I enjoyed Claire Douglas’ last release, “Just Like the Other Girls” so much I knew I was going to read this latest book fromReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
I enjoyed Claire Douglas’ last release, “Just Like the Other Girls” so much I knew I was going to read this latest book from the prolific writer. Sadly, it didn’t meet my expectations, but it’s still a pretty solid read, owing to how well Douglas writes female-to-female dynamics, especially when it comes to families and generations.
Part of the problem with this book, I think (when you compare it to “Just Like the Other Girls” is that there were just too many characters involved to keep the editing as tight and the characterizations as developed in this book. Plus, there were so many male characters in this book, and Douglas seems to not have the same flair for developing and writing males as she does females. The male characters in this book are less complex, if not close to stereotype cut-outs compared to the complex and rich female characters. This leaves the book feeling unbalanced, because the males are necessary for the book’s plot but their thoughts, feelings, and reactions are easy to predict.
Douglas writes a great suspense thriller, don’t get me wrong. Her prose is strong and her storylines are very entertaining. It just seems that with this book she made a misstep by not giving her male characters the development they needed.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Paperbacks for granting me access to this title. ...more
Do a lighter assignment, your boss says. Go back to your hometown, your boss says. Spend some time with your dad, your boss says. You’ve just gotten fDo a lighter assignment, your boss says. Go back to your hometown, your boss says. Spend some time with your dad, your boss says. You’ve just gotten finished with a tough undercover investigation where I broke your story at the wrong time, your boss says. You should take it kind of easy because you’re grieving right now, your boss says.
Well, it turns out that Jupiter, our main character, either just doesn’t know what it means to take it easy, or is just one of those people that needs to keep busy so she doesn’t dwell on her own thoughts too much (Who, me? Why do you guys think I read all day long!), because when Jupiter does indeed go back to her hometown to try and do a lighter assignment and maybe spend a little time with her dad, she ends up opening old wounds and old memories surrounding her mother’s murder.
This book is about 75% great and about 25% average. The majority of that great 75% is due to the absolutely stunning narrative prose, the intelligent and intuitive writing style, the stunning dialogue between characters, and the intensely personal and emotional inner musings of Jupiter. The characterizations and their development are also part of that, as is the research, world building, and the storyline.
The 25% average comes from the slightly melodramatic plot and the overabundance of plot twists. I felt like the author could have gotten the same effect from us readers with a less serpentine path.
No matter how you look at it, the book was entertaining and page-turning, and a lovely read just for the writing alone. Definitely something for any thriller reader’s TBR.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
There were two lines that kept popping up in my head while reading this book. One from Shakespheare and one from Taylor Swift, of all people.
“There aThere were two lines that kept popping up in my head while reading this book. One from Shakespheare and one from Taylor Swift, of all people.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
And…
“I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs…”
I know. Weird, right? The Bard schooling one of his characters about how there are things beyond the understanding of an educated mind, and T Swift talking about a past love she can’t get out of her head.
“Self-Portrait With Nothing” is a brilliant, quirky, and mind-bending book. You might see it advertised as sci-fi/fantasy, but I wouldn’t take it that far. I firmly believe this book remains rooted in the literary traditions of magical realism and speculative fiction among the likes of Marquez, Kafka, and Borges. When it’s not busy being magical realism, it’s busy being a stupendous, fever-dream mystery chase through continental Europe that’s filled with suspense, drama, violence, and a whole lot of mind-bending emotional breakdowns. Oh, and add in a legitimate art collecting group who gets really mad and is not above the unaliving if you don’t give them what they want on the down low. Don’t forget those guys.
This book crams a whole lot of plot, events, and characters into one book and yet at no time does this book feel crowded or rushed in any way. I have a feeling this is due to the naturally fast pacing that comes with the story: while at the start of the book there doesn’t seem to be a major timeline attached to the book’s events, once our main character (Pepper) decides to leave for Europe time is a matter of the essence for a great many reasons, and though Pepper’s priorities shift multiple times during the book, that notion of hurry hurry hurry never abates. Since Pepper goes through so much and meets so many people in the process, the abundance of events and characters doesn’t feel out of place because it all just comes part and parcel with her mad dash through Great Britain, Germany, and Poland.
Anyone who’s ever spent a great deal of their life wondering about all the what-ifs in their life, or wondering what their life might be in a parallel universe or dimension is going to relate to Pepper and her life. A physical anthropologist married to a historian, Pepper has pondered her dichotomous life since she was a teenager: the life she lives now (where she was adopted by her moms) and a life where her biological mom (an infamous painter) hadn’t given her up for adoption. This study in dichotomy influences every aspect of Pepper’s adult life: she wonders constantly about what she’s doing and what choices she’s making in other universes. It has caused her to become too good at keeping secrets, avoiding situations, and bottling emotions. Pepper’s emotional development throughout this book was one of my favorite aspects of it: to see her carry so much weight, keep so many secrets, avoid so many situations, and bottle so much… but everyone has a breaking point. And that reminds me of a quote from “The Martian”:
“At some point, everything's gonna go south on you... everything's going to go south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.”
