“He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”
THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is a worthy 5-star ending to a brilliant trilogy that “He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”
THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is a worthy 5-star ending to a brilliant trilogy that can comfortably and proudly stand with the best in the crowded fantasy genre. But make no mistake. Despite its characterization as young adult fantasy, THE QUEEN OF NOTHING, like its predecessors in the story of the fairies of Elfhame, is harsh, graphic in its depiction of violence, murder, and death, and plain speaking in its portrayal of treachery, betrayal, the self-serving attitudes of wealth and privilege, xenophobia and misogyny.
Jude, despite her erstwhile elevation to the lofty position of Queen of Faerie by virtue of her marriage to Prince Cardan, has been exiled to an indefinite exile in the land of her fellow mortals to bide her time, to guard the life of Oak, the ultimate heir to the throne, and to worry about the future of her Fae sisters, Vivienne and her twin Taryn, whose life is now at risk in the turbulent aftermath of the murder of her husband. A curse has threatened the death of Cardan, now the crowned king, and war seems imminent in the magic land to which Jude knows she must return.
It is with a sigh of the deepest satisfaction at the turn of the last page that I realize that the FOLK OF THE AIR series has not only earned 5-stars and the highest recommendation as a series but it has earned that status in each of its three parts considered as individual novels. Now that is a serious achievement. Well done, Ms Black, and here’s hoping that you will treat your fans to further tales in your powerful and fabulously entertaining Elfhame fairy universe.
The distilled essence of religious zealotry, “We do not reason – we believe, and so do you.”
NORTH AND SOUTH is many things – a melodrama; a treatise oThe distilled essence of religious zealotry, “We do not reason – we believe, and so do you.”
NORTH AND SOUTH is many things – a melodrama; a treatise on the human condition in the swirl of the smog and smoke of Industrial Revolution England in the mid-19th century; a romantic soap opera; a history of the awakening of the labour movement and the development of left-wing socialist attitudes; a character driven family drama; an exploration of the evolution of social structure and the rigidity of class mores; a tale of feminism in the face of unwelcome male attention; and a commentary on the power of religious belief.
Months of self-examination and critical thought had led Pastor Hale to what those afore-mentioned religious zealots would characterize as apostasy. While he hadn’t lost his belief in the existence of a benevolent deity, he had reached the conclusion that his personal convictions were inconsistent with the doctrine of the Church of England and that to remain in his long-term sinecure as pastor of the local parish would be, at the very least, hypocritical. Accordingly he reaches the decision to abandon his living as a pastor in the south of England, to retreat with his wife and daughter to a heavily industrialized town in the north where he is a complete stranger with no background baggage, and to seek a modest income as a private tutor.
The stage is thus set for Gaskell’s culture-clash period piece and the off-again off-again (no mistake … I wrote it the way I meant it!) story of the romancing of Margaret Hale, Pastor Hale’s daughter and the erstwhile feminist of the piece who obviously can’t make up her mind as to which shackles of society she cares to set aside and which she considers continue to bind and direct her behaviour.
My 4-star rating is qualified, at best, and must be considered as something more properly on the order of 3½ stars rounded up. The story is interesting and informative throughout but the plot fails to reach compelling or gripping at least half of the time. In fact, truth be told, the story sometimes even drifted into the realm of a struggle and I had to force myself to reach the decision to finish. And that ending just didn’t work for me. It seemed like Gaskell simply decided to set her pen down and wrap up the story. (view spoiler)[Whatever happened for example to Henry Lennox’s obvious machinations to use his legal assistance to worm his way into Hale’s heart?? Her decision to give in, at long last, to Thornton’s overtures must have sent him positively ballistic!! (hide spoiler)]
Well it is what it is. Been there, done that, glad I did it and I’ll definitely read some of Gaskell’s other notable works. WIVES AND DAUGHTERS and RUTH sit on my TBR shelves awaiting my attention.
“No matter how much he disliked me when we were in school, that was a guttering candle to the steady flame of his hatred now.”
THE WICKED KING, des“No matter how much he disliked me when we were in school, that was a guttering candle to the steady flame of his hatred now.”
THE WICKED KING, despite its characterization as young adult fantasy, is a harsh story, graphic in its depiction of violence, murder, and death, and plain speaking in its depiction of treachery, betrayal, the self-serving attitudes of wealth and privilege, xenophobia and misogyny. Picking up precisely where the story in THE CRUEL PRINCE ended, Jude begins her life as an empowered kingmaker, a guardian of the life of the heir apparent to the fairy high throne, a spymaster, a conniving statesman, and seneschal to the sitting king who would be a proud daughter to a hypothetical mating of Machiavelli and Mata Hari.
If Jude is to ensure that her brother Oak ascends to the throne when he comes of age, if Jude is to deal with her burgeoning complicated feelings towards the wicked king, Cardan, if Jude is to successfully deal with the machinations of an enemy within her circle of trust who will betray her, then she must be at the top of her game and use every weapon available to her. But the sad reality is that her arsenal of mortal weapons and skills is sadly lacking in the face of the magic of the world of fae.
