Want something salacious, titillating, fun, and just engrossing enough to keep you engaged without you letting your mai tai become watered-down mush, Want something salacious, titillating, fun, and just engrossing enough to keep you engaged without you letting your mai tai become watered-down mush, miss the time when your sunscreen needs to be re-applied, or making sure your little ones (fur or not) haven’t wandered out of sight? I honestly think Sun Damage is a great book for that. If I had to pick a book that fits my definition of a “beach read” this would be it (disclaimer: I read this in bed because my ankle is still broken, so it is what it is).
This is a really entertaining book, even if it’s not a masterpiece. It’s just fun. For start, they’re hitting me in my soft spot: grifters. I love a good grift. I love a good con. I love fictional people who lie for a living. Who lie to live. I guess you could even say I love just thieves in general, of which grifters are a particular type of. Grifters, however, are more than thieves: they’re actors, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, human geographers, linguists, sociologists, demographers, philosophers, and jacks of all trades. They have to be able to pick up just about anything on the fly and learn it to competency in a very compact time frame. You have to be quick, smart, and able to turn on a dime. That’s what makes books about grifting so dang fun.
I get the feeling this book was supposed to be evenly character-driven and plot-driven, but I felt it was a combination of plot-driven and atmosphere-driven, if that makes sense. I didn’t really get a solid feel for any of the people staying at the house our FMC takes refuge at under the auspices of LuLu under the pretense of being their holiday chef. I feel like I was supposed to, but I really didn’t end up caring about any of them except Rob, the author. I was, however, living for the constant feeling of weight: the oppressive heat and humidity weighing everyone down, the sun beating on everyone’s heads, the guilt weighing our protagonist down, the secrets like stones in her pockets, the sweat soaking her clothing, the constant suspense of whether or not she was going to be caught or found suffocating her more and more with every day that passes…
Like I said: It’s a good read. Something you’d read once and really enjoy on a lovely vacation and then tell a friend they really should get a copy to take with them to the beach. Or you can just lay under your ceiling fan with a cold drink and imagine you’re at the beach. That’ll work too.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
This book has a split personality. The first half is full of splendid storytelling told either from the POV oOh, what highs! But then, oh, what lows.
This book has a split personality. The first half is full of splendid storytelling told either from the POV of a woman named Kace or in first-person prescient (which is a little-used narrative POV but one of my favorites). This first half, which takes place in the present day but reads like it takes place in the Old West, starts inside a women’s prison in Arizona with the stories of Florida and Dios, two of the prison’s inmates. It’s the time of COVID, and as much as no one likes the idea of being locked up, being locked up during a pandemic is putting them all even more on edge than usual. The prose is spellbinding, the plot relevant, and the social commentary compelling. I found myself sinking into the book, caught up in this cat and mouse game Dios is playing with Florida, trying to get Florida to admit she’s just the same as Dios and just as angry and violent as her, too. Dios wants to bring Florida down to her level, and she’s not beyond breaking a whole lot of laws in the process. Dios has an obsession, and Florida is it. Florida has an obsession too: getting to Los Angeles and back to her mother’s home to pick up her car and personal belongings before then driving back to Arizona before her first check-in with her parole officer.
I could’ve read that book–this book–just the way it is for the entire novel. Just Dios and Florida playing cat and mouse, catch and release, all over hill and dale as Florida tries to get to her car and Dios keeps dragging her down, down, down and then see how it ends.
But then there had to be part two. And that’s where this book lost me completely.
Up until this point there had been three POV’s: Florida, Kace, and Dios. In part two, all of a sudden, Dios’ POV disappears almost entirely and in its place is the POV of Lobos, a female cop that’s been assigned the case of Florida and Dios since they violated parole and a violent crime was committed during the act. But who committed the act? Was it both of them? One of them? Why was this guy killed anyway?
Like Florida, Dios, and Kace, Lobos has her own damage. Lobos even has a sexist partner that made me grind my teeth. It was established from the beginning that this book was largely about how the system victimizes females no matter their age, race, mental health, socioeconomic background, or line of work and then doesn’t think we have either the right or ability to get angry or violent and to do something about it. Taking it even further, if we dare try and do something about it, we’re somehow less than human to society. Bringing a cop who has a lot of her own issues surrounding anger towards men due to being abused by her husband into the story halfway through and practically letting her take over half of the narrative was not only jarring for the whole plot, but it was upsetting in general because we lost the strong narrative voice of Dios so this cop could amble around Los Angeles investigating the duo and jumping at shadows thinking her husband is around every corner.
Had Pochoda chosen to keep the story contained to Florida, Dios, and Kace, I believe this would’ve been a truly great novel. Her choice to split it down the middle like she did made it mediocre.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Owing to personal policy, all reviews rated three stars or under are not posted to social media or bookseller websites. Thank you. ...more
I enjoyed the last Golding book I read, but this book is a hard no from me.
If you’re going to write a book where your main protagonist comes from an I enjoyed the last Golding book I read, but this book is a hard no from me.
