a compelling series of adventures that can be read in tasty bites – or who just likes a good buddy story no matter where the buddies are hanging out – will have a terrific time with Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz.

Escape Rating B+: I’ve always meant to read the author’s Old Kingdom series, but it fell victim to the ‘so many books, so little time’ conundrum, as so many do. So it’s buried somewhere in the virtually towering TBR pile but has never managed to rise to the top. Reading Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz bumped it up quite a bit higher, but it’s a VERY tall pile.

I enjoyed my journey with Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz rather a lot, but then I did love Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser when I read them back in the 1970s, and they were already classics at that point. I love sword and sorcery, and it’s something that you don’t see much of right now. Like many subgenres, I expect it will come back around again, just as urban fantasy was everywhere in the 1980s, died down in the early 2000s but seems to be coming back around again.

As I write this, I have the sense that I’m not doing the collection justice. And I think that’s because, while the collection as a whole definitely made an impression that lingers, I found that the individual stories in this collection were not memorable in and of themselves. I’m not dealing well with handling that dichotomy.

The not-individually-memorable part may be due to the way that these were originally published. Each needed to stand on its own, so there’s a fair bit of repetition in the setup of each story that slows things down a bit. But, over the course of the whole, we do get plenty of clues about the two characters, their personalities, their histories and most definitely their relationship. In the end, if you like the way the two of them work together, the whole thing is a treat but if they don’t resonate with you then the collection won’t work for you either.

Personally I would love a remix of this collection as a full-length novel or one that sinks its teeth into the earlier days of their association because they are fascinating characters and the hints of their origin story – especially Mister Fitz’ – and the world they inhabit would be (literally and figuratively) fantastic.

It’s not required to have read Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories to get into Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, but if you have you’ll find much that seems familiar. However, if this book teases you to pick up the classic, the first collection is Swords and Deviltry – and I remember it very fondly.

Two final notes about Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz. There’s a story in the forthcoming collection The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: Volume Four titled “The Voice of a Thousand Years” by Fawaz Al Matrouk that influenced my reading of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz and gave me an overall sense of bittersweetness that isn’t exactly there in the text but now that I’ve read them close together I can’t get it out of my head.

And, on a much greater note of whimsy, for anyone who has ever played Final Fantasy IX, there’s a strong possibility that Vivi Ornitier is a portrait of the sorcerous puppet as a very young mage.

Review: Secrets in the Dark by Heather Graham

Review: Secrets in the Dark by Heather GrahamSecrets in the Dark: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 2) by Heather Graham
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #2
Pages: 336
Published by Mira on July 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Over a century after Jack, a new Ripper is on the loose.
Following in the footsteps of notorious serial murderer Jack the Ripper, a killer is stalking the streets of London. The self-dubbed Ripper King strikes at night, leaving a trail of eviscerated bodies in his wake. Fresh off a case with potential ties to the recent rash of killings, FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter are all too familiar with a slayer set to rule with a lethal fist. And they’ll stop at nothing to end his reign.
The killer’s MO may be nothing new, but his desire to be infamous makes him dangerous. Della and Mason know it’s only a matter of time before their investigation emboldens this new Ripper, forcing the agents to work quickly before another woman winds up dead. But now that the heat is on, their game of cat and mouse takes an unexpected turn, leading Della and Mason into a deadly trap they never saw coming…

My Review:

There are characters that never die. Some are fictional, as yesterday’s review of a brand new Sherlock Holmes pastiche proves. Some, however, are completely factual – or at least as much facts as are known – and they seem to have a life of their own.

Especially those who were into the business of killing in a really splashy way. Like Jack the Ripper. Who would have been a contemporary of, and might even have been identified by, the above mentioned Sherlock Holmes. If both of them had been factual, that is.

(If that idea appeals, take a look at either Dust and Shadow by Lyndsay Faye or Sherlock Holmes & the Ripper of Whitechapel. I digress.)

Secrets in the Dark, however, presents a modern-day Ripper going head to head (or heads) with a much different breed of detective – the new international branch of the Krewe of Hunters, codenamed Blackbird.

Blackbird, in the persons of FBI agents Mason Carter and Della Hamilton, forms the heart of an investigative team that includes agents seconded from Britain, France, Norway with connections to and sanctions from Interpol, to hunt down and apprehend serial killers crossing international borders to carry out their grisly ‘work’.

In the first riveting book in the Blackbird trilogy, Whispers at Dusk in addition to ‘getting the band together’ and Mason and Della getting romantically together, Blackbird brought the notorious ‘Vampire Killer’ to justice in the U.S.

Or so they believed.

But Stephan Dante, AKA the ‘Vampire Killer’, wasn’t just a serial killer – as frightening as that thought is. He was every bit as expert in finding others just as disaffected, disillusioned and downright psychotic as himself, and training them in his methods. Not just his methods of killing, but in his all-too-successful methods of denying the police even a scintilla of trace evidence for forensics to sink their investigative teeth into.