My rather breathless 5-star rating of THE CRUEL PRINCE left me with the fear that high expectations for THE WICKED KING would be dashed on the rocky shores of second-novel-in-a-trilogy blues. No worries! Holly Black delivered the goods … in spades! THE WICKED KING was a gripping fantasy thriller that kept me in a solid reading stranglehold from first page to last. Now I can cross my fingers, raise my eyebrows, and hold my breath waiting to dig into the final novel in the series THE QUEEN OF NOTHING.
On a side note, I’ll admit that I smiled as I read what I think Ms Black intended to be a brief homage to England’s greatest bard and playwright, William Shakespeare, when she puts some epic words into the mouth of a hag “old and powerful enough that the air around her seems to crackle with the force of her magic.” Shakespeare would definitely have seen her as a witch. And those epic words? “We three will meet again.” Well played, Ms Black.
Based on the stunning true story of a mission to liberate Jewish walking dead from a train headed for Auschwitz!
Pam Jenoff’s first novel THE LOST GIRBased on the stunning true story of a mission to liberate Jewish walking dead from a train headed for Auschwitz!
Pam Jenoff’s first novel THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS was based on the British government’s conception of the idea of a corps of female spies and operatives who, in contrast to the men, could blend in and operate undercover much more easily. Based on true events, THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS was a gripping fictionalization of the stories of twelve of these women, their recruitment (and the predictable misogynistic opposition to the idea), their training, their friendships, their missions, their valor, their betrayal and ultimately, their failure to return home to their families and loved ones. I was thrilled to offer that novel a rating of 5 stars when I read it earlier this year and rank it as one of my top ten favourites for 2023.
So I doubt it would shock anyone to hear that my expectations for CODE NAME SAPPHIRE were high, perhaps unfairly so … but it was what it was!
Set in Berlin and Nazi-occupied Belgium during World War II, CODE NAME SAPPHIRE is an account (once again fictionalized, of course) of three courageous women and one man involved with the operation of an expansive resistance cell in Belgium and the “underground railroad” charged with the smuggling of downed British airmen through enemy occupied territory to the coast of the English Channel and home to England to fly and fight again!
Hannah Martel, a Jewish political caricaturist and cartoonist in Berlin operating under the pseudonym Maxim was forced to flee Germany when the Nazis discovered her real name. Her entry as a refugee to the USA, having been refused,
“The price of saving a ship full of Jews was too much for even the president of the United States to bear.”
Hannah, was forced to return to Belgium and seek dangerous asylum with her cousin Lily Abels and her husband, respected as a local medical man and surgeon. On an early morning walk (under the dubious safety of early morning pre-dawn darkness, of course) Hannah met Matteo, a local man who, with his sister Micheline, was involved with the resistance cell (code name, - you guessed it, of course – Sapphire!)
And, at that point, Jenoff floors it, the pedal goes to the metal, and CODE NAME SAPPHIRE becomes a full bore high speed genre combination of historical fiction, romance, and espionage thriller. Readers who enjoyed THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS will find plenty to ponder and enjoy – anti-Semitism, Holocaust history, courage, bravery, heroism, friendship, family loyalty, and much, much more.
But, for my money, the breathtaking reality of the historical fiction elements of this story lost out to literary license’s overuse of coincidence, convoluted romance, and decisions being made that probably would not have been made in a war-time environment governed by the simple necessity to fight and to survive.
CODE NAME SAPPHIRE was readable and enjoyable to be sure but it just didn’t have the stunning impact that washed over me when I read THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS.
Had there ever been a time “when her country hadn’t been surrounded by terror and ugliness and threats”?
Even though DEAD AIM was published twenty yeaHad there ever been a time “when her country hadn’t been surrounded by terror and ugliness and threats”?
Even though DEAD AIM was published twenty years ago, it does manage to seem timely given the nature of MAGA politics and the apparent desire of far right Republicans to de-stabilize their own government and to oust the duly elected legitimate president. DEAD AIM tells the story of Alex Graham, a top flight photojournalist, who uncovers the path to the inner workings of a conspiracy and an insurrection plan to topple the government (gosh … have I heard that recently?) as she covers the tragic collapse of a dam in Arapahoe Junction. Despite its rather current flavour and the obvious relationship it might have to today’s government dysfunction at the hands of some senators and members of the House who really ought to be cooling their heels behind bars, DEAD AIM never rises beyond pedestrian and mildly entertaining. The government bad guys are rather cartoonish, the plot and the outcomes become quite predictable, and the hot and heavy sweaty romance bits are right out of a B-movie.
“Personally, I believe it’s a poor idea to tell a seven-year-old girl that God’s tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs.”
It’s definitely a “l“Personally, I believe it’s a poor idea to tell a seven-year-old girl that God’s tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs.”
It’s definitely a “literary” novel, that’s for sure. I finished THE GARGOYLE and I can honestly say that I have no idea what genre would best describe it or what Davidson’s intended message or moral takeaways might have been. Heck, I don’t even know if there was one. Lots of contenders for that genre classification – historical fiction, fantasy, romance, paranormal, horror, magic-realism … you’re going to have to decide for yourself!