If you’re going to write a book where your main protagonist comes from an insular and superstitious group of people like circus people, then you had better make sure to do your research and be accurate. This is my first and largest complaint. Golding simply didn’t do her research.
Who’s to know whether or not a British traditional circus would turn away a stakeholding member with the sight in real life? It’s certainly not impossible. But traditionally, circuses have been the safe haven of anyone a little different, weird, or otherwise seen as an outcast by society. It doesn’t make sense that someone would be cast out for having the sight, especially if they were family. Circus is all about found family.
Circuses also still have their own code and vernacular that’s used both during shows and when the public isn’t around. It doesn’t matter what country you’re in. The lingo pretty much doesn’t change much because it reaches across language barriers.
I was reading Golding’s book and I wasn’t seeing any of this. None of the terms that I knew the characters should be using were being spoken. And WHOMP. There goes your worldbuilding before the first half of the first act is done. If you don’t even go to the trouble to build your world, how are we supposed to care about your book?
Now, I know this book isn’t entirely about the circus, but nothing about this book made me care about it. The prose was blah. The plot was blah. The characters were blah. It just all simply felt like Golding had phoned it in.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you....more
I expected so much more from this novel, given the synopsis. I love a good story about an abandoned amusement park. Sadly, this one just didn’t deliveI expected so much more from this novel, given the synopsis. I love a good story about an abandoned amusement park. Sadly, this one just didn’t deliver on, well, anything. It was one slow slog through a mildly entertaining story to a turn I predicted early on. Sure, there were some twists along the way that kept the story interesting enough that I didn’t DNF it, but that seems like an almost-desperate branch to throw out to a drowning reader who is suffering from dry, unimaginative prose and stilted, unnatural dialogue.
I can’t say I recommend this book. If you’re looking at the cover and reading the synopsis and think it might be a totally awesome, suspense-filled, crazy time, my opinion is that it solidly is not those things.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. As per personal policy, this review will not appear on any bookseller or social media website due to a rating of three stars or lower. Thank you.
File Under: Conspiracy Thriller/Dystopian Fiction/General Fiction/Genre Mashup/Horror/Just Not For Me/Psychological Fiction/Speculative Fiction/Suspense Thriller ...more
While I’ve been reading this over the last 1.5 days (in my bed, in the ER waiting room while my dad gets his heart checked out, while at home relaxingWhile I’ve been reading this over the last 1.5 days (in my bed, in the ER waiting room while my dad gets his heart checked out, while at home relaxing after, and then I finished it while lounging in bed this morning) and I’ve tried talking to anyone about this book, the first question I’ve gotten when I tell them the title is, “Wait. Like the song?” The second question I get is, “It sounds like that’s gotta be corny. Is it corny?”
My friends, as someone who totally dislikes The Chicks (I can’t listen to Natalie Maines because her voice grates on my nerves–it’s not about their music), I gotta tell you this book isn’t corny. I came into this book justifiably skeptical but willing to take a chance because I really loved the cover, and I ended up unexpectedly not only liking it, but loving it. It’s split up into three acts, takes places in two different story timelines (2004 when the four protagonists are seniors in high school and 2019 is the present day time in the book), and is told in turns by all four main characters (the author chose to use third person limited with each character when it’s their chapter instead of going with third-person omniscient for the whole novel).
But first, let’s get the two reasons why I didn’t rate this five stars out of the way really quick before I get into everything I did like.
One reason I had to dock the book some points: In the back half of the book (the book is split into three acts, so it might even just be in the third act), the 2004 and 2019 timeline narratives first have to make way for emails between all four of the girls as two of them have moved away after high school and two have stayed in their small hometown; and then the main storylines and those emails have to make space for transcripts of police interviews from various town citizens who come in to give voluntary statements. That’s a whole lot of stuff going on all at once, and it makes the book too busy and also too long. I would’ve recommended greatly reducing or even just removing the emails between the girls to reduce the length of the novel. I was ready for the book to end at least 50 to 75 pages before it did. That’s not much, but it’s enough to affect the reading experience.
The second reason I felt some points needed to be docked: Devon. What the heck was the point of all of that? It was confusing and then anti-climatic. I’m not going to spoil it. If you read this then maybe you’ll understand.
Now we’re onto the good stuff!
I don’t put stock into how companies like Amazon categorize a book, because it feels unfair to cage in books that are so many things down to only three categories. This book can’t just be pinned down to one thing. It’s part coming of age tale, part crime fiction, part revenge tale, and part “I will do anything for my family” story. It’s also a story about found family, abusers, victims, survivors, addicts, the patriarchy, the south, absentee parents, white privilege, racism, loss, grief, running from your problems, grief, first loves, trauma, sisterhood, misogyny, music, tradition, falling in love, the sweet cowboys, watching a lot of Dateline, and promises you keep no matter what.
These four girls became sisters from another mister at the age of five while playing in a church basement in their small southern town of Goldie, population just a little over 2,000. Kasey is biracial and being raised by a single mom. Ada has two loving and wealthy parents. Rosemarie is black and has two parents who are total hippies. And Caroline has two parents who divorced and then abandoned her to the care of her grandmother, Mimi. Four girls walking four totally different paths in life, but always stepping together, in sync, hand in hand with one another and never forgetting one another or leaving one behind. They make promises to one another and to the whole of them and they don’t break them. Kasey and Rosemarie left after high school but came back eventually, and with them came a reckoning.
