#BookReview: Luminous by Silvia Park

#BookReview: Luminous by Silvia ParkLuminous by Silvia Park
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: artificial intelligence, dystopian, literary fiction, robots, science fiction
Pages: 400
Published by Simon & Schuster on March 11, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.

My Review:

They are all the children of the famous, failed neuroroboticist, Cho Yosep; Jun, Morgan, and Yoyo. But the childhood they shared was long ago, long enough that Jun and Morgan have had the chance to become adults, and to become estranged from their father and each other. While Yoyo, their android older brother, has been bought and sold and become and been changed, over and over again. None of them emerged from their childhoods, or even their sometimes barely-functioning adulthoods, unscarred.

In the reunified Korea of this future, the scars of the wars that brought reunification to pass are still evident everywhere – on the people, on the land and in the rising discontent on both sides of what was once the border between two sovereign nations whose unity seems in danger of fracturing again – sooner or later.

This is also a future where robots have become ubiquitous, filling roles that were once reserved for humans as servants, caregivers, children, friends, lovers. They are always helpful, forever loyal, and permanently second-class. Or worse. Or less. Or both.

Morgan makes robots. She’s a top designer for the pre-eminent robot design and manufacturing empire in the world. On the one hand, she believes that she’s carrying on the work her father abandoned. On another, she’s indulging her own fantasies through her work, and feeling guilty about both the indulgence and the deception.

And very much on her third, and possibly robotic, hand, she’s still both mourning and searching for the robot brother her father brought into their family – and mysteriously took away.

Jun protects robots, or at least he tries his best to in a world that sees them as useful until they’re not – and then they’re scrap. Jun is a detective in the underfunded, understaffed, underappreciated Seoul Police Department’s Robot Crimes Unit. He’s never gotten over the loss of his robot brother Yoyo, just as he’ll never be able to pay off the cybernetic body modifications that allowed him to survive the catastrophic injuries he received during the last war – and to live the truth he felt in his soul.

The frame of the story is one of Jun’s cases, an investigation into the disappearance of an elderly woman’s robot caregiver, the person Kim Sunduk has relied on for years to maintain her independence and her connection to the world. Connections that have been broken along with the woman’s heart.

Among these elements, the search for a missing caregiver that leads to an underworld of robot rage cages, a woman’s desire for love and approval, a man’s need to find the truths that were hidden in his childhood, lead, by a roundabout way, to the truth about Yoyo, truths about the war that no one wants to know, and truths about love that no one is willing to see.

Escape Rating B: Luminous is very much literary science fiction, which means the family is dysfunctional, none of the characters are happy, the story is steeped in tragedy and more is angsted about than done. Literary SF is not my favorite part of the genre, and I had some hesitation going into this one. In the end, it worked better than I expected because the police investigation provides a better framework than is usual in literary fiction upon which to hang an actual plot.

There are several ways of looking at this story – more than merely the three perspectives through which it is told. From one point of view, it seems as if Jun’s police investigation is the story, and it kind of is. But the story that is told isn’t merely about one robot’s disappearance. The story is about humans, and about their relationships with the robots that are now an integral part of society. From that starting point, it manages to dive into the relationships that robots have with each other – relationships that humans are entirely unaware of and do not even expect to exist. The detective story is Jun’s perspective, the robotic relationships are Yoyo’s, and are hidden every bit as much as Yoyo himself has been.

While Morgan’s strained human relationships and her clandestine creation of her own robot companion raise questions about whether the advent of robots has furthered the fracturing of human-to-human relationships.

I was certainly caught up in Luminous as I was reading it, but now that I’ve turned the final page I have some mixed feelings about parts. One is my own problem, in that I wish I knew a lot more about Korean history up until now because I believe the conditions of this near-future would have had more impact if I had. At the same time, parts of the situation felt familiar because the human condition in general is simply what it is. War is hell, war is always hell, what gives the war scenes in this story their resonance is that we are seeing things through their perspectives, particularly Jun’s and Yoyo’s.

It feels like the heart of the story is wrapped around the relationships between humans and robots, but because we get there through the police investigation, a lot of what we see is that humans treat robots the way that humans treat any population they see as ‘less than’ whatever group is dominant. It’s also not a surprise that the robots who get destroyed by violence are mostly female-bodied. That’s it’s female-bodied robots who become caregivers and servants, and that male-bodied Yoyo is turned into a weapon.

And that that easy dichotomy is the simplest thing about relationships between humans and robots, and that everything under that iceberg tip is considerably more complex.

After turning the final page, I ended up looking back at some other recent books about human/robotic relations in order to get a better handle on why some bits seemed rather familiar, and the one I believe Luminous most reminds me of is Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner because it also tells a story about human attempts to program robots to do their dirty work for them, and how the robots themselves evolve in considerably more complex – and humane – directions than was originally intended. There are elements of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model, Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton and  C. Robert Cargill’s Day Zero here also, and if that’s the part of Luminous that grabbed your attention, all are worth a read.

One final (final) note, Luminous is the author’s debut novel, and she kept me engaged in this story, in a part of the genre I don’t normally tackle, from beginning to end. I’m definitely looking forward to whatever she comes up with next!

#AudioBookReview: I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming + #Excerpt

#AudioBookReview: I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming + #ExcerptI Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com (Cosmic Chaos, #1) by Kimberly Lemming
Narrator: Hazel Addison
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Libro.fm, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: alien abduction romance, Romance, romantasy, science fiction romance
Series: Cosmic Chaos #1
Pages: 304
Length: 9 hours and 23 minutes
Published by Berkley, Penguin Audio on February 18, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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A hilarious and sexy romance about a woman who gets dropped on a strange planet only to fall for not one, but two, aliens, from the author of That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

Dorothy Valentine is close to getting her PhD in wildlife biology when she’s attacked by a lion. On the bright side, she’s saved! On the not-so-bright side, it’s because they’re abducted by aliens. In her scramble to escape, Dory and the lion commandeer an escape pod and crash-land on an alien planet that has...dinosaurs?

Dory and her new lion bestie, Toto, are saved in the nick of time by a mysterious and sexy alien, Sol. On their new adventure, they team up with the equally hot, equally dangerous Lok, who may or may not be a war criminal. Whether it be trauma, fate, or intrigue, Dory can’t resist the attraction that’s developing in their trio....

As this ragtag group of misfits explore their new planet, Dory learns more about how and why they’ve all ended up together, battles more prehistoric creatures than she imagined (she imagined...zero), and questions if she even wants to go back home to Earth in this hilarious and steamy alien romance adventure comedy romp.

My Review:

Today is Valentine’s Day, which screamed for a romance to be today’s book. I really want to claim that aliens made me do this book to celebrate the day, but that’s not my story.

However, it is, it oh so definitely is, Dory’s story. It’s right there in the title, I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com. Because Dory was abducted by aliens, and she is trapped in what the aliens believed was a rom-com.

Dory’s mileage definitely varies on that. Her story definitely turns into the ‘rom’ part of that phrase. It also, certainly does have plenty of humor in it. But part of that humor is that the aliens intended to set up a rom-com without having an actual feather of a clue as to what either ‘rom’ or ‘com’ truly mean to humans. Or, for that matter, to the Sankado, the species they’ve already abducted.

So Dory isn’t trapped in a rom-com. She does, however, totally and absolutely, get ensnared in the romance part of that equation. Times two.

And it’s a screaming ‘O’ of a blast every wild and crazy step of the way.

Escape Rating B: I picked this one up because a) that spoileriffic title and b) the author’s Mead Mishaps series was incredibly fun (start with That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon and be prepared to both blush furiously and ROFL while doing so.) Not to mention c) the book comes out on Tuesday, today is Valentine’s Day and the perfect timing of the whole thing could not be ignored. At least not by moi.

The trope this story wallows in is a familiar one. Of course it’s the ‘Aliens Made Them Do It’ ™ plot device – the one that the author is using and not the aliens making them do it. Also, the author is using it correctly while the aliens flubbed nearly all of their attempts – which is part of the fun of the thing.

The thing about this particular trope is that it screams for a ‘dubcon’ (that’s dubious consent) warning that can literally be seen from outer space. Dory, along with her partners Sol and Lok, clearly do consent to everything in the moment, but the reader can easily get hung up and thrown out of the story on the question of whether it’s true consent because the aliens have drugged all of them to create that consent at the outset.

Dory occasionally throws herself out of her own story because her desires in the moment and her resulting behavior are contrary to everything she ever knew about herself.

Some readers will be totally squicked out. Some will be all into the scene. Because I was listening to a chunk of the story, I was both blushing furiously (listening to a third party describe a sex scene is just weird) and getting a bit weirded out by just how much the way her partners talked sounded like grooming her to accept things she otherwise wouldn’t.

(BTW the audio narration was FINE, I only switched to the ebook because I was all in and reading is just plain faster.)

In the end I concluded that Dory was just discovering that she was really into the kink of it all and that was okay. But your reading mileage may go through some rough patches along the way and it may definitely vary.

The part of the story that’s just purely funny – in a very wry and totally satirical way – is the way that the particular aliens who got them ALL into this mess created said mess through bureaucratic insanity, academic pomposity, and shoddy research. They created the initial mess, dug themselves a hole and threw the first results of that mess into it, realized that they’d screwed up and then dug some more and made the hole bigger.

Anyone who has ever done research or worked in either a big bureaucratic organization or in academia is going to see the situation for the hilarious and rueful set up that it is and just laugh until tears run down their face because it’s true and awful and truly awful and so very much more common than anyone wants to admit.

But this is still Valentine’s Day so I need to get back to the romance. While the aliens may have been trying to set up a rom-com, in truth this is a sex-into-love romance times two. Dory and her partners create a really hot triad. And in an entirely different kind of warning, while this trio does set fire to the sheets, there is actual fire but no actual sheets. The sexytimes, as Dory herself would say, are “hot as balls” and the scenes never, ever fade to black.