After a serious car accident, a man (who for reasons known only to the author was never named??) lies seriously burned and much closer to death than life. As he struggles with his recovery, Marianne Engels, a very odd woman plagued by a litany of mental illnesses, wanders into his room and insists that they met in a monastery in medieval Germany and have known one another for several hundred years. With no options available to him, he listens to her tell the stories of their mutual history – hers as a linguistic and artistic prodigy and novitiate nun in reluctant defiance of the demands of the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church and his as a wounded mercenary soldier who seems doomed to repeat the near death of fire and burn injuries throughout several lifetimes.
I’ll repeat … I have no idea what Andrew Davidson intended to convey but I gotta tell you, his way of saying nothing and going nowhere was eye-popping, gripping, and throat-lumping from first page to last. It’s probably a good idea to point out several “sub”-stories or themes that were each worthy of special mention on their own. Consider, for example:
Davidson’s ultra-graphic and no-holds-barred technical description of the treatment of extensive third degree burns was at once informative, breathtaking, and terrifying! I had absolutely no idea what was involved.
“Even when [a skin graft] did take, the absence of oil glands in the transplanted tissue resulted in extreme dryness. “Ants beneath the skin” is not only too clichéd a description of how it felt, but also not graphic enough. Lumberjack termites brandishing little chainsaws, maybe; or fiddler crabs wearing hairshirts and fiberglass shoes; or a legion of baby rats dragging tiny barbed-wire plows. Tap dancing, subepidermal cockroaches wearing soccer cleats and cowboy spurs?”
The mind simply boggles at the wealth of outlandish metaphors!
Davidson didn’t hold back when it came to both explicit and implicit criticism of the church and its behaviours ranging from nonsensical idiocies to abhorrent evil. This excerpt, for example, deals with one of Marianne Engel’s stories and her acquaintance with Heinrich Seuse, a German religious mystic born in 1295, who would become one of the most important religious figures of the day.
“[Seuse] opened his robes one evening and used a sharpened stylus to carve the letters IHS into the flesh above his heart (… the abbreviated name of Christ in the Greek language). Blood poured out of his ripped flesh but he claimed he barely felt the pain, such was his ecstasy. The scarified letters never vanished and he wore the wound in secret until the end of his life; it soothed him in times of struggle, … , to know that the very name of Christ moved with each beat of his heart.”
Davidson seems to have the ability to create ridiculously laughable non-sequiturs that leaped out of nowhere and promptly disappeared:
“You’d be surprised how many great Japanese books don’t have decent Latin translations.”
And the philosophical contemplations of the unnamed burn victim (was it Davidson’s intent to make him the eponymous “GARGOYLE”?) were deeply thought-provoking:
“I was born beautiful and lived beautiful for thirty-plus years, and during all that time I never once allowed my soul to know love. My unblemished skin was numb armor used to attract women with its shininess, while repelling any true emotions and protecting the wearer … What an unexpected reversal of fate; only after my skin was burned away did I finally become able to feel. Only after I was born into physical repulsiveness did I come to glimpse the possibilities of the heart.”
I can say with absolute certainty that the reactions to Andrew Davidson’s THE GARGOYLE will range from disgusted wall-banger DNFs to awed 5-star ratings with comments such as “Wow! Best book ever! Amazing!” Your reaction will, of course, be entirely subjective and it will, of necessity, be your own. I can but convey the fact that I enjoyed it immensely and wholeheartedly recommend that you give it a try for yourself.
Lots of love to go around in the chilly 1967 winter weather of Ballybucklebo, Ireland
Fans of Patrick Taylor’s IRISH COUNTRY novels who have been readiLots of love to go around in the chilly 1967 winter weather of Ballybucklebo, Ireland
Fans of Patrick Taylor’s IRISH COUNTRY novels who have been reading the series in order will recall recently having their hearts both broken and warmed with the romantic and gut-wrenching tale of the death of the eponymous doctor’s wife in the war and, many years later, his subsequent courtship and marriage to his first love, Kitty O’Hallorhan. So I expect that those fans, myself included of course, might be forgiven for imagining that AN IRISH COUNTRY LOVE STORY will continue in that vein with the story of the heated romance between O’Reilly’s assistant, Barry Laverty, and his fiancée, Sue Nolan. And it certainly does … but it’s also much, much more.
Love in Ballybucklebo comes in many forms, in many places, and in many people.
There’s the continuing romantic love we would expect between O’Reilly and his newly re-discovered first love; between Laverty and the fiancée he misses so desperately as she continues her studies in France; between Kinky Kincaid and her new husband, Archie Auchinleck; and the most recent case of questionable, unrequited love between O’Reilly’s brother, Lars, (a commoner by any British or Irish standards), and a lady of distinctly upper class nobility, Myrna Ferguson, the marquis’s widowed sister.
But AN IRISH COUNTRY LOVE STORY is also a story of non-romantic love, affection, respect and compassion – animal owners and their pets; landowners and homeowners and their homes and their property; citizens of a town and their desire for tradition; the grief of a young woman over her father who suffers a heart attack; hard-working professional colleagues’ willingness to make difficult sacrifices for one another; and the willingness of an entire community to stand up for one of their own who is under threat.