I very obviously recommend this book. I laughed, I cried (it’s hard to get me to cry while reading), I felt touched, and I’m so happy I gave this book a chance.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Coming of Age/Crime Fiction/Found Family/General Fiction/LGBTQ Friendly/Vigilantes/Women’s Fiction...more
I went into this book expecting something different than what I got. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. This time, it’s not entirely the “blurb baitI went into this book expecting something different than what I got. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. This time, it’s not entirely the “blurb bait” that turned me sour, it was the prose. Jim Bartley may think he’s written a clever dark comedy full of unfortunate violence in the tradition of the Coen Brothers, but the book never comes off as that clever. It just comes off as quite boring.
I was also hoping there would be more to the romance between Wes and Cam than what was portrayed in the book. I’m not talking about explicitness–I’m talking about mentioning it at all in any terms besides just mentioning it as an afterthought here or there or whenever someone else brings it up in a (historically-accurate) derogatory way. The way their relationship is portrayed almost makes it feel cheap.
It was just a disappointment on my end.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Due to this review being three stars or lower this review will not appear in social media. ...more
After hearing so much praise about this book and after looking forward to it all year, I felt sad that this novel felt so incomplete when I read it. IAfter hearing so much praise about this book and after looking forward to it all year, I felt sad that this novel felt so incomplete when I read it. Ink Blood Sister Scribe feels like the definition of potential unrealized: A book that feels as if it really had a big story to tell but instead it was a little story that felt immature and underdeveloped to me.
Author Emma Törzs isn’t without talent: The bones are there in her writing for truly great novels. Her ideas have such great potential, her imagery is vivid and provocative, her grasp of how to write magic systems is already well-developed, and her prose will be something to behold once she gets a full grasp on it.
Where this book falls short is pacing, plot development, character development, and I would call it “egalitarianism of character time on page”. The pacing is scattered all over the place, which makes reading it feel like a slipshod experience. The plot development is either not happening at all or it’s happening all at once, which is tied into the pacing problems. You have three “tent pole” characters holding this book up: Joanna, Esther, and Nicholas. Three (for all intents and purposes) main characters with their own POV’s that braid this story together, but I felt none of them were given their fair shake. Nicholas should’ve been introduced a bit earlier (I almost DNFd the book before he showed up because I wasn’t seeing a conflict in the book that interested me enough to keep going), Joanna wasn’t given enough to do throughout the book, and Esther was given too much. This uneven character development also affected the plot development.
No matter how I look at it, all of these issues cited in the paragraph above equate to a game of “The knee bone is connected to the…”, because they each affect one another whenever tweaked. This is what this book needed more of, though: Tweaking. Editing. It probably could’ve used some more workshopping and a few more readers to lay eyes on it. Törzs is potentially a blindingly brilliant writer, but this is her debut and all writers have to put their first book babies out into the world sometime. It’s obvious I didn’t enjoy it near as much as others did, but it’s not the first time that’s happened.
Magical realism is probably my favorite genre of novels, right up there with speculative fiction. We need more voices in the genre, especially diverse and female. I want Törzs to keep writing. I want her to take in the constructive things reviewers have to say and come back to us with a fantastic second novel. I want her to blow us away.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. My own personal policy as a reviewer dictates that books receiving a three star or lower rating do not have their reviews posted on any social media or bookseller websites.
File Under: Fantasy/General Fiction/LGBTQ Romance/Magical Realism/Paranormal Fantasy/Secret Society/Standalone Fantasy Novel/Urban Fantasy ...more
It’s there in the title and you should take it as a warning: This book is savage. It’s a painful, visceral, heartbreaking read that reached right intoIt’s there in the title and you should take it as a warning: This book is savage. It’s a painful, visceral, heartbreaking read that reached right into my stomach, womb, heart, and brain with long fingers filled with beautiful words, ugly secrets, horrific scenes, and nauseating characters in a way no book has for a good long time now.
I don’t get book hangovers that often, but I’m telling you that after I closed this book I felt like a deflated balloon, a crushed soda can, or maybe even a flattened cardboard box. I feel drained, dried out, and just worn at the seams.
Tiffany McDaniel has weaved a spell on this book that I don’t think will allow any reader to escape unscathed. You might try your hardest to harden your heart, but I can guarantee that between all the dark, dirty, sad, and desperate things that occur during this book you will definitely find yourself feeling something, and McDaniel’s writing will pierce you deeply.
I found myself thinking of my review for Erin Kate Ryan’s release from last year, Quantum Girl Theory, where I said: “Is every missing girl the same as every other missing girl, or do some missing girls count for more?…When do people just give up on missing girls, and when does a missing girl stop being just a missing girl and becomes more of a distant memory?” This book’s thesis is rightfully on the side of some missing girls counting for more, but the book is also clear in pointing out that no one cares about missing girls much at all, no matter who they are or what they do for a living–not as long as men make all the rules and enforce them. As long as men hold the reins, we will be under their hooves.