I love magical realism, and this book tells a vibrant but pensive tale of art, narcissism, possessiveness, hypotheticals, pain, and selfishness at a roller coaster pace but with evocative imagery and impeccable prose. Definitely something to add to your TBR.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so torn over a book before. This is a book I genuinely liked 50% of and greatly disliked the other 50% of.
The half of thI don’t think I’ve ever been so torn over a book before. This is a book I genuinely liked 50% of and greatly disliked the other 50% of.
The half of the book I enjoyed was the timeline set in 1629, mostly set on board the ship Bavaria. I loved our precocious, bored, plucky (but still just mostly a young girl bored and in need of entertainment and distraction) high-born young lady and main character, Mayken, who embraces the sea life out of both necessity and for wont of nothing to do for six months with little to no supervision on a large vessel like the Bavaria. I love how she made friends, made deals, sought out adventures, took care of people, and didn’t mind getting dirty (physically, of course) if she thought it might help make the passage of their ship just that much easier for anyone on board the ship who might need it. Reading about her adventures, trevails, bravery, and sweetness were my favorite parts of the book.
But then we have the parallel story of Gil, set in 1989. This half of the book I simply couldn’t stand. It’s not that it was difficult to read. I’ve read harsher stories. I’ve read sadder stories. I’ve read rougher stories. It was simply that Mayken’s story was so flushed out (helped out naturally by the real-life story of the Bavaria and its wreckage), that Gil’s story seemed shortchanged in terms of real plot and, instead, the author went straight for just maximum wreckage in this character’s life, almost to the point of exploitation. This half had a lot of filler, and it’s already a long book. I ended up feeling like when we were in the 1989 timeline we were just doing a whole lot of hurry up and wait. That’s not the kind of story I want to read.
I don’t normally give TW, but I will give this one because I freaking hated it when it happened in the book: there is a scene with a deliberate description of animal cruelty.
So I’d say the book was great on the historical fiction level, but not so great on the contemporary fiction level. But that ruins the whole point of the novel, and therefore the novel comes out at just average.
Thanks to NetGalley and Arctis Books for granting me access to this book. Due to the 3 Star or lower rating this review will not be posted on any bookseller or social media website. ...more
If you’re going into this book thinking it’s a cozy mystery, a closed-loop mystery, or a locked-room mystery, I’d like to disabuse you of all those noIf you’re going into this book thinking it’s a cozy mystery, a closed-loop mystery, or a locked-room mystery, I’d like to disabuse you of all those notions right now. Just because this book takes a lot of inspiration from the beloved and dearly departed mystery writer Agatha Christie and incorporates a lot of elements that can be found in her numerous books means nothing in the face of the fact that Agatha Christie, in some way or form, influenced every mystery writer in publishing today. Heck, if anything, this book is simply calling a spade a spade by effectively saying, “Yeah, I totally read this in an Agatha Christie book. I think it’ll totally work. We should do that,” or, “I just read that once in an Agatha Christie book and she was totally right.”
This book, my lovelies, is freaking fun as heck to read (look at my curse word censorship!). It’s a page-turner. It’s entertaining. It’s a compelling read that keeps drawing you further and further in, making you not want to stop reading because you just need to see what happens in the next chapter. This book, dear hearts, is one of those books that deserves a bookmark that says, “Just one more chapter”.
There’s something magnetic about our two main characters, Iris and Alice. And I mean that in a metaphorical, opposite-poles way. Rich girl, poor girl. One aimless, one goal-driven. One has everything she wants but love and attention, one has everything she wants but money and safety. Two sides of the same coin and yet neither knows it until the death of one of their classmates and the consequential timing of the two of them being thrown together for tutoring ends up causing two girls looking for common ground to all of sudden finding out they make a great team together.
This book doesn’t feel as long as it is, which is always fabulous when you’re reading a mystery, in my opinion. It took me until almost close to the actual turn to guess who the killer was, which is rare for me, so bravo to the authors for that. The writing is absolutely impeccable: bright, quick, clever, witty in places and sentimental in others (though never overly so). There are anthropological elements to the setting of this book that give the town and its people a distinct micro-culture feeling that I really enjoyed. The town of Castle Cove didn’t feel generic: it felt like an actual place, with its own cultures and social mores.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of this series. I thought this was going to be a standalone, so I was actually ecstatic when I found out there were going to be more. So here’s to more Agathas in the future. May the next book shine as brightly as this one.
Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Delacorte Press for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I had a hard time warming up to former NYPD Detective Leigh O’Donnell (our protagonist) at the beginning of this book, and I wasn’t even really all thI had a hard time warming up to former NYPD Detective Leigh O’Donnell (our protagonist) at the beginning of this book, and I wasn’t even really all that hooked into the initial premise of the book. Shortly after the initial introductions were all made and the scene was set, though, I actually started to really like the way Leigh wasn’t going to let a bunch of good ol’ boys tell her how to do her job, I liked how she took the case she was assigned seriously from the get, and I found it engaging how she was finding her way back to the large family she had left behind when she moved to New York after her mother’s death.
