This is the second blog hop this month with a “back to school” theme – so it must be that time again!
What’s the best thing you remember about going back to school? Or the worst? I never was a morning person, so on breaks I would sleep late and then stay up late. I always had another book to read. My mother always swore that someday that would change, but it hasn’t happened yet!
I loved learning new things but hated being told that I HAD to read something. So I read a lot, but usually the “wrong” things. Or at least books not assigned. Some things don’t seem to change!
Tell us what your favorite, or least favorite thing is/was about going back to school for a chance at your choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository!
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe Format: eARC Source: publisher via Edelweiss Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook Genres: historical fiction, women's fiction Series: Physick Book #2 Pages: 338 Published by Henry Holt and Co. on June 25, 2019 Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository Goodreads
New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe returns to the world of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane with a bewitching story of a New England history professor who must race against time to free her family from a curseConnie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America—especially women’s home recipes and medicines—and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows.
When a hint from her mother and clues from her research lead Connie to the shocking realization that her partner’s life is in danger, she must race to solve the mystery behind a hundreds’-years-long deadly curse.
Flashing back through American history to the lives of certain supernaturally gifted women, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs affectingly reveals not only the special bond that unites one particular matriarchal line, but also explores the many challenges to women’s survival across the decades—and the risks some women are forced to take to protect what they love most.
My Review:
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because those are the words written on James and Lily Potter’s tombstone. Or, if you’re reading trends in an entirely different direction, it’s a line in the 15th chapter of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.
Considering the story in The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, the Harry Potter reference is more appropriate. Because Temperance Hobbs and all of her mothers and daughters in every generation up to and including Connie Goodwin in the here and now, were all “cunning women”. In other words, they were witches. Sorta/kinda. More or less.
Howsomever, Connie doesn’t actually want to defeat death, she just wants to postpone the bout with him until a much later date. Because Connie is caught on the horns of a familial dilemma that she wasn’t prepared for in any way, shape, or form.
In all the generations of her family, all the way back to Deliverance Dane in the 1690s, there has been one constant in their lives. They can have a husband – or they can have a child – but they can’t have both at the same time. Or at least not for very long.
Whether it’s really terrible luck or a truly horrific curse, in each generation, as soon as they have a child, their husbands die. Of accidents. Natural causes. War. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One after another after another.
But Connie Goodwin is more than just an occasional practitioner. She is also an academic specializing in American History of the Colonial Period, with a particular emphasis on the belief in, practice of, and suppression of witchcraft.
She did her Ph.D. thesis on The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and her adventures in producing that thesis and exploring the world and practices of her ancestress are detailed in the novel of the same name.
She’s already pregnant. She just doesn’t want to lose her lover, the father of her child, to any force other than the hands of time – a long, long time from now.
Connie is sure that somewhere or somewhen in her family tree, at least one woman found a way around the curse. Connie just has to discover that secret for herself, before it’s too late.
Escape Rating A-: I did read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, back when it came out ten years ago. I remember it being a terrific time slip book, but I do not remember the details. I didn’t need to in order to enjoy The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs – but enjoy it I certainly did.
The events of that first book are 10 years in Connie’s past as well as ours. I want to say that her life has moved on, but technically I’m not sure that’s true. She is every bit as driven and tunnel-visioned as an Assistant Professor seeking tenure as she was as a grad student seeking a Ph.D.
She’s still a hamster on her wheel, unable to see anything except what’s right in front of her. And what’s right in front of her is always more work. The description of the paper chase of academic life rings true – and makes the reader wonder how Sam has managed to be so tolerant and so supportive for so long.
We’re not surprised that he’s reaching the end of his rope.
But Connie’s discovery that she is pregnant changes her focus in ways well beyond the obvious. She’s worried about the effect it will have on her still-fledgling career – but she fears that their child means Sam’s imminent death – and history bears her out. And she finally figures out that she doesn’t want to lose Sam, and that she needs to find some balance between her work and her life – because they are not, and should not be, the same thing all the time.