Whether or not that’s your thing, it certainly turns out to be theirs. Even if it’s not you’ll still want to slap the alien meddler who is not just watching, he’s taking notes. Dory certainly does – and who can blame her?

In the end, there are multiple facets to this wild romp of a romance. There’s the meddling aliens who screw up and set off the whole entire mess. There’s the incredibly hot romance between Dory and her two sexy partners, who fall in love while an incompetent research intern meddles with their lives every step of the way.

Last but not least, there’s the two sets of sentient beings, alien to each other, who have been thrown together against their wills trying to make the best of it – in spite of yet more alien meddling. That’s clearly going to be the throughline for the entire Cosmic Chaos series, as this story ends with that incompetent research intern failing upwards into a promotion that Dory and her friends are sure to make certain he regrets at every turn. Or at least I certainly hope so and am looking forward to finding out.

The true level of Cosmic Chaos in this story has to be experienced to be believed, so I’m going to leave you with this excerpt from the opening of I Got Abducted by Aliens… so that you can experience a bit of Dory’s voice for yourself. One last thing, that lion, to quote Dory, “THE FUCKING LION!” turns out to be the very best wingman a displaced human could EVER have.

Excerpt from I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming

“Fuck, I’m dead?” I snarled, gazing down at the desert. A bright light was pulling me farther into the sky. Which was probably good, right? I’m not the religious type, but I think the general consensus is that up is good.

“All right, not all bad, I guess?” I turned to have a look around, taking in the sights before— “THE FUCKING LION!” I screamed, trying to kick away my murderer. The sandy-brown fur of its mouth was stained a telltale red. I put a hand to my throat, flinching when pain erupted. My hand came back covered in blood. “All right, so you definitely didn’t miss. What is going on?”

The lion ignored me; instead his eyes remained transfixed by what he saw above us. I stilled and looked up to see the clouds shimmering. A darker spot opened up in the sky. A greenish light sparkled out of it until the force pulling me sped up to a breakneck pace. The light became blinding, and I . . . I must have fainted.

The next thing I knew, I was in a tank. My body felt too heavy to move. There was a tickling sensation on my neck. Reaching out, I tried to touch the glass front of the tank but couldn’t reach it. When I cried out, bubbles floated uselessly out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure how long I was floating as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Muffled chirping met my ears. I struggled to open my eyes, but the room was so damn bright.

Why . . . why do I smell cotton candy? Am I having a stroke? I thought that was burnt toast. Dammit. I knew I should have taken that CPR class. What smell meant you were having a stroke?

A sharp zap to my neck shocked me awake. Birds were chirping all around me. I struggled to get up. Something dug into my arms, so I thrashed. Strings lined with suction cups snapped off my arm with little pops. The birds’ chirping grew angrier as I pulled my other arm free. I blinked and looked around to see what looked like . . . owls?

“What the fuck?” I asked. Mutant-looking owls with large fluffy ears fluttered around me, chirping and fussing. Their feathers ranged in color from simple blacks and grays to the colorful blue and orange plumage you would normally find on a tropical bird. Which, frankly, is a wild range of colors for one species to have. I wonder if it’s gender-based.

Focus.

Macaw-like beaks took up a third of their face. Their flapping wings ended in tiny three-fingered hands. One of them was dressed in a white robe and it was trying to probe me with some horseshoe-looking gun thing.

I smacked it away from me and got to my feet. “One of you better start chirping in English,” I warned. Fear and rage caused the threat to come out in a stuttered shout.

The birds were unaffected.

Unfortunate.

I touched my neck, unsure if I’d truly died and gone to some bird hell. But all I felt was smooth skin. When I inspected my hand, not a drop of blood was found. I checked the other side; still nothing. “If I’m not dead, how am I healed?”

The room was lined with rows of cylindrical tanks filled with green liquid. I peered closer at their contents to see the face of a sleeping woman floating in the tank. Her round face looked serene. Long braids fanned out around her face. A few tapped their beaded ends against the glass. The hair rose on the back of my neck as I took in each tank, noting that every one of them held a person. I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up from the nightmare. Yet when I looked around again, the pods and their occupants remained. Worse still, I noticed that all of them were women.

Reality sank to the pit of my stomach. I was on an alien spaceship. Those aliens only felt the need to capture women, and I’d just woken up on an operating table. If this wasn’t hell, it was about to be.

Screaming, I stumbled away from the nearest alien, then snatched a tray off the counter next to the table where I’d woken up. Glass vials and unsettling-looking tools crashed to the floor when I flung it at the nearest alien. Two slightly bigger Owlish came at me with what looked like cattle prods. I grabbed hold of one and kicked off its owner, then swung wildly at its partner. The bird’s squawk was cut short when my stick hit the side of its head, sending the creature flying back. Not knowing what else to do, I just swung at any of the little aliens that came within striking distance.

Farther into the room was a dome-like door leading to a hallway. I leapt over two of the Owlish, caught my foot on one, then tripped and fell on my ass. The fall knocked the stick out of my hand; it ricocheted off the ceiling and slammed into a glass case lining the wall. Blue goop spilled out all over my hair. It weighed down my wild red curls until they felt like rivers of slime. “No! No strange alien goop in my hair, dammit!” I wailed, scrambling back on my feet. “Fuck, my ass is gonna die. I’m so gonna die.”

One of the Owlish squawked like a penguin and stomped closer to me. I jumped up, shoving it aside before I sped down the hallway. My vision blurred, causing me to stumble against the wall. The slime dripping down my head grew hot, and the skin where it touched tingled. “Oh, gross. This better not be poison,” I said, wiping it away quickly.

I burst into the first room I encountered to see that it was full of bigger penguin-looking bird aliens and slammed the door shut. “Nope.”

I swore all the way down to the next room and locked myself behind the door. Then I looked around to see that I had made a poor, poor decision, as this room was full of so many more Owlish, some with the cattle prods, and, of course, the motherfucking lion.

My murderer was floating in a ray of light on a table, completely unaware of its surroundings. Flapping noises beat on the door at my back and the Owlish in the room began chattering angrily. Those with cattle prods advanced.

. . . Fuck this.

“You know what? If I have to die”—I raised a finger to all the bird fuckers in the room—“we’re all gonna die.” I grabbed the nearest Owlish and threw it at the others charging forward.

Excerpted from I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming Copyright © 2025 by Kimberly Lemming. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved.

#AudioBookReview: I Made It Out of Clay by Beth Kander + #Excerpt

#AudioBookReview: I Made It Out of Clay by Beth Kander + #ExcerptI Made It Out of Clay by Beth Kander
Narrator: Gail Shalan
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, Hanukkah romance, holiday romance, magical realism
Pages: 352
Length: 9 hours and 47 minutes
Published by Harlequin Audio, Mira on December 10, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

In this darkly funny and surprisingly sweet novel, a woman creates a golem in a desperate attempt to pretend her life is a romantic comedy rather than a disaster.
Nothing’s going well for Eve: She’s single, turning forty, stressed at work and anxious about a recent series of increasingly creepy incidents. Most devastatingly, her beloved father died last year, and her family still won’t acknowledge their sorrow.
With her younger sister’s wedding rapidly approaching, Eve is on the verge of panic. She can’t bear to attend the event alone. That’s when she recalls a strange story her Yiddish grandmother once told her, about a protector forged of desperation… and Eve, to her own shock, manages to create a golem.
At first everything seems great. The golem is indeed protective—and also attractive. But when they head out to a rural summer camp for the family wedding, Eve’s lighthearted rom-com fantasy swiftly mudslides into something much darker.

My Review:

This is going to be one of those reviews where I write AROUND the book more than I write ABOUT the book, because my reaction was considerably more about the issues it raised than it was about the content – and that’s saying something because I have more than a few of those as well. Just that some of those issues are ‘me’ things that may or may not be ‘you’ things.

As always, your reading mileage may absolutely vary, so in this particular case I’m pleased that I have an excerpt from the book to include so that you can judge for yourself whether this will turn out to be a book for you.

I have an additional reason for including the excerpt. I want you to have a chance to see what the book actually IS, rather than what the blurb says it is. Because that’s very much a case of never the twain shall meet.

As the story opens, Eve’s life is far, far, far from being a rom-com. Also, the story is neither darkly funny nor sweet, surprisingly or otherwise. And she doesn’t create the golem until nearly the halfway point of things.

But the story is dark, because Eve’s is in the middle of a long, dark night of the soul. Her beloved father died suddenly just barely a year ago as this Hanukkah story opens, and she’s still utterly devastated. She’s never gotten over the death of grandmother a few years previously, so she’s grieving double while her mother and sister both seem to be breezing along. She has few friends, she’s terribly lonely, and she’s eating her feelings constantly. As if that weren’t enough, her employer is hinting strongly at layoffs AFTER the holidays if not before.

In other words, Eve is in a pit and hasn’t stopped digging. It’s hard to read about just how terrible she’s feeling and how much depression she’s dragging around.

Which is where the audiobook, read marvelously by Gail Shalan, made things worse for me personally because she did such a terrific job as the narrator. When a story is written in the first person perspective, and it’s narrated by someone who is a great match for the character, I get a bit too deeply caught up in the character’s emotions.

And that’s what happened in I Made It Out of Clay. Not just because Eve and I are both Jewish, but because her Chicago neighborhood is where I used to live, her parents’ synagogue is in the town where I used to work and I lost my own father exactly the same way she did. It all got a bit too close – at least before she magicked up that golem – and I got so into her problems they were depressing me.

So my feelings about the story went to places that the author couldn’t possibly have known or intended, but absolutely did affect my reading and listening of it.

The story does get, well, livelier, for lack of a better term, and does head into the sort of horror-adjacent dark I was expecting from that blurb, once the golem arrives on the scene. Eve’s frantic efforts to disguise her wedding date as a real person and not a magical construct gave the story a lot more oomph than it had up to that point.