It’s a sad and somehow unfathomable thing to me how this book somehow just fell absolutely flat while simultaneously splitting into what seemed to be three to four different plot lines (none of which added anything of value to the main plot line but only seemed to be trying to create red herrings and false trails to keep readers busy for the third act). It’s like all the energy from the front of the book just sifted out of the pages, and by the time I got to the third act, there was so much information, names, locations, lines of thoughts, and shoddy plotting floating around I just knew the book was going to have a rushed ending and it wasn’t going to make much sense.
In my opinion, I was right. In the end, the solution to the mystery (more than one mystery, even) was a really sloppy solve and had a ton of holes in it. And the ending? It was not only rushed, but in my opinion it was one of the worst endings to a thriller novel I’ve read in as long as I can remember.
NetGalley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons provided me with access to this title. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Thank you. As per my personal policy this review will not appear on social media or any bookseller website due to the 3 star or lower rating.
There are so many things to love about this multifaceted deep-dive into the third act of a woman’s life, about who women are when they decide they no There are so many things to love about this multifaceted deep-dive into the third act of a woman’s life, about who women are when they decide they no longer need and/or want men in their lives, about what being a woman is at the very root of all things, and how desperately needful it is to remind ourselves everyday that there are more women than men on the Earth and, just like with most base creatures who huff and puff and make a lot of noise, men really do have more cause to fear women, if only we would remember that and use that power more often.
When I say “multifaceted”, I really do mean it. I have always loved a book title simple enough it lends itself to conveying many vector points in the text. “The Change” could refer to any and/or all of the following things (I suspect, given Miller’s sly writing style, that it’s the latter): all the characters have either just gone through or are going through menopause (sometimes called The Change), Harriet’s garden is always changing, the way all three women have changed over their lives and how it shaped them into the people they are in present-day, all three main character’s personal lives are in a state of flux and they have all made some recent personal decisions or changes, or it could even be referring to the overarching change to the way things have been done that the three main women in this story decide to enact that the title is referring to.
This is one of those books that’s long (close to 500 pages), but doesn’t feel it, and the pacing is like the steady heartbeat of someone who’s been walking at a brisk pace. It’s a mystery novel, in part, but definitely not cozy. No one sits down for long in this book, unless they’re sitting down planning, making, or discussing mischief. Or maybe partaking of illicit substances. This book, and the people in it, keep moving. Keep talking. Keep thinking. They have a lot to do, a lot to see, a lot to say, a lot to think about, a lot to plan, a lot of things to put into place, a lot of players to put into action, and then a whole lot more stuff to do when their latest set of actions sets off, reactions happen, and they have to run around and figure out next steps.
I have read a few good books about smashing the patriarchy since I started doing this back last August. There are only three that made me clench my fists together, shake them in victory, and growl like I had just come out victorious from an arena fight. This was the third one. By the time this book was over and every single person–Every. Single. Person.–who was responsible for the horrors perpetrated prior to the events of this book and during this book had paid their due, I started to feel a little bit better about the fact I’m in perimenopause myself. I have a good few decades left to live, myself, and those decades are meant to be lived however I see fit. Anyone else who thinks they know better can turn around and walk away. I have better things to do with my time.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for allowing me early access to this title in exchange for fair and honest review. ...more
It’s always hard when you go to write a review for a book and you’re torn, because on one hand the plot is pretty darn cool and the characters are intIt’s always hard when you go to write a review for a book and you’re torn, because on one hand the plot is pretty darn cool and the characters are interesting, but the execution of both plot and character just falls flat.
This is the case for me when it comes to “She Lied, She Died”. The plot, which centers around a would-be writer who still lives on the farm where a teenage girl was found dead when she was a little girl and the just-paroled woman who was imprisoned for the crime who is now proclaiming her innocence even though she confessed to the crime when it happened, is actually an interesting and compelling subject manner to start out with. Both of them are outcasts in their town: the would-be writer because the body was found on her family’s land, and the just-paroled woman because, well, she was paroled for killing a teenage girl when she was just a teenager herself and was considered white trash by the rest of the town.
This book could have been an awesome opportunity to explore the themes of poverty somehow still being an acceptable prejudice in this country, of how disadvantaged teenagers are always prime targets for law enforcement, of how media values the beauty of a victim when it comes to crime, and how everyone loves a linear narrative when it comes to violent crime in small towns.
Sadly, this book veered off course. Instead of sticking with our two central characters and unraveling the truth in a more intimate and intriguing way, Lynch runs with just our protagonist as she all of a sudden needs to see her great aunt and her childhood best friend. And all this for a pretty lackluster ending.