Connie begins researching at a furious and desperate pace, hoping to discover that at least one of her ancestresses beat the curse – and how she did it. The portrayal of how the research is conducted, the long hours of fruitless searching, the despair of reaching dead ends and the joy of discovery, sucks the reader right in – as do the interlude chapters told from the perspective of the women that Connie finds in her search.
Connie’s race against time, her race to save her soon-to-be-husband Sam, provides all the tension this story needs. There was an attempt to add a more human villain to the mix, but it didn’t quite work for me. This person wasn’t present enough or woven into the narrative enough to make that concept gel for me – and the story didn’t need it.
Connie’s race against time and death – just like Temperance Hobbs’ before her – provided all the drama needed – along with plenty of compulsion to keep the reader in a race to get to the very last page.
The theme of this hop is back to school. It’s something that seems both appropriate and not. Let me explain…
The schools here went back yesterday, August 5. That just seems OMG incredibly early. (They also get out in May, so it does all work out.)
But, but, but…I remember going back to school a month from now – just after Labor Day. Then again, I remember that schools mostly weren’t air conditioned back in the dark ages when I went, so they had to close during the heat of the summer. Cincy doesn’t get quite as hot as Atlanta – but it does get plenty hot in July and August. The last days in June and the first days in September could be fairly beastly even with that schedule.
When someone says “back to school” when does that make you think of? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at your choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository.
An unlikely pair teams up to investigate a brutal murder in a haunting thriller that walks the line between reality and impossibility.
When small-town police officers discover the grave of a young boy, they’re quick to pin the crime on a convicted felon who lives nearby. But when it comes to murder, Officer Susan Marlan never trusts a simple explanation, so she’s just getting started.
Meanwhile, college professor Eric Evans hallucinates a young boy in overalls: a symptom of his schizophrenia—or so he thinks. But when more bodies turn up, Eric has more visions, and they mirror details of the murder case. As the investigation continues, the police stick with their original conclusion, but Susan’s instincts tell her something is off. The higher-ups keep stonewalling her, and the FBI’s closing in.
Desperate for answers, Susan goes rogue and turns to Eric for help. Together they take an unorthodox approach to the case as the evidence keeps getting stranger. With Eric’s hallucinations intensifying and the body count rising, can the pair separate truth from illusion long enough to catch a monster?
My Review:
Forgotten Bones is definitely not a book to be read with the lights off. Or alone in the middle of the night. Or anyplace where it can feel like the creepy-crawlies might be closing in.
This one sits at the intersection between mystery/thriller, horror and paranormal – and that’s not a comfortable place to be in the dark. It’s a fascinating place, in the thrills and chills kind of way, but not exactly comfy or cozy.
A place to get really, really to get sucked into – but absolutely not cozy. Unless you like to cozy up to claustrophobia.
There are two protagonists in this story. One seems fairly typical for the genre, but the other is definitely not. And that’s part of what makes the story so fascinating.
Perrick, California is a small town, and Susan Marlan is a member of its equally small police force. She’s relatively young, still pretty gung-ho about policing and crime solving, and kind of stuck.
Not that she can’t leave, but that the police chief is also her mentor – and he’s just weeks shy of retirement. There might be promotions in the inevitable shuffling in the wake of his departure. And Perrick is her home.
We’ve seen Susan’s type before in plenty of mysteries. She’s the young investigator who just can’t let go when a big crime – with its attendant opportunities for recognition and promotion – drops into her lap. So of course she goes out on her own, against orders and definitely off the books, to try to solve the case before the FBI. Or perhaps in spite of the FBI, as she’s sure the neat and tidy solution they finally come up with isn’t all there is.
And there needs to be plenty. Because the crime that has been uncovered under the soil of tiny Perrick becomes known as the “Death Farm”. Twenty-plus bodies have been hiding under a local farm, bodies going back decades. All – but one – children. Young children. Decades of dead little boys and girls.
Susan feels compelled to find the killers – because the FBI find one but not his partner.
Eric Evans is compelled too, but he’s compelled by the dead. He’s just arrived in Perrick to teach at the local community college after his life derails in Philly.