Now that the Vampire Killer is behind bars, one of his best (worst, most-adept, all-of-the-above dammit) apprentices has decided it’s his time to shine. Jack the Ripper is back, leaving a trail of bloody corpses in the back alleys of modern-day Whitechapel, taunting the police and the public by way of both old-fashioned letters and new-fangled social media. Promising a spree that will put his old mentor in the shade and make the original Jack’s gruesome trail seem downright tame in comparison.

Blackbird has the new Jack in their sights, just as they did his old teacher. They’re getting closer than he believes – in spite of his ability to hide in plain sight and follow their every move.

Escape Rating B+: This was a bit of the right book at the right time. I did fall straight into the story because I already knew the characters and the premise after the first book, Whispers at Dusk, and I did find it a compelling read, but I did have a couple of niggles along the way, which I’ll get to in a minute.

First, and not a niggle at all, you do not need to have read the entire Krewe of Hunters series from which this is a spinoff to get into Blackbird. I’m certain of this because I haven’t. By the nature of the team and the way they work with local police liaisons, there’s always a natural opportunity to give any newbies, whether in story or reading the story, to get caught up enough to make it work.

I think one probably does need to read the first Blackbird book, Whispers at Dusk, because the events and circumstances follow directly on from Whispers, and Whispers has done the heavy-lifting of getting the team together and putting Mason and Della into both their working AND their romantic partnership.

The idea of someone attempting to recreate the historical Ripper killings, whether by location or method or both, is neither new nor even completely fictional. The Yorkshire Ripper, AKA Peter Sutcliffe, was clearly a more northerly copycat who operated between 1975 and 1980. Not long ago at all.

But the Ripper King of the Blackbird Trilogy is thankfully fictional – and also totally out of his gourd. The reader does get to take a few trips into his head – and I’d rather have skipped those bits. I read this kind of suspense to see the competent team catch the killer so that part wasn’t my cuppa. It wasn’t too much or too far over the top, but I’d have enjoyed the book more without.

I also wish the killer hadn’t focused on Della exactly the way that his mentor did. I also wish the team had at least one more female agent on it. I can’t put my finger on why, but it bothers me that there don’t seem to be any other female agents except for background characters.

(I recognize that’s a me thing and may not be a you thing.)

So I liked this as much as I did the first book in the Blackbird Trilogy, Whispers at Dusk, and I certainly got into it every bit as fast and stayed stuck in it just as hard to the very end. More than enough that I’m looking forward to see this case get wrapped up in Cursed at Dawn later this month!

Review: Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders

Review: Women of the Post by Joshunda SandersWomen of the Post by Joshunda Sanders
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, World War II
Pages: 368
Published by Park Row Books on July 18, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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An emotional story, based on true events, about the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps who found purpose, solidarity and lifelong friendship in their mission of sorting over one million pieces of mail for the US Army.
1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of working from dawn til dusk in the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses and barely making a dime. Her husband is fighting overseas, so it's up to Judy and her mother to make enough money for rent and food. When the chance arises for Judy to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and the ability to bring home a steady paycheck, she jumps at the opportunity.
Immediately upon arrival, Judy undergoes grueling military drills and inspections led by Second Officer Charity Adams, one of the only Black officers in the WAC. Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who only discovered she was Black after joining the army. Under Charity Adams’s direction, they are transferred to Birmingham, England, as part of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion—the only unit of Black women to serve overseas in WWII. Here, they must sort a backlog of over one million pieces of mail.
The women work tirelessly, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers to their loved ones through the letters they write. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy that will upend her personal life. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship, romance and self-discovery.

My Review:

American women had many and various reasons for signing up for the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, from the Corps’ beginning as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942 through its transition to the WAC in 1943 – and all the way through its eventual disbanding in 1978.

For the three African-American women portrayed in Women of the Post, the reasons were every bit as varied, but underlying those reasons was that their options for highly paid civilian war work were practically non-existent because of the color of their skin. They all wanted to make a difference – not just for themselves but in how women of color were treated both during and after the war.

And it was the best job they thought they were ever likely to have.

The story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion is told through the experience of three characters, one based directly on a real historical figure, and two who are composites of the real women who served in the 6888th.

Through Major Charity Adams’ eyes we see the perspective of the first African-American female officer in the WACs. She knows that the future rides on the shoulders of her unit, and that they will all have to be three times as good with less than half the training and equipment in order to stay the course they’ve set for themselves. A course that few in the Army or outside it believe that women like them are capable of.

From the point of view of Judy Washington we experience the way that the world looks and especially works from someone who is closed out of every opportunity except for poorly paid domestic work conducted under the thumbs of privileged white women who can steal the meager coins from their purses and pay it back to them as ‘wages’. That the work is solicited through an institution named the Bronx Slave Market is bitter icing on a terrible cake. (But another facet of U.S. history that needs more exposure)

But Judy wants more from her life and her world. She wants a decent wage for a day’s work. She wants to see a broader horizon than her mother does or expects her to settle for. And she wants to see if she can catch word of her husband, himself in uniform, who she hasn’t heard from in months.