But I was too mired in her depression to see whatever funny or sweet parts there might be until the very, very end.

Escape Rating C: If you’re looking for this to be a Hanukkah-themed romantic comedy based on that blurb, you’re going to be in for a bit of disappointment. Instead, II would recommend you take a look at Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot, Eight Nights to Win Her Heart by Miri White to fill that particular holiday craving and Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer if you think your Hanukkah romance reading won’t be complete without at least one golem among your eight nights of presents.

Excerpt from I Made It Out of Clay by Beth Kander

The soft growl on the train is coming from me.
I flush with shame at the insistent rumbling of my stomach. Thankfully, the Monday-morning brown line is too crowded with bundled-up commuters for anyone but me to notice the sound. If someone does somehow clock it, they’ll probably assume it’s coming from the pigtailed pregnant woman I gave my seat to at the last stop.
The train lurches, and I nearly drop my peppermint mocha. Technically, you’re not supposed to have open food or beverages aboard, but no one follows that rule. You’ll only get in trouble if you spill on someone. Nobody really cares what’s going on in the background until the mess impacts them.
When my stomach rumbles yet again, the pigtailed pregnant woman gives me a conspiratorial look. Everyone else on the train might think it’s her, but she knows it’s me. She isn’t judging, though; her expression is friendly. Surprisingly kind and intimate in a maternal sort of way. I take in her pert nose, amused hazel eyes, and the beautiful coppery shade of her two neat, thick braids. I want to tell her I bet you’re gonna be a great mother—but who needs to hear that from a stranger? Besides, maybe she already is a mother. This might not be her first rodeo.
Another grumble from my midsection cues me to return my attention to myself. I smile weakly, averting my gaze as I take a slow sip of my mocha, attempting to temporarily silence my stomach’s demands. While I’ve always had a healthy appetite, lately it’s like I’m haunted by this constant craving. I can take the edge off sometimes, but I’m never really satisfied.
My granddaughter Eve, oy, let me tell you, she can really eat, my grandmother used to say with pride. But it wasn’t a problem when I was a kid. I was just a girl who liked food. Now, it’s like I can never get enough. I’ve been trying to tell myself it’s seasonal. The weather. Winter cold snap making everyone want to hibernate and fatten up like all those rotund city squirrels. But I think it’s something more than that.
Like, say, losing my father a year ago.
Or my looming fortieth birthday.
Or my little sister’s upcoming wedding.
Or the growing conviction that I’m going to die alone.
Or, most likely, all of the above.
Rather than sift through all the wreckage, it’s easiest to just blame my hungry malaise on December—and specifically, Christmas.
Holidays make excellent emotional scapegoats, and I’ve always had a powerful love/hate relationship with Christmas. I’m pretty sure that’s just part of growing up as a religious minority in America. The holiday to end all holidays is an omnipresent blur of red and green, a nonstop monthlong takeover of society as we know it, which magically manages to be both inescapable and exclusionary. It’s relentless. Exhausting.
But at the same time, dammit, the persistent cheer is intoxicating, and I want in on it.
That’s why I do things like set my vintage radio alarm to the twenty-four-hour-carols station that pops up every November for the “countdown to Christmas.” It’s an annual ritual I never miss, but also never mention to any of my friends—the literal definition of guilty pleasure, which might just be the most Jewish kind of enjoyment ever.
From Thanksgiving all the way until the New Year, I start every day with the sounds of crooning baritones, promises of holiday homecomings, and all those bells—silver, jingling, carol-of-the. I can’t help it. My whole life, I’ve loved all the glitzy aspects of the season. The sparkling lights adorning trees and outlining the houses and apartment buildings throughout Chicagoland always seemed so magical to the little Jewish girl with the only dark house on the block. And as an adult, God help me, I cannot get enough of seasonal mochas. (At the same time, I feel a need to assert my Hanukkah-celebrant status, resenting the default assumption that everyone celebrates Christmas. Because humans are complicated.)
One of the best and worst things about the holiday season is how much more you wind up chatting with other people. Wishing total strangers happy holidays, commenting on their overflowing shopping bags, chitchatting with people in line for the aforementioned addictive peppermint mochas. I’m not in the mood for it this year as much as in years past, but once in a while I’m glad to take advantage of the holiday-related conversational opportunities.
For instance, there’s a new guy in my apartment building. He moved in a few months ago. He has a British accent, thick dark brows, muscular arms, and a charming tendency to hold the door for everyone. I haven’t crushed this hard on someone since high school. We said hello a few times over the fall, but December has opened the door to much more lobby banter.
Hot Josh—which is what I call him when he’s not around, and am absolutely doomed to someday accidentally call him in person—has been getting a lot of boxes delivered to our lobby. Which, for better or worse, has given me multiple excuses to make stupid jokes. Most recently, a huge overseas package arrived; it had clearly cost a fortune to ship. Hot Josh made some comment about the overzealous shipper of said holiday package, rolling his eyes at the amount of postage plastered all over the box.
It’s better than if they forgot to put on any stamps at all, I said. Have you heard the joke about the letter someone tried to send without a stamp?
Uh, no? Hot Josh replied, raising an eyebrow.
You wouldn’t get it, I said, and snort-laughed.
He just blinked. Apparently, for some of us, all those cheery holiday conversational opportunities are more like sparkling seasonal landmines.
At the next train stop, only a few passengers exit, while dozens more shove their way in. The handful of departing passengers include the pigtailed pregnant woman. She rises awkwardly from her seat, giving me a hey-thanks-again farewell nod as she indicates I should sit there again.
I look around cautiously as I reclaim my seat, making sure no new pregnant, elderly, or otherwise-in-need folks are boarding. It’s only after I finish this courtesy check that I notice I’m now sitting directly across from a man in full Santa Claus gear.
He’s truly sporting the whole shebang: red crushed-velvet suit with wide black belt and matching buckle, epic white beard, and thigh-high black boots. His bowl-full-of-jelly belly is straining the buttons on the jacket, and I honestly can’t tell if it’s a pillow or a legit beer gut.
I’m not sure how to react. If Dad was here, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d high-five Santa, and they’d instantly be best friends.
But I never know where to start, what to say. Like, should I smile at the guy? Refer to him as “Santa”? Maybe, like, salute him, or something?
I gotta at least take a picture and text it to Dad. He’d get such a kick out of this guy—
My hand automatically goes for my phone, pulling it swiftly from my pocket. But my amusement is cut off with a violent jerk when I touch the screen and nothing happens. That’s when I remember that my phone is off—and why I keep it off.
My rumbling stomach curdles. Even after a whole year, the habit of reaching for my phone to share something with my father hasn’t gone away. I’m not sure it ever will.
Shoving my phone back into my coat pocket, I ignore St. Nick and just stare out the filthy train windows instead. Even through this grayish pane streaked with God-knows-what horrific substances, the city is beautiful. I love the views from the train, even the inglorious graffiti and glimpses of small backyards. And now, every neighborhood in Chicago has its holiday decorations up.
This Midwestern metropolis, with its glittering architecture, elegant lakefront, and collection of distinct neighborhoods sprawling away from the water, knows how to show off. Most people think downtown is prettiest. But if you ask me, it’s hard to beat my very own neighborhood, Lincoln Square.
In the center of the Square is Giddings Plaza. In summertime the plaza’s large stone fountain is the bubbling backdrop to all the concerts and street festivals in the brick-paved square. But in wintertime, the water feature is drained and becomes the planter for a massive Christmas tree. Surrounded by all the perky local shops, the plaza is cute as hell year-round. When you add tinsel and twinkle lights and a giant fir tree that looks straight out of a black-and-white Christmas movie, it’s almost unbearably charming.
We haven’t had a proper snowfall yet, so the natural seasonal scenery has been lacking a little. But even with the bare tree limbs and gray skies, the stubbornly sparkling holiday decor provides a whispered promise of magic ahead.
I really want to believe in that magic.
The light shifts as we rattle beneath looming buildings and trees, and I briefly catch my reflection in the dirty window. Dark curls crushed beneath my olive-green knit cap, round cheeks, dark eyes, no makeup except a smear of lip gloss I bought because it was called Holiday Cheer. The details are all familiar, but I barely recognize myself. I wonder if I’ll ever feel like the real-me again, or if grief has made me into someone else entirely.
Last month marked the one-year anniversary of losing my dad. A whole year, and it still doesn’t feel real. Most days, it seems like I’m in the wrong version of my life. Or like everything around me is just some strange movie set I wandered onto and can’t seem to escape. I keep waiting for things to feel normal again. For me to feel normal again.
Hasn’t happened yet.

Excerpted from I MADE IT OUT OF CLAY by Beth Kander. Copyright © 2024 by Beth Kander. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HTP/HarperCollins.

Spotlight + Excerpt: A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes + Giveaway

Spotlight + Excerpt: A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes + GiveawayA Tainted Heart Bleeds: A Gripping Historical Mystery Romance (House of Croft) by Sophie Barnes
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, historical romance, regency mystery
Series: House of Croft #2
Pages: 440
Published by Sophie Barnes on October 29, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads


He’ll never forgive her deception, or the hold she still has on his heart…

Adrian Croft’s worst fear has been realized. His wife, the sweet woman who swept past his every defense, is a cunning spy working against him. Forced to play a dangerous game where one wrong move could see him destroyed, he must unravel her secrets while hunting a far more sinister threat.
Samantha knew her decision to marry her target would come at a price. Now, having lost her husband’s trust and affection, she’ll do whatever it takes to win it all back – abandon past loyalties, spill her secrets, and catch a killer. But will it be enough to undo the damage?
-One series, one couple, and the brutal challenges they must face-
If you like What Angels Fear, Silent in the Grave, and Murder on Black Swan Lake, you’ll devour Sophie Barnes’ thrilling new series.
Buy A Tainted Heart Bleeds and continue this action-packed adventure today!