Eric is extremely lucky that he couldn’t possibly have been the perpetrator or any of the murders, because if he were he would have been the FBI’s best suspect. Eric was diagnosed with schizophrenia years ago. He manages his condition with medication, and he’s mostly successful. He’s high functioning, to the point of being a good teacher, a decent drummer and completely capable of forming friendships and relationships and making a good life for himself.
But something about Perrick is sending him off the rails, or so it seems at first. The dead invade his dreams – and his waking life. The dead children from that farm. When he can’t pretend that the visions are just dreams, he tries to believe that they are just a symptom of his illness.
In the end, he teams up with Susan. She’s compelled to find the truth. He’s compelled to bring that truth to light to get those children out of his head, his house and even his classroom before someone decides that he’s even crazier than he actually is.
Or someone decides that Susan and Eric need to be the final victims.
Escape Rating B+: The crime in this story, the multi-year, multi-victim murder spree, is not unprecedented. There have been real-life cases where “death farms” have been discovered, to the nightmares of investigators and local residents alike, after an event uncovers one or a few of the bodies.
(I’m particularly thinking of the case of Belle Gunness in LaPorte County Indiana, which is indelibly imprinted on my brain. I was attending a dinner meeting and the post-dinner speaker gave the assembled – and rather startled – diners a fascinating but stomach-churning talk about her murder spree and discovery – complete with pictures. And I’m finding myself wondering what the post-lecture bar tab turned out to be…)
Susan Marlan is not an atypical investigator in a case – or story – like this one. The young cop going a bit rogue because she (or he) knows that the powers-that-be – the FBI in this case – are willingly overlooking something because it interferes with their neat theory. And because they want to go back to their big city home office and get out of tiny wherever.
And because someone local misdirects the out-of-towners for usually underhanded reasons of their own – as happens in this case. That the reader has a handle on who the perpetrators are long before the FBI – and even somewhat before Susan – does not detract from the compelling readability of the story.
Because this is a case where Susan’s actions and reactions in the face of that discovery are more important than the discovery itself.
What makes this tale rise above its stock characters is Eric Evans. The story does not fall into the trap of making Eric an obvious suspect so that he has to find the killer to get himself out of the frame. That would have been an easy way to go, and the story is much better for not going there.
It also feels like it treats his mental illness sympathetically and realistically – as well as his reactions to it and people’s reactions to him. That Susan is able to accept both his help and him is what powers this book into the opener of what could be a fascinating series. Hidden Bones will come to light this time next year. I’ll be looking for it when I want some creepy chills to go along with my mystery thrills.
~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
I’m giving away a copy of Forgotten Bones to one lucky US/CAN commenter on this tour!
Welcome to the Sweet Goodness Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox!
The picture of that watermelon in the graphic above is a pretty good hint about just what kind of “sweet goodies” make up the theme for this hop. Watermelon still feels like one of the signature treats of summer – even if we can get it all year round now at the grocery store. Eating it in the winter just doesn’t feel the same – not even down here in Atlanta where winter usually doesn’t get very wintery.
Watermelon is for eating outdoors in the hot sunshine while seeing just how far you can spit the seeds. But wait – they grow seedless watermelons now. That just doesn’t seem right.
There are so many sweet and wonderful fruits that come into season during the summer. And even though you can get most of the all year now, it’s just not the same. And there are still a few things that, while you can get them everywhere, still taste better nearer to their point of origin – like Rainier Cherries in Washington State. Yum!
What about you? What sweet treat says (or tastes like) summer to you? Answer in the rafflecopter for your choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. (Giveaway open wherever the Book Depository ships!)
In 1920s New York, the price of a woman’s independence can be exorbitant—even fatal.
In 1924 Manhattan, women’s suffrage is old news. For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to launch her own new private press. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers—including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy.
When her friend’s sister, Naomi Rankin, dies suddenly of an apparent suicide, Julia is shocked at the wealthy family’s indifference toward the ardent suffragist’s death. Naomi chose poverty and hardship over a submissive marriage and a husband’s control of her money. Now, her death suggests the struggle was more than she could bear.