Mary Alyce Dixon is the character who gives readers the clearest picture of what life is like for an African-American woman in the WAC’s, because it’s not the life she ever expected to have. Her long-deceased father was ‘colored’, but her mother never told her. When the Army receives her birth certificate, her world shifts under her feet. She doesn’t know how to be the person she has just learned that she is, and her education in living on the other side of the color line is sometimes harsh but always an eye-opener for readers who have not lived her experience.

That this unit comprised entirely of women of color, from its officers on down, forms into a band of sisters is not a surprise, but is a delight. That they exceed every goal set for them in clearing the seemingly years’ worth of backlogged mail to and from U.S. troops stationed in Europe is a boost to morale on both the front lines AND the homefront.

And the story of these unsung heroines is one that absolutely cried out to be told.

Escape Rating B+: I ended up with some mixed feelings about this story, a bit of a conflict between what I thought of the true history that inspired it vs. what I felt about the fictionalized version presented between these pages.

Women of the Post is a story of ‘hidden figures’, very much like the book of that title. It’s one of those stories that isn’t widely known, but truly should be. However, that the story is not as well-known as it should be allows this fictionalization of it to rise above the overcrowded field of World War II fiction.

I loved seeing this important and inspiring story brought to such vivid life.

The Six-Triple-Eight really existed, and they performed the work outlined in the book. They were the only unit of African-American women to serve overseas during the war. The ONLY unit. Think about what that says about racism and bigotry in the U.S. during the war.

The story also feels true to life in its depiction of the pervasive racism, sexism and all the other heinous bigotries that these women, and in fact ALL women of color, faced not just during their military service, but also before and after it.

Those prejudices provide a harsh, driving drumbeat that persists throughout the narrative. As it did in real life. It can make for a hard read but a necessary one. It has to have been, and still be in too many ways, even more difficult to live.

But that drumbeat does have an effect on the story as it’s told, because it’s always there and confronts the characters around pretty much every corner.

The story being told, however, creates its dramatic tension out of the interactions of the characters, and from the war that is being waged all around their postings. From a certain perspective, not a lot happens – although plenty is happening all around them. For a story that takes place in the midst of war, the pace can seem a bit leisurely even as it pulls the reader along. It’s more of a slice of life in wartime story than a big drama.

What makes it work are the three characters we follow, Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Charity Adams, Judy Washington, and Mary Alyce Dixon. While Major Adams is the real-life heroine of this story, it’s through Mary Alyce’s learning curve that the reader gets the sharpest picture of what life is really like for the Women of the Post, before, during and after their wartime service.

Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather Graham

Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather GrahamWhispers at Dusk: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 1) by Heather Graham
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #1
Pages: 320
Published by Mira on June 27, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

When darkness falls, there’s nowhere to hide.
Four bodies have been discovered along Europe’s riverbanks, placed with care—and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird, an international offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters. If you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.
The pair travel to Norway, where the shadowy forests of Lillehammer reveal a gruesome scene. The killer is thirsty for more victims, and the bloodless trail soon leads Della and Mason to a group that believes drinking blood is the key to immortality. To catch the culprit of such an intimate crime, the agents will have to get close. Mason’s already lost one partner; he’s not ready to risk Della as bait. But sometimes justice requires a sacrifice…

My Review:

Bram Stoker used every myth and legend of blood-drinking ghouls – and there were plenty of them – and added just a pinch of history (and a tiny pinch at that) to create his legendary blood-sucking monster, Count Dracula.

The vampire killer that the latest members of the Krewe of Hunters are chasing, on the other hand, just cribbed off of Hollywood to create his own version of that legendary villain. Which does not make him any less frightening or any less of a monster.

Perhaps even a bit more so, as he seems to have all the mesmerizing charm of those movie villains, as well as an uncanny ability to choose “apprentices” who can be persuaded to carry on his work with just the right promises of infamy and immortality couched in cult-like justification.

But this serial killer is absolutely not a “real” vampire – even if he is a blood-sucking fiend. He’s still only human – and crazy like a fox.

The Krewe of Hunters is a very special unit of the FBI, as established in the first book in the long-running series, Phantom Evil. As part of the FBI, the Krewe operates in the United States, based out of New Orleans. But this wannabe vampire killer is operating in Europe. Mostly. So far. But not for long.

With murders attributed to this madman scattered from London to Paris to Lillehammer in Norway – when this story begins – Interpol and the various local police agencies are in the hunt up to their necks – so to speak – when the FBI assigns two new members of the Krewe to the international team hunting the killer.

Or killers.

Although the Krewe often deals with supernatural crimes, there isn’t anything woo-woo about the vampire killer – no matter his method of draining the blood of his victims. But that doesn’t mean that the special abilities that the Krewe’s members have won’t come to excellent use in this hunt.

Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter, both new to the Krewe, are able to see – and speak to – ghosts. A talent that is going to help them catch this killer before any more of his victims join the dead.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this up because I was looking for something with more of a romantic suspense vibe, I had vague memories of having read at least a few of the early books in the Krewe of Hunters series, and this looked like a good place to jump back in.

And so it proved.

The Krewe of Hunters series is 38 books and counting, and I’ll admit I didn’t feel like starting back near the beginning. At least not right now, although I certainly liked this more than enough for the series to go into my comfort reads rotation. But I don’t remember any more of the setup than is provided in this first book in the new Blackbird subseries, so you don’t need to be familiar with the Krewe to start here.

