Category Archives: reviews

Jun27

The Harbor by Katrine Engberg

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As someone who enjoys the Icelandic, Danish and other Scandinavian dramas, a genre apparently called Nordic Noir, I picked up this book a while back and have finally found time to review it.

I love this story. It has a lot of twists and turns—being someone who reads a lot of crime fiction, I really appreciate it when the author can keep me guessing for a while. I did figure out parts of it, but not the complete solution. I also like that each section had the day of the week at the beginning of those sections. It helped keep the reader oriented to the time passing in the investigation and upped the stakes on how long the boy was gone.

The story starts when a young man disappears on his way home from school. He lives in Copenhagen and has two siblings and some very odd parents. The reactions of his parents when he goes missing are strange and immediately make the reader suspicious. But there is no shortage of suspects in this story. The parents are a small part of the suspicion here. A murder occurs and more layers are added to the story. There are a lot of characters to sink ones teeth into. The ending of the investigation is superbly done.

The two detectives in the story are richly drawn with flaws as well as talents. Having fully fleshed out protagonists is always appreciated. The reader can really get behind these characters as they move forward in not only the investigation but in their personal lives.

The flow of the story is well done, clues are dropped and twists happen at a good pace.

If you’re a fan of detective stories with intriguing premises and interesting crimes and criminals, this is one to pick up.

Jun17

Forgotten Ghosts (Book Two of the Legacy Witch series) by Cass Kay

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Having read the first book of this series and enjoyed it so well, I was excited to get the chance to read this second book. Our heroine, Vianna is just as interesting and compelling as she was in the first book. Her best friend, Sandeen—known as Dee—lives with her now and they are making a home together. Two outcasts as neither belong to a coven, they have bonded as friends and each has the other’s back. I really enjoy their dynamic and personalities.

Of course, being Vianna, troubles come to call from various sources. Even the creepy nephew of her old landlord in Boston shows up. He smells like canned bacon and that made me laugh every time she mentioned it as I have never heard of such a thing though I can imagine just how lovely that smell could be. LOL

The author is very good at descriptions. She has the characters attend a witches fair and I loved how she evoked the atmosphere of first, the booths of items for sale, then the bonfire and the magic that occurs around it at the end of the fair. The fall setting was particularly well done. It’s my favorite season and I could almost feel like I was there despite the 90 degree weather as I read this book.

Part of the story takes place in tunnels under the city of Salem. Ms. Cass did a great job in atmospheric writing there and in her descriptions of the inhabitants of the tunnels.

Lots of drama like in the first book, some surprises from characters we thought we knew, and an interesting battle all make for another intriguing book and I, for one, can’t wait for book three.

Jun14

Blood Memory by Greg Iles- a Review

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I picked this up from our local library book sale a few months ago.  It was published in 2005.  It is a thriller set in New Orleans, Louisiana and Natchez, Mississippi. The type story as well as the setting immediately appealed to me since I live within a few hours drive of New Orleans and I love, love that city. Natchez is