Julia, however, is skeptical. Doubtful of her suspicions, Philip proposes a glib wager: if Julia can prove Naomi was in fact murdered, he’ll drop his claims to her wealth. Julia soon discovers Naomi’s life was as turbulent and enigmatic as her death. And as she gets closer to the truth, Julia sees there’s much more at stake than her inheritance…
My Review:
The title of this one is certainly a play on the words “relative” and “fortunes” and just how they relate to each other – with a heaping helping of the corruption of the old saying about where there’s a will, there’s a way – not that that doesn’t also apply.
But in the case of this story, the version of that cliche that I’m thinking of is the one that goes, “where there’s a will, there’s a relative” or even a bunch of relatives, all with their hands out for a piece of the estate – no matter how small.
The beginning of this story involves two different wills in two different families involving two very much alive female legatees. At least until things go completely pear-shaped.
And if you are reading this while female, the number of times that the males in this story control their female siblings’ money and their very lives, supposedly for their own good, will make you grit your teeth and want to scream.
Which doesn’t change the fact that there’s a dead body, an absolutely disgusting coverup, and a desperate need for Julia Kydd to solve the mystery – so she can protect her friend, so that she can wrest some of her own money from her half-brother’s oh-so-protective hands, and so that she can stake out her own claim on independence.
If she can just get past all the men trying to pat her on the head, tell her not to worry her pretty little self and just marry someone already so that she can become some other man’s burden. When all she really wants to do is determine her own life for her own self.
And who can blame her?
Escape Rating B-: This is a story with a lot to unpack in it. Some of which drove me absolutely bonkers.
I was expecting a historical mystery, with the emphasis on the mystery part of that equation. What I got instead was historical fiction, with the emphasis on the history, during which a murder happens to occur and get solved by the heroine.
This is also the first book in a series, and has to carry the weight of the set up of the series, the characters, and all of the worldbuilding to put it properly within its frame – the Roaring 20s in New York City – and mostly among the glitterati.
In the end, although the murder actually takes place before the story opens, the race to solve it doesn’t really kick into gear until ¾ of the way through the book. Discovering that solution is a race to the finish, but the setup is a very slow burn – and I certainly burned right along with Julia.
Julia’s reasons for being in New York, as well as the reason for Naomi Rankin’s death, are very much wrapped up in all of the ways that men can and often do subjugate women, and all the ways that the system of the patriarchy is set up to not merely allow them to do it, but actively encourages them to do so. For the women’s own good, of course.
And that particular theme is a drumbeat over that first ¾ of the book. That things really were that way isn’t up for debate. They were, it was awful, and things aren’t as much better now as we like to think they are. But I got tired of being beaten about the head with those facts over and over and over. As, no doubt, the women subject to them did.
There would have been plenty of other ways to make those same points while still getting on with the mystery, which was itself completely wrapped up in women’s rights and women’s issues. The situation was bad, and the death of Naomi Rankin and the reasons for it offered plenty of opportunities for highlighting just how bad it was without hitting the reader over the head with it at every turn in that long setup.
Particularly as there was so much setup and exposition that the identity of the murderer and at least some of their motives (although not all) became obviously fairly early on.
Your mileage may vary, particularly as the historical detail is excellent. As a reader, I would have been happier with a bit less setup and a bit more mystery. But what I did get was interesting enough that I’ll be back for the next book in the series, Passing Fancies.
~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
I’m giving away a copy of Relative Fortunes to one US/CAN commenter on this tour. And I’ll be extremely interested to discover what that reader thinks of the story!
Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #2) by Sarah MacLean Format: eARC Source: publisher via Edelweiss Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook Genres: historical romance Series: Bareknuckle Bastards #2) Pages: 400 Published by Avon on July 30, 2019 Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository Goodreads
The Lady’s Plan
When Lady Henrietta Sedley declares her twenty-ninth year her own, she has plans to inherit her father’s business, to make her own fortune, and to live her own life. But first, she intends to experience a taste of the pleasure she’ll forgo as a confirmed spinster. Everything is going perfectly…until she discovers the most beautiful man she’s ever seen tied up in her carriage and threatening to ruin the Year of Hattie before it’s even begun.