Entertaining and heartwarming from first page to last, I’ll put my reading money on AN IRISH COUNTRY LOVE STORY as arguably being the finest in a series that is already top-flight. Patrick Taylor and the IRISH COUNTRY DOCTOR series are Canadian national literary treasures. I’ll caution potential readers once again that there is definitely a continuing story line in the series and AN IRISH COUNTRY LOVE STORY would be decidedly difficult to decipher without the knowledge of its characters’ back stories.
Paul Weiss
P.S. If you want an idea of the nature of the story-telling and the characters in this series, think of James Herriot's ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL. Northern Ireland, instead of Yorkshire, and human patients, instead of farm animals. But the flavour is very, very similar....more
For the first time in a string of more than 1,200 reviews, I can barely be bothered to summarize the plot. YouSerial arson and murder … but who cares?
For the first time in a string of more than 1,200 reviews, I can barely be bothered to summarize the plot. You see, there’s this dysfunctional wealthy family who falls apart when the eldest daughter dies in a fire that appears to be a murder … yada, yada, yada.
I have no idea how or why I bothered to finished FINAL SCREAM because it was a 500 page waste of paper that would still have been execrable drivel even if it had been properly edited with the removal of 200 pages. The problems? Where do I start? Gratuitous sex much of which was incest and pedophilia, or incestuous pedophilia; oh yeah, there was plenty of adultery to go around as well; more gratuitous sex; a rough and tumble tough guy hero whose approach to foreplay would likely have been characterized as rape or sexual assault if his partner hadn’t constantly rolled onto her back in sweaty, eager response; a predictable plot; a cast of despicable characters not one of whom seemed to possess anything approaching a redeeming virtue; wealthy characters whose displays of narcissistic self-entitlement can only be called disgusting; every single character’s relationship to their family can only be classed as dysfunctional (not a normal relationship in sight!); and, you guessed it, a little more gratuitous sex to top everything off.
Romantic suspense? I don’t think so. Nothing romantic about the trashy sex in this waste of paper. Nor was there much suspense when the outcomes are so easy to predict. Recommended? Definitely not.
Arden Maxwell is the daughter of the one that got away!
Twenty years ago, four unlikely conspirators got away clean on a daring heist! But you know theArden Maxwell is the daughter of the one that got away!
Twenty years ago, four unlikely conspirators got away clean on a daring heist! But you know the saying, “He who hesitates is lost”! And in this case, never a truer word was spoken. Before the sun came over the horizon on the morning after the robbery, one of them was in the hospital having been beaten to within an inch of his life, one was in jail, one was dead alligator bait in a mangrove swamp and the fourth, Arden Maxwell’s father, had apparently disappeared with the bag of loot, half a million large ones, never to be seen or heard from again.
Well, more accurately put, his coincidental disappearance led the community to believe that he was the fourth member of the robbery team and the murderer of the poor joker whose mangled corpse was dredged up out of the swamp. Arden Maxwell has returned to her hometown to find the answers to her questions. But Ledge Burnet, a solitary craftsman who had been forcibly enlisted and sent to Afghanistan years earlier as an alternative to some heavy duty jail time for misdeeds as a younger man and Rusty Dyle, the corrupt District Attorney who followed in the footsteps of his equally larcenous and infamous sheriff father, are not the least bit comfortable with the questions she’s asking and the stones she’s turning over.
The game is on and, of course, Sandra Brown being Sandra Brown, one can expect a pedal-to-the-metal thriller peppered every so often with some graphic cheeks-to-the sheets, hot and sweaty sexual interludes. A feminist reader might be a little miffed that the sex on occasion was less than 100% consensual and the foreplay more than a little macho and misogynistic but I managed to read over it and pretty much ignore the sexual encounters in favour of getting on with a thriller that was more than passably enjoyable.
Memorable literature? Most definitely not. Enjoyable brain candy for lovers of thrillers and romantic suspense novels? Yep … I’m definitely a Sandra Brown fan and THICK AS THIEVES is easy to recommend.
No sooner did I close my review of Sandra Brown’s thriller OUTFOX with the effusive praise,
“I’ve officially added Sandra Brown Damn … spoke too soon!
No sooner did I close my review of Sandra Brown’s thriller OUTFOX with the effusive praise,
“I’ve officially added Sandra Brown to my short list of authors guaranteed as a go-to solution to lift you out of a reading funk or to fix the downside after-effects of DNFs, wall-bangers, or simply suffering through a depressing or disappointing 1- or 2-star dog!”
than I feel like I’m left with little choice than to rate my latest Sandra Brown reading as the very 2-star dog I was talking about!