Welcome to the second day of the book tour for A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes, the second book in the compelling Regency mystery series, the House of Croft. I’ve already reviewed both the first book in the series, A Vengeful King Rises, as well as this second book – and loved them both. (Check out my reviews here and here to get all the deets of just how much I was captivated by each. (I’m already on tenterhooks for the third book, A Ruthless Angel Weeps, coming in late January.)

But someone else’s opinion might not be enough to tempt you, especially on a day already filled with as many distractions as this one is. I’m hopeful that if I can’t convince you, that this excerpt from the opening chapter will grab your attention – and not let go.

House of Croft, Book 2

Historical Mystery/Thriller/Romance

Date Published: 10-29-2024

 

 

He’ll never forgive her deception, or the hold she still has on his
heart…

Adrian Croft’s worst fear has been realized. His wife, the sweet
woman who swept past his every defense, is a cunning spy working against
him. Forced to play a dangerous game where one wrong move could see him
destroyed, he must unravel her secrets while hunting a far more sinister
threat.

Samantha knew her decision to marry her target would come at a price. Now,
having lost her husband’s trust and affection, she’ll do
whatever it takes to win it all back – abandon past loyalties, spill
her secrets, and catch a killer. But will it be enough to undo the
damage?

Excerpt from  A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes
Chapter One

London, August 15th, 1818
Lady Eleanor dropped onto the stool in front of her vanity table. Exhausted from entertaining dinner guests with her parents, she looked forward to climbing into the soothing comfort of her bed.
Something pushing against her leg made her lower her gaze to Milly, the miniature poodle her parents had gifted her with for her sixteenth birthday. Rising onto her hind legs, Milly shifted her paws to better press her damp nose against Eleanor’s thigh, her stubby tail wagging with eager affection.
Eleanor chuckled and scooped the pup into her lap. She raked her fingers through Milly’s fur, scratched her a few times behind one ear, and allowed her to settle comfortably in her lap.
“Are you ready, my lady?” The question was posed by Audrey, Eleanor’s lady’s maid. A short woman with dark brown hair and eyes to match, the servant was five years Eleanor’s senior and possessed a positive outlook to match her own.
Eleanor glanced at her and smiled in response to the warmth she found in Audrey’s eyes. “Yes. Please begin.”
Audrey raised the comb she’d collected earlier and drew it through Eleanor’s hair. Molly snuggled farther into the circle of her arms, nails scratching a little at Eleanor’s lap as she repositioned her legs.
Eleanor sighed and sent her bed a longing glance. The coverlet had been folded back to display the crisp white sheets that beckoned. It would be good to climb between them and let the weariness seep from her body.
Molly’s curls compressed beneath the weight of her hand as Eleanor stroked the fluffy fur. Glancing up, she caught Audrey’s gaze in the mirror, her thoughts returning to the charity visit she’d planned for tomorrow. “Maybe you’re right about the brown woolen spencer. I never wear it, so I might as well include it in the donation.”
“Are you sure?” Audrey set the comb aside and collected a glass bottle containing Warren & Rosser’s Milk of Roses lotion.
The question was a legitimate one since Eleanor had argued against the suggestion yesterday when she and Audrey had prepared the box that would go to St. Augustine’s Church. The spencer had been a gift from her aunt three Christmases ago. It was undoubtedly lovely, but every time she’d put it on she felt it didn’t quite suit her.
“Yes,” she said, her mind made up. “There’s no sense in it taking up space in the wardrobe when it can keep someone less fortunate warm.”
Audrey dabbed a bit of lotion on Eleanor’s face and began rubbing it in with wonderfully soothing circular motions. “I’m always impressed by your kindness, my lady.”
But was she always kind? Guilt gathered in Eleanor’s stomach, becoming so heavy it felt like a block of lead. The choice she’d made for herself – for her future – had not been easy. She hated how selfish it made her feel.
Yet she managed to smile and pretend Audrey’s comment was welcome. “Thank you.”
Audrey responded with a smile of her own and proceeded to plait Eleanor’s hair. The peaceful activity calmed her mind. She allowed herself to focus on what was to come, instead of worrying over the past.
She’d had her say, and in so doing, she’d paved the way to a new adventure.
A surge of excitement filled her breast at this thought. Everything would be fine. All she needed was rest. The maid finished her ministrations and tidied up. Eleanor set Molly down and climbed into bed. The mattress sagged beneath her weight, the cool sheets inviting her to sink deeper.
“Would you like me to close the window before I go?” Audrey asked.
“No. Leave it open.” The afternoon sun pouring into the room several hours before had made it unbearably warm and stuffy. She couldn’t sleep like that.
“I’ll bid you good night then, my lady.” Audrey called for Molly to join her and the dog complied without question, knowing full well that a walk and a treat awaited.
“Good night,” Eleanor replied, “and thank you for your help.”
The maid left and Eleanor reached for her book. This was her favorite time to read, when all was silent and there was no risk of being disturbed. She opened Pamela and flipped to the spot where she’d left off the previous evening.
A gentle breeze streamed through the window, toying with the curtains. Distant laughter reached her ears. It was followed by a horse’s faint whinny. Eleanor’s eyes grew heavy. The book began sagging between her hands.
She yawned and it felt like only a moment had passed before she was startled by a loud noise. Her eyes snapped open, adjusting and observing. The light by which she’d been reading had burned itself out. Her book had slipped from her grasp. She must have fallen asleep.
Light flashed beyond the window. A resounding boom followed. The curtains flapped with wild abandon while rain poured down from the heavens. She blew out a breath and went to close the window. It was just a storm. No need for alarm.
Barefooted, she padded across the Aubusson rug and noted that parts of it were now damp from the rain. She leaned forward through the window’s opening, her abdomen pressing into the sill, wetting her nightgown as she reached for the handle.
Her hand caught the slick wood and she pulled the window shut. A welcome silence followed, cocooning her from the elements. Pausing briefly, she watched water streak down the smooth window pane, saw lightning flash across the sky.
Intent on returning to bed, she took a step back, prepared to close the curtains, and froze when her toes connected with something unpleasant. Not just water, but a thick and squishy substance of sorts. But how could that be? Confused, she dropped her gaze, but the darkness was blinding. She’d need a candle or an oil lamp in order to see.
She straightened and started to turn, her aim to locate the tinderbox she kept on her nightstand, when a pair of large hands captured her throat. She opened her mouth, attempted to scream, but couldn’t even manage a gasp as the fingers dug deeper and cut off her breath.
Terrified, she stared at the window, at her own blurry figure reflected in the wet glass, and the larger man standing behind her. Tears welled in her eyes. She clawed at the hands that gripped her, kicked her attacker’s shins, and did what she could to wriggle free.
None of it worked.
He was much stronger than she, and her strength waned with each breath she was denied. Her heart fluttered desperately. It begged her to keep on fighting. But it was no use.
She had already lost
#
Chief Constable Peter Kendrick removed his hat as he entered Orendel House. Given the circumstances, a somber atmosphere wasn’t surprising. But the gloom he encountered in the elegant foyer was unparalleled.
Servants stood near the walls, slumped like wilting plants. Maids wept while the male servants stared into nothing, their stricken expressions underscoring the horror they’d woken up to. Even the butler struggled to speak when he offered to take Peter’s hat, his voice cracking before he averted his gaze.
“Where are the earl and countess?” Peter asked.
The butler gave his eyes a quick swipe and straightened his posture. “In the parlor with their…remaining children.” Someone sobbed and the old man’s expression twisted with grief. “As you can no doubt imagine, this is terribly difficult for them. They asked me to show you upstairs.”
“Very well.”
He followed the butler, one step at a time, a couple of Runners at his back. They arrived on the landing, their footfalls muted by the plush carpet lining the hardwood floor. A few more paces and then…
The butler paused and gestured toward a door. “Through there. I realize I ought to come with you, but… Do you mind if I remain here?”
“Not at all.” Peter reached Lady Eleanor’s bedchamber doorway and froze. A sick feeling caught hold of his stomach. Ghastly didn’t come close to describing the scene he beheld. This was the sort of thing that could make men lose all hope in humanity. It was…barbaric.
“Good lord,” murmured Anderson, the Runner standing at Peter’s right shoulder.
Anderson’s colleague, Lewis, only managed a faint, “Excu…” before he bolted for the stairs, no doubt hoping to make it outside before he vomited.
Peter swallowed and took a deep breath, then entered the room. It hadn’t been so long ago since another young woman’s body was found – the last in a series of brutal murders that left him baffled for more than a year. But that killer was dead, so it couldn’t be the same man who’d acted here.
Besides, this was different and shockingly worse.
He clenched his jaw, reminded himself that he had a job to accomplish. There was just…so much blood. It felt like the room was bathed in it. And the victim…
Forcing himself to employ an analytical mindset, he considered her position on the bed and the clean blanket draped over her torso and legs.
“I’ll need the usual sketches,” he said.
“Already working on it,” Anderson told him, his voice gruff.
“You may want to wait a moment.” Peter studied Lady Eleanor’s face and the empty eye sockets that seemed to mock him. “Until I’ve removed the blanket.”
“Sir?”
“It doesn’t belong. Someone placed it here after the fact, no doubt to protect her modesty.” He shot a look over his shoulder. “If you’ll please shut the door.”
A firm click followed and then, “Why would the bastard take her eyes?”
“I don’t know. Could be a trophy of sorts. There’s no telling what goes on in such vile creatures’ heads.”
Slowly, with respect and consideration directed toward the poor young woman whose body lay on the bed before him, Peter folded back the blanket and shuddered. Whatever nightgown she’d worn to bed was gone, her naked body left on display.
Air rushed into Peter’s lungs on a sharp inhalation. She’d been stabbed too many times to count, as though her attacker hadn’t been able to stop. And her neck – the skin there was a bright red shade.
Swallowing, he surveyed the rest of the room while Anderson kept on drawing.
A vase lay on the floor near one of the windows, smashed to pieces. The flowers were strewn across the Aubusson rug. They’d probably ended up there during a struggle. Peter lowered himself to a crouch, his fingertips testing a dark brown stain and feeling the wetness. Mud.
“Take notes too, will you?” Peter retreated until he’d reached the bedchamber door. He grabbed the handle. “And cover her with the blanket once you’re done. I’ll question the servants in the meantime.”
#
The parlor was made available for interviews, each servant introduced to Peter by the butler as he showed them into the room. Peter considered the latest arrival. Audrey was her name. Short in stature, with mousish features and lackluster hair, she’d been Lady Eleanor’s lady’s maid.
“I…I don’t…” Audrey gulped.
She dabbed at her watery eyes again. Her handkerchief looked heavy and wet. Peter handed her a fresh one and gave her a moment to try and collect herself. Not easy, he realized, since she’d been the one who’d discovered her mistress’s body when she’d gone to rouse her.
“Did you always wake her in the mornings?” Peter gently asked.
A nod accompanied trembling lips. “She was always so…active. Liked making the…the most of each day. Today… Oh dear. Please forgive me.”
“It’s quite all right,” Peter told her and waited once more for the woman’s tears to abate. “Take your time.”
She swallowed, licked her lips, and seemed to straighten a bit. “We planned to visit St. Augustine with a few donations. My mistress…she was so very kind I…I don’t understand why anyone might have wanted to hurt her.”
“So you can think of no enemies?”
“None.”
“No hopeful suitors she might have spurned?”
Audrey shook her head. “She’s engaged to Mr. Benjamin Lawrence. They were supposed to marry three months ago, toward the end of April, but his horse-riding accident forced a postponement.”
Peter recalled news of the tragedy. The event had turned the young man into a cripple. He’d lost the use of his legs. “She still meant to go through with it, despite what happened?”
“Of course.” Additional tears slid down Audrey’s cheeks. “My mistress loved Mr. Lawrence and intended to stand by him. That’s the sort of person she was.”
And yet, the nature of her death suggested someone had loathed her beyond all reason. Peter made a few notes in his notebook, his pencil scratching the paper with quick and efficient strokes.
“Thank you, Audrey. That will be all for now.” He accompanied her to the door and called for the next servant.
Again, his thoughts wandered back to the murders that took place earlier in the year. Those women had all seemed like proper young ladies. Friends and family had vouched for them. Yet they’d each had a secret that had gotten them killed.
In all likelihood, Lady Eleanor had secrets too. If he was to figure out who killed her, he’d have to discover which of hers had led to her death.
#
There was no greater nuisance than murder.
It was hard to predict how one would play out. Killing Lady Eleanor had been messier than he’d intended. Perhaps because he’d allowed himself to get carried away.
His lips curled. At least he’d had the foresight to stash a change of clothes for himself at St. George’s burial ground. Returning home covered in blood would not have helped him get away with the crime. As he intended to do.
Hands shoved into the pockets of a clean pair of trousers, he stood by his bedchamber window and watched the London traffic go by.
He had no regrets. She’d deserved every part of what he’d done.
His attention focused on the carriages filling the street and on the people hurrying by. It was the busiest hour of the day, when men of consequence made their way to Parliament while those who belonged to the working class went off to start their jobs.
Bow Street would have its hands full this morning. He casually wondered if they were examining Lady Eleanor’s body right now and where the clues they discovered might lead them.
Spotting a young girl who carried a crate of eggs on her head, he tracked her as she walked along the opposite side of the street. A man coming the other way nudged her shoulder as he pushed past her, but failed to disrupt her stride.
She threw a quick glance toward him then stepped off the pavement and hurried between two carriages, making her way to this side of the street.
A couple of street urchins came from the left at a run, most likely fleeing someone whose pocket they’d picked. Leaping into the street at the same exact time as the girl with the eggs attempted to exit, they crashed into her, tripping before regaining their balance and sprinting onward while she was sent reeling.
Down went the crate and all of her eggs, straight into the gutter.
Not one person stopped to inquire about her wellbeing. She was invisible to the crowd – just another lowly individual doing her best to scrape by. Too much trouble for the middle or upper class to get involved with. Too time consuming for the rest.
And yet, as he watched the poor wretch try to salvage the few eggs that somehow remained intact, there was no doubt she’d prefer her situation to Lady Eleanor’s at the moment.
He watched the girl until she’d gathered whatever she could and continued along the street, vanishing from his view before he turned from the window. His gaze went to his bedside table and he crossed to it, retrieved a small key from his jacket pocket, then dropped into a crouch.
With adroitness, he set the key in the lock of the door beneath the drawer and turned it. The door opened and he reached inside, retrieving a jar that he held up against the bright morning light.
A pair of eyes contained in a clear solution stared back at him while his lips twitched with amusement. The last time they’d talked, Lady Eleanor had insisted she’d no desire to see him again.
It was a wish he’d been more than happy to fulfill.