The Bastard’s Proposal
When he wakes in a carriage at Hattie’s feet, Whit, a king of Covent Garden known to all the world as Beast, can’t help but wonder about the strange woman who frees him—especially when he discovers she’s headed for a night of pleasure . . . on his turf. He is more than happy to offer Hattie all she desires…for a price.
An Unexpected Passion
Soon, Hattie and Whit find themselves rivals in business and pleasure. She won’t give up her plans; he won’t give up his power . . . and neither of them sees that if they’re not careful, they’ll have no choice but to give up everything . . . including their hearts.
My Review:
I picked up Brazen and the Beast because I enjoyed the first book in the series, Wicked and the Wallflower, and wanted to see where the story went from there.
There is plenty to love in this series – and this story in that series. Particularly for readers of Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series and/or Sophie Barnes’ Diamonds in the Rough series.
Because the story of the Bareknuckle Bastards is a story about the underbelly of the Regency and post-Regency periods, as are both of those series. The actual Bareknuckle Bastards themselves, Devil (hero of Wicked and the Wallflower) and his brother Beast here in Brazen and the Beast are the uncrowned kings of Covent Garden and the working-class districts that surround it.
The bastards control the area, and all the legal – and definitely all the illegal – trade that takes place therein. And their people love them for it, because the bastards provide good well-paying jobs, protection and economic security for their fiefdom.
A fiefdom that they have, and will, defend to the death.
And that’s where Hattie Sedley careens into the picture. She’s a “lady” but not a “Lady” – and she’d rather not be either. Her father is an Earl, but it’s a life peerage, so he can’t pass it on to her brother. And that’s a good thing, because Augie Sedley is a waste of space.
It’s Hattie who is her father’s true heir in every way that matters, but the man can’t see past the fact that she’s a woman.
She’s also 29, big and loud and brash and brazen, so society has put her very firmly on the shelf. A shelf that she is happy to occupy, as long as she gets to take care of her father’s shipping business. And that’s a possibility that she is determined to seize with both hands – and that her brother seems determined to ruin. Stealing from the Bareknuckle Bastards isn’t just stupid – it’s downright suicidal. But Augie doesn’t care that he’ll take the family with him.
It’s up to Hattie to “negotiate” with Beast to find her family a way out of Augie’s mess – and to figure out how she can win the business into the bargain.
But there are more wheels turning than even Hattie can see, and more consequences than she knows. She’s met her match in Beast. But he’s met his match in her just as much. Figuring out that he can love her, or he can protect her, but that he can’t manage both makes for a hot, sparky (sometimes literally) romance!
Escape Rating B+: There’s a lot to love in Brazen and the Beast – in multiple ways. First, there’s just a lot of Hattie Sedley to love – and Beast loves her just the way she is – as do the readers.
Hattie manages to absolutely ooze body positivity while at the same showing just how vulnerable her differences have made her – and that those differences haven’t kept her from reaching for what she wants.
Hattie is big and tall and bold in a society that expects women to be tiny and demure, to be seen as little as possible and not heard at all. And she can’t be any of those things, so she does her best to be who and what she is. At the same time, she’s still very aware of how she’s seen – and it hurts her.
Society seeks a freak, but Beast sees a queen – and he makes Hattie not just see herself that way, but embrace that identity. All the parts of her that high society wants to quash are just the parts that the more realistic world around Covent Garden values.
What makes the romance between Hattie and Beast (his actual name is Whit), so fascinating is its central conflict. Not that there aren’t plenty of secondary and ancillary conflicts. The tension between Hattie and Whit over who will get the better of whom and Whit’s need to protect his people vs. Hattie’s need to protect hers sparks and sizzles on every page.
The romantic conflict is all about how they will define their relationship to each other, and how that ties into their essential selves. Whit is a protector. It’s who he is, it’s what he does, and he can’t seem to turn off that side of his nature. That his society in general believes that women should be protected at every turn just adds to his deep-rooted need to protect everyone he cares for.
But that is not what Hattie is built for. For her, protection is a cage. She has to be his partner – or she’ll be nothing to him at all. It’s a hard lesson for him to learn – and he only figures it out when he has no choice. But he does get it by the end – and that’s what gives this story its heart.