SEEING RED is “too” - too long, too slow, too complex, too ugly and too angry. There isn’t a single character in the entire novel (including the obvious lead male and female who are endlessly entwined in Sandra Brown’s inevitable sweaty underlying romance) that will evoke even a modest amount of understanding, sympathy, or mental support. The lead male, a disgraced ATF agent forced to resign his position before he was actually fired, is a sarcastic wise-ass whose words never reflect the slightest measure of common sense, compassion or serious understanding. But, unlike Nelson DeMille’s John Corey, for example, the sarcasm is wasted because it’s never funny or witty. It’s Don Rickles’ style hate on steroids. He also happens to be a self-entitled dirtbag with a steamer trunk full of emotional baggage, a narcissistic misogynist who thinks foreplay and sexual assault are interchangeable activities, and (IMO) a rapist who thinks lack of dissent is consent (if indeed he ever concerns himself at all with such a pointless issue as female consent).
And as to the female lead of the piece? Well, suffice it to say that her self esteem seems to have taken a vacation as she accepts this male crap and ultimately comes to welcome it.
How about the plot? Well, we’re talking some serious, truly despicable, and entirely loathsome criminality here that is spread out through a significant portion of SEEING RED’s list of characters. But, for my money, nobody is really brought to heel and made to pay in a way that I would see as just and meaningful.
Sandra Brown is a prolific author. There’s no doubt about it and much of her work, as I’ve stated previously is top-shelf thoroughly enjoyable romantic suspense. But I should have known and recalled that when you write so many books, it’s a logical inevitability that something will be the best and something will be the worst. The only question is how bad that “worst” will be. SEEING RED has to be on the list of possibilities.
Is a serial con-man and a serial murderer now working with a business partner??
Just before his father’s death, FBI Agent Drex Easton swore an old-fasIs a serial con-man and a serial murderer now working with a business partner??
Just before his father’s death, FBI Agent Drex Easton swore an old-fashioned blood oath that, if it took the rest of his life, he would do whatever it took to run Weston Graham, the man who murdered his mother, to earth. Graham is nothing if not successful at his grisly chosen profession. In disguise and under a variety of aliases, he’s conned eight wealthy women (that the authorities are aware of) out of their fortunes, killed them, disposed of their bodies, and disappeared off the face of the earth without leaving so much as a whisper of a clue, DNA, or shred of evidence behind. Now, many years later, luck, coincidence, and a fortuitous tip seem to have put Easton’s target back into his sights. Drex Easton, posing undercover as a struggling, unpublished writer, moves in next door to his target, Jasper Ford, a clever businessman recently married to a much younger woman, Talia Shafer, a successful and wealthy business woman in her own right. The question now is whether Ford’s new wife is his accomplice or his next victim? And (well, Sandra Brown DOES write romantic suspense thrillers, doesn’t she!?), Easton had better find out the answer to that question before he derails and terminates his investigation, his career, and possibly his life by falling in love with the female half of his suspect pair!
By-the-bye, along the way the reader is treated to some brilliant instances of internal FBI politics and head-butting that, from time to time, even become laugh out loud comedic.
OUTFOX is at once gripping, compelling, fast-paced, action-filled, hot and steamy (naturally!), and thoroughly entertaining. Like so many other novels of its kind, OUTFOX won't win any literary prizes and it's neither memorable or particularly credible but it’s definitely an enjoyable page-turner guaranteed to put a smile on the face of any reader who enjoys the thriller genre.
Definitely recommended. In fact, I’ve officially added Sandra Brown to my short list of authors guaranteed as a go-to solution to lift you out of a reading funk or to fix the downside after-effects of DNFs, wall-bangers, or simply suffering through a depressing or disappointing 1- or 2-star dog!
A first-rate one act, one scene hostage drama conflict!
TV personality Tiel McCoy is headed to New Mexico for some long overdue R&R. Cue in the outragA first-rate one act, one scene hostage drama conflict!
TV personality Tiel McCoy is headed to New Mexico for some long overdue R&R. Cue in the outrageous entirely over-the-top coincidence that readers will completely forgive and overlook because without it, STANDOFF doesn’t exist as a bitchin’ hostage drama! Russell Dendy, narcissistic, sociopathic and utterly self-serving Fort Worth tycoon, is ranting to all and sundry that his daughter, Sabra, has been kidnapped, seduced, and violated by white trash young man, Ron Davison. Meanwhile, back at the proverbial ranch, in a god-forsaken middle-of-nowhereville gas station convenience store where our heroine Tiel McCoy is gassing up the wheels and picking up a few snacks for the miles left on her road trip, the young man and his girlfriend, whom readers discover is pregnant and hanging on the edge of imminent labour, crash the party and hold everyone in the store hostage at the point of a gun. Sandra Brown’s lightspeed narrative will glue you to your seat and leave you utterly slack-jawed and gob-smacked.
New York Post’s back cover ridiculously clichéd blurb gushes: “Nearly impossible to put down … a gripping, effective page-turner” Guess what? I agree 100% and will happily tell you that STANDOFF joins the ranks of the very few books in my lifetime that I have polished off in a single sitting. We’re not talking any literary prizes here but, damn, it sure was fun!
“ … it seemed like his skin couldn’t hold the pulsing energy inside him.”
I’ve been a committed Mark Leslie fan since the day that I had the pleasu“ … it seemed like his skin couldn’t hold the pulsing energy inside him.”