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling author Sophie Barnes writes historical romance novels
in which the characters break away from social expectations in their quest
for happiness and love. Having written for Avon, an imprint of Harper
Collins, her books have been published internationally in eight languages.
With a fondness for travel, Sophie has lived in six countries, on three
continents, and speaks English, Danish, French, Spanish, and Romanian with
varying degrees of fluency. Ever the romantic, she married the same man
three times—in three different countries and in three different
dresses.

When she’s not busy dreaming up her next swoon worthy romance novel,
Sophie enjoys spending time with her family, practicing yoga, baking,
gardening, watching romantic comedies and, of course, reading.

 

Contact Links

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Pinterest

Instagram

BookBub

 

Purchase Links

Universal Link

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

iBooks

Smashwords

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

RABT Book Tours & PR

A- #BookReview: A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes + Giveaway

A- #BookReview: A Tainted Heart Bleeds by Sophie Barnes + GiveawayA Tainted Heart Bleeds: A Gripping Historical Mystery Romance (House of Croft) by Sophie Barnes
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, historical romance, regency mystery
Series: House of Croft #2
Pages: 440
Published by Sophie Barnes on October 29, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads


He’ll never forgive her deception, or the hold she still has on his heart…

Adrian Croft’s worst fear has been realized. His wife, the sweet woman who swept past his every defense, is a cunning spy working against him. Forced to play a dangerous game where one wrong move could see him destroyed, he must unravel her secrets while hunting a far more sinister threat.
Samantha knew her decision to marry her target would come at a price. Now, having lost her husband’s trust and affection, she’ll do whatever it takes to win it all back – abandon past loyalties, spill her secrets, and catch a killer. But will it be enough to undo the damage?
-One series, one couple, and the brutal challenges they must face-
If you like What Angels Fear, Silent in the Grave, and Murder on Black Swan Lake, you’ll devour Sophie Barnes’ thrilling new series.
Buy A Tainted Heart Bleeds and continue this action-packed adventure today!

My Review:

This second book in the House of Croft series begins as the first book did, with the brutal murder of a young and seemingly innocent woman.

But the circumstances, as similar as they are to the opening of A Vengeful King Rises, are not the same – except that both women, and both murders, are shrouded in secrets. Including the motivation behind them.

The murder of Adrian Croft’s sister Evie was designed to set Adrian on a path that he did not wish to walk, but the motives were concealed in the midst of a serial killer’s spree. It wasn’t personal, although the consequences were very personal to Adrian Croft.

This time, the murder is very personal. Lady Eleanor was stabbed over 50 times, up close and very personal indeed. Her murderer believed that she had betrayed him – and perhaps she had, if only in his own eyes and twisted mind. Of course, he took those too. Her eyes. As a grisly trophy.

Croft brought his sister’s killer to justice – even if no one can prove it. Which leads Lord Orendel, Lady Eleanor’s father, to ask Croft to investigate his daughter’s death and provide him a measure of that same justice – even if it can’t be admitted aloud.

It’s not a commission that Croft wants to take. He has problems of his own to deal with – also a result of the events in the first book. The police are pursuing him for his father’s crimes – and his own. The agent they set on his trail inveigled her way into his heart, his bed and his household.

He married her, and only learned of her betrayal after that fact – just as she vowed to be his in all ways. He can’t forgive, he can’t forget, he can’t trust – but he can’t force himself to set her aside, or off to the country, or into a shallow grave. As she deserves.

He has no idea that she’s about to be the saving of him. Again. It’s only a question of whether that will be enough to finally earn his trust – and to save him from the gallows.

Escape Rating A-: I started this series because it appeared to be what you’d get if C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr series and Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford & Sloane series had a book baby. Which is very much true, as all three are set in the same Regency period, all involve solving grisly murders and all have a significant and dark romantic enemies to lovers relationship where the enmity has the potential to turn deadly even as the romance heats to boiling.

(Some reviewers have noted a resemblance to Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series, which I have not read – YET – but clearly need to take a look at.)

Now that I’ve read the first two books in the House of Croft trilogy, at this point I have a really, really, strong feeling that I’m oh-so-glad this is a trilogy and doesn’t go on as long as those other series.

Why, you might ask?

The reason is that the House of Croft doesn’t read like three stories that have some overarching elements. In spite of not being the same genre – AT ALL – the House of Croft reads like The Lord of the Rings in that it is ONE story divided into three parts for publishing purposes. Which, by extension, makes A Tainted Heart Bleeds the long dark night of the soul that is The Two Towers – especially the second half of that heartbreaking middle book.

So that’s all a HUGE hint that readers can’t start with this book. I think that one has to begin at the beginning with A Vengeful King Rises – and will probably join me in the proverbial bated breath waiting for the final book in the trilogy, A Ruthless Angel Weeps, in order to see how Adrian and Samantha Croft manage to get whatever it is they truly deserve – whether that’s heaven or hell or just a quick hanging.