There are two very hard parts to this book. One is the opening. Until Hattie and Beast have their first real meeting in the high class female-serving (and not female-using) brothel, a lot of her self-talk revolves around just how hard it is to get her father to see that she’s the better fit to run the shipping business. Because she so obviously is, her brother is so obviously an idiot, and her father is just being ridiculously obtuse. It’s everything that women hate about the patriarchy, and is compounded because her father was awarded that life peerage for being an excellent businessman. His estate will not be entailed and he can bequeath whatever to whoever. The same man who built the business couldn’t be that big an idiot.
And then there’s the overarching story of this series. Devil, Beast, their half-brother Ewan and their adopted sister Grace all suffered – extremely – under the machinations of their father the Duke. Ewan “won” the competition to become the Duke’s heir, and in the process betrayed the rest of them. He’s been pursuing them ever since because he wants Grace. Ewan’s stalkerish pursuit/revenge has been dastardly from the very beginning, and his obsession with Grace is frankly a bit creepy. It’s clear from the teaser at the end of Brazen and the Beast that the next story, Daring and The Duke, will finally resolve that long-standing issue.
And do I ever wonder how that’s going to work out!
~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
I’m giving away a copy of Brazen and the Beast to one very lucky US/Can commenter on this tour!
From the author of The Art of Inheriting Secrets comes an emotional new tale of two sisters, an ocean of lies, and a search for the truth.
Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news…
Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions—grief, loss, and anger—that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.
After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins her journey with the memories of the past: of days spent on the beach with Josie. Of a lost teenage boy who’d become part of their family. And of a trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives.
Now, if two sisters are to reunite, it can only be by unearthing long-buried secrets and facing a devastating truth that has kept them apart far too long. To regain their relationship, they may have to lose everything.
My Review:
This is the story about the deconstruction of a life. Not in the sense that things fall apart, because the lives of both Kit and Josie Bianchi fell apart a long, long time ago. The echoes of what happened in their childhood have rippled like aftershocks through everything that has happened since.
Including, but definitely not limited to, Josie’s death – and the faking thereof.
When We Believed in Mermaids is rather about the examination, in memory, of those long ago events. What begins as a look back at a seemingly perfect childhood that was ripped apart by the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 reveals cracks in that perfection – just as the girls’ examination of their cliffside house revealed cracks that made the house’s fall inevitable.
There were plenty of warning signs that a disaster was coming – but the adults were too wrapped up in themselves, and much too damaged themselves, to see it. And the girls were children. It’s only as adults that they are able to look back and see that what went wrong was hardly their fault.
But now they are both adults. And both still scarred. Both, in their own ways, isolated because of it. Kit, whose life has come to be confined to her ER practice, her surfing, and her cat. While Josie, who seemingly has it all, is isolated by her secrets. No one knows her true self. Her past is another country, on another continent, and it happened to someone else.
One brief moment in the background in someone else’s camera frame brings Josie’s worlds into collision. And Kit’s walls come tumbling down.
Escape Rating B+: This is a story that can best be described as quietly charming. It feels like one of those stories where not a lot happens on the surface, but that surface is only 10% of what’s happening. Underneath, Kit and Josie are paddling like crazy.
While the comparison is to an iceberg, there’s nothing cold about the story – including its two settings, the California coast and Auckland, New Zealand. Where it’s a hot and steamy late summer when Kit arrives to investigate that three-second sighting of the sister who has been presumed dead for 15 years.
We begin the story from Kit’s point of view as she believes, disbelieves, questions and investigates a possibility that has haunted her for all of her adult life. What if Josie is still alive?
In alternating chapters we find ourselves looking through the eyes of a woman named Mari. Who seemingly has it all, a rich and handsome husband, two terrific kids, a storied house to investigate – and a gigantic secret.
As both Kit and Mari remember their childhoods, with each dive into the past revealing more cracks in that originally perfect surface, their memories converge. It’s obvious fairly quickly that Mari is Josie, and that she’s rightfully worried that her few seconds in that background shot are going to bring her world crashing down – and she’s right.