Whispers at Dusk struck me as a combination of Jayne Ann Krentz’ contemporary entries in her Arcane Society/Harmony series, as the team has a mix of psychic or other special talents which are useful to solving the case without necessarily being integral to it. The quick flash and hot burn of the romance between Della and Mason also has a similar vibe to the romances in that series. At the same time it blends the putting the band together and police procedural aspects of Andrea Kane’s Forensic Instincts series (another series I need to get a round tuit to get back to!)

The case in this one is taut and chilling. While no one – at least on the police side – is fool enough to believe there’s a real vampire, the idea that a serial killer has chosen to strike fear by mimicking one is bad enough. That the killer is training others in his methods and leaving a cult of killers in his wake is enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies, vampire or no.

What keeps the reader on the edge of their seat is the relentless pace of the story, as the killer leads the newly-formed team on a not-merry-at-all chase from one remote and historically significant location to another, from Lillehammer to the Orkneys to the swamps around Lake Pontchartrain, leaving clues and victims in their wake while dropping hints of their next kill and their intent to make Della their crowning achievement – either by turning her to their ‘dark side’ or leaving her drained corpse as a final monument to their twisted genius.

This one is a creeping, blood-sucking thrill ride from beginning to end. I will absolutely be back for the second installment in this suspenseful chase for next in this series of serial killers with in twist in Secrets in the Dark, coming next month!

Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman

Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies by Alison GoodmanThe Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (The Ill-Mannered Ladies, #1) by Alison Goodman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Ill-Mannered Ladies #1
Pages: 464
Published by Berkley on May 30, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an 'old maid' to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.
Lady Augusta Colebrook, "Gus," is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents itself: to rescue their friend's goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.
The sisters set out to Caroline's country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago. What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan.
Back in London, Gus can't stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.
A rollicking and joyous adventure, with a beautiful love story at its heart, about two rebellious sisters forging their own path in Regency London

My Review:

Lady Augusta Colebrook is an ape-leader. She’s a 42 year old spinster with no prospects of marriage whatsoever – and she’s content in that state, living with her twin sister Julia in rather well-upholstered circumstances. Lady Augusta and Julia may still be under the control of the younger brother who inherited the title, but his control is limited to general opprobrium and ownership of the house they live in as they have independent means of their own.

What makes Lady Augusta (generally called Gus by her friends and intimates) an ape-leader? The term is from an old English adage which said that a spinster’s punishment after death, for failing to procreate, would be to lead apes in hell. Technically both Gus and Julia are ape-leaders, but Gus’ personality tends toward leading considerably more than Julia’s does or ever will.

Julia is a peacemaker who thinks the best of everyone. Gus is the person in whose wake Julia is generally trying to make peace after Gus has refused to kowtow to the behavioral expectations due to her gender.

The sisters should be content to sit on the sidelines of Regency society and mind their own behavior while observing the misbehavior (amorous and otherwise) of the younger and livelier members of the ton.

But there’s life in both of these “old girls” yet, and Gus at least is determined to make sure that both of them experience that life to the fullest – for whatever time her sister might have left. Which leads them to the kind of dangerous derring-do that neither of them ever expected.

The kind of adventure in the kinds of places that may very well get them killed – even as it opens their eyes to the kinds of things that no well-bred, well-behaved woman is expected to see or know.

But once they’ve seen, once they know, they can’t unsee. And they can’t help but try to fix what they can with as much benevolence as possible.

Escape Rating B+: “Well behaved women seldom make history” or so goes the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which may be a quote from 1976 rather than the Colebrook sisters Regency – but very much still applies.

It’s also the reason I picked this book up.

The cover, and the blurb, both lead readers to the impression that this book is going to be on the light and frothy side, but that is far from the case. Rather than being a look at the frivolities and minor disgraces in the life of the ton, as so many Regency romances are, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies shines its light in very dark places, in a way that is not dissimilar to C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr series.

Both the Colebrook sisters and St. Cyr are conducting their investigations during the Regency period, in this book specifically 1812 – which is also the year in which books 4 through 8 of the St. Cyr series (Where Serpents Sleep, What Remains of Heaven, Where Shadows Dance, When Maidens Mourn, What Darkness Brings) take place. Both series expose the slimy underbelly of the glittering Regency, but they do it from different perspectives.

St. Cyr, as a member of the aristocracy, operates within the halls of power, while the Colebrook sisters, as disregarded females on the outskirts of the ton, expose the dangers that specifically affect women in that society merely for living while female. In a way, it’s as though Sebastian’s wife Hero, a social reformer in her own right, was the focal point of his series.

(This is all a very large hint that if you enjoy the one series you’ll probably enjoy the other, as they are shining their lights into the dark places of the same historical period. Just not the same dark places.)