McDaniel’s prose is bewitchingly beautiful, even when what’s happening is horrible and depraved. This book has the most melancholy and lovely passages told from the POV of the river, and even as the river describes matters such as the decomposition of the human body, there’s something poetic and naturally calming about these passages, like the river is trying to reassure us readers that she is taking care of the bodies that find their way into her waters, that the breaking down of their physical bodies is something natural and nothing to be afraid of. It was what happened before those bodies entered her currents that’s to be feared. What’s simultaneously gutting and healing are these quasi autopsy reports that crop up periodically throughout the book, which you would have to see for yourself to understand what I’m talking about.
There is not a single character in this book who is even close to whole. They’re all broken into pieces, but how many pieces differ from character to character, and varies depending on where each character is in their life as the book goes on. The way McDaniel writes them, though, you could think that even the most shattered people are the most lovely and the people who seem like they might actually be living a more complete life are carrying the ugliest secrets.
A special toast to McDaniels for the courage she showed not only in writing this book, but in the way she chose to write it. It couldn’t have been easy to make the choices she did, but she made them all the same. Not only was I close to gobsmacked, but I couldn’t think of a more perfect ending.
I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: General Fiction/Literary Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Mystery/Thriller/Suspense/Crime Thriller/Murder Thriller/OwnVoices/5 Star Reads/Crime Thriller/Genre Mashup ...more
When Her Name is Knight first came out, I snapped it up because of the cover, but I ended up loving it because it was just a really captivating, enterWhen Her Name is Knight first came out, I snapped it up because of the cover, but I ended up loving it because it was just a really captivating, entertaining, enjoyable book. Same with They Came at Knight. And now we have this book, the last of what is one of the best trilogies I’ve ever read when considered as whole: It Ends With Knight.
If you take this book away from the other two I think it’s stronger than They Come at Knight and is almost on par with Her Name is Knight. The reason this title gets four stars instead of five isn’t because the book is bad: it’s because the book was predictable. I do need to add in, however, that since I read so many thriller and suspense novels I may just be too…inured to the things that happen in thrillers that may surprise other people. Maybe I’m just kind of primed for them and when they happen I’m just not surprised anymore. After all, genre fiction has building blocks. The trick to writing is in how authors use those building blocks.
As usual, Yasmin Angoe’s prose and worldbuilding is excellent. I feel as if the challenge with writing the character of Nena Knight is how to write her as both a mature, wicked assassin but also writing her as someone who is still very unaccustomed or even naive to a lot of things in the western world without making her sound like an idiot or making it seem forced. Nena has endured quite an emotional and psychologically taxing journey through these three books, and Angoe has done a great job walking the tightrope between keeping Nena consistent in her role as an assassin and letting her non-Tribe self grow and develop.
The plot was interesting, with Nena’s father asking her and her team to take on a different role than they normally do (AKA, not killing people) in order to protect tanzanite mining interests for the Tribe in Tanzania. Nena balks at the idea, since usually this sort of mission is something her sister takes on; but since her sister has the baby at home they’re asking Nena to do it.
Most of the book has Nena battling impostor syndrome, ruminating deeply on (what she sees as) her past mistakes, thinking back on her beginnings, questioning her future with Dispatch, and contemplating her relationship with Cort and her place with Georgia, Cort’s daughter.
It’s entertaining, engaging, emotional, has a lot of action, has some funny moments, and is the conclusion to a great story. Do yourself a favor and read the whole trilogy in a row if you have the time. It’s a great time.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Book Series/Espionage Thriller/Found Family/General Fiction/Kindle Unlimited/Political Thriller ...more
I admit to being a late and slow adopter of Finlay Donovan. It just all sounded a little hokey to me, maybe even a little too Hallmark-channel for me.I admit to being a late and slow adopter of Finlay Donovan. It just all sounded a little hokey to me, maybe even a little too Hallmark-channel for me. I don’t have the best track record with mysteries like these geared toward women. But one day a couple of months ago I came across the first paragraph from the first book (Finlay Donovan is Killing It), and I found myself shaking with laughter because I’ve been that mom. So I decided to read the first two books and then read this one for release day.
And, as much as I love admitting I fell in love with the first two books of this series, I actually felt this installment fell short of the shining mark of those two previous books. I mean, it’s still a Finlay Donovan book, and it still enthralled me, but I felt that in this book there were just far too many hens in the hen house and they were are too willing to just bend over backwards to accommodate Finlay, Vero, and her kids. Maybe you know what I mean, maybe you don’t. The amount of looking the other way and sloppiness in the plotting of this book just so Finn and Vero could get around wherever they needed to be whenever they needed to be there really stretched my capacity to suspend disbelief. I live about a mile from a HighWay Patrol training facility, and that place is darn near like Fort Knox for all the gates and checkpoints. There are cameras everywhere.