The reason for that anticipation and all of that bated breath is that the individual books in the series are extremely and occasionally excruciating compelling, and while they DO wrap up the murder that opens each story, they DO NOT answer any of the gigantic questions hanging over the series – and our protagonists – like a whole ceiling of Swords of Damocles.

I know there is a puppet master – but I don’t even have a hint as to who that puppet master might be. And it’s driving me crazy. I NEED to know who is responsible for the hell that Adrian Croft has been put through – and more importantly – WHY he’s been put through that hell. I also hope to see someone pay, but I’m certain that Adrian and Samantha will have that well in hand by the end.

A Ruthless Angel Weeps will be coming at the end of January – and for this reader it’s not nearly soon enough!

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling author Sophie Barnes writes historical romance novels
in which the characters break away from social expectations in their quest
for happiness and love. Having written for Avon, an imprint of Harper
Collins, her books have been published internationally in eight languages.
With a fondness for travel, Sophie has lived in six countries, on three
continents, and speaks English, Danish, French, Spanish, and Romanian with
varying degrees of fluency. Ever the romantic, she married the same man
three times—in three different countries and in three different
dresses.

When she’s not busy dreaming up her next swoon worthy romance novel,
Sophie enjoys spending time with her family, practicing yoga, baking,
gardening, watching romantic comedies and, of course, reading.

 

Contact Links

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Pinterest

Instagram

BookBub

 

Purchase Links

Universal Link

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

iBooks

Smashwords

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

RABT Book Tours & PR

A- #BookReview: Murder in Highbury by Vanessa Kelly

A- #BookReview: Murder in Highbury by Vanessa KellyMurder in Highbury by Vanessa Kelly
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, historical mystery, regency mystery
Series: Emma Knightley Mystery #1
Pages: 400
Published by Kensington on October 22, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

The delightful debut of a Regency historical mystery featuring Jane Austen’s indefatigable Emma Knightley! Perfect for fans of Anna Lee Huber, Darcie Wilde, Claudia Gray, and Stephanie Barron. Less than one year into her marriage to respected magistrate George Knightley, Emma has grown unusually content in her newfound partnership and refreshed sense of independence. The height of summer sees the former Miss Woodhouse gracefully balancing the meticulous management of her elegant family estate and a flurry of social engagements, with few worries apart from her beloved father’s health . . .    But cheery circumstances change in an instant when Emma and Harriet Martin, now the wife of one of Mr. Knightley’s tenant farmers, discover a hideous shock at the local church. The corpse of Mrs. Augusta Elton, the vicar’s wife, has been discarded on the altar steps—the ornate necklace she often wore stripped from her neck . . .    As a chilling murder mystery blooms and chaos descends upon the tranquil village of Highbury, the question isn’t simply who committed the crime, but who wasn’t secretly wishing for the unpleasant woman’s demise. When suspicions suddenly fall on a harmless local, Emma—armed with wit, unwavering determination, and extensive social connections—realizes she must discreetly navigate an investigation of her own to protect the innocent and expose the ruthless culprit hiding in plain sight.

My Review:

Mrs. Elton was dead, to begin with. And the only person in Highbury who seems to miss her is the local vicar. Then again, that local vicar was her husband, so he’s supposed to miss her. even if the woman had earned the, let’s call it the disregard, of everyone else in town – one way or another.

Honestly, several ways and many others. Mrs. Augusta Elton believed that everyone in Highbury was beneath her, and wasn’t at all shy – in any way – about making that plain.

When her body is discovered on the floor of her husband’s church, with finger-shaped bruises around her neck, blood and brain matter matted in her hair but without the expensive necklace she habitually wore, it’s clear to even the dullest numpty that Mrs. Elton was murdered. Also robbed, but definitely murdered.

The problem in Highbury is that there hasn’t been a murder in decades – and the local coroner and constable ARE both a couple of utter numpties at best, and pompous, self-aggrandizing fools at worst.

However, the corpse of the late, unlamented was discovered by Mrs. Knightley – the former Miss Emma Woodhouse – and her friend Mrs. Martin, the former Miss Harriet Smith. And, while Harriet can be a bit of a widgeon when she’s upset – and discovering a dead body is certainly VERY upsetting – Emma is much too intelligent and level-headed to let the terrible sight in front of her prevent her from investigating the scene of the unprecedented crime.

And Emma Knightley, née Woodhouse, has never, ever been a dullard or a widgeon or a numpty. So, when most of the officials involved in investigating the case – with the obvious exception of Emma’s dear husband, who was, after all, smart enough to marry her in spite of her errors in matchmaking in the Jane Austen book named after her – accuse an oh-so-obviously incorrect person of the murder, Emma is all in on investigating the crime herself.

With, or without, her husband’s approval. But generally – and thankfully for Emma’s wake – with. Allowing Emma to prove, yet again, that there are times when she can be just a bit TOO smart for someone’s own good. And very nearly, her own.

Escape Rating A-: I was honestly surprised at how very much I enjoyed Murder in Highbury. But enjoy it I certainly did, and kept coming back to it over the course of a lazy Sunday because I just couldn’t resist seeing both whodunnit and how Emma managed to investigate the case in spite of a lack of even any of Sherlock Holmes’ forensic methods.

Part of my trepidation was due to not being an Austenphile. I’m pretty sure I listened to Emma once upon a time, but that would have been 30 years ago. I don’t remember any of the details – but that did not affect my enjoyment of this story one bit. (If you never read Emma, or read it LONG ago and don’t remember those details either, I would recommend looking at a plot summary. The events are still relevant, and the players are the same, so some background is helpful but not required.)

The second part of my concern going into the story reflects back on yesterday’s book (and Friday’s a bit, come to think of it), in regards to the difficulty that frequently occurs in female-led historical fiction. Specifically that the protagonist needs to be a woman of her own time and not ours, but must manage to realistically have enough agency to BE the protagonist. Emma manages to walk that line differently from Mabel Canning of the London Ladies’ Murder Club a century later, but manage it she does.

It helps that Emma was known to be high-handed, headstrong and intelligent if often prone to rushing down the wrong path, and she’s still that a year later in this story. Howsomever, while she is not independent in the way that Mabel is, she is allowed to act according to her own nature by the men who do have actual power over her – so she frequently acts first and worries about questions of forgiveness vs. permission later if at all – even as she still sometimes lets her heart overrule her head.

Because we’re in Emma’s head, we get to experience both what is said and done on the outside, as well as her actual, and frequently much less socially acceptable, thoughts on the inside. The men in charge absolutely ARE idiots, and we get to cringe right along with her.

Above all, and in spite of the murder, or on top of it, underneath it and all around it, Murder in Highbury is still just the kind of ‘comedy of manners’ that infused Jane Austen’s work and has made it utterly timeless. Human nature hasn’t changed in a mere two centuries, and the exposure and gentle ribbing of the nature of people in Highbury rings true in spite of the murderer and his (or her!) victim in their midst.

Or perhaps even more so because of it. Making Murder in Highbury a surprisingly charming and utterly delightful read. It looks like Murder in Highbury is the first in a cozy historical mystery series.  I hope so, because I’d be delighted to return to Highbury to watch Emma investigate another case!

#BookReview: The Booklover’s Library by Madeline Martin

#BookReview: The Booklover’s Library by Madeline MartinThe Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, World War II
Pages: 416
Published by Hanover Square Press on September 3, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A heartwarming story about a mother and daughter in wartime England and the power of the books that bring them together.
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job to provide for herself and her beloved daughter, Olivia. But with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her.
When the threat of war becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In her daughter’s absence, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, as well as the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing, and her work forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.
As the Blitz intensifies in Nottingham and Emma fights to reunite with her daughter, she must learn to depend on her community and the power of literature more than ever to find hope in the darkest of times.

My Review:

When this story truly opens, after a heartbreaking prologue, it’s August of 1939 and the impending war is NOT the biggest problem looming on Emma Taylor’s horizon.

Her immediate worry is continuing to put food on the table – as well as continuing to have a table to put it on – for herself and her eight-year-old daughter Olivia. As a widow with a child, Emma is unemployable – regardless of her skills, her abilities, or her outright need to support herself and that child.

And her widow’s pension plus the government stipend for her daughter aren’t nearly enough to make ends meet – no matter how much Emma scrimps and saves – which she absolutely does – at every single turn.

Emma’s parents are dead, her late husband’s parents are, frankly, terrible – or at least they were the last time she saw them – and she has no options and no prospects. Not because she’s not capable but because that’s the way society wills it. (I am holding myself back from getting up on a soapbox SO HARD!)

The war is about to change all of that, but Emma doesn’t know it, yet.

Still, on a cold and rainy afternoon, a door opens for her in the person of Miss Bainbridge, the manager of Nottingham’s Boots’ Booklover’s Library. The Boots’ libraries, which really did exist, were subscription lending libraries housed within Boots’ Chemist shops around the country. They had strict educational requirements and equally strict standards for their female ‘librarians’.

Emma had the skills, after growing up in her late father’s bookshop, and Miss Bainbridge, for reasons of her own, bent the rules. Rules that began going by the wayside not long after, as Britain declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland.

In the midst of what later became known as the “Phoney War”, the parents in cities that were determined to be targets for German bombers shipped their children out to the hopefully safer countryside. Nottingham was chock full of factories that either had been or would be converted to war production.

Olivia, like so many children, was sent – or evacuated as it was referred to – turning the white lie of Emma being alone into a lonely truth. A truth that, even as it broke her heart a bit, forced her into relying on her fellow librarians for companionship and friendship and opened up her world and her place in it, if only to get herself away from a flat that was empty, quiet and much, much too clean.

The Booklover’s Library becomes a story on three levels. On the first level, there’s Emma, her work and her life on the homefront as the Blitz bombards Nottingham as well as other industrial centers. On the second, there’s Olivia’s own story, an independent adventure she feels forced to take as hers becomes one of the placements that does not work out – at all. And over all of that, there’s the story of the power of literature to build community – and to help people find a light in even the darkest of places.