What makes the dark places that the Colebrook sisters so chilling is that the places their so-called ill-behavior takes them were all much too real. And it’s much too easy for a reader to imagine themselves in those circumstances. Women really were not just their husband’s property in this era, but his to seemingly dispose of as he pleased, even into an early grave whether indirectly by way of an insane asylum or by an outright murder which was entirely too easy to cover up in a world where a man’s word was law, his wife was chattel and forensic science hadn’t even reached infancy yet.

It’s no wonder that Gus has no desire to marry – she’s too intelligent not to be aware that for a woman with both independent means and an independent streak a mile wide, the costs for her could be deadly.

The conditions that Gus and Julia investigate in the three stories that make up this book are dark, gruesome and inescapably real, to the point where this book needs a whole lot more trigger warnings than that blurb would lead one to believe.

Whether or not a reader will stick through those dark places is going to depend a lot on how one feels about Gus and Julia, because they, especially Gus, are the ones leading us through multiple valleys of the shadow of death, and if they aren’t people you’re willing to follow, then it does work.

I felt for Gus, and liked her intelligent observations of the conditions she was supposed to live under and decided to refuse from her position of relative privilege. I’m not totally sure she successfully walked that fine line between giving a historical-set heroine enough agency to do the things we need her to do to be the protagonist without making her more of a creature of our time than hers. Julia does feel like a woman of her times, which is why she drove me a bit crazy as a character as I couldn’t get into her head at all.

Your reading mileage may vary when it comes to Gus and Julia, but there seems to be no debate on the personality of their brother Duffy. Duffy is used to demonstrate just how circumscribed their lives are supposed to be by the lights of their society. He’s also a total arsehat, a person whose head is so far up their arse that they are wearing it for a hat. And in Duffy’s case, only the British spelling will do. He’s the character we all love to hate. If this were the froth that the cover picture leads you to believe, he’d be both the villain AND the comic relief.

Instead he’s a symbol of everything that’s wrong and just why Gus needs to fight back so damn much and so damn hard.

While there is a bit of a romance hinted at, this is far, far, far from being what is usually meant by a Regency romance – and it’s a much more interesting book for it, but perhaps not for the faint of heart.

Review: Dear Chrysanthemums by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Review: Dear Chrysanthemums by Fiona Sze-LorrainDear Chrysanthemums: A Novel in Stories by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction
Pages: 176
Published by Scribner on May 2, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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A startling and vivid debut novel in stories from acclaimed poet and translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain featuring deeply compelling Asian women who reckon with the past, violence, and exile—set in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, and New York.

“Cooking for Madame Chiang” set in 1946: Two cooks work for Madame Chiang Kai-shek and prepare a foreign dish craved by their mistress, which becomes a political weapon and and leads to their tragic end. “Death at the Wukang Mansion” set in 1966: Punished for her extramarital affair, a dancer is transferred to Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution and assigned to an ominous apartment in building whose other residents often depart in coffins. “The White Piano” set in 1996: A budding Asian pianist from New York settles down in Paris and is assaulted when a mysterious piano arrives from Singapore. “The Invisible Window” set in 2016: After their exile following the Tiananmen massacre, three women gather in a French cathedral to renew their friendship and reunite in their grief and faith.
Evocative, vivid, disturbing, and written with a masterful ear for language, Dear Chrysanthemums renders both a devastating portrait of diasporic life and inhumanity, as well as a tender web of shared memory, artistic expression, and love.

My Review:

In the beginning, or at least the chronological beginning of this “novel in stories”, there are two women in a third woman’s kitchen. That story, “Cooking for Madame Chiang, 1946” manages to both tell a complete story AND weave together all the threads that permeate the entire work in a way that seems to achieve more depth and more interconnectivity the more I think about it.

The two women in that kitchen, Little Green and Chang’er, are cooking for Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in 1946 after the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, known in the West as World War II and just prior to the Chinese Communist Revolution.

All the stories in this collected novel relate back to those three women and what they represent, sometimes figuratively, often literally as many of the stories are centered around Chang’er’s descendants.

So this is a collection of stories of women’s perspectives on 20th century China, as seen through the eyes of Chang’er and her daughters and granddaughters who became part of the Chinese Diaspora in Singapore, while Little Green’s story is hers alone as her service to the Westernized Madame Chiang made her a target of the Revolution.

Some of the stories’ connections to Chang’er and Little Green are not obvious at first (“Death at the Wukang Mansion, 1966” is one such story) and are only revealed as the reader follows the course of the braided novel back and forth through time.

It is also symbolic that all of these stories take place in years that end in the number six, from the 1946 of “Cooking for Madame Chiang” to the 2016 of “The Invisible Window”. The number six in Chinese divination signifies a “smooth life”, something that none of the women in these interconnected stories manages to achieve.

But in their less than smooth lives we get glimpses of the choppy seas that each of them navigated, whether they remained in China or fled to far-distant shores, and how the experiences that led or followed them impacted the rest of their lives – and their century.

Escape Rating B+: I left this collection feeling both enchanted and teased. Each story is a bit of a treasure hunt and a chef’s kiss wrapped into one. The treasure is figuring out how each woman connects to the others. The chef’s kiss is in the way that each story is complete in itself, beautifully told, but still leaves the reader wishing for more – not necessarily more of that story in particular, but more of the history and background in general. The way the stories are each told make it clear that there are vast depths to be explored that this collection can only hint at.