I’ve been a committed Mark Leslie fan since the day that I had the pleasure of meeting him on a summer Saturday at a vendor’s booth at one of our local craft beer brewers. That first novel in the series A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK - Michael Andrews’ very first romp as an alpha wolf in Central Park, followed the next morning by his first very painful and very naked reversion from lycanthrope to human – was right in my reading wheelhouse. I was definitely hooked. So I was pretty used to the Canadian Werewolf series mish-mash cross-genre melting pot – a blend of occult, paranormal, fantasy, suspense thriller, left-wing good guy vs far right-wing neo-Nazi bad guy, with a dash of sappy, happy, comfy romance tossed in for good measure.
LOVER’S MOON is definitely NOT that!
Co-authors Mark Leslie and Julie Strauss tell readers quite clearly what they are about to read,
“As a new era in the Canadian Werewolf saga begins, Lover’s Moon flashes back to the romantic and comedic story of how Michael and Gail met and fell in love back in the summer of 2011.”
Make no mistake! LOVER’S MOON is a full-bore rom-com with only the merest hint of the occult and absolutely zero of what might be called a suspense thriller plot-line. It starts and ends with Michael Andrews meeting and falling in love with Gail Sommers and dealing with the issue of how to reveal his rather life-altering circumstances to her. It is a prequel of sorts that fills in the back story of the rocky beginnings of Gail’s and Michael’s tempestuous relationship! That’s it … end of story!
And I am most definitely not a lover of the romance genre. But I have to hand it to this author team. From stone cold through heartwarming to blistering hot; laugh-out-loud humorous; enervating; delicious; realistic (well, as realistic as a romance between a werewolf and the owner of an occult shop in New York can be!); convincing; entertaining; and, perhaps most important, never saccharine or sappy for even a single moment, Leslie and Strauss made the romance come off the page (nyuk, nyuk!).
You don’t want to read this as a stand-alone novel but, as part of the series, it definitely earns its place. And the prologue and epilogue make it clear that there is definitely something back in the paranormal, occult and thriller vein coming up soon! I’m definitely looking forward to it.
“Family rivalries, incalculable wealth, and a prominent man dying in the arms of his beautiful mistress”
I have to own up to the fact that the genr“Family rivalries, incalculable wealth, and a prominent man dying in the arms of his beautiful mistress”
I have to own up to the fact that the genre characterization “romantic suspense” always gives me the heebie-jeebies. Call me a misogynist but I have this preconceived mental idea that the book I have in my hands is lowbrow chick lit and could not possibly be worth the reading. I’ve only read a few Sandra Brown novels but I also have to own up to the fact that I’ve been wrong every single time. And SMASH CUT is no exception.
A serial killer who has the rather bizarre MO of re-creating gory scenes and murders from his favorite movies with all of the requisite twists, turns, red herrings and suspense that you’d expect from the very best thrillers – what’s not to like? And the romance, well, it’s certainly there but even that comes with a surprising twist in the tale that can be characterized as interesting, creative, and heartwarming.
Note to self: Pick up your next Sandra Brown novel and tell yourself that, yes, it will be romantic suspense, but lose that idea of low-brow, unexciting chick lit! Sandra Brown is a winner.
On literacy: “I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full”.
If Kya had grown up in the mountains of AppalacOn literacy: “I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full”.
If Kya had grown up in the mountains of Appalachia, townies might have looked down their noses and scoffed at her as a “redneck”, “hillbilly”, or perhaps “white trash” and “trailer trash”. But since she lived deep in the Atlantic coastal tidal marshes of North Carolina, the vogue term of disparagement was “marsh girl” or “marsh trash”. Demonstrating sensitivity and an innate intelligence that was clearly off the charts to an empty audience, Kya raised herself living alone and completely isolated for years in a shack with only her ever-growing collection of biological artifacts to love:
“Her collections matured, categorized methodically by order, genus, and species; by age according to bone wear; by size in millimeters of feathers; or by the most fragile hues of greens. The science and art entwined in each other’s strengths; the colors, the light, the species, the life; weaving a masterpiece of knowledge and beauty that filled every corner of her shack. Her world. She grew with them – the trunk of the vine – alone, but holding all the wonders together. But just as her collection grew, so did her loneliness … months passed into a year. Then another.”
… until she encountered Tate Walker, a young man, whose yearning for her companionship, her mind, and her beauty, blossomed into a love that would not and could not be requited in the wilderness of Kya’s beloved marsh. Kya’s world slowly began to open to new possibilities as he patiently taught her to read and write. Despite his promises to return to her and stay in touch, Tate’s departure to attend university left open the possibility for Kya’s marginal encounters with civilization to take her down a different and tortuous Byzantine path. Having encountered Chase Andrews, a second young man who offered the possibility of entry into a larger world of possible friends, family and love, Kya’s world collapses when Andrew’s broken body is found at the foot of a decrepit fire tower in the marsh and she is charged with his murder.