And if that last piece of the story reminds readers of The Last Bookshop in London, it’s only right that it should. Both The Booklover’s Library and The Last Bookshop in London are from the same talented pen, and both tell charming and heartwarming stories centered on the early days of that terrible war.

Escape Rating B: I picked up The Booklover’s Library because I was fascinated by the concept AND because I enjoyed the author’s earlier book, The Last Bookshop in London. (Which is absolutely a readalike for this book and vice versa!)

That both stories are grounded in surprising bits of real history made them that much more captivating. In this story, it’s the existence of the Boots’ Booklover’s Libraries, which existed until 1966! What’s notable about the Boots’ libraries is that they provided popular fiction – even salacious fiction – to their middle-class subscribers.

(The debate about popular vs. improving literature in public libraries has been loud, vociferous, and contentious in both the UK and the US and is STILL ongoing.)

As a librarian, I found the portrait of the Boots’ library, how it worked and how its ‘librarians’ were trained to be utterly fascinating, while the friendship, camaraderie and support that developed among the women working there – particularly under wartime conditions – is sure to charm the heart of ANY reader.

The story of the evacuations, told from both the perspective of Emma who misses her daughter but wants her safe, and Olivia who has found that safety from bombing is not nearly enough, provides a perspective that adds to the depth of the story. (This was not my favorite part of the story, but it was an important part nonetheless.)

Like The Last Bookshop in London, the story of The Booklover’s Library does not go into the details of Emma’s and Olivia’s experiences through the whole war. It doesn’t need to. It ends at the point where their personal crises have been resolved even though the war has several years to run. The icing on this cake – even if sugar is rationed – is that Emma has her chance at a Happy Ever After. The rest of their war will be following that admonition to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, but in much happier circumstances in spite of the war. And together.

But the reader needs to know that Emma, Olivia and their friends and loved ones made it out okay. Which we do get in a sparkling epilogue. A fitting ending to a lovely read.

#BookReview: One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery

#BookReview: One Big Happy Family by Susan MalleryOne Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 320
Published by Canary Street Press on October 1, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Please don’t come home for Christmas…
Julie Parker’s kids are her greatest gift. Still, she’s not exactly heartbroken when they ask to skip a big Christmas. Her son, Nick, is taking a belated honeymoon with his bride, Blair, while her daughter, Dana, will purge every reminder of the guy who dumped her. Again. Julie feels practically giddy for one-on-one holiday time with Heath, the (much) younger man she’s secretly dating.
But her plans go from cozy to chaotic when Nick and Dana plead for Christmas at the family cabin in memory of their late father, Julie’s ex. She can’t refuse, even though she dreads their reactions to her new man when they realize she’s been hiding him for months.
As the guest list grows in surprising ways, from Blair’s estranged mom to Heath’s precocious children, Julie’s secret is one of many to be unwrapped. Over this delightfully complicated and very funny Christmas, she’ll discover that more really is merrier, and that a big, happy family can become bigger and happier, if they let go of old hurts and open their hearts to love.

My Review:

That phrase is often said ironically, with a bit of a smirk instead of a smile, even an eye roll – as if somehow it’s a contradiction in terms like ‘jumbo shrimp’. When someone says “One big happy family” there’s usually a bit of a caveat to the ‘happy’ part. That something – or perhaps a whole lot of somethings or even someones – aren’t nearly as happy as things appear on the surface.

If they’re even bothering to pretend, that is.

But the Parker family is, at least, generally happy with each other – even if that’s leavened with just a bit of sadness this particular holiday as it’s their first without one of the family’s integral members. Julie Parker may have gotten over her marriage and her divorce from Eldon years ago, but he remained her friend and co-parent if not her spouse, and their adult children, Nick and Dana, miss him a LOT this first Christmas without him. The family holiday traditions just aren’t the same without him, because Eldon was really big on Christmas and he was at the center of a lot of those traditions.

Even if Julie was the person who put in the work to make them all happen. Which is the story of both her marriage AND her life. Julie gets things done, and isn’t good at relying on anyone else in the doing. The family Christmas traditions were a LOT of work – work that ALL fell on Julie’s strong but slightly tired shoulders.

She’s REALLY looking forward to this Christmas, a holiday where her big, generally happy, family is scattering to the four winds. She’s planning on two weeks of bliss and peace – not necessarily in that order – in the coziness of her own house WITH the boyfriend that she hasn’t told her kids about yet.

The only reason Julie has been keeping Heath a secret is that she’s much too worried about her family’s judgment of their relationship. Her kids know she’s dated in the decade plus since her divorce, and they’re fine with that. But she hasn’t let those relationships become serious enough to warrant the boyfriend meeting the family.

Heath is different. On paper, they match up well. Both divorced, both with two children, both owners of successful businesses, both strong and independent and capable. Heath’s a catch, and there’s no catch to the relationship, except for one thing that Julie can’t get out of her head. Heath is 42, and Julie is 54. There’s a lot of living between those twelve years, they are at different places in their lives, and people will judge them – because that’s what people do.

It may be a bigger problem in Julie’s mind than it is in the world at large or certainly among her family – but it is a real problem or at least it certainly can be.

Julie’s not sure their relationship is ready – or more to the point, that she is ready – to make Heath a part of her one big happy family. She’s happy to be able to put that off until after the holidays – possibly indefinitely.

Which is the point where all those plans refuse to survive first contact with the rest of that family, as Christmas turns into one last almighty grab at all their holiday traditions, all at once, with extra added family and a whole entire herd of drama llamas in tow.

Heath turns out to be more than willing to roll with all the punches. The question is whether Julie is, too.

Escape Rating B+: Julie’s issues over this family holiday are far, far, far from the only ones that rear their heads this holiday – but they are the ones that tugged at my heartstrings the most because they are oh so familiar and Julie is right, society will judge her relationship with a younger man. Some will judge harshly and some will say, “You go, girl!” but there will be judgment either way. And they are at different places in their lives and always will be – but that’s true of any couple with an age gap no matter which direction it goes – even if society usually glosses over those differences when the age gap is in the ‘expected’ direction.

But Julie and Heath’s issues together, along with Julie’s need to be in control and in charge at all times and not need anyone else, are not the only snow-covered hill to climb this holiday season. Every single member of this extended family has brought their very own, personal, drama llama to this Christmas feast.

The family isn’t entirely happy – as no family ever is all of the time – but there are a lot of them and the result is a lot of family dramas in a house with such wonderfully wonky acoustics that everyone can hear everything that happens everywhere outside of a closed door, even in a house big enough for SIX bedrooms and all the communal spaces that six bedrooms full of people might possibly need.

So it’s Julie and Heath, her son Nick, Nick’s wife Blair, the uncle who actually raised Blair AND her sourpuss of an estranged mother who didn’t – as well as Nick’s secret plans to NOT take over the family business after all. Julie’s daughter Dana and the man who keeps breaking her heart, over and over again – who is also Julie’s employee. Heath’s children, Madeline and Wyatt,who are ten and eight and no problem at all, but their mother, Heath’s ex Tiffany, got dumped for Christmas so Julie invites her, too. That’s not even everyone but it’s a bit past enough even before Julie ends up in the hospital after an accident.

All that’s missing is the partridge in the pear tree!

I love a good age gap romance – particularly when the woman is the older half of that relationship – when it’s done right. Which it very much is in One Big Happy Family. Howsomever, as an only child myself, the sheer number of family members and the craziness each of them brought to the holiday table – simultaneously – was the stuff of which nightmares are made. I found plenty to empathize with in most of their relationships – but I also found myself wishing there was one less of them – although I recognize that’s a ‘me’ thing and may not be a ‘you’ thing and your reading mileage may definitely vary.

All in all, if you’re looking for a happy ever after portrait of a chaotic family holiday with a family that loves each other completely and is going to stick together no matter what and get through this mess, One Big Happy Family does turn out to be a charming holiday portrait of, in the end, really, truly, one big happy family.

A- #BookReview: The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak

A- #BookReview: The Banned Books Club by Brenda NovakThe Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: books and reading, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Mira on September 17, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

She left her hometown following a scandal—but family loyalty is dragging her back…
Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi’s sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. After her rebellious and at-times-tumultuous teen years, Gia left town with little reason to look back. But she knows Margot’s borne the brunt of their mother’s care and now it’s Gia’s turn to help, even if it means opening old wounds.
As expected, Gia’s homecoming is far from welcome. There’s the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher. The one who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. The one who prompted Gia to leave behind a very conflicted town the minute she turned eighteen. The one person she hoped never to see again.
When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister’s “perfect” life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder. Fortunately, she learns that there are people she can depend on. And by standing up for the truth, she finds love and a future in the town she thought had rejected her.

My Review:

I picked this book for today because Sunday is the official start of Banned Books Week, but the blog tour ends Saturday so this was as close as I could get. So here we are. Or rather, there Gia Rossi is, back home in Wakefield, Iowa. Pretty much the last place on Earth she wants to be.

There isn’t exactly an actual Banned Books Club in this book, but once upon a time, back when Gia and her sister Margot were in high school, there was. Before all the shit hit all the fans in town, and Gia left and tried her damndest not to look back.

However, it could be said, and it would be absolutely true, that everything that happens in this book, even though it takes place nearly 20 years later, is a ripple effect of that long ago club.

Gia started the club because she was seemingly a natural-born iconoclast, a person who never met a windmill she didn’t want to tilt at, someone who, when told by her parents and everyone around her explicitly NOT to make waves, would make the biggest waves she could manage to churn up.

Her high school banned The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders and The Handmaid’s Tale from the Honors English reading list. Not that this happened officially, exactly. The PTA browbeat the teacher, who was the head of the English department, into dropping the books. That teacher, Mr. Hart, didn’t stand up for either the books or the students.