Two serious bones I have to pick with this book are there are just too many characters, both old and new, and I found myself having issues keeping track of them all. The other bone I have to pick is that both Finn and Vero, by the third book, should know by now how to take forensic countermeasures and yet they continue to just possibly leave DNA, fingerprints, tire tracks, and all other matters of possible evidence of themselves at the scenes of different crimes without seeming to care.
I miss Finlay keeping it a little more simple. I miss her and Vero just trying to take care of the kids, keeping Steven in the dark while trying to keep him complacent, and Finn trying to overcome her writer’s block by working through the wreckage of her life. I just hope we get to see more of that.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views and opinions expressed are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: General Fiction/Amateur Sleuths/Women’s Fiction/Comedy/Mystery/Suspense/Part of a Series/Crime Fiction ...more
I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown in, I was bored out of my mind.
And the real story hadn’t even begun yet. Our protagonist, for lack of a better way to sum it up, hadn’t even accepted the call to adventure. More time in that 20% of story was spent describing how cold Belarus is than on the story itself.
We get it. Belarus is really cold.
This book is scattered, with no real through line and no steady story arc to hold the entire thing together. It’s like a whole bunch of really good thoughts that really needed a competent, solid editor to put their foot down and demand everything be brought together into something more cohesive. The book, as it exists, is like a tangled head of hair that needs to be brushed.
I just don’t understand how you can take this concept and make it so bland and, well, lost. I’m actually a little mad Kathleen Kent took such potential and wasted it.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions contained herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Owing to the 3 star or under rating, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website. ...more
Moorewood Family Rules was one of the first ARCs I requested for 2023, and it’s one of the ones I was most excited for. Was it everything I hoped it wMoorewood Family Rules was one of the first ARCs I requested for 2023, and it’s one of the ones I was most excited for. Was it everything I hoped it would be? No, but I’m not entirely disappointed because it sure was a lot of fun.
I love grifters. I love schemers and scammers. I love a good con. I really love it when the people who need to be put in check are put in check. I love watching everything about a good con come together, when all the disparate pieces finally fall into place. And this book is like a nice big pot of grifter stew with a side of bodyguard romance.
Therein lies the rub: I wasn’t completely on board with the romantic subplot. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it to a certain extent, but I thought it took away from the main themes of the book and the fun of the plot. I especially felt it took away from the motivations, goals, and power of Jillian, our protagonist. While it didn’t completely take away from her agency, it did give her someone else to hand power and decision-making over to, and that lowered my respect for her as a reformed con woman who is trying to turn her grifter family legitimate. It also made her look a little weak for putting her trust into a man she’s only known for a day or two after all she’s been through. Considering how paranoid grifters and players can be, I found it to be completely out of character for her to just accept this guy as a confidante, no matter how much she trusted the man who hired him for her (that is to say, implicity).
In short, for a reformed grifter who had been burned before by a lover and then burned by her family and gone to jail for it, she’s sure less paranoid than I would be under the circumstances.
The family dynamics in this book are very funny, though, and the highlight of the book. From inept younger grifters in the family who are hiding out overseas for fumbling their schemes, con men who are getting conned, clueless society matrons, slightly off-kilter elderly scheming great aunts who are obsessed with string cheese, and cousins who seem to think the most extreme measures should be the first resort instead of last, there are colorful and unique characters all throughout this book.
This is definitely more character-driven than plot-driven and I think that’s what threw me with this book. I think I wanted a little more of the family dynamic and the con plot in the place of the romantic subplot and was disappointed when that didn’t happen. While I felt Jillian needed a friend and someone to talk to, I didn’t think she needed a romance. She just needed an ally from outside the family. I would’ve loved to have seen more interactions and scenes involving the family and what Jillian was getting up to than yet another unnecessary romance.
I do think it’s a brilliant story and a ton of fun, though. It’s lighthearted, bright, and engaging. We all have weird relatives. This story just emphasizes how weird some relatives can truly be.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. Any views, thoughts, opinions, or ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I knew where this book was heading, but boy was the journey a hard and uneasy one. Let me put it this way: I don’t let other people drive when it comeI knew where this book was heading, but boy was the journey a hard and uneasy one. Let me put it this way: I don’t let other people drive when it comes to curvy mountain roads or bad conditions. I need to be in control of the car or else I feel completely wracked with nerves and jumpy the entire time, bracing myself to leap into action at any time and the words, “Pull over and let me drive before you crash the car,” on the tip of my tongue for the entire drive. That’s the kind of feeling I had the entire time I was reading Graveyard for Lost Children: I felt like I was watching a train wreck happening right in front of me and I just wished I could reach inside the pages and take control of the situation before it got to where I knew it was going.
Part of this comes from me strongly identifying with the book’s protagonist, Olivia. Like Olivia, I wasn’t quite ready to be a mom when I had my first child, but I was pressured into going through with the birth. Don’t get me wrong–I don’t regret it one bit. I love my older kid more than anything in the world and never experienced the type of mental issues Olivia did regarding childbirth. But when it came to my second child, who was planned (unlike the first), I was pressured into breastfeeding, had a ton of issues surrounding the matter, and felt everything from shame to rage toward everyone in my life, including my baby and myself. While it wasn’t postpartum depression or psychosis (I am bipolar and wasn’t properly diagnosed at the time, so that certainly could’ve played a part into my state of mine back then), I spent that first year of my second (and last) child’s life resenting every time I had to feed him, put lanolin ointment on myself, soaked through the pads I placed in my nursing bra, or times I had to stay home because he couldn’t go more than an hour or two without feeding.