No doubt there are those that would dismiss WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING as romantic chick-lit and, to be sure, it definitely has some of that flavour that might incline readers to momentarily assign such a label. But to do so would unfairly weaken an extraordinary novel that is so much more – a murder mystery, a legal thriller, a coming-of-age narrative, a celebration of nature, science and outdoors writing, and an awesome, gut-wrenching, cautionary tale on the human frailties of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, rejection, exclusion, snobbery, and our propensity to make unwarranted judgments and draw conclusions on the basis of appearances and incomplete knowledge and information.
The author herself characterized her novel in the following way:
“WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is a mystery, a love story, and a courtroom drama, but it is primarily about self-reliance, survival, and how isolation affects human behavior. Since our specises is a social mammal, we have strong genetic tendencies to belong to a group of tightly bonded family and friends. But what happens if a young girl … finds herself alone without a group? Of course, she feels lonely, threatened, insecure, and incompetent. [She] also behaves strangely, hiding behind trees when she sees others on the beach and avoiding the village. She ventures deeper into the wilds of the marsh, away from people, and in so doing begins to learn life’s lessons directly from the natural world.”
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is a heart-warming, compelling, gut-wrenching, awesome novel that will definitely be on my TOP TEN list for 2022. Beyond that, a jaw-dropping ending inclines me to add it to that much more atmospheric list of my personal lifetime favourites. Regardless of what genre might press your buttons, I can definitely recommend WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING as an awesome read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Lisa Gardner takes a swing at the “revenge” theme and hits it out of the park!
FBI profiler Pierce Quincy’s daughter was an alcoholic. Two years ago, Lisa Gardner takes a swing at the “revenge” theme and hits it out of the park!
FBI profiler Pierce Quincy’s daughter was an alcoholic. Two years ago, she left an AA meeting, fell hard off the wagon, and killed herself and a passing pedestrian when she drove her car off the road. At least, that was how the final police report read at the time but Quincy’s investigative instincts were not convinced. To put the matter finally (and objectively) to rest, one way or the other, he asked his friend (and possible lover? … but I digress!), ex-cop and now PI Rainie Conner, to re-open the case. Just as she starts to unearth some details and solid evidence that the death was something other than a simple DUI accident, Quincy’s ex-wife is brutally murdered. It would appear that there is a psychopath on the revenge warpath with Quincy and all of his loved ones on his target list.
Revenge, blood lust, and brutal serial murder are hardly innovative, original ideas for a suspense thriller plot but, omigod, Lisa Gardner has done this one up right, from first page to last. The culprit is brilliant. The character development is completely engaging – Quincy, his ex-wife, his second daughter (currently enrolled in a university psychology program with sights on a career in the FBI following in Dad’s footsteps), Conner, his FBI colleagues – all of them are fleshed out in absolutely convincing fashion and lifted off the page into a stark reality. Dialogue is realistic. The romantic byplay between Conner and Quincy is heartwarming, never salubrious or saccharine, and certainly not intrusive to the main plot-line. The final reveal is a complete and totally shocking surprise!
Just be warned, fellow readers, THE NEXT ACCIDENT should NOT be read out of order. For maximum enjoyment, take the time to build up the back story in the previous two installments in the series, THE PERFECT HUSBAND and THE THIRD VICTIM. And don’t be discouraged, I enjoyed both but THE NEXT ACCIDENT is far and away the best of the three. It’s worth your time.
It’s been a long, long time since I was so totally thrilled by a thriller.
“ ‘Did you hurt those little girls?’ And he answered in a faraway voice, ‘Yes, ma’am, I think I did.’ ”
Lisa Gardner’s controversial suspense thri“ ‘Did you hurt those little girls?’ And he answered in a faraway voice, ‘Yes, ma’am, I think I did.’ ”
Lisa Gardner’s controversial suspense thriller was written over 20 years ago but it could hardly be more timely. In a foreword to the edition that I read, Gardner mused, “Like many Americans struggling to grasp five shootings in fifteen months, I wanted to understand why these mass murders had occurred and what could be done to prevent them.” Thinking of school shootings perpetrated by children in particular, she asked an expert “if he believed that the rash of incidents indicated a new trend in juvenile behavior … the man did not hesitate to answer. ‘Absolutely … As for future shootings, the question is not if but when’. ” And now? School shootings are a dime a dozen and mass shootings at large are virtually a daily occurrence with deaths related to gun violence in the USA resting between 30,000 to 40,000 each and every year.
One has to wonder if Lisa Gardner even imagined such an outrageous possibility! Land of the brave and home of the free?
A 13 year old boy has confessed to shooting two of his classmates and an infuriated community is ready to toss him into the adult slammer and throw away the keys. But officer Rainie Conner and FBI profiler, Pierce Quincy are not so sure. As evidence of the involvement of a mysterious man in black and the targeted shooting of a teacher in the school mounts up Conner and Quincy are not willing to close the case.
“We have reports of a man in black at the scene. Shooter may be in the area. Proceed with caution.”
“A man?” … “I thought it would be a student. It’s always a student.”