I was also struck by the way that Dear Chrysanthemums manages to achieve the result that last week’s Daughters of Muscadine fell short of. Both are attempts to tell a kind of braided, linked story through a collection of stories, but Daughters missed that connectedness where Dear Chrysanthemums achieved it in every story through that treasure hunt of hints and references and casting back on long lives lived after tragedy and loss.

While there were a couple of stories that either didn’t work for me at the initial read (“Death at the Wukang Mansion”) or didn’t work at all (“The White Piano”), for the most part this collection told fascinating stories of women’s lives that hinted at so much to explore beneath the surface. I was initially a bit reluctant (last week’s reads were really frustrating) but I’m happy I picked up this gem after all.

Review: Happy Place by Emily Henry

Review: Happy Place by Emily HenryHappy Place by Emily Henry
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 400
Published by Berkley on April 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?
A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

My Review:

Ironically, Harriet’s “happy place” isn’t all that happy when she arrives – no matter how much everyone, including Harriet, tries to recapture the happiness they all always feel when they get there.

Once upon a time, all the way at the beginning of their freshman year at Mattingly College, the algorithm that matches up roommates matched three girls who, on the surface, couldn’t have been more different.

A serendipitous match that gave Harriet, Cleo and Sabrina the ‘sisters from another mister’ that none of them had ever had. They belonged together in a way that was so profound that it took them through college, graduate school, and beyond, culminating every summer at Lobster Fest in a tiny coastal town in Maine where Sabrina’s extended birth and step-family owned a gigantic, fully stocked summer house. (Honestly, more like a summer mansion or a compound. It’s vast and sprawling and perfect – except for one teensy little problem which we’ll get to in a minute.)

Every summer, the girls share one fantastic week together, a tradition that has not wavered as they have each found other roommates, friends and lovers along life’s way. As this summer visit begins, the three have been six for several years, and they are all thirty years old or on the cusp of it.

Sabrina, the great organizer of the group, has pulled them all together – in spite of more than one person’s reluctance – because this is going to be the last summer of their happy place. Her dad has sold the house.

But that’s not the only rain on this particular parade. On the one hand, there’s the good news that Sabrina and her lover, Parth, are getting married that weekend, on the beach near the house, with all their besties around them.

Sabrina and Parth’s good news – if it actually happens – is overshadowed by whatever is eating at Cleo and her girlfriend Kimmy – which is in its turn eating at Sabrina. Harriet, in the second year of a medical residency, has pushed everyone away, partly out of exhaustion but mostly in denial over her own depressing secret.

A secret that greets her at the door, when her long-term ex-fiance is waiting, intending to help her keep up the deception that they are still together. When they’re not. And haven’t been for several months but haven’t managed to tell anyone.

Because they fear it will affect the dynamic of the group – a group which has become a family they both need – whether separately or together.

And because they don’t really want to let each other go – no matter how much they each believe the other is better off without them.

Escape Rating B+: I went into Happy Place hoping for another Book Lovers – which I utterly adored. When I didn’t get that, I found this to be a tough read for most of its length, but now that I’ve finished the book I keep thinking about it and it’s turning out to be one of those cases where the whole is absolutely greater than the sum of its parts.

The story as it progresses seemed like a giant misunderstandammit for the longest time. But the thing about those kinds of books is that what makes them so awkward is that it’s obvious to the reader that all it would take would be one frank conversation to clear up the mess.

That’s not true here. While a bit of frankness would go a long way, it would take WAY more than one conversation to clear things up. All of them are bottling up how they really feel or what is really going on in order to keep the peace – and it’s not working for anyone.

Just as occurred in Book Lovers, this mess needs to build up to an explosion for that air to get cleared. It just takes a week of heating up before it all boils over.

On top of that, what really got to me about this story as I looked back at it was just that, the looking back. Because this is the last summer at their ‘happy place’ they are all aware that an era is ending. That, in combination with all of them turning 30 this year, makes all of them realize that life is changing and that this family that sustains all of them could come to an end if they don’t figure things out and learn to adapt to the changes they are all going through.

And yet, with the secrets hanging over them, they are in danger of not figuring things out. With all the nostalgia on tap on this trip, and with all of the music they play because it is the background of their lives together, (and because they mention Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” playing on the radio) I realized that this is the summer where they are all aware that whatever happens next for any of them, the years they spent together are the “Glory Days” they will be looking back on for the rest of their lives.

The question in the story is whether they can get beyond what’s driving them apart to find a new way to hold each other together – no matter where the future takes each of them.

In the end, I didn’t love Happy Place the way I did Book Lovers. But once I finished I realized that I liked it quite a bit more than I initially thought!

Review: And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Review: And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian TchaikovskyAnd Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: fantasy, horror, portal fantasy, science fiction
Pages: 208
Published by Solaris on March 28, 2023
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Harry Bodie’s been called into the delightful fantasy world of his grandmother’s beloved children’s books. It’s not delightful here at all.
All roads lead to Underhill, where it’s always winter, and never nice.
Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. Harry himself is a failing kids’ TV presenter whose every attempt to advance his career ends in self-sabotage. His family history seems to be nothing but an impediment.
An impediment... or worse. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands?