What I appreciated about this book was how author Katrina Monroe used the themes of parental abandonment and the way mothers tend to feel a loss of self-identity when their children are born to bring the elements of gothic fiction to life in this novel, both with Olivia stuck at home with her daughter Flora and with Shannon as she writes her “memoirs” down in her journal while imprisoned at a psychiatric institution for her daughter once she gets her back. Both are stuck within walls, feeling trapped there by people who are supposed to love them while they wither away to nothing. I found it to be a brilliant way to approach a gothic theme and I related so much to it.
In general, the feelings of shame surrounding motherhood are pretty universal. Almost every new mom questions whether or not they’re going to be a good mom. They question it before they get pregnant. They question it during pregnancy, and they doubt themselves constantly in the early days. The bad news? It never goes away. Sure, it calms down some over the years, but my kids are 20 and 22 and I still wonder if I did right by them and if I’m a good mom. I have a feeling I’ll be wondering that same thing on my deathbed. Katrina Monroe takes these near-universal feelings of shame and doubt and crossbreeds them with the mythology of the changeling, a story present in many cultures wherein a human baby is stolen by supernatural or demonic entities and a substitute baby is placed into the parent’s care instead. Depending on the culture, the changeling serves a different purpose and most of the time that purpose isn’t benevolent. In this book, the changeling mythology serves to exacerbate both Olivia and Shannon’s shame and doubt surrounding whether or not they are good mothers, or deserve to be mothers at all.
I don’t know how people who aren’t parents or mothers will feel about this book or how it will resonate with them. I only know how it resonated with me. It was creepy. It made me uneasy. I had to put it down a few times and go hug my kids. I needed to go for a short drive to get some air. It brought up some long-repressed feelings regarding those early days of being a mom. It also made me feel sad for those mothers who don’t have a support system and feel too ashamed to ask for help.
I have to admit the first half of the book was a better read to me than the latter half, but I can admit that others may not read it the same way I did. It doesn’t matter in the long run because it’s a terrific book. Just maybe don’t read it in the middle of the night while rocking your kid to sleep.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
After a couple of ARCs running either long or deep, I decided to pick up Jessica Hamilton’s Don’t You Dare today to cleanse the palette with some loveAfter a couple of ARCs running either long or deep, I decided to pick up Jessica Hamilton’s Don’t You Dare today to cleanse the palette with some lovely crime, mystery, suspense, and thrills. It was nice to have something fast-paced, erotic, and suspenseful to read today since I’m kind of wound up and anxious myself (my mom’s having knee replacement surgery tomorrow, so we’re all kind of wound up around here).
I know exactly what it was about this book that drew me in: The commiseration I felt with Hannah (our protagonist) as she realizes she accidentally slept in and her husband has no compunctions about leaving her a passive-aggressive note about how it, and the way he constantly nitpicks at her as if he’s perfect and she should be ashamed of the hot mess she is. The shame mothers the world over feel of not being good enough, of not doing enough or being enough is an almost universal feeling that we can’t help but be pulled in by, as if we want to automatically create some sort of sympathetic bond with a character like Hannah and let her know that we’re all hot messes behind closed doors. Some of us just hide it better than others.
And then what hooked me was how just as it seems Hannah is absolutely headed to self-destruction and deep depression, the man she loved so deeply in college but lost to the combined efforts of a toxic game she, her best friend, and the man she loved played called “The Daring Game” and her vindictive best friend’s vengeful machinations suddenly appears in the city she lives in, saying he’s moved back and why don’t the two of them pick up “The Daring Game” just for fun between the two of them? Wouldn’t it be fun to do silly and daring things before they truly get too old to be daring?
This book plays off a dual timeline: One taking place in the present, and one taking place back when Hannah, Scarlett (the bestie), and Thomas (the friend turned boyfriend) are in college together. Like most dual timeline books, Don’t You Dare plays the present-day timeline off the past timeline. In essence, the past timeline serves to either foreshadow or to outright hint toward what’s coming up soon in the present-day timeline. It’s not so bad the past timeline outright gives away things, but it’s enough that you get an inkling as the book moves along in which direction we might be going. There are genuine surprises here and there, and successful red herrings are deployed, which made me happy.
The pacing of the novel was definitely what I look for in a suspense thriller like this, though I do wish the author could’ve kept up the same pacing while letting us get a better look at the characters. I’m not saying I wanted this book to be character-driven (this book is definitely plot-driven), but it wouldn’t have hurt to get to know some of the characters a touch better.