But until the crash, it’s Kit’s view that holds the attention. While Mari has found the life she dreamed of, and is afraid of losing it – Kit is very much still seeking, not just Josie, but a life that will not merely sustain her but support her and enrich her spirit. Her search, including her hesitant relationship with the handsome Spanish guitarist Jose Velez, opens her heart and shakes her certainties – even as she hunts down the sister she never expected to find.
Kit’s on a quest, and somewhat ironically, Josie is the macguffin she’s looking for. But all the while, both of them are internally exploring their memories of the life they once shared together. As those memories reach toward the present, Josie and Kit reach towards each other.
And the possibility of a shared – and much brighter – future.
I picked up When We Believed in Mermaids because I enjoyed The Art of Inheriting Secrets by this same author very much, with just a few quibbles. The same is true about When We Believed in Mermaids, including the quibbles. Both are stories where events in the present cause the narrator(s) to search through their own pasts as well as the past of a place that they become involved with in the course of the story, so if you like one you’ll definitely like the other.
In The Art of Inheriting Secrets, I had a couple of issues with the way that the hesitant romance in that book proceeded, but loved the look back into the past of the house she inherits and the mother she discovers that she never really knew. There’s also an old house in Mermaids, and I was hoping for as interesting a reveal of its history as there was in Secrets, but alas, it was not to be. The secrets about Sapphire House, when finally revealed, felt anticlimactic. That was the one part of the story where I really expected more.
Then again, I love stories about research done well and filled with fascinating reveals. And there were plenty of those fascinating reveals in Kit and Josie’s hesitant journeys down memory lane. As I said, this story is quietly charming, and I was certainly charmed. If you’re looking for a beach read this summer all you have to do is believe in these mermaids!
~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
I’m giving away a copy of When We Believed in Mermaids to one lucky (US/CAN) commenter on this tour!
Welcome to the All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox!
When I first saw the name of this particular blog hop, the following instantly came to my mind:
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost…”
I first read those lines more than 50 years ago (OMG, OMG, OMG) when I was in the 4th Grade. A friend’s older brother had introduced me to The Lord of the Rings, and those are the words that Gandalf used to describe Aragorn, the last of the Rangers. I’ve been hooked on epic fantasy ever since – and will forever remember the person who introduced me to what become one of the great loves of my life. And by that I mean epic fantasy in general. As much as I loved LOTR, I still have arguments with it. (Not nearly enough women, not remotely enough women with agency, ARRRGGGHHH!)
But this blog hop is all about gold that actually does glitter. Or at least posits that all the things that glitter are gold. I was thinking that silver glitters, but it gleams more than it glitters. Or it glistens. Or something. I digress.
We all have things that glitter in memory. For me, that first introduction to epic fantasy is one, as is the memory of watching the original Star Trek with my dad, at least the final season, as it was broadcast. From thence comes my lifelong love affair with science fiction.
What about you? What was your first introduction to something that turned out to be a lifelong love or lifelong influence? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at one of my usual prizes, either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books from the Book Depository.
Welcome to the Christmas in July Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds!
What do you think of the whole Xmas in July idea? I don’t celebrate Xmas, so to me the whole idea of doing it in July too feels rather blatantly commercial. Potentially a whole lot of fun, but if there’s any holiday that feels like a “Hallmark holiday” instead of a real one, this is probably it. That Amazon has ganged onto for their Prime Day in July promotions just adds to that impression.
Although there is something ironic – at least here in the Northern Hemisphere – about celebrating a holiday that is normally accompanied by chilly weather and even snow at a time of the year when we’re more likely to be getting record-setting high temperatures than even a cool breeze.
Still, any chance to give or get presents is probably a good one. Hence this giveaway hop, and my usual rafflecopter giveaway of the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. This giveaway is open to anywhere the Book Depository ships.
Welcome to the Back to School Giveaway Hop, hosted by Review Wire Media and Chatty Patty’s Place!
Escape Rating A-: I did read 
Particularly as there was so much setup and exposition that the identity of the murderer and at least some of their motives (although not all) became obviously fairly early on.
I picked up Brazen and the Beast because I enjoyed the first book in the series, 