This book is mildly diverting, but it didn’t live up to its potential.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper360 for granting me access to this title.
As per personal policy, this review will not appear on any bookseller or social media website due to the 3 star or lower rating. ...more
Oh how I love books that heavily embed linguistics not only the culture of the people in the book but also so deeply into the very plot of the book! IOh how I love books that heavily embed linguistics not only the culture of the people in the book but also so deeply into the very plot of the book! I may not be a linguist (that title falls to my baby sister), but both she and I grew up with a love of languages and how language evolves over time. This book made me so very happy in my linguistics pants just because it was so clever and almost effortless in how it took the English language and showed how much it could have shifted and then been embedded into the social fabric in the future. I won’t give any examples, because I really don’t want to ruin the fun. Some of the changes are just so downright spot-on they become hilarious. I found myself saying, “Of course that’s what we’d end up calling that in the future!” This book also relies heavily on how technology has changed language on a global scale, with American English, fragmented sentences, and emojis being the most common languages spoken when the digital world is involved.
I am simply mad about this book. It’s one of the best sci-fi novels I’ve read this year, and it’s not even pure sci-fi. It’s also an amateur sleuth mystery, a little bit of a thriller, and a crafty bit of speculative fiction. There are many great points to be made about first contact with an alien civilization: what kind of considerations and how many considerations would we be willing to give to an alien civilization to gain access to their technology, should they come in peace? Would they have an advantage over us once some of us could learn their language and act as translators (in case they didn’t speak out loud, which is the case in this book) because it would give them a buffering time between speaking and then having to hear someone’s reply in which to craft more questions, thoughts, decisions, and answers? Would they have an advantage in composing oneself between one statement and another just by virtue of the translation lag time?
The overall murder mystery plot is an engaging and a twisty road. It’s unpredictable and it seems that just when the mystery might be solved, it’s another red herring or the logic falls apart and we’re a few steps back again. A few steps forward, a stumble back. That’s how this book goes and that’s how I like it. And just when you think all the players have been identified, there’s sure to be another piece put into play or one of the pieces is found to have not been part of it at all. In the end, I was about 85% surprised by who it was. And then I felt like, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Trust me, pick up this book. Then actually read it. If you’re a fan of speculative fiction I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy it.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I’ve sat here staring at my laptop screen for a bit, trying to think of the best way to start out this book review because I just can’t stay away fromI’ve sat here staring at my laptop screen for a bit, trying to think of the best way to start out this book review because I just can’t stay away from the word “ineffable” when it comes to this book. When I pull away from the intricacies and intimacies of the story and look at it from afar, it’s just something so enigmatic and beautiful I simply don’t know where to start with it.
Why don’t I try starting with the plot, boiled down to its base elements? This book is, at its roots, a Great American Road Trip novel. It’s the story of two sisters who decide to set out and find their mother, who has been missing for five years, and now that they’re both adults they decide to find out once and for all what her fate was, because they think they have the tools to do so. This wouldn’t be a special book at all if it weren’t for the sheer, raw talent and imagination of Ruth Emmie Lang.
Characters and atmosphere are what drive this book, and both are magnificent engines. I’d say atmosphere carries slightly more weight than the characters, but that may be due to the fact that Lang’s mesmerizing, earnest, and almost hypnotic prose lends the atmosphere strength, while only half of characterization is carried by prose (the rest being carried by heartfelt, well-written, and sometimes heartbreakingly vulnerable dialogue).
The themes of sisterhood, motherhood, guilt, shame, secrets, and regret are all central to this book, overlaid with mystical melodies surrounding memory, music, birds, and migration. These themes and literary melodies are where the book gets ineffable for me, because I feel I could write a whole essay about how memory, music, birds, and migration patterns all tie into one another, but that would never fit into a book review. This one is running long as it is.
Our two main characters, Finn and Zadie, are both wonderful and heartbreaking to read, with their opposite worldviews and personalities. If you have a sister you might know that feeling of simultaneously wanting to hug them and throttle them but you’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe. When it comes to their disparate world views regarding their missing mother, you can also see that big sister/little sister dynamic in action as they both regard their mother and her actions in different ways, memories and emotions colored differently by their age when the events happened and whether or not they were there when certain things happened. It causes strife and discord as Zadie tries to shield and protect Finn from what happened in the last six months their mother was around before she disappeared, but it’s hard to stop those protective instincts, and you can feel the weight of Zadie’s emotions regarding the matter.
Yes, I cried.
There are fabulous interludes throughout the book as Zadie and Finn travel from Texas to Washington in their endeavor to find their mom, from stargazing in Arizona to communing with trees in the Cascades. Every new supporting character that’s brought into the story contributes something significant to the story and never takes away from the plot or feels like filler material. It’s just one more stepping stone and one more mile to go.