THE THIRD VICTIM is a brilliant, hold-your-breath kind of thriller that entertains in so many different ways. The portrayal of the collective grief and anger of a community damaged by a school mass shooting is brilliant. And when Gardner’s microscope zeroes in on the accused young shooter, and his terrified sister and devastated parents, the pathos becomes even more real. If you’re a rational reader with any kind of heart, you can be assured that you won’t be rushing to blame. And yet, by the same token, if you’re a rational reader, you cannot possibly help questioning the validity of the 2nd Amendment in a 21st century USA so filled with death-dealing weaponry. As a police procedural, THE THIRD VICTIM is also an unqualified success – jurisdictional squabbles between the local municipal police force, state police and the FBI are a given; the difficulty of marriage and romantic relationships within the law enforcement community; alcoholism; the efficacy of profiling; and the synergy of police brainstorming to put together victimology and possible scenarios. The forensic discussion of ballistics, rifling, and sabots was informative and absolutely riveting (How many of you have heard of sabots before? I know I hadn’t).
An unqualified recommendation to those who love police procedurals and suspense thrillers.
“Michael Andrews thought he’d found the perfect woman”
In the previous episode, FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES saw Canadian author and reluctant w“Michael Andrews thought he’d found the perfect woman”
In the previous episode, FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES saw Canadian author and reluctant werewolf Michael Andrews accept the suggestion of his manager, Mack Halpin, to take a working vacation out west. Putting a little space between him and Gail Sommers, the girl friend who had just parted ways with him, he headed to Los Angeles to work as a script consultant on the movie production of his most recent novel. Now he’s back home with a new love, Lex Jones, and a new lease on life only to discover that the neo-Nazi domestic terrorist organization they battled in Los Angeles, had followed them to New York. Anarchy, fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and violence rooted in hard core right-wing hatred fueled by the rambling musings emanating from the Oval Office were the order of the day. The clues pointed to a nefarious plot to bring New York City to its knees.
The volume and frequency buttons on Mark Leslie’s puns and dad jokes were turned up to 10 and, no question, I’m a fan. FRIGHT NIGHTS, BIG CITY explored aspects of the paranormal and the occult beyond lycanthropy in the form of new and interesting supernatural powers, vampirism, hexes and spells, and even rather unique methods of battling or nullifying those powers (including his own enhanced abilities as a werewolf!). Fabulous … loved that too! That Donald Trump’s lunatic demagoguery remains in full-flight in the lead-up to the 2024 general election and that the pace of the Department of Justice’s progress toward criminal indictments against him is positively glacial adds fuel to my full support of author Leslie’s obvious left-wing and anti-fascist sensibilities in an exciting plot. The world definitely needs more courageous and outspoken authors willing to call this particular spade a spade. Kudos and bravo for that, Mr Leslie!
So why not a five-star review?
FRIGHT NIGHTS, BIG CITY is still, underneath it all, a romance. But the sweet nothings, the cuddling, the love-making and the starry eyes are simply too cute, too saccharine, too frequent and too overdone for my tastes and, frankly, I found it all very distracting. I understand completely that the love between Michael and Lex and his confusion over his obvious continuing love for ex-girlfriend, Gail Sommers, are a critical part of the story but my personal tastes in that kind of thing need to see it toned down several notches. Other readers’ opinions may be different, of course, but I offer my honest feelings and put them openly on the table. Take note, however, that despite the misgivings, I still rated the novel as an enjoyable 4-star novel!
AND, I might add, there is clearly lots of steam left in the plot-line, and in the lives and the contributions to be made by all of the characters who have thus far put in an appearance (or not, as is the case of the invisible man). Woot, woot! Bring on LOVER’S MOON, the next novella, and your as yet untitled full length continuation in THE CANADIAN WEREWOLF series. Can’t wait!
Sandra Brown penned EXCLUSIVE in 1996 and, after its publication, many reviewers panned it as an entertainingCredibility issues? No, I don’t think so!
Sandra Brown penned EXCLUSIVE in 1996 and, after its publication, many reviewers panned it as an entertaining story with characters utterly lacking in credibility. I mean, after all, who could buy into a story about a dysfunctional First Lady who hated her husband and cringed when he tried to touch her; a serial-adulterer president who considered himself to be above the law and considered his re-election to a second term to be a right and a foregone conclusion; a White House physician who lied through his teeth to the public and violated his Hippocratic Oath on the order of the President; a president who is impeached and charged with felonies and obstruction of justice; a president who presumes to censor the contents of media journalism with threats and force; a president who believes the FBI should be the strong-arm enforcers of his personal directives and who despises the Attorney General that he appointed at the outset of his term in office; a president who interprets criticism as a criminal threat; and a right-wing southern senator focused exclusively on re-election, retention of power and his personal legacy?
Huh? … Wait a minute now!
It would seem that the only part of all of that lacking in credibility these days is the use of the term “impeachment” to simultaneously reflect the act of impeaching and the Senate’s conviction and removal of the incumbent from office. And, of course, the belief that the Department of Justice and Congress would have the courage to actually charge a president with criminal offenses seems a taut stretch these days. But, beyond that, I think that Sandra Brown needs some kind of award for her astonishing level of prescience! Definitely an enjoyable novel. If the USA has any remaining wisdom, EXCLUSIVE is a cautionary tale to which they should pay considerable attention!
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