Category: blog tours

Review: The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey YatesThe Comeback Cowboy by Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Jasper Creek #4
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on April 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

They may not have been friends when they were younger but now, they’ll work together to save the camp that saved them and, maybe, even find love in the process…
The alumni of Camp Phoenix, a summer program for at-risk youth, went their separate ways, but now they’ve been called back to help the camp reopen for a new crop of kids. Now successful adults, the four women pledge to restore the grounds to their former glory, if long-standing rivalries and old flames don’t get in the way first…
Bree White fought hard to get away from her criminal family and all of the reminders of her past until Sheriff Flint Decker brings all those feelings back and more. Attorney Violet Cook owes her life to Camp Phoenix and is determined to save the camp…but who’s going to save her from the temptation of long-time crush US Marshal Lincoln Traeger? Kinley Parker never left Camp Phoenix, dedicating her life to it, and has no time for pushy cowboys like Jackson Hart until butting heads leads to sparks. The daughter of the camp’s founder. Clementine McClain has always wanted to follow in her law-abiding father’s footsteps, but her father’s protégé and former bad boy Duke Cody has her breaking all the rules.  

My Review:

The image of the phoenix is a powerful one, a being of flame, rising from the ashes of its previous self. That’s the image that Sheriff Bill McClain of Jasper Creek invoked when he built Phoenix Camp. He made the camp into a place where teens who were heading down bad roads would have a chance to take a breath in a safe place and look hard at their past selves and, with support and understanding, choose to rise from their own ashes.

When The Comeback Cowboy opens, Bill has passed and the camp has been neglected for years. It’s going to take time, money and more than a bit of elbow grease to bring the place back from its own ashes.

Just as both McClain and the camp he created once helped its alumni pick up their pieces and move on, so now it’s their turn to bring the place that helped them back so that Camp Phoenix can help a new generation of kids who need it as much as they did.

So there’s not just one “comeback cowboy” in this book, there are four; Flint, Lincoln, Jackson and Duke. All are now in their early 30s, and they all “graduated” from the school of hard knocks but, thanks to McClain, found a better path than their lives had originally intended them for. Jackson Hart, forced to retire from the DEA after a career-ending injury, now owns the old camp. And he’s determined to turn it back into the saving place it once was – and to save himself as well.

His friends all come back to help him with the many, many dirty jobs that will be needed to make that happen. And he coaxes, persuades, orders, whatever, a group of the successful women who once walked that same misguided path that he and his friends did. Women who owe their success to Bill McClain and Camp Phoenix every bit as much as those comeback cowboys do.

The story in The Comeback Cowboy is the story of putting, not the band – because this bunch was never all that together – but the camp back together. It’s about restoring the place and the traditions that made them each what they became.

A restoration that takes place in the background as the four women; Bree, Violet, Kinley and Clementine – who all hated and envied each other as teenagers – bond into a sisterhood that surprises them all. And find the love that none of them ever thought they would have or deserve – after the pasts they all share.

Escape Rating A-: The Comeback Cowboy is both one story and four stories at the same time. It’s about what the camp meant to them in the past, and what they hope it will mean to others in the future. It’s about giving back and not giving up.

And its four romances – all taking place at the same time and in the same place. But each of them just a bit different in spite of those similarities.

Bree and Flint’s romance is absolutely enemies-to-lovers. It’s hard to think of a situation that would create more enmity in the past – as well as embarrassment in the present – than their original not-cute-at-all meeting. When Bree was 14, and Flint was a newly fledged police officer, he arrested Bree for shoplifting. Instead of booking her he brought her to McClain which led to the camp which put her on the path to a much brighter future.

But she’s never forgotten and is not too sure she’s forgiven either. Falling in love with the man who arrested her was NOT in Bree’s plans. Stealing his hat, on the other hand, sparks off something special.

Each of the women ‘steals’ something from one of the men. An important something, like Flint’s hat. Or an annoying something, like Jackson’s ever-present and frequently squawking bullhorn. As love languages go, it’s certainly different.

At the same time it’s emblematic of who these people are and what parts of their lives they still need to re-think before they are ready for their own future. In other words, each of them needs to rise up like the phoenix one more time, and those so-important items are symbols of what they need to let go of to make that climb.

Violet and Lincoln’s romance is a bit of a second-chance one, as she had a huge crush on him back in the day, while he noticed how much she pretended to hate him but didn’t see her as more than a little girl – because she was much too young. Now they’re both adults, and both of them have traumas in their pasts that they need to let go of, symbolized by Lincoln’s grandmother’s locket that Violet makes off with.

In their different ways, both Kinley and Jackson need to, as his friends tell him, unclench. He can’t always be in control, and has to learn to let go of the facade that he can, while Kinley needs to let herself stand up for herself. Their ‘bone’ of contention is that damnable bullhorn that Jackson keeps putting between himself and the world that no one can truly control.

Clementine McClain and Duke Cody have known each other for years. She’s McClain’s daughter – and now she’s Duke’s cop partner. Their romance has the flavor of the ‘best friend’s little sister’ vibe, as Duke has watched Clementine grow up and does feel protective of her. That she’s his mentor’s daughter adds the spice of the forbidden to the whole thing. Once she was forbidden, but not anymore.

Three out of the four romances worked really well for this reader. It didn’t seem like Jackson and Kinley’s romance had quite enough time for it to not seem a bit too fast and more than a bit convenient, but the others had more than enough history to make what would otherwise be insta-love really zing. Clementine’s story had the added bonus of her personal journey from ‘one of the boys’, because that was the only way her dad could deal with her, to accepting herself as she is. That it’s all wrapped in how much she loves her dad, misses him, and still resents just how much he made her feel like her being female was an embarrassment to him added an interesting layer of complexity to her story.

In summary, because this does need one, I loved three of the romances, thought the fourth was OK, and found the story of the camp and its rise from its ashes to be delightful. If you love any of the included authors, or are looking for a bit of a contemporary western romance sampler, The Comeback Cowboy is a treat!

Review: The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna + GiveawayThe Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: Arthurian legends, fantasy, historical fantasy, retellings
Pages: 400
Published by Angry Robot on May 9, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Four women, four destinies – the future of King Arthur's court…
A new, feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends
The Cleaving is an Arthurian retelling that follows the tangled stories of four women: Nimue, Ygraine, Morgana, and Guinevere, as they fight to control their own destinies amid the wars and rivalries that will determine the destiny of Britain.
The legendary epics of King Arthur and Camelot don’t tell the whole story. Chroniclers say Arthur’s mother Ygraine married the man that killed her husband. They say that Arthur's half-sister Morgana turned to dark magic to defy him and Merlin. They say that the enchantress Nimue challenged Merlin and used her magic to outwit him. And that Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere ended in adultery, rebellion and bloodshed. So why did these women chose such dangerous paths?
As warfare and rivalries constantly challenge the king, Arthur and Merlin believe these women are destined to serve Camelot by doing as they are told. But men forget that women talk. Ygraine, Nimue, Morgana and Guinevere become friends and allies while the decisions that shape their lives are taken out of their hands. This is their untold story. Now these women have a voice.
Juliet McKenna is an expert on medieval history and warfare and brings this expertise as well as her skills as a fantasy writer to this epic standalone novel.