My Review:

If the title of this book sounds familiar, it’s because it’s from the New Testament quote from Chapter 13 of I Corinthians below. But as much as the first line is directly referenced in the title, the second line is every single bit as applicable to this story and the way that it all works out.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

The first question the story raises is “who decides?” Who decides what a childish thing is and when we should put it away. The second revolves around what it takes to truly be known, by oneself as well as by others.

Because as the story opens, Felix “call me Harry” Bodie doesn’t know himself or where he came from very much at all. And honestly doesn’t seem to want to. What he wants is to hide himself behind the mask of a working – if barely – actor and bury his past as the grandson of a famous juvenile fantasy author.

His grandmother, Mary Bodie, was the author of the Underhill books, a story and a world not all that different from Narnia. Or at least a Narnia without Aslan and the overt Christian allegory that seemed to exude from the lion’s mane.

Underhill was a place with quirky, intelligent animals and not too perilous dangers just perfect for a pair of young human scamps to slip into for adventures. Harry is more than happy to cash the decreasing royalty checks that still drop into his accounts and forget the rest. Or so he believes.

It’s only when he takes a rather desperate chance on a spot in the British equivalent of the Finding Your Roots program that he learns that Grandma Mary was born in an insane asylum to a woman who claimed to come from fairyland, and that she told her daughter all about it. It’s those stories that became the roots of the Underhill series.

The revelation of his great grandmother’s insanity draws the most rabid side of the still-active Underhill fandom out into the light of day – just as the real-world pandemic is about to drive everyone, everywhere under quarantine.

The world is going insane, and Harry is all too afraid he’s going with it. Especially when he starts seeing a diseased, desiccated version of Underhill’s resident trickster faun in the alleys behind his apartment – while a woman who claims to be a private investigator stalks him on the street.

Together they drive Harry straight out of this world and down into Underhill, which is rather more real than he ever imagined. And considerably more dangerous than his grandmother’s books EVER led him to expect.

Escape Rating B+: The thing about this book, at least for the first half of it, is Harry. And it’s not exactly a good thing, because Harry himself isn’t exactly a good thing. Nor does he have a good thing. Nor does he believe he has or is a good thing. Harry’s a bit ‘meh’ at best, pretty much all the way down to the bone. He doesn’t like himself, he doesn’t like his life, he isn’t going anywhere and he thinks nobody likes him because he honestly works at not being likable. He’s no fun to be with, not as a character and not even for himself.

So the beginning of the story is a bit rough because we don’t care about Harry – because he doesn’t even care about himself. At least not until he goes through a wardrobe, even though that’s the other fantasy series, and finds himself in Underhill. Or what’s left of it.

The place is dying and diseased and scabrous and NOTHING like the books. But for once in his life Harry is not being paranoid – everything left in Underhill really is out to get him. Or at least to find him.

Because he’s the heir to the entire blighted mess. Whether he wants to be or not. It’s the first time he’s been important in his whole, entire life. So he decides to seize the day – or at least the creepy twilight that is all that’s left in Underhill.

Only to discover that being the heir to the place isn’t remotely what he thought it might be. But then again, nothing and no one in this adventure has turned out to be anything like he expected. Not even, in the end, himself.

And that’s where things get interesting. At last. One way or another.

While it’s the off-kilter resemblance to Narnia that initially hooks the reader, it’s the subversions of any and all expectations – about Harry, about Underhill, about pretty much everyone and everything he’s met along the way – that give the story its, well, everything.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a bit like Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which is also a play on Narnia. But The Magicians plays it more or less straight, turning Fillory into a version of Narnia that, while still fantastic, doesn’t mess with religious allegory and simply turns into an adult version of Narnia with a heaping helping of dark academia on top.

Instead, And Put Away Childish Things mixes the central theme of Never Too Old to Save the World with Carrie Vaughn’s Questland, and Tchaikovsky’s own Ogres to create a story about being called to save a portal fantasy world in midlife only to learn that the whole setup is SFnal and not fantasy after all, and that the person who can really save the place – or at least its heart – is the folklorist who everyone believed was just hanging on to prove her weird theories about literature that so-called “true academics” have discounted as either childish or merely unimportant and uninteresting to “real scholars”.

At the end, the seemingly childish things turn out to be not so childish after all, and Harry is known, to himself and to others, in a way that he never would have let himself be or even feel in the so-called real world. And it’s the making of him and the making of the story – even though – or perhaps especially because – he turns out not to be the true hero of after all. Although a hero he certainly becomes.

Review: A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Review: A Tempest at Sea by Sherry ThomasA Tempest at Sea (Lady Sherlock #7) by Sherry Thomas
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Lady Sherlock #7
Pages: 336
Published by Berkley on March 14, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Charlotte Holmes’s brilliant mind and deductive skills are pulled into a dangerous investigation at sea in the new mystery in the bestselling Lady Sherlock series.
After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking to recover, and she might be able to go back to a normal life.
Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence, sailing from Southampton for the eastern hemisphere. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder also takes place on the ship.
Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.