I simply loved it. Everything about it. It was compelling from the first sentence, reeling me in immediately and it kept me captivated to the very end. It won’t disappoint you.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
File Under: Coming of Age/Magical Realism/New Adult/Mystery ...more
Never have I been so frustrated with a main character in a suspense thriller. I was so frustrated with the FMC in this book (Frankie), that I called mNever have I been so frustrated with a main character in a suspense thriller. I was so frustrated with the FMC in this book (Frankie), that I called my own little sister to check my attitude toward the plot and the way Frankie handles her relationship with her own little sister, Izzy. After discussing the basics of the plot and how absolutely maddening Frankie made me feel, my little sister was in absolute agreement with me that she thought Frankie was absolutely out of her mind and in over her head as well. So I felt much saner about how I was approaching the book after that conversation, knowing I wasn’t the only one thinking Frankie needed a huge reality check.
Now that my frustrations toward Frankie in addition to her relationship with Izzy are out of the way, I can move on with my review of the rest of the book.
The plot was really interesting, even if it did reek a little bit of a CW drama mixed with a 1990s teen horror flick. I found that aspect much more interesting than the part of the story that focused on Frankie and Izzy, even if it came across as immature and not as well-developed as it could have been. Unfortunately, it also gave up a few of the turns that would be key later in the book too soon.
Overall, I just felt the book had good writing, nice plot structure (even if the plot itself wasn’t the best), nice sentence structure and dialogue, and well-developed characterizations (even if I didn’t like them much). Heather Chavez has a ton of promise as a writer, if she can get better editors that can rein her pacing and tendency to oversell in.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for early access to this title in both eARC and physical ARC form in exchange for a fair and honest review. Per personal policy this review will not appear on social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower review. ...more
If diabetics need insulin to regulate their blood sugar, then Ruby needs murder to regulate the self-imposed ethical rules by which she lives her lifeIf diabetics need insulin to regulate their blood sugar, then Ruby needs murder to regulate the self-imposed ethical rules by which she lives her life. Just as she refuses to sleep with more men than her age (so, if she’s 24, she refuses to sleep with a 25th man until she turns 25), she finds that after a wide spread of time (about a decade or so), she finds the need to either commit or cause a death to happen. She doesn’t feel guilt, remorse, or concern over these deaths. To her, they simply needed to happen, so she ensured they did, and the world is better off without these people anyway. A bully when she’s 5. A rapist when she’s a young adult. A bigoted and violent woman who treats her employees like slaves once she’s fully grown and an established professional.
She’s either outright guilty of some form of murder or had a hand in the death in all three of these people, but what this book is about is the one death she had absolutely nothing to do with: the death of her husband, who died of low blood sugar in his sleep on the first night she had gotten a full night of deep sleep at home in what felt like forever after a week-long retreat on teaching Type-A personalities how to relax and let go.
Ruby has emotions like anyone else. The deaths she helped cause or had a hand in came about because, after internal analysis, she felt these people would only do more damage in the long run if they lived, so dying now would save everyone a whole lot of trouble. Hence why she carries no guilt or remorse over those deaths. They were, ultimately, necessary and a public service. No one ever need know. So she’s ultimately shocked and bemused when the police haul her in for her husband’s death when she had absolutely nothing at all to do with it. Type I diabetics die in their sleep from low blood sugar often enough there’s a moniker for it, “Dead in Bed”. That doesn’t stop her from being frozen in amber before she can even start her grieving process because the cops are laying the death at her door, despite the medical examiner’s findings that the husband died naturally of “Dead in Bed”.
What I loved about this book so much is how human Ruby is. Rothschild goes to great lengths to weave a completely mundane, intimate, almost-normal but somewhat-extraordinary personal life story for Ruby: adores her sister, higher-than-normal IQ, a preternatural talent for reading people she’s never even met before, a great judge of character, hates clutter, loves routine, her favorite color is purple and you will never change her mind, doesn’t second-guess herself, and once she sets on a path she doesn’t deviate. There are so many little things revealed here and there during the book that humanize Ruby we feel as if we’ve known her forever by the time the book ends. Heck! I wanted to be her friend! How human she is makes the things she’s done seem almost just like a quirk of hers–something she just needs to do to equalize herself every decade or so, and it’s always someone who really deserves it. I found myself going, “Well, honestly… I can’t say she was really all that wrong in what she did there.” Do I feel bad about thinking that? No, not really. Should I? I don’t even know at this point.
This book is a mind trip. It’s narrated in first-person POV, so I could write this off as unreliable narration. But I don’t. I don’t find Ruby to be unreliable. I don’t find she has the appropriate mens rea to be an unreliable narrator. No motive. She has no reason to lie to us readers. The plot has nothing to do with the crimes she actually committed: it has everything to do with the one crime she didn’t commit. And that’s the irony of it all. Rothchild could’ve gone for the jugular and wrote us the story of this serial killer in slow-motion, but instead we got the story of a grieving widow who had lived an incredibly interesting life and was being put on trial for the one murder she didn’t commit.
I highly recommend this sharp suspense mystery. It’s worth every page.
Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Publishing Group, and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I have a confession to make: I have a huge reservoir of affection for books involving the low country and barrier islands off the coast of the CarolinI have a confession to make: I have a huge reservoir of affection for books involving the low country and barrier islands off the coast of the Carolinas and Georgia. It started way back in the day when I first read Pat Conroy’s “The Prince of Tides” and has continued ever since. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see them before global climate change and several other factors destroy them (I’m a born and bred California girl who’s only been next to the Atlantic Ocean when she was in New York City one time, so I think that hardly counts), but it’s been on my bucket list for as long as Greece has (which would be high school). So one of the main reasons I wanted to read this book was the setting: location location location!
The second reason was the same reason I’ve chosen to read a lot of the books I’ve picked to read in the last 9-plus months: memory. I’ve said before in a few reviews that books involving issues surrounding memory or sleep intrigue and interest me because I’ve had chronic insomnia for years now and my memory is very compromised by both my panic disorder and temporal lobe epilepsy. It doesn’t help that both lack of sleep and stress and/or overwhelming anxiety both aggravate the epilepsy and cause more memory loss issues. With every week that slips by, the memory loss gets worse, it seems, and I’m not even 45 yet.
“Carolina Moonset” explores both. It’s a wonderful suspense mystery and family drama that may be set in the present but reaches far into the past to find most of its answers. The stunning and yet always ineffable salt marshes, lagoons, and tides of the barrier islands and their tricky dichotomy of working class stilt houses and plantation mansions provides a perfect backdrop for a tricky tale of whodunit, all while Joey (our main character) tries to keep the police from putting his father (who has a rare and lethal form of dementia) in jail for the murder by solving the case with the help of the adult daughter of the couple who live next door to his parents.
I’m usually so let down by suspense mysteries these days. Either the pacing isn’t right, or I guess the turn(s) early on in the book, or the book is too long, or there are too many characters.. I could keep going. That wasn’t the case here: this book was kind-of the Goldilocks of suspense mysteries in so many ways. Great pacing, I was surprised more than once by clever (but not pretentious or outrageous) misdirects, a great length, a surprisingly perfect number of characters, and a diverse cast. The book also has a big heart with a great but gentle sense of humor. You can’t help but fall in love with both Joey and his father. Unlike “The Prince of Tides”, it’s one of the best and least toxic father-son relationships I’ve ever read in a book. It was truly touching.
My sole complaint is that there were a few obvious points where the main character should’ve known better or had shown more logic before and then all of sudden lacked that same level of logic. It was annoying enough for me to get frustrated, but not annoying enough to stop reading. I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s a fan of southern mysteries and who loves positive family dynamics. It’s a great read.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Forge Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
There’s a whole lot to like about this book, a little bit I found myself disliking, and a splattering here and there where I just thought the book couThere’s a whole lot to like about this book, a little bit I found myself disliking, and a splattering here and there where I just thought the book could have tried harder or reached for something higher or darker.
I think that last point there describes how I felt about this book best: I felt like this book wanted to be darker than it ended up being; and it could’ve been, had it followed through with every single plot thread it dangled in front of us (or, in my case, one particular plot thread that I found to be especially compelling and enticing and I wish McTiernan would’ve brought more of that thread into to story instead of tossing it in like a fabric remnant at the end).
Going into this book I thought I was getting something more cunning, morally ambiguous, more… agent provocateur-cum-Elle Woods. Make no mistake, we do get a little but of that vibe, but we don’t get it as ruthlessly as I’d hoped for.
For someone who’s got a score to settle and is in the business of revenge for the time being, Hannah (our protagonist), doesn’t seem too committed to the cause. She just comes in like a lion and then does sneaky little tricks and subtle sabotages while double-crossing herself time and time again because somewhere inside she actually does have a conscience.
I know what I’ve said so far likely doesn’t endear you to the book. I’m not making the best case for it. That’s because all of the “good” in this book has to do with the writing style, the pacing, and the overall idea of the plot. Now, I’m not going to go through the plot anymore than I already have, because I’ve touched on that enough for one review and because I suspect this really might be a “me” issue, but I’ll go ahead and touch on the writing style and the pacing.
There are three narrative streams coming from three different POVs in three different styles in this book (and one coming from another source, but it’s more of an aberration since it only happens the once): the first is the main narrative stream of the story, which comes from Hannah and is told in third-person; the second is comes from a diary written by Laura, Hannah’s mother, which is obviously first-person (and which Hannah keeps with her, as it plays a part in the story); and the third is a few snippets of time in the past told from Laura’s third-person POV that happen in live-action as opposed to being written inside a diary. These narrative streams, interweaving with one another, showing how mother and daughter are bonded together, showing how Laura got to be where she is in life and how Hannah came to be and the epic love and loss that has now become a sort of mantle, shield, and sword which Hannah must now carry into battle to free her mother of the chains that hold her down with sorrow and shame are simply a beautiful tragedy, even if you can’t help but feel no parent should lay the lightening of their burdens at the feet of their children. The deeper you get into the novel the deeper you get into just who Laura is, and into just how tangled and tight the weave she has around Hannah is; and how it took distance and time for Hannah to realize she was wrapped up in something she never realized she had signed up for in the first place and it made herself into someone she’s not even sure she likes or knows. Who is Hannah without Laura? Who is Hannah at all?
The pacing of the book is steady and propulsive, but not so much as a thriller. This is more of a suspense mystery: just a pot of simmering water, letting you know there’s a time limit, people are going to start asking questions and figuring things out sooner rather than later, the reveals and turns will come (I actually didn’t guess the big one in this book!), and one or more persons will be injured. This all happens: after all, this is genre fiction and in genre fiction it’s all about how well you complete the elements of the genre. You’re not normally reinventing the wheel. My point is this book does all this without falling into the dreaded 30 - 50% slump, when the book slows down and I usually keep dozing off because now we’re just doing exposition and montages of busy work until the 50% reveal/turn. This book escapes it, and does it with NECESSARY exposition and busy work involving all the legal things any law student working on something as inherently interesting as The Innocence Project would need to be working on. Hannah needed to be doing all this solitary work that’s only tangentially related to the main plot, and in doing that, McTiernan managed to avoid the slump and also have a bit of story to tie to a possible future for Hannah at the end of the book.
All in all, the book has its issues, but it’s still a page turner. I recommend it as a suspense and legal mystery.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
There are two literary colloquialisms that came to mind when I finished this book: one, this is definitely a case where you shouldn’t judge a book by There are two literary colloquialisms that came to mind when I finished this book: one, this is definitely a case where you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (because this book is so much more fun than the cover suggests); and two, if there was a book I thought would make a great movie, it’s this one. Though, given Stephen Lloyd formerly wrote for various tv shows, this doesn’t surprise me. Heck, if this was a tv show, I’d watch it. A little bit Buffy (the overarching plot), a little bit Harry Potter (which you can see in the school’s librarian to an extremely creepy effect), a little bit Riverdale (in our dogged female lead, school journalist, Harriet), a little bit Supernatural (which we can see in our Vietnam vet insurance investigator, Sam), a little bit Stranger Things (puzzles, dungeons, D&D, quests, side quests)? A sprinkle of Constantine (spoilers!)?
This book is a horror book and a suspense book, but it never takes itself too seriously. There’s a dry wit to it, as well as a mean sense of humor that tickles that awful place inside of me that likes to see gory and awful stuff happen to horrible characters in books. There are deaths you wouldn’t get to see in books or movies that take place in present-day because of how technology has changed (this book takes place in 1980, which we know because one character is wearing a huge Reagan pin all the time and complains about people who love Jimmy Carter), and those deaths are such a delight because if you’re a fan of slasher films or horror films you know just how that vivid imagery would look on film and it’s delightful.
That’s another thing: this book has some seriously vivid imagery that just knocked my socks off and made this book incredibly engaging to read. This book isn’t about narrative style or atmosphere or deep-diving into anything. It’s just a fun, page-turning, propulsive, tilt-a-whirl, gory, creepy, wry, slick, and incredibly clever book that fans of genre tv will love and fans of genre fiction will find to be a fast and light read.
About that cover: it’s far too serious for how fun this book is and I think they should’ve taken that into consideration, because covers do matter in book sales, especially when it comes to social media influencing.
About that movie or tv show: can you guys get on that?
Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. . ...more
No matter how a book reviewer may feel about a book, we cannot simply come online and type, “Meh. It was sort-of okay. I definitely wouldn’t read it aNo matter how a book reviewer may feel about a book, we cannot simply come online and type, “Meh. It was sort-of okay. I definitely wouldn’t read it again.” That’s not what book reviews are about. That’s closer to a book opinion. That’s telling someone simply whether or not you liked the book. That’s not a review. Neither is simply reciting the synopsis. A review takes the elements of book writing and breaks down how well the book does these things (which differs from genre to genre), while also assessing how well the reviewer enjoyed the book and whether or not the book achieved the objective it set out to accomplish.
The reason I’m telling you this, which you may or may not know, is because I got frustrated thinking of what to write as a review for this book that teeters on the edge of dipping below 3 stars and just wondered to myself (in a rhetorical manner), “Why can’t I just type ‘It was meh’, and leave it at that?” Well… see above explanation. Reviews aren’t about whether or not I simply think a book is meh. Reviews are about why I think it’s meh, how it might have gotten that way, and why the book failed to elicit a reaction from me that was in any way more enthusiastic than meh.
My primary complaint about this book is that it is too long and the pacing is uneven. For a crime-suspense thriller/mystery, there is little to no suspense. Any and all attempts to create a suspenseful atmosphere fall completely flat because our villain is just so pitiful and our hero is practically the picture of a perfect county sheriff whose only “character flaw” is that he’s gay and prefers to live alone in a small town.
As a matter of fact, Amazon has this book listed as a LGBT+ Thriller, LGBTQ+ Mystery (Kindle Store), and a LGBT+ Mystery (Books)... when the plot of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the sheriff’s sexual orientation. The book is about two missing teens and the sheriff’s efforts to find them! He could be straighter than a 2x4 of solid oak and that wouldn’t have changed a dang bit of the main storyline. The main storyline remains the same: a boyfriend and girlfriend leave their houses late one night after their parents are in bed and disappear without a trace and they have to be found. Please, please tell me how this rates as a LGBTQ+ book in any manner?
My secondary complaint is the opioid-centric drug ring component of the plot. I don’t know the state of affairs in Minnesota, but where I live, almost every drug dealer has moved on from Oxy, Percocet, and Vicodin. They’re too hard to get ahold of and the ones you get off the streets are too dangerous to risk taking unless you have a testing kit. It made what’s supposed to be a present-day novel seem terribly out-of-date. If this book was set about ten years ago, maybe the drug aspect of the plot would have seemed more believable, but in 2022, it seems almost laughable.
The book just has an overall feeling of “average”. Where it doesn’t feel average it just feels “meh”. I don’t recommend the read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. As per personal policy, this review will not appear on social media or bookseller sites due to the 3 star or lower rating. ...more
This book is both nothing like I thought it would be and, surprisingly, everything I didn’t know I wanted or needed.
It’s not a perfect book: the overThis book is both nothing like I thought it would be and, surprisingly, everything I didn’t know I wanted or needed.
It’s not a perfect book: the overarching plot line stumbles at times (as if the author has gone off on a bit of a tangent and then remembers there’s a whole other aspect of this book to write), and the large cast of secondary and tertiary characters can get a bit mixed up at times, sometimes disappearing and reappearing in a manner that can come across as all-to-convenient.
What I think is that there are two wholly different books inside this one book, and it was like keeping plates spinning without dropping them to get through this entire book without china crashing everywhere. There’s an intriguing political sci-fi/fantasy mystery novel involving a dying Emperor who, in the minutes before his death, charges his favorite mistress with solving his murder and ensuring none of his sons stay on the throne (or even stay alive); and then there’s a dramatic sci-fi/fantasy novel exploring being a kidnapped, violated, and imprisoned woman held in an opulent, gilded cage and left to her own devices and means to help stay alive in spite of a horrific case of post-traumatic stress disorder and how she compartmentalizes her captive and abusive life in order to survive.
Therein lies the problem: this could be two whole books all on their own and sometimes it feels like one whole storyline eclipses the other for a small amount of time, which makes for a disjointed story, when taken in as a whole.
The thing is: both of these storylines are so intensely interesting I couldn’t find it in myself to totally dislike it or stop reading. If Mueller had tried to explain the metaphysical/fantastical aspects of this novel in more depth I’m sure this would be a large mess, so I’m actually glad (for once) that the “magic system” wasn’t explored in depth. We knew what we needed to know, and that’s not what the story was about anyway, so it only becomes something to be acknowledged every now and again.
The protagonist… well, talking about her would be a spoiler-and-a-half. But I loved her. I love stories where a woman (or women) are so easily underestimated or easily dismissed they end up holding all the cards. But I’m a mad woman who thrives on chaos. Call this book what you want, but it was my kind of jam.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan Tor/Forge, and Tor Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Being a woman with a science degree myself (I mention this often in my reviews of books that include geography as a component of the plot, since that Being a woman with a science degree myself (I mention this often in my reviews of books that include geography as a component of the plot, since that was my field of study), I love books of the STEMinist persuasion, and this book is no exception. Part historical crime fiction and part closed loop mystery, this novel has a curious charm about it even as it reminds us of just how bad discrimination is academia was toward women in the 1920s (it’s still bad today, of course).
I’ve become a bit wary of novels taking place in the 1920s as of late, as they seem to be full of cliches and stereotypes of the decade without taking into account not everyone spoke the same, imbibed or partook of the same drinks or substances, or dressed the same. I was pleased Khvavari chose to forge a different path than a lot of authors and not indulge in the same tired cliches. It made for refreshing dialogue and thoughtful prose.
Seeing as the novel is set in 1923 London, there was no doubt Khavari was going to have characters in her novel that had either seen battle in WWI or had relatives that had been killed there. After all, between soldier deaths and civilian deaths, the UK and Northern Ireland lost nearly 1.4 million people in the war (this is, of course, nothing compared to the Russian losses or the untold number lost in the Armenian Genocide). Brothers, fathers, and sons were all lost. Estates, inheritances, and titles were all thrown into disarray. The 1920s were a time of upheaval all over the world. Khavari is sensitive to the topic without tiptoeing around it, respective without kowtowing. It was appreciated.
Lastly, I appreciated the great amount of attention paid to the importance of empirical research, even if it’s gained through less-than-ideal means. Science is nothing without methodology, people!
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
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