If Gia had been a bit older – or a bit more cynical – she would have seen that as a sign. But she wasn’t and she didn’t and thereby hangs half this tale.

But only half because this isn’t just Gia’s story. It’s the story of both Gia and her sister Margot. The rule breaker and the rule follower. The wild child and the golden. The one who left – with the town practically lighting her way with torches and pitchforks – and the one who stayed and did everything she thought she was supposed to do.

Until their mother was diagnosed with cancer and both of their houses of cards came tumbling down.

Escape Rating A-: As I said at the top, this isn’t really a story about that high school banned books club. Very much on the other hand, this is a book that in certain ways fits right in with the kind of books that have been banned.

It tells not just one but two stories that make people uncomfortable – which is what really lies behind all of the book bannings. (Purported reasons for that discomfort certainly vary – but the fact of the discomfort remains the same) The three books that were removed from Gia’s high school reading list have all been repeated targets of challenges and bans for the past 30 years if not longer.

The Banned Books Club combines two stories that make people uncomfortable, stories that some people would prefer not to read about. Gia’s story is about her sexual molestation at the hands of a teacher – and the way that the town divided among itself in the aftermath and literally makes it psychologically damaging for her to remain.

Margot’s story is about domestic abuse. Her angry, controlling husband hasn’t hit her – yet – but the emotional and psychological abuse he dishes out with every breath is even more damaging. But he’s good buddies with the local cops – to the point where they turn a blind eye to his harassment. Even though by this point his wife has fled so he’s not harassing her – his harassment to the point of vandalism is directed at his wife’s family – including her cancer-stricken mother – after Margot flees.

(While some readers may be thinking that the themes of this book are considered fairly tame stuff today and are common plots in women’s fiction, it’s fair to say that some will view Gia’s story as “woke” because the (very young) woman was believed instead of the male authority figure. Margot’s story could also be condemned because it challenges the integrity of the “thin blue line”, and because there’s suddenly a whole lot of nostalgia for the 1950s when divorces were considerably fewer because women had no other options – going all the way to the point where the idea that women should remain even in violent marriages is getting a lot of airplay these days.)

Neither of their stories make for light reading, but they are both important as they are stories about standing up for oneself in spite of the still, small voice in the back of many of our heads telling us not to rock the boat, that things could always be worse.

So, as a book, I found both Gia’s and Margot’s not exactly fun to read but compelling in the way that each of them worked out a way forwards – no matter how desperate in Margot’s case. However, she planned expertly in spite of her many, justified fears and executed that plan brilliantly – and I always give points for competence especially in desperate situations.

In the end, I did feel like there was a lot of unpleasant crap in the family dynamics between Gia and Margot and between the sisters and their parents that contributed to pretty much everything – especially the way that Gia left town and stayed virtually gone for nearly two decades. Those issues didn’t so much get resolved as swept under the rug in the wake of their mother’s death. Which is exactly what families do, but it left this reader feeling like there was a bit of a loose end that I’d like to have seen resolved – or at least acknowledged – before the end.

But I did like that Gia decides to move back to Wakefield and open a bookstore – a store she plans to name, of course and fittingly for a happy ending that brings the story around full circle, the Banned Books Shoppe. A place where banned books will be loved and recommended, bought and sold, available and read, but never, ever banned!

#BookReview: The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard

#BookReview: The Ghost Cat by Alex HowardThe Ghost Cat by Alex Howard
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cat stories, cozy fantasy, historical fantasy, historical fiction, magical realism
Pages: 272
Published by Hanover Square Press on August 27, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A charming novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and How to Stop Time , following a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and its inhabitants over centuries
Early morning, 1902. At 7/7 Marchmont Crescent, Eilidh the charlady tips coal into a fire grate and sets it alight. Overhearing, Grimalkin the cat ambles over to curl up against the welcome heat and lick his favorite human's hand. But this is to be his last day on earth…before he becomes the Ghost Cat.
Follow Grimalkin as he witnesses the changes of the next 120 years, prowling unseen among the inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement while unearthing some startling revelations about the mystery of existence, the unstoppable march of time and the true meaning of feline companionship.

My Review:

Grimalkin is dead, to begin with. (The opening line to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a gift that just keeps on giving.)

Grimalkin is a house cat, in fact THE house cat, at 7/7 Marchmont Crescent, born in 1887 and dead at the rather battered age of 15 in 1902. The thing about Grimalkin’s death that makes the story work is that the cat gods, in the person of Cat-Sìth who comes to visit Grimalkin upon the occasion of his death have to admit that they’ve fallen down on the job. As a cat, his spirit if not his body is entitled to nine lives, and he’s been shorted out of eight of them.

Something must be done in redress.

Grimalkin is given a choice even if the full measure of it isn’t clear to him at the time. He can go to his eternal sleep – or – he can have his eight remaining lives as a ghost cat. He’ll be able to experience the world, but generally not affect it – at least until his final three lives. He’ll be granted two more lives to ‘stay’ as he did in his first, corporeal life, three lives to ‘stray’ and three lives to ‘play’ as a poltergeist.

He’ll get to see how his human, Eilidh, is doing even if he won’t be able to actually be with her. He’ll get to see how the place he lived is getting on over the years. He’ll experience a bit of the world as it changes. But only for one day in each life.

His body will no longer feel pain, and he’ll be incapable of being harmed. But harm to the body isn’t half as painful as harm to the heart and the soul. There will be times when the world will have moved too fast for him to cope with. There will be occasions that will break his heart. There will be times when he’ll want to give up and go to his final, eternal catnap right meow.

But he’ll also have a few opportunities to change the world – not in a big way – but in small and important ways to make sure that a person or two gets EXACTLY what they deserve. Whether what they deserve is salvation – or damnation.

In Grimalkin’s case, the old saying proves to be absolutely true. “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”

Escape Rating B: First, let me admit the obvious. I’ve been picking a lot of books with cats recently because I miss Lucifer something fierce. Each person deals with their emotions in different ways – for me it’s books.

(The above comment does not apply to Junkyard Roadhouse. I’ve been following that series for four years now and would have grabbed that audiobook the minute it arrived no matter when it came. The series is totally awesome. Review coming later this week.)

Pivoting from my digression, I also have to say that I’m glad I read this AFTER the trip to Glasgow and not before – even though this is set in Edinburgh. There are a few things – like the ubiquitous presence of IRN BRU – that just had a bit more immediacy and resonance after such a recent trip to Scotland – and Britain more generally – than they would have before.

As a story, The Ghost Cat feels like a timeslip story mixed with quite a bit of magical realism as well as a touch of the musical Cats and just a hint of the cat wizards in Diane Duane’s The Book of Night with Moon.

I loved Grimalkin as a character, even though his particular existence conflicted with the laws of the universe in ways that are detailed in the rather long Reviewer’s Note at the end. Grimalkin the cat displays the feelings that we all hope that our companion animals have for us, specifically that he has chosen his person and loves her unconditionally. His primary motivation for accepting the option of ghost lives is to follow her through the years – not understanding the heartbreak that will inevitably follow.

What makes him interesting to follow is the way that he dips into time – rather like Brigadoon – but at much shorter intervals. He gets to see just a bit of the changes in the world, and it’s particularly poignant that he is present for both Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation AND the announcement of her passing. Also a tad ironic, as at her coronation he assures himself that she’ll be just a ‘flash in the pan’ compared to the eternal Victoria who was Queen for his entire life – and of course he’s so very wrong about that.

But right about many other things – not so much about eras and the increasing pace of life and what appears to be its equally increasing lack of civility and manners – but rather about his insights into the hearts of people. Human nature, for good or ill, doesn’t change all that much over a mere century or so.

In the end, Grimalkin’s story is a lovely little collection of observations and snippets, grounded in a bit of the author’s life, however fictionalized – and with additional magic. It’s a charming slip through the high points of a century, as seen through the often floor-level eyes of one very intelligent – but ultimately soul-weary – cat.

If, like this reader, you’re looking for a story that will reassure your heart and soul that the cats who leave us behind love us even from the Rainbow Bridge or wherever it is they go next, Grimalkin’s story may also serve as a bit of a balm to a wounded heart.

Reviewer’s (REALLY LONG) Note on feline genetics as applied to Grimalkin, the tl;dr version of which is that Grimalkin is genetically impossible and the story didn’t cover that over with even a bit of handwavium.

The ‘ghost cat’ of the title, Grimalkin, is very explicitly described as a rather prolifically reproductive tortoiseshell tomcat – and that is an actual, honest-to-goodness contradiction in terms. Due to the peculiarities of feline genetics as they apply to coat color and gender, tortoiseshell and calico cats are nearly always female. It is possible, but very rare for a male tortie or calico to be born – only a 1 in 3,000 or .033% chance. (That’s not 33% or 3%, that’s 3 one hundredths of one percent. In other words, the chance exists but it’s TINY.) And due to the genetic anomalies that allow this to happen, male tortoiseshell and calico cats are always sterile.

Now and very much on the other hand, the book of The Ghost Cat definitely falls into the category of magical realism – meaning that magic could make Grimalkin exactly what he is in the story. In the Victorian Era, when Grimalkin was born, science and the ‘Cat Fancy’ hadn’t yet figured much if any of this out, although detailed observation would have led to a conclusion that male torties were rare indeed. Howsomever, the cat gods or deities or powers-that-be or whatever that magic black cat with the white heart marking was could easily have known just how special Grimalkin was and commented upon it – as that cat spirit did so many other things. A mention would have taken care of the incongruity and kept it from tripping me – and probably other readers who are even slightly familiar with cat genetics – out of the story every time Grimalkin’s appearance was detailed.

I understand completely the desire for Grimalkin to possess both a tomcat’s machismo AND a heaping helping of tortitude, I just needed a bit of handwavium (or plot armor) to get there that wasn’t present in the story.

Your reading mileage, or percentage in this case, as always, may vary.