I’m not going to say this is a strong four star review. It’s just barely a four star review. If I had to put it more clearly, I’d say it’s more like 3.75 stars. That 0.25% deduction comes from the woefully underdeveloped character of Evan, Hannah’s husband. He’s automatically cast as the villain, but rarely is there truly a villain in a marriage in the case of a marriage like Hannah and Evan’s (I’d explain why, but spoilers). I feel like this book would’ve come across a lot better had we understood Evan more.
If you’re simply looking for an entertaining read at the level of a “popcorn movie” (you know, grab some popcorn and curl up on the sofa to just watch a fun movie), then this is a good book for that kind of entertainment. It’s not breaking new ground and it’s not revelatory, but it’s a solid good time.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
While I was blown away by the excellent “Her Name is Knight”, this book (the second half of the duology) outshined its predecessor for sure. I had so While I was blown away by the excellent “Her Name is Knight”, this book (the second half of the duology) outshined its predecessor for sure. I had so many positive things to say about the first book: “...a slick novel, moving quick and smart…”, “...a fascinating and compelling page-turner…”, “I couldn’t put it down”. These opinions continue to be applicable when it comes to “They Come at Knight”, but they get turned up a little bit louder due to the increased stakes, the heightened danger, the more tightly wound suspense, family drama, the dangerous game of cat and mouse (or spy versus spy, if you’d like), and Nena’s constant anxiety as she searches for the traitor in the Tribe’s midst that she had only started to allude to in “Her Name is Knight”.
While “Her Name is Knight” is told non-linearly and in two different POVs, “They Came at Knight” is told entirely in 3rd person and in a linear narrative, which Angoe deftly handles by reminding us that her life before becoming a Knight was “Before”, her life after becoming a Knight but before the end of the events in “Her Name is Knight” being called “After”, and all the time accounted for in “They Came at Knight” as being “Now”. These three time periods are emphasized in the text, which I choose to interpret as the way Angoe means us to see the three most important phases in Nena’s life.
A lot of time in this book is spent in Ghana, Nena’s homeland, and it’s written with a great deal of love and affection by Angoe. I’ve never been to Ghana (not for not wanting to after taking a course in the Geography of Africa during my undergrad years), but the chapters we spend there as readers are very well-written and touching.
I wish I could say that the turns in this book took me by surprise, but most of them didn’t. One did, but only because I was very confused (it was a me problem). But, like with “Her Name is Knight”, I simply didn’t care. The book’s just too dang good to spend time caring about something so small when the book is this good.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this title....more
Note: This book is being read and reviewed as both a book that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for months and because the sequel, “They Come at Knight”Note: This book is being read and reviewed as both a book that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for months and because the sequel, “They Come at Knight” is being released this Tuesday, September 13th, 2022. If you’ve read this book, make sure to order a copy! If you’re new to this duology, why don’t you order both books today? My review for “They Come at Knight” will be up in the next couple of days.
Okay, I’ll confess: I bought this book mainly because I love books about female assassins and revenge. But it also has a serious case of “Ooh shiny pretty cover!” I mean, look at it! All those swirls of orange and peach tones? It’s absolutely striking.
But seriously.
I finally broke down and bought this book off of my own wishlist because I had heard so many good things about it and I don’t regret it one bit. It’s a slick novel, moving quick and smart between past and present (or, as the author cleverly puts it, Before and After) as the main character, Nena, tells us in first person POV about how she went from a chieftain’s daughter in Ghana to an assassin for her rich adoptive family and the geopolitical organization they are members of while the author simultaneously narrates Nena’s life in 3rd person POV after she became an assassin and we enter the story as Nena is about to enter a complex and morally confusing series of assignments that will upend her entire life and everything she has worked for.
Often I find that chapter switching and POV switching doesn’t work for me. It often slows down the pacing or makes it uneven. It also tends to rip the reader out of the story by making them work too hard to extricate themselves out of the time and POV they were just reading and get into the groove of reading a new time and a new POV. Angoe seems to have clued into the fact that one of the best remedies for this is shorter chapters and a shorter amount of time spent in Before and After. Don’t make the readers stay in one place too long. Don’t let them get too used to it, and it won’t be so jarring when they have to leave and switch. It keeps the suspense nice and tight, it keeps the narrative fresh, it keeps the pacing even, and it keeps the book moving quick and bright.
This book is a fascinating and compelling page-turner that I read in less than 8 hours. I couldn’t put it down. My only complaint was that it was rather predictable in a lot of ways. But I can hardly complain when it was still so dang good, right? ...more
While it was the title and its play on words (a clever twist on John le Carre’s novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) that caught my attention (and I havWhile it was the title and its play on words (a clever twist on John le Carre’s novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) that caught my attention (and I have no doubt that was the author’s intention), it was the blurb that got me excited. It promised a thriller: sinister and tantalizing. What I felt I got was a book that was so slow to start I wondered if I was even reading the right book (I don’t think the actual plot activated in any minor way until between 25% or 30% of the way in, which is just about anathema in any novel that purports to be a thriller, in my opinion). Even after the plot kicked in the pacing was uneven, the characters weren’t compelling, and the book simply never felt like a thriller.