My Review:

Murders at sea are even more claustrophobic and self-contained than the traditional English cozy house murder. When a murder occurs on shipboard, the suspect pool and the detectives, whether any of the above are professionals or mere amateurs of convenience, are all stuck with each other and bereft of outside help, information or escape until the ship reaches port.

(If the idea of a shipboard mystery sounds like fun, try A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. It’s also a fun shipboard historical mystery, but with more than a touch of spells and magic.)

There’s no possibility of scapegoating a mysterious outsider on a ship, once it’s out of range of land, as the RMS Provence certainly is by the time that Jacob Arkwright’s body is found. Charlotte Holmes, AKA Sherlock Holmes, can be certain that his murderer is among the small number of passengers and crew already aboard.

It should be an easy case for her to solve. And it would be, if Charlotte, even if she has to masquerade as Sherlock yet again, was traveling as herself. Or as even as himself.

They’re not, and that’s where all the sticky wickets come in and stick themselves quite firmly to Charlotte’s person, traveling incognito as the redoubtable – and quite real if otherwise occupied – Mrs. Ramsay.

It’s a mask that Charlotte can’t afford to drop – and not just because suddenly revealing her subterfuge will make her the primary suspect in the murder. Even though she and her friends and colleagues aboard ship fear her unmasking at every turn.

Because the detective who just so happens to be aboard the Provence is none other than the intelligent and implacable Inspector Brighton, a Scotland Yard CID investigator that Holmes got the better of – read as exposed that the Inspector’s implacability had sent him barking up the wrong suspect tree – in Murder on Cold Street.

Murder investigations uncover all kinds of secrets that their keepers would prefer to remain secret, whether they have anything at all to do with the case at hand or not. Charlotte’s travel arrangements do not, but the Inspector would very much enjoy exposing her all the same.

An exposure that would have potentially deadly consequences for Charlotte and all she holds dear. So she is forced to work through others to lead the investigation to a truth that will expose the murderer while keeping Charlotte and her purpose for being aboard hidden in the shadows.

It’s not an easy job, but it’s all in a day’s – or at least a voyage’s – work for Sherlock Holmes. With just a little more help than usual from her friends.

Escape Rating B+: After the events of the previous book in the series, Miss Moriarty, I Presume? Charlotte is presumed dead after facing Moriarty in her own personal version of the original Holmes story, The Final Problem. Hence Charlotte’s need to travel incognito.

Charlotte may be hiding from Moriarty aboard the Provence, but she is also in search of a solution to her dilemma. While Moriarty is hunting her, she is hunting him. Or at least, she is hunting his agents and their documents, at the behest of this world’s version of Mycroft. Who is not, in this case, her brother, but rather the brother of her friend and lover, Lord Ingram Ashburton.

Charlotte has made a deal with Lord Remington, AKA Mycroft. If she finds a particular stolen document, he’ll grant her official protection by his office, a protection that is potentially deadly to Moriarty if breached.

That Remington seems to have hampered her investigation at every turn – or at least that his agents have – is probably fodder for the next book. (I sincerely hope!)

Aboard the Provence, the game is very much afoot in a way that Charlotte can’t afford to play as herself for fear of exposure to Moriarty’s agents aboard the ship. Leaving Lord Ingram to serve as her eyes and ears while Charlotte and Mrs. Watson do a bit of surreptitious investigation in the persons of a couple of old biddies and Charlotte’s mother nearly lies her way into a murder charge.

It’s not all fun and games, but it is quite a bit of a lark for the reader as misdirection and mistaken identities abound at every turn. Charlotte is in her element while her friends battle their own nerves on her behalf.

As much as I enjoyed the mystery in this tempest, the way the story was told didn’t quite work as well as it might have – at least for this reader. The mystery is investigated and revealed in two tracks.

The first track is the investigation as it proceeds from day to day as the ship steams from Portsmouth to Gibraltar, with Lord Ingram serving as Inspector Brighton’s amanuensis as he interviews the potential suspects and goes further and further astray.

And then we go back in time a bit and observe Charlotte’s and Ingram’s real discovery of the murder, and their attempts to both cover up that initial discovery, hide Charlotte’s true identity, set up a series of subterfuges AND do a much more thorough and successful investigation of the crime while hiding more or less in plain sight.

The slips between those two tracks weren’t always obvious to me as the reader, although that may be a result of reading the electronic Advance Reading Copy and this will not be an issue for readers holding the final version of the book in their hands or devices.

That niggle aside, the mystery was still fascinating. I loved watching Charlotte work while hiding behind the kind of character masking that the original Holmes did so well – instead of hiding behind Sherlock Holmes himself.

I’m very glad that Charlotte Holmes’ adventures are clearly not over at the conclusion of this case, because this reinterpretation of the Holmes’ canon just gets better and better as the characters become more firmly developed and we get more firmly invested in them.

As Charlotte managed to complete her assignment, in spite of the interference of conducting an undercover murder investigation during her undercover operation, I’m looking forward to what happens next in her continuing story, whenever it may appear.