My Review:

The story (or legend, or myth, or history) of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is one of those “tales as old as time.” Whether one considers it a myth, or a legend, or a bit of fictionalized or fantasized history, there’s something about the story that speaks to generation after generation, and has since Sir Thomas Malory compiled his now-famous Le Morte d’Arthur back in the 15th century.

A compilation which was itself based on an earlier popular “history”, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century History of the Kings of Britain. All of the elements we now recognize as part of the Matter of Britain, King Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, the castle at Tintagel, the sword Excalibur and his final rest in Avalon are all in that 12th century tale, just as they are in this 21st century reimagining, The Cleaving.

Some stories, and some characters, are so profoundly immortal that they must be reinterpreted for each generation and the story of King Arthur is one of those tales. Each generation has reinvented the “once and future king” for over EIGHT centuries so far.

There’s no sign of that stopping any time soon. Rather the reverse. The Cleaving, with its gritty medieval setting and its female-centered perspective on the deeds and misdeeds of the arrogant and autocratic and all-too-frequently abusive men they were supposed to serve and obey, shows the reader a somewhat more-plausible version of a story we all believe we know and love. The Cleaving tells another, rather different side to a legend and makes it all that much more “real” and even believable by that telling.

And it’s going to inform and inflect (or possibly infect) the next generation of tellers of this beloved tale. As it so very much should.

Escape Rating A+: The Cleaving is a compelling conundrum of a book. On the one hand, the story of King Arthur and his knights has been told, and retold, over and over, to the point where it forms one of the foundational tales of western literature along with a considerable number of the archetypes therein.

But very much on the other hand, in order to be considered a good book right now, The Cleaving has to be, and very much is, considerably more than merely a rehash of a story we already know. So it has the hard work of being a book where readers will already know how the story ends, while needing to tell its familiar story in a way that is fresh and new and will appeal to the audiences of its time and not just play on the nostalgia of those already familiar with the story.

The Cleaving succeeds in dancing on that very high and narrow tightrope by telling the story from the perspective of the women who usually exist as mere ciphers in its background while the men perform all the deeds of derring-do and conduct all the important business of their realms.

What The Cleaving does with the familiar story doesn’t change the story nearly as much as an earlier explicitly feminist and fantastically magical version – Marion Zimmer Bradley’s ultra popular The Mists of Avalon – did. Rather, The Cleaving takes that original story of men doing manly things and shows it from the perspective of a group of intelligent, influential women who performed as society forced them to in public – while maintaining their own thoughts and their own council behind the scenes.

It’s a portrait that feels more realistic to a 21st century reader without stretching the bounds of anachronism. These women were expected to manage complicated households, oversee large budgets for those households, keep everything running smoothly whether their lords were in residence or not – and even act in place of those lords when they were away – as many often were.

That level of intelligence and capability can’t be faked for very long at all without being found out. On the other hand, public subservience is easy to fake just by schooling one’s expressions and keeping one’s mouth shut except to be agreeable and above all, meek. It would require getting used to the sensation of swallowing one’s own tongue rather a lot, but it can be done. Especially in front of men who would be inclined to believe it anyway.

So in public they all seem meek, mild and accepting of the inevitable. Because the abuse they suffered, whether physical or emotional, was inevitable. Their choices were few. But in private, they mitigated what damage they could. Even if it wasn’t nearly enough.

So Uther, with Merlin’s connivance, rapes Ygraine while wearing her beloved husband’s face. With Merlin’s connivance, the child of that rape becomes king. With Merlin’s connivance, a whole lot of things happen that probably shouldn’t. (There’s a possible interpretation of this version of the Arthurian legend as Merlin interfered with a whole lot of things that he should have left well enough alone and karma is a bitch.)

Because of the way the story plays out, and just how much the queens are influencing events when the men are too busy pillaging to pay attention, even though we know how the story ends we don’t know how it gets there, and it keeps the reader turning pages to learn what is different and what remains familiar when told from a formerly hidden point of view.

Based on this latest variation of these seemingly eternal legends, we’re clearly not done with Arthur yet. Is it possible that this is what was truly meant by that sobriquet, “the once and future king”?

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Thanks to the publisher, Angry Robot, I’m giving away one copy of The Cleaving to one lucky US or UK commenter on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Her Lost Words by Stephanie Marie Thornton

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Her Lost Words by Stephanie Marie ThorntonHer Lost Words: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Stephanie Marie Thornton
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: biography, historical fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 448
Published by Berkley Books on March 28, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to Frankenstein, a tale of two literary legends--a mother and daughter--discovering each other and finding themselves along the way, from USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Marie Thornton.
1792. As a child, Mary Wollstonecraft longed to disappear during her father's violent rages. Instead, she transforms herself into the radical author of the landmark volume A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she dares to propose that women are equal to men. From conservative England to the blood-drenched streets of revolutionary France, Mary refuses to bow to society's conventions and instead supports herself with her pen until an illicit love affair challenges her every belief about romance and marriage. When she gives birth to a daughter and is stricken with childbed fever, Mary fears it will be her many critics who recount her life's extraordinary odyssey...
1818. The daughter of infamous political philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, passionate Mary Shelley learned to read by tracing the letters of her mother's tombstone. As a young woman, she desperately misses her mother's guidance, especially following her scandalous elopement with dashing poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary struggles to balance an ever-complicated marriage with motherhood while nursing twin hopes that she might write something of her own one day and also discover the truth of her mother's unconventional life. Mary's journey will unlock her mother's secrets, all while leading to her own destiny as the groundbreaking author of Frankenstein.
A riveting and inspiring novel about a firebrand feminist, her visionary daughter, and the many ways their words transformed our world.

My Review:

As a young woman, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the future Mary Shelley) must have felt as if she would always live in the shadow of her scandalous, reviled, radical mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the famous – or infamous – philosophical treatise,  A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

After all, even when the younger Mary first met the love of her life, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, even he confessed to being a fan of her mother’s work.

But the tides of history turn, and for more than a century after Mary Shelley’s death it was HER great work that captured the limelight – and much of the popular imagination – while her mother’s achievements were covered in the shadows cast by her daughter’s monster, the doctor who made him and the literary genre they started.

Mary Shelley and her Frankenstein gave birth to modern science fiction at the age of 19, an achievement for which she is celebrated every bit as much as both mother and daughter were reviled in their own times.

The story in Her Lost Words takes the lives of this pair of literary giants and tells them in alternating first-person chapters. So we read about the mother’s life from her not-early-enough escape from her abusive father’s house to her death alternating with her daughter’s life from learning to read using the letters of her mother’s tombstone to her return to England after the publication of Frankenstein, the birth of her own child and Shelley’s tragic early death as she navigates her own storied life.

Their stories are intertwined – but also entirely different. The older Mary was always in search of a life of the mind – even though women were supposed to be incapable of such a thing. The younger Mary expected to have such a life but devoted more of her passion to her relationships, particularly with Shelley, until her monster took over her literary ambitions.

One was thought, one was feeling. Each was a towering genius in their own way. Her Lost Words does its best to set them both in their times, showing their influence on each other and their respective legacies while doing its best to see them each outside the long shadow that the other cast.

Escape Rating B: Someone needs to do a literary survey of just how many fictional and even non-fictional biographies of famous women in history begin with a dramatic scene of parental or spousal abuse. Not that I do not believe it’s true in the case of the older Mary, more that it should be telling in a profound way that it happened so damn frequently but somehow that message never seems to penetrate the male psyche. Which is a part of what made A Vindication of the Rights of Women such a radical document, not just in its day but still. Because we haven’t achieved all the rights she set out in the late 1700s even to this day.

If behind every successful man there stands his mother-in-law, quite surprised – or more likely a supportive woman in one or many roles in his life, in historical fiction, at least, it does seem as if behind every successful woman stands a male authority figure, generally a spouse or parent, with his hand still raised to deliver yet another blow as she runs away as far and as fast as she can.

(I’ll climb down off my soapbox now but considering the general opprobrium both of the subjects of this dual fictional biography faced in their lifetimes, if there was ever a book to make that soapbox germane, this is it. I digress, but not as much as usual.)

I ended up with mixed feelings about Her Lost Words. I really enjoyed the history, and I liked the dueling dual portraits of these two incredible women. I think where it didn’t work quite well for me was in those first-person singular voices, because this story was told as women’s fiction, centering their personal lives as much as their professional lives, and dealing as much with their emotions as it did with their written thoughts and words.

First-person narratives can be excellent in drawing a reader into the mind of a character, but Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley weren’t fictional characters, they were real women who each left behind a considerable body of literary work. I was more interested in what they actually said and wrote and what they actually did than anything else. The book was very well done for what it was, but the presentation of historical figures as characters in women’s fiction didn’t quite work for this reader.

I wanted to be all in on this one and I just wasn’t. I’m still interested in Wollstonecraft and Shelley, and will probably refer myself to Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon, a nonfiction dual biography that covers much of the same ground as Her Lost Words, and features in the author’s references the next time my towering TBR pile catches its breath.

So if you’re looking for more of a factual biographical presentation, this may not be the book for you, as it was not for me. But if you are searching for a fictionalized history, Her Lost Words is a well-written exploration of these towering literary figures told from a personal and even intimate point of view.

Review: The Sister Effect by Susan Mallery

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Sister Effect by Susan MalleryThe Sister Effect by Susan Mallery
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 416
Published by Hqn on March 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Beloved bestselling author Susan Mallery brings readers an emotional, witty, and heartfelt story that explores the nuances of a broken family’s complex emotions as they strive to become whole in this uplifting story of human frailty and resilience.
Finley McGowan is determined that the niece she’s raising will always feel loved and wanted. Unlike how she felt after her mom left to pursue a dream of stardom, and when the grandfather who was left to raise them abandoned her and her sister, Sloane, when they needed him most. Finley reacted to her chaotic childhood by walking the straight and narrow—nose down, work hard, follow the rules.
Sloane went the other way.
Now Sloane is back, as beautiful and as damaged as ever…and she wants a relationship with her daughter. She says she’s changed, but Finley’s heart has been burned once too often for her to trust easily. But is her reluctance to forgive really about Sloane or worry over losing what she loves the most? With the help of a man who knows all too well how messy families can be, Finley will learn there’s joy in surrendering and peace in letting go.
 

My Review:

Supposedly, “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and [it] never fails. But love is a feeling. It’s not the emotion that does anything. It’s PEOPLE who love and do all the other things in this famous list from the Bible.

In dysfunctional families such as the ones in this story, it’s the strongest members of the family who do most of that bearing and enduring – even after their hope is gone. The story in The Sister Effect (technically it should have been The Sibling Effect but that’s not nearly as catchy a title) is told from the perspective of that person in two initially separate families, that one who stands tallest and is supposed to forgive everyone else all their many and very real trespasses – even as they deal with the trauma that bearing inflicts. On top of dealing with the original trauma and the dysfunction and broken trust that followed it.

Jericho Ford is still grieving the sudden loss of his father as well as having to assume the helm of the family construction company a couple of decades before he thought he was ready. He thought his family had finally found their way to the other side of that grief when their dysfunction manifested in a way that honestly deserves its own episode of the Jerry Springer Show.

Jericho’s wife Lauren and his brother Gil didn’t just have an affair, they managed to fall in love and get pregnant. Jericho is supposed to forgive, forget, give his blessing AND be his brother’s best man. Jericho’s lack of grief over the end of his marriage is so easy to get past that he realizes that it had been over for a long time.

The way that his brother betrayed his trust is a LOT harder to get over. And he’s having a LOT of trouble over it. That betrayal cut deep, and he’s still righteously angry about the whole thing. His mother wants peace in what remains of her family, while Jericho wants to stop having to be the bigger man about damn near everything.

But Jericho’s righteous anger provides the lighter moments in this one. The bigger trauma, the larger betrayals, and the huge tragedy in the story belongs to Finley McGowan as she is forced to keep her own trauma and broken trust at bay every single day.

Because Finley’s sister Sloane is an alcoholic whose last great binge before entering rehab derailed all of Finley’s plans for a future that she was working damn hard for. At least until Sloane stole Finley’s pickup truck filled with $100,000 of supplies for the house she was flipping, sold off those supplies and wrecked the truck. Along with Finley’s credit rating, her job and her relationship with her fiance. (He turned out to be no great loss, but still…)

And left Finley, always the responsible one, to take guardianship of Sloane’s then 5-year-old daughter Aubrey while Sloane tried to accept both her alcoholism and the steps she’d need to take to deal with it for the rest of her life. An acceptance she’s having difficulty reaching no matter how hard or how faithfully she performs the steps to achieve it.

Like Jericho’s mother, Finley and Sloane’s mother expects Finley to accept the apologies and keep on believing that Sloane will turn her life around no matter how damn tired Finley is of having to pick up the pieces of the wreck Sloane makes of Finley’s life – over and over and over.

Both Finley and Jericho begin the story in a place of being resentful as hell. They’re both right. It’s not fair to them. They’re the ones who have to set their own emotions aside, over and over again, for the benefit of people they’re not really sure ARE sorry for what they’ve done. And they’re both really tired of their respective messes – which are SO not their fault.

But holding on to their anger and resentment isn’t doing either of them any good. It’s only when they reach out to each other that they find much, much better feelings to hold onto.

Escape Rating A-: So often, stories like this one focus on the journey of the person who has committed the wrong or is on the road to recovery from their issues. Stories that focus on redemption and healing. What I really liked about The Sister Effect was that instead of focusing on Sloane’s redemption arc or Gil’s transgression turned epic romance (not that both aren’t important parts of this story), the story instead focused on the people picking up the pieces of their destruction, Finley and Jericho.

Their anger, resentment and distrust felt oh-so-righteous. It’s a perspective that’s sometimes missing in redemption stories, that the people wronged are entitled to their feelings and that “sorry” doesn’t wipe it all away. Their trust has been abused and broken, and they have to process that loss before they can move on with their lives.

They both need to forgive, if not forget, for their own healing, but it’s a hard journey and the difficulty of it made the characters shine – even while they ranted and vented and cried.

While Finley’s story was so much more traumatic and heartbreaking, Jericho’s was a necessary part of the whole. The farcical nature of his family’s difficulty both managed to balance out the heavier nature of hers while giving them common ground for reaching their own happy ever after with their respective – and combined – dysfunctional families.

The Sister Effect turned out to be a wonderful story about the ties that bind – and sometimes strangle – within families that have been to hell and back together and separately and still manage to find a way forward – more or less together. That their journey resolves into just the right mix of hopeful ‘happy for now’ for Sloane’s on her journey while giving Finley and Jericho as well as Gil and Lauren the happy ever after they’ve finally earned.

Review: The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The London Seance Society by Sarah PennerThe London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, magical realism
Pages: 352
Published by Park Row on March 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From the author of the sensational bestseller The Lost Apothecary comes a spellbinding tale about two daring women who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead.
1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.
Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

My Review:

Whether one believes that death is merely the gateway to the next great adventure, or that one is ascends to heaven or descends to hell, or that it is an end to all things – or holds some other belief altogether – we don’t actually KNOW in the empirical, scientific, provable and replicable sense. All that is certain is that death is inevitable – even more so than taxes in spite of the cliché.

The desire to know may be universal. When this story takes place in the 1870s the belief that it was possible to communicate with the dead, to reach behind that veil and either send or receive a message from those who had left us behind, was at its height. And also, as this book tells, its all too human, fallible and corruptible depths.

In other words, spiritualism was a very big – and very profitable deal in the 1870s. Victoria and the Victorian Era she gave her name to practically fetishized death. In the Re-United States there were few if any households who had not lost a friend or a loved one in the recent war. Plenty of people were looking for comfort or solace or simply closure.

No matter how prevalent beliefs in the spirit world may have been in the 1870s, later investigations proved that most of what was purported to be proof was actually proof of fraud and the gullibility of grieving people to believe what they needed to believe to get through their grief – or not, as the case might be.

But what if some of those beliefs were not misplaced? What if some mediums really could reach beyond the veil to bring true messages from the dead?

Lenna Wickes begins the story only believing in things she can see and hear and touch. But in her desperation to discover the truth about her sister’s murder, she turns to noted spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire to learn the tricks of her trade in the hopes of learning that truth – or at least of expiating her own guilt that their last conversation was yet another in an endless series of arguments.

What she finds instead is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and a fish that has rotted from the head down and threatens to engulf her and the woman she loves. Unless it blows up in her face.

Escape Rating A: I picked up The London Séance Society because I enjoyed the author’s debut novel, The Lost Apothecary, and wanted to see if her second book lived up to the first. Which it not only did, but was just that little bit better.

Her previous novel combined “a bit of a time slip story with historical fiction, a soupcon of magical realism and just a touch of mystery.” The London Séance Society skipped the timeslip, but told an even more fascinating tale of historical fiction with a much larger portion of magical realism and a heaping helping of mystery.

The magical realism is the part of the story that is both lampshaded and played straight at the same time – which keeps both the reader and the protagonist guessing from beginning to end.

Lenna Wickes represents the 21st century reader who does not believe in anything she can’t see or touch. Before her sister’s death, she collected fossils. But her sister Evie, who seemed to be a firm believer in spiritualism, claimed that those fossils were a kind of proof that it was possible to reach beyond the veil. That those preserved insects in amber, or the impressions of long-dead leaves and creatures in rock was just another way of reaching beyond death.

The sisters – as sisters do – strongly disagreed and were in disagreement when Evie was murdered.

Lenna dives into the world of spiritualism in an attempt to either communicate with her sister or figure out why she died, or both. She doesn’t believe, but she does feel that there might be something there. It’s also entirely possible that what she feels is considerably more related to her teacher than what she is being taught.

Whether Lenna believes or not, whether Vaudeline D’Allaire is a true medium or a fraud, it’s clear from the beginning that there is something rotten at The London Séance Society, a rich and powerful gentlemen’s club that prides itself on providing séances and other proofs of spiritualism.

Evie Wickes and the Society’s President were murdered on the same night – but not in the same place. It makes no sense to either Lenna or Vaudeline that the deaths could possibly be related. Until coincidences start piling up, and it becomes clear that someone high up in the Society was involved in something dirty that needed to be covered up. By any means necessary.

What made the story so compelling was the way that at first it seems like the identity of the rotter is obvious, to the point where one starts to believe one has it all figured out long before Lenna reaches that point. But there’s a niggle that it can’t possibly be that simple, and that’s what keeps one – or at least kept me – turning pages well into the night.

Because the more Lenna digs into the Society, the more dirt comes up, and the more the obvious conclusion looks to be hiding another, more sinister conclusion that is less obvious and even more unthinkable than the first terrible possibility. To the point where just when you think you can see the final twist coming – the story has yet one more turn to surprise you with.

The Lost Apothecary was very, very good. The London Séance Society is even better. I can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next!

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

Review: World Running Down by Al Hess

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: World Running Down by Al HessWorld Running Down by Al Hess
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: dystopian, post apocalyptic, science fiction
Pages: 299
Published by Angry Robot on February 14, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there's no such thing as a free lunch...
Valentine Weis is a salvager in the future wastelands of Utah. Wrestling with body dysphoria, he dreams of earning enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City - a utopia where the testosterone and surgery he needs to transition is free, the food is plentiful, and folk are much less likely to be shot full of arrows by salt pirates. But earning that kind of money is a pipe dream, until he meets the exceptionally handsome Osric.
Once a powerful AI in Salt Lake City, Osric has been forced into an android body against his will and sent into the wasteland to offer Valentine a job on behalf of his new employer - an escort service seeking to retrieve their stolen androids. The reward is a visa into the city, and a chance at the life Valentine's always dreamed of. But as they attempt to recover the "merchandise", they encounter a problem: the android ladies are becoming self-aware, and have no interest in returning to their old lives.
The prize is tempting, but carrying out the job would go against everything Valentine stands for, and would threaten the fragile found family that's kept him alive so far. He'll need to decide whether to risk his own dream in order to give the AI a chance to live theirs.

My Review:

World Running Down turned out to be my third climate-apocalypse dystopia in a row, after Junkyard War and Perilous Times. The world is going to hell in a handcart and it’s all humanity’s fault no matter how you look at it. But these three looks at the view from that handcart are quite different. And all, surprisingly, hopeful.

At first, Valentine Weis doesn’t seem to have much hope. Or, perhaps, hope’s all he’s got without any real way of making any of his hopes come close to realization. At least not until Osric drops into his life – just about literally – with an offer that Valentine probably should refuse.

Because anything that looks too good to be true generally is – especially with people who actually still have a conscience and at least an ounce of compassion for their fellow beings. However those beings present themselves and whatever they happen to be made of.

In his very post-climate apocalypse world, Valentine lives his life on the outside looking in. Someone is offering him the opportunity to finally be on the inside. The question is whether the price is one that he’s willing to pay.

Salt Lake City is one of the few remaining, functional cities in the U.S. It’s a place where healthcare and transportation are free, where it seems as if everyone has enough to eat and a place to live. It’s a place where the rich get richer and the poor peek through the glass at all the things they can’t have without citizenship. Or sponsorship. Or both.

Valentine has none of the above. Instead his only possession is a barely functioning van, his only friend is more of a frenemy, he’s just barely breaking even on the delivery and salvage jobs he takes to keep body and soul together. And he’s trapped in a body he knows is wrong, deals with regular and depressing bouts of body dysmorphia and keeps falling further behind in his quest to save up enough money to get admitted to the place where he can get the medicines and the surgery he needs to make his external appearance reflect his inner self.

Osric, on the other hand, isn’t even human. He’s a Steward, an elite artificial intelligence who has been placed in a mere android body by nefarious person or persons unknown and sent out by even more nefarious persons to rope Valentine and his friend Ace into a job that must have one hell of a catch – because the fee for doing it is beyond Valentine’s biggest hopes and best dreams.

Which he just might manage to make come true. Not by giving in to what either those nefarious persons or his best frenemy/business partner Ace might say is the best thing – but by doing the actual, honest-to-goodness right thing. No matter how much it breaks his heart.

Escape Rating A: Before I even attempt to get into any more detail, first things first. And the first thing is that I loved World Running Down. A lot. Which kind of surprised me, not for itself, but because it was the third climate apocalypse dystopia book I read in a row, and as a subject that’s kind of a downer.

But the book itself isn’t a downer at all, which is really all down to Valentine. He just so earnestly wants to be a genuinely good person in spite of the world running down. Given a choice between the right thing and the easy thing Valentine chooses the right thing every single time – quite often to his own detriment.

He’s not unrealistic – at all – about just how FUBAR’d his world has become. He just doesn’t let that affect his own decision making process. He knows that things overall are heading towards an even hotter place than the climate, and he’s cognizant that he can’t fix much of that. But he’s committed to making things a little better as he can to those whose lives he actually touches.

Which is what gives the story both its hopefulness and its poignancy.

Valentine himself is caught in a “catch-22”. He’s trans, he needs both meds and surgery to complete his transition – which he very much desires to do. To be able to do that he needs to get residence in Salt Lake City, and for that he needs to pass a citizenship test. Which is just as big a hurdle because Valentine has ADHD or some variant of it which hasn’t even been diagnosed, making it difficult for him to study and retain certain kinds of information. Math gives a lot of people trouble. It gives Valentine a double dose of trouble, and he needs to get it to pass the test. Doing the original job would be a shortcut to his dreams – but absolutely does come at much too high a price.

But this isn’t just Valentine’s story, although we see much of it from his perspective. It’s also Osric’s story, and it’s the story of the job they are contracted for and the huge cloud wrapped around the silver lining of the payoff for doing it. Both parts of which result in discussion of artificial intelligences and the definition of what makes a being of artificial intelligence intelligent enough to be self-aware and eligible for citizenship.

And then the whole story works its way around to just how much heartache and heartbreak can be caused by trying to do what you think is best for someone you care for and how demeaning it is to make those decisions without their input.

There’s more. There’s just so much more. More than I should get into here, no matter how tempted I am. Which is very.

Between the climate apocalypse, the dystopian elements, the so, so sharp divide between the haves and the have nots, and both the political and the romantic issues that are raised by the questions of sentience and artificial intelligence, World Running Down touched on themes that brought to mind (my mind at least) a whole shelf of books that a reader might find equally appealing and/or interesting and very much vice versa.

So if you’ve ever read any of the following, you will probably also find World Running Down to be running right up your reading alley. And if you like World Running Down, these may also appeal; A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune, Automatic Reload by Ferrett Steinmetz and The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson.

I wish you hours of joyful reading in some fascinating worlds gone very wrong that still have hope of things coming round right. Definitely starting with World Running Down. But don’t just take my word for it. World Running Down is in the midst of running on tour at the following sites. Check ’em out!

FEBRUARY
Tues 14 Curiosity Killed the Bookworm
Tues 14 Civilian Reader excerpt
Wed 15 @cklockwork 
Thurs 16 @brittni.in.ink 
Fri 17 @bookish_black_hole 
Fri 17 Reading Reality
Sat 18 It Starts At Midnight
Sun 19 @dexterous_totalus 
Mon 20  @TinasAlwaysReading 
Tues 21 Scrapping and playing 
Wed 22 FanFi Addict
Thurs 23  @intothevolcano 
Fri 24 E. J. Dawson
Sat 25  @kevinscorner 
Sun 26  @thespineofmotherhood 
Mon 27  @Booksforscee 

MARCH
Wed 1  @from__my__bookshelf 
Thurs 2  @moyashi_girl 
Fri 3  @chippyreads 
Sat 4 SparklyPrettyBriiiight
Sun 5  JamReads
Mon 6  @sophi3saur 
Tues 7  @bookstagramrepresent 
Wed 8  @pufflekitteh 
Thurs 9  @emilysarahart 
Fri 10 FanFi Addict
Sat 11  @luchiahoughtonblog 
Sun 12  @josephina_rae 
Mon 13 superstardrifter
Tues 14  @bookwormescapes 
Wed 15 @kevinscorner 

Review: Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Vampire Weekend by Mike ChenVampire Weekend by Mike Chen
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, horror, paranormal, vampires
Pages: 368
Published by Mira on January 31, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Being a vampire is far from glamorous...but it can be pretty punk rock.
Everything you've heard about vampires is a lie. They can't fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it's also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.
At least she's gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her...situation under wraps), maybe she'll finally feel like she belongs, too.
Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it's Ian's love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.
But as Ian uncovers Louise's true identity, things get dangerous--especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family...one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

My Review:

Vampires don’t sparkle. Everybody knows that’s a complete fabrication. Totally fictional. Also slightly ridiculous.

As Louise Chao has discovered over the decades, most of the things that people thought they knew about vampires are every bit as mythical as that sparkle. And Louise ought to know. She’s been a vampire for those same decades. For her, being a vampire isn’t remotely glamorous, nor is she accumulating wealth. She certainly doesn’t have super-strength or any other super-senses.

She’s absolutely not draining innocent – or even not so innocent – victims dry every night. Not only is that frowned upon – with extreme prejudice – by the vampire community, but honestly it’s not nearly as easy as it looks to bite someone in the carotid artery. The angles are just all wrong and the fangs aren’t nearly as sharp as fiction would have one believe.

For Louise, being a vampire is an endless search for night jobs to pay the bills while scrounging for safe sources of blood to stave off starvation. Her only solace is the best dog in the world, Lola.

Her best human friend died in a car crash just before COVID really sunk its teeth into the human population and psyche. Her Aunt Laura, the only family who ever accepted her as her punk rock, non-conforming self, died years ago and left her the house they shared in San Francisco.

It’s a lonely life. When the local blood supplies start running low, literal starvation is just a metaphor – although a gnawing, achingly, empty metaphor – for the starvation of the heart and spirit that Louise is already living in.

Until her self-imposed isolation is invaded by her long-lost family. Two of them. A middle-aged man who seems vaguely familiar, and a teenage boy who reminds Louise so very strikingly of the young, rebellious music loving rebel she used to be. And deep in her bruised heart, still very much is.

Ian needs a refuge from his mother’s impending death that will give him just a bit more distance and perspective than the bad attitude he’s currently fronting as his defense against the world. Louise isn’t able to admit it, even to herself, but she needs somebody to connect her to the world that might otherwise pass her by. She needs more than just a shitty job and a refrigerator full of blood bags.

All she has to do is let herself connect. To this teenager who needs a safe place to be himself. To the self that she left behind. And to the community that is willing to make her life a whole lot easier – and just a bit closer to some of those powers she thought were myths – if she’ll just let all of them in.

Escape Rating B+: Louise’s journey in Vampire Weekend is a combination of “no matter where you go, there you are” and “who do you want to be when you grow up?” Because Louise hasn’t. Grown up, that is. And that not-grown-up self has been dragging behind her and holding her back for decades. When Ian drops into her life – and all the landmines in her past that he unwittingly brings with him – she’s forced to reckon with who she once was and the baggage she’s still carrying from that person.

(One thing about all those vampire myths to get out of the way before anyone gets skeeved about Louise’s relationship with Ian. Vampires in Louise’s world are all asexual. The genetic and biological change of human to vampire kills off all the chemistry that creates both arousal and sexual gratification. Another vampire myth shot down.)

What makes Louise’s journey interesting is that her vampiric existence has meant that she hasn’t had to move on from the traumas of her family of origin. She hasn’t grown up because she hasn’t had to. So everything she took with her from her parent’s house when she left is still festering. When Ian and his grandfather drop into her life, because they’re part of the family that rejected both her and her beloved Aunt Laura, she has to finally process her shit because Ian is tangential to it and his grandfather is a bigger part of it than she even recognizes.

While the heart of this story is Louise’s growing relationship with Ian and her reconciliation with her own past, there’s another story woven into its edges that moves toward center stage as it progresses.

When there are vampires, it seems as if there are always politics and this story is no exception. At first the larger vampire community is on the periphery of Louise’s life – and that’s where she wants them to stay. But the blood supply is suddenly dwindling and she needs that network of support to locate supplies. And they need her – but not in any of the ways that she is worried about or that the reader expects.

That political angle felt a bit tacked on, to the point where its resolution seemed like a bit of a deus ex machina for the issues that brought Ian into Louise’s life in the first place. Not badly, and it made a certain kind of sense for the resolution of the whole story, but it just wasn’t as solid as Louise’s journey and Ian’s impending grief – although it does eventually tie into both.

This is not the first time that vampires have been into music, and not even the first story mixing vampires with some variety of rock and roll. The book The Vampire Lestat features the titular vampire fronting a rock band. And the WVMP series (starts with Wicked Game) by Jeri Smith-Ready (which took me forever to dig out of memory) is all about a radio station where the DJs are vampires who only play the music of the era when they were turned.

There is also a real band named Vampire Weekend. This isn’t about them, although there are a couple of in-jokes that refer to the real band, just as there are in-jokes featuring Louise’s beloved punk rock and rock music in general. I would imagine that an appreciation of those jokes and knowledge of that scene in general would add just that little something extra to the reader’s appreciation of the story. Howsomever, as someone who was not into punk in particular the story is still terrific. I’m not sure you need to be a fan of any genre of music in particular, as the heartbeat of the story is about loving music, particularly live performances, and needing it to be a part of your life. YMMV.

In the end, Vampire Weekend was a delightful surprise. It wasn’t any of the things I was expecting, much in the way that the author’s Light Years From Home wasn’t quite any of the things that I expected when I picked it up (and loved it!) either. But both stories are about families and making peace with them as well as yourself. Both have just the right touch of bittersweetness to tug at the heartstrings. And both are are terrific reads!

Review: City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: City Under One Roof by Iris YamashitaCity Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, suspense, thriller
Series: Cara Kennedy #1
Pages: 304
Published by Berkley Books on January 10, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A stranded detective tries to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building, in this gripping debut by an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter.
When a local teenager discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore of the small town of Point Mettier, Alaska, Cara Kennedy is on the case. A detective from Anchorage, she has her own motives for investigating the possible murder in this isolated place, which can be accessed only by a tunnel.
After a blizzard causes the tunnel to close indefinitely, Cara is stuck among the odd and suspicious residents of the town—all 205 of whom live in the same high-rise building and are as icy as the weather. Cara teams up with Point Mettier police officer Joe Barkowski, but before long the investigation is upended by fearsome gang members from a nearby native village.
Haunted by her past, Cara soon discovers that everyone in this town has something to hide. Will she be able to unravel their secrets before she unravels?"

My Review:

When teenage resident Amy Lin finds hacked off human body parts along the shore, it’s more than a bit gruesome but it’s not exactly unusual. It is for Amy personally, but not in the grand scheme of life on the Last Frontier. “Death by Alaska” is a real phenomenon, where people die by doing stupid things that might be survivable in the Lower 48 but just are not in a place where humans are often the prey of both the wildlife and the weather.

(We lived in Anchorage for three years. Reading a newspaper story about a missing person identified through bear scat was not an uncommon occurrence.)

Amy and a group of her friends only found one hand and one foot encased in a boot. Not enough to identify or to determine cause of death. It looked like death by misadventure, part of a string of such cases washing up on shore up and down the coast.

But Anchorage PD Detective Cara Kennedy looks at the report and sees something that might be a link to the tragic deaths of her husband and young son just the year before. She heads to Point Mettier with her scene of crime investigation kit to see the actual scenes of the crime and interview the people involved in this case that everyone in Point Mettier believes is open and shut and dead and buried.

Just like the case of Cara’s family.

Cara’s investigation throws a gigantic monkey wrench into what “everybody knew”. First she finds the dead man’s head, buried in a local woman’s barn. Now the local two-man (literally) police department has something that can be identified as well as a clear cause of death. Somebody shot whoever-he-was.

Now everyone wants to see the back of Cara after she’s just reopened this truly messy can of worms (not that worms have actually gotten to the head in the middle of an Alaska winter). Cara wants to put Point Mettier in her rearview mirror, believing that this case, as terrible and terribly confusing as it might be, has no relationship to her family’s deaths.

But the tunnel has been closed by a raging storm, and Cara is forced to remain in Point Mettier with all those people she’s just seriously pissed off – and most likely a murderer as well. If not a whole damn conspiracy of people who are never going to trust the outsider stuck in their midst.

Their distrust may be justified, but in their collective desire to keep Cara in the dark it becomes clear that something, or someone, is hiding in that darkness as well – and that they are way more dangerous than anyone wants to believe.

Escape Rating A-: There’s a real “City Under One Roof” – Whittier, Alaska. Which is intended to sound a lot like Point Mettier, Alaska, the setting of the story. If it all sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because there were several stories about it on TV after one of the residents posted a series of TikTok videos about life in Whittier that went viral in 2021.

While Point Mettier is explicitly NOT Whittier, it does sit in the same geographic position as the real town, has the same weather, and the same single-point of access via a tunnel that shuts down at night and when the weather gets really awful. So it isn’t the real place exactly, but perhaps its twin. Not its evil twin, but absolutely a twin where evil happens.

Which leads back around to this mystery thriller. Just follow Denny the moose as he’s led around town on his leash.

Although Cara certainly finds a lot more clues by following Denny’s person, Lonnie – including that sawed off head that kicks the whole case into gear – frozen or otherwise.

As unusual as the Point Mettier setting is, the mystery has a lot of the hallmarks of a more typical small-town mystery even if Point Mettier is not exactly a typical small town. Because in some ways it still very much is.

The 300 permanent residents all know each other, whether they like each other or not on any given day, week, or month. They literally live in each other’s pockets, think they know of all each other’s secrets, and certainly are entirely too familiar with each other’s quirks and foibles. They are also all up in each other’s business whether they want to be or not.

So it’s not a surprise, either to Cara or to the reader, that the local residents are keeping all kinds of secrets from the outsider. It’s not implausible that there’s a coverup going on, whether of the murder, of the disposal of the corpse, of something illegal but completely unrelated, or all of the above. Cara knows there are secrets, and is sure she’s going to have to watch and wait and hope that someone will finally trust her enough to let her in on the ones she needs to know before the killer strikes again.

What she finds isn’t what she expected – but if it was there wouldn’t be much of a story. And there most definitely is a compelling story. While there is much about Point Mettier that strikes similar chords to other small town mysteries, the claustrophobic, isolated nature of Point Mettier added plenty of unique twists and turns every single shivering step of the way to whodunnit.

One of the things that I both really enjoyed about the story and that drove me a bit crazy as it was happening was just how much of the story is wrapped around Cara simply getting to know the residents. It was necessary but it was also more than a bit of the showcase of the quirky. Everyone had a personal secret, everyone seemed to be marching to the beat of a drummer who was marching out of step with the outside world but really in tune locally. It seemed like Point Mettier had become a haven for people who didn’t quite fit into even the rest of Alaska, which itself is a bit of an off the beaten path place to live.

I particularly liked the way that the mystery managed to both hinge on the kind of outsider that everyone in a small town mystery WANTS to have been the perpetrator while at the same time also feeding into the whole small town covers each other’s secrets trope. That was particularly well done.

On my other hand, I’m not totally sure the slow burn romance between Cara and one of the local cops was completely necessary. The story was plenty compelling without wondering will they/won’t they.

And very much on my third, possibly frostbitten, hand, the explosive revelation at the end leaves the door open for more mysteries featuring Cara Kennedy as the detective – even if Point Mettier isn’t the setting. There’s plenty of room for another female detective in Alaska like Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak (start with A Cold Day for Murder). I’ll be very curious to see if Cara Kennedy will be back, and in the meantime I think I’ll check out what Kate has been up to.

Review: Pets of Park Avenue by Stefanie London

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Pets of Park Avenue by Stefanie LondonPets of Park Avenue (Paws in the City, #2) by Stefanie London
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance, relationship fiction, romantic comedy, women's fiction
Series: Paws in the City #2
Pages: 336
Published by HQN Books on December 6, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

"One of the year's most delightful rom-coms."—New York Times bestselling author Julia London on The Dachshund Wears Prada
The perfect romcom for dog lovers! Pets of Park Avenue is the story of a self-confessed hot mess who learns that life is more fun when things don't go according to plan.

What do you do when The One is also the one who broke your heart?

Self-proclaimed hot mess Scout Myers is determined to prove she’s finally got her act together. Raised by grandparents who saw her as her wayward mother’s wayward daughter, Scout’s used to being written off. So when the opportunity for a promotion arises at Paws in the City, the talent agency where she works, Scout is desperate to rise to the occasion. With shared custody of her little sister also on the line, Scout can’t afford a single mistake…like suddenly needing a canine stand-in for an important photoshoot. Luckily (or not) she knows the owner of the perfect pup replacement: the estranged husband she walked out on years ago.
On the surface, it appears Lane Halliday’s life has been blissfully drama free without Scout, but she suspects her handsome-as-ever not-quite-ex-husband doth protest too much. Working together even feels like old times—except for all that lingering, unresolved tension. But Scout’s not sure she’s ready to confront the reasons she left Lane, and when their plans to finalize the divorce become very real, Scout starts to wonder whether second chances might be worth a little hot mess.
Paws in the CityBook 1 - The Dachshund Wears Prada

My Review:

Pets of Park Avenue combines a second chance at love romance with a bit of a comedy of errors wrapped around the paws of an adorably fluffy little Bichon Frisé who seems to be experiencing nearly as much sad fluff as her people.

Both the one she still has and the one that only thinks she got away.

This followup to The Dachshund Wears Prada follows the second member of the Paws in the City media team, that self-proclaimed hot mess – and Isla’s best friend – Scout Myers. When the small agency’s star Bichon Frisé, Sasha, is accidentally dyed hot pink in the middle of a big opportunity for both the dog and the agency, Scout is the one sorta/kinda in charge of their canine charge.

At least, she’s the one who feels responsible for the accidental dye-job. Because being held responsible for every accident that happens in her vicinity and taking the blame for all the fallout is just what her cold, rule-bound, hidebound grandparents have conditioned her to do.

Theirs was not a house in which the phrase “shit happens” was ever even uttered, let alone believed. If Scout was nearby, it must have been her fault – whether it was or not. Because Scout was just like her mother, their wayward daughter, and had to be straight-jacketed into proper behavior no matter how much it broke her spirit.

Reining Scout in was the only way her grandparents could hope to save Scout’s little sister Lizzie from her terrible influence. So they did. At every opportunity. Until they kicked her to the curb at age 21. For not being properly obedient and respectful and for not following every last one of their stifling and arbitrary rules.

So Scout feels responsible for the temporarily pink Bichon, and needs a well-behaved substitute until the dye and the resulting buzz-cut grow out. Which is where her not-exactly-ex-husband, and his suddenly not-exactly-perfectly-behaved Bichon come in.

Scout ran out on both the man and the dog five years ago because, well, reasons. Reasons that they never told each other. They were together for one glorious month and have been separated for five years of limbo but Scout needs a dog just like Sasha, and Twinkle Stardust (yes, really) is her best chance to fix what’s broken.

With the agency and possibly with herself.

What she really needs is to either put her past behind her or, perhaps, put it back in front of her again. She’s a bit older, possibly wiser, and trying to be more responsible. Because she wants custody of her teenage sister. Because she needs to start adulting.

And because she’s never found anyone to remotely match the one that she left behind.

Escape Rating B: The thing about Pets of Park Avenue that made this one so interesting was that it’s Scout’s discovery that she doesn’t need to get it together because she’s had it together all along. It’s also about the difference between what is said and what is meant, and that’s a sad and often hard lesson to learn.

In other words, Pets of Park Avenue isn’t as light and fluffy as one of the Bichon Frisés. I missed The Dachshund Wears Prada, at least the social media account that both establishes Isla as a media influencer AND gets her in so much trouble. Because the voice of the Dachshund that Isla puts out there is wry, funny and so very sharply observant that it gives the book a lighter tone than this one in spite of just how much Isla also needs to overcome.

Scout IS a hot mess in this book, but not for any of the reasons she thinks she is. She’s a hot mess because that’s all she’s ever been told she can be, and she’s taken that lesson so very much to heart. Throughout the story, it seems as if her grandparents are the villains of the piece. And they kind of are.

But they also kind of aren’t. Or at least, they didn’t intend to be. But what they meant versus what they said and how they said it, how much they saw AND treated Scout as if she was a carbon copy of her mother, sent their relationship and Scout herself off in some terrible directions that she spends the whole story dealing with.

The second-chance-at-love romance was, at first, heartbreaking. But as the story continues, they are both forced to acknowledge that they were just too young and too impulsive. The bitter turns to sweet as they look back at themselves and look now at each other in order to figure out what direction they need to go, together or apart. Either way would have made a satisfying ending, but I preferred the direction they chose – if only to give Twinkle Stardust her own happy ever after.

So The Dachshund Wears Prada had a whole lot more lightness in it. Pets of Park Avenue was leavened with a bit more bittersweet. I’m looking forward to seeing what just what kind of canine and human drama we’ll get in Confessions of a Canine Drama Queen next summer!

Review: Hide by Tracy Clark

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Hide by Tracy ClarkHide (Detective Harriet Foster #1) by Tracy Clark
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, suspense, thriller
Series: Detective Harriet Foster #1
Pages: 380
Published by Thomas & Mercer on January 1, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From acclaimed author Tracy Clark comes a page-turning mystery featuring hard-boiled Chicago detective Harriet Foster, who’s on the hunt for a serial killer with a deadly affinity for redheads.
When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.
Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team—and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.
After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.
In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets—including her own.

My Review:

When we first meet Harriet Foster, we know two things. She’s a Chicago cop, and she’s a survivor. And at the moment, the one is inextricably linked to the other, both in the sense that it’s being a cop that gives her the tenacity to keep on living, and it’s being a cop that makes it necessary to have that sheer, driven stubbornness in the first place.

It’s late in the fall, it’s Chicago, it’s cold, and she’s having a damn hard time getting herself across the threshold of her new precinct. She’s just back from eight weeks leave after the senseless killing of her son, the subsequent death of her marriage and the suicide of her police partner in the parking lot of her previous precinct.

She’s thrown right into the deep end as soon as she gets through the door. Her new ‘partner’ is the department’s hard case, and they’ve just caught one. A naked, dead, butchered woman badly hidden under a pile of leaves in a park just off the Riverwalk.

It’s a spectacular mess, the scene is already a spectacle, and the lookie-loos and media are already out in force right along with CPD. Her partner is just so sure that the killer is the young black man who was found sleeping nearby with a single bloodstain on his lapel. Harriet is pretty sure it wasn’t him, because if he’d been the murderer there’d be way more than a single bloodstain on his clothes. He’d be drenched in the stuff.

And she’s certainly unwilling to rush to any judgment. Not just because the young man is the same age as her dead son. Harriet Foster just isn’t the kind of cop who rushes to judgment – even on her worst day.

Which this is already shaping up to be. Worst day, worst week, worst month, worst case. Someone is out there eviscerating redheads, managing to stay just one step ahead of the cops. The news media are baying for somebody’s blood and City Hall is looking for a scapegoat.

But Harriet Foster keeps putting one step in front of the other, one long day and even longer night after the other, using the frustrations of the case to keep her own demons at bay. In the end, she’ll at least have put one monster to rest – even if it’s not one of her own.

Escape Rating A+: This one absolutely had me from the very first page. While some of that was because I can still see most of the settings in my head, it was mostly because of Harriet Foster herself. She’s trapped like an insect in amber, still processing – slowly and badly – her recent losses and hoping that something in going back to the job is going to get her through the day and the one after that and the one after that.

At the same time, she is exactly the kind of protagonist that I read mysteries for, in that she’s questioning and human and oh-so-capable all at the same time. It’s so clear that she hasn’t remotely got her life figured out, but once the case begins she’s all there for it.

That she’s experienced enough to know when to push back on a shit-talking so-called partner and when to suck it up and stand in solidarity with the rest of the cops in her new cop shop just felt right.

And then there’s the case, which is just the type of twisted, humdinger that reminded me so much of the kind of case that Eve Dallas ends up trying to unravel in the In Death series. The bodies are gruesome, the clues are few, the perpetrator is clever and the media vultures are circling.

At the same time, we have alternating perspectives from people who might, or might not, be involved in the mess, from childhood memories of a murderous daddy to adult children trying to pretend they’re normal to a rogue psychologist looking for her next star psychopath. They bring both perspective and confusion to the mystery, allowing the real perpetrator to hide in plain sight.

As much as the case reminded me of many in the In Death series, Harriet Foster only resembles Dallas in her dogged determination to solve the mystery and put the guilty party either away or under. There’s no romance even hinted at here and there shouldn’t be. Harriet’s personal story is about her determination to find a way forward and to spot the light at the end of her personal tunnel of grief. She’s far from there yet, which bodes well for future entries in the series.

What we have in Hide is a case of one person unraveling, and one person, well, raveling. When the murderer starts coming apart, their descent is swift and sprays lots of collateral damage. Harriet Foster, on the other hand, is oh-so-slowly raveling herself back together, one day, one clue, and one paper clip at a time. And her progress, both on the case and on herself, is utterly absorbing to watch.

Hide is the first book in what looks to be a compelling mystery suspense series. While it isn’t officially out until January 1, it is available NOW to Amazon Prime members as one of the Amazon First Reads books this month. So if you are as impatient to read it as I was there is a way to get it this month.

The second book in the series, Fall, will be out one year from now. And I can’t wait to see how and what Harriet will be doing next winter. In the meantime, if you’re on the hunt for a series with a similar vibe, take a look at Harriet’s British counterpart, Inspector Anjelica Henley, solving the case of The Jigsaw Man.

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