Back in June, I read William Martin’s “December ‘41”, which is a WWII espionage thriller and WWII historical fiction novel. As a matter of fact, when I reviewed the title, it was categorized exactly the same as “Mother Daughter Traitor Spy” is on Amazon right now. That book is also set in the same time period, starts in Los Angeles with a lot of the same real-life players and the same real-life locations before spinning off into their own plots. Yet “Mother Daughter Traitor Spy” felt like a women’s historical fiction than a thriller at any time. Dramatic and suspenseful, sure, but a thriller? No.
I really wanted this book to wow me, to give me the female spy vibes I longed for. But it just fell flat.
Thanks to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, and Bantam for granting me early access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website. This is my personal policy as an ARC and book reviewer. ...more
Sometimes I’m reading a book and I can’t help but think where the idea came from–where the genesis of the book started for tReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
Sometimes I’m reading a book and I can’t help but think where the idea came from–where the genesis of the book started for the author. In this case, a rather famous handful of days when an intimate and libertine group of writers and philosophers spent during a handful of interminably rainy days near Geneva, Switzerland in 1816 in a home known as Villa Diodati is what immediately what jumped into my head, and the various tales and known facts of what happened at Villa Diodati among Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin (the future Mary Shelley), John William Polidori (Shelley’s personal physician), and Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont. Mary wrote the first draft of the novel that would become Frankenstein, Polidori wrote The Vampyre, Byron finished up works he had been stuck on, and Claire Clairmont entered into a very short affair with Byron that produced a child she had no means to care for (the child was raised by Byron and his family). Byron proclaimed to hate her and that she was to stay away, but she held onto her obsession with him for years and never married. Percy Bysshe Shelley died a mere six years after the events at Villa Diodati in a sailing accident after a good many years of being in poor health and suffering from severe depression.
So you can see where, when I start to read a book where one timeline is about two best friends who are staying in a villa one summer where, in the past, a group of artists (a writer and three musicians), who are all rather bohemian and fluid in their relationships, all went through a few weeks where a similar (but not same) set of events happened…I wonder if this is a case of coincidence or if the author knew of this tale, cocked her head and said, “If you rework this some, it would make a great idea for a book”.
The thing is: it really does make for a great book idea in the way Rachel Hawkins plotted out the story. This story of covetousness, selfishness, predation, not asking but just taking, male entitlement, female silence, being forced into corners, mental illness, creation, destruction, and Faustian deals.
The problem is: predictability. I knew where this book was going and how it was likely going to end before I hit the 20% mark. I knew what was going on between the best friends in the present timeline, and I knew what was going on and how it was pretty much going to end in the past timeline. So while the writing was entertaining and engaging enough to keep me reading, the enjoyment of reading the book was affected by the book being so predictable. And that begs a follow-up criticism: I can’t be the only one who found it that predictable, which means it’s not just me that’s going to be disappointed by that fact.
Do I still recommend it? Sure. It’s a fun read. I won’t tell you to run out and buy it right now or that you absolutely must read it, but if you happen to like these type of books, why not give it a whirl?
Thanks go out to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal of anger reading this book, with its themes of sexualizing females too young in advertising and movies and how show moms and momagers live their showbiz dreams vicariously through their daughters in some self-serving narcissist power trip. These themes always make me mad yet somehow I will keep reading about them because narcissistic moms are a thing I can relate to and somehow I can never turn away books that seriously tackle the issues surrounding the exploitation of children.
T. Greenwood doesn’t have the same gift of prose as some other writers in this genre or who have written books about this or similar topics, but she does have a great way with words when it comes to world building, setting the scene, and building her characters. Luckily, since this novel is partially set in 1970s New York, which is one of the most popular and well-documented eras for the city, Greenwood likely had a wealth of information at her fingertips with which to comb through while doing her research. But we all know that you can give someone eggs and that doesn’t mean they can make an omelet. Greenwood took all that information and she pulled out exactly what she needed and wanted in order to bring New York in the late 1970s to life. She also has a way with description and imagery, giving us enough of the picture so we can see what’s necessary to see and then letting us fill in the rest for ourselves. We can fill in the smells and colors of both New York in 2019 and the late ‘70s.
Greenwood’s characters don’t necessarily leap off the page; they’re not as vibrant as all that. Instead, they lure you in. This whole book brings you into it instead of springing up around you. I think that’s the sheer nostalgia and melancholia that saturates the book. This book is steeped in fear, anxiety, and flight. This book doesn’t want to be friends with you, it isn’t welcoming. Like the main character, who has spent 30 years hiding from her acting career and her past, this book sees you as a voyeur, looking into a private life that isn’t yours to consume.
I personally don’t give trigger warnings for books, but if you worry about being triggered while reading this book, then you should really look into seeing if you can find them somewhere, because while I wasn’t triggered while reading it, I can totally see where some people might be.
It’s a dark, dramatic, sad read, but I still highly recommend it for those who enjoy these types of books and don’t mind the content.
Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
File Under: Women’s Fiction/Psychological Fiction/General Fiction/Historical Fiction/Coming of Age Fiction ...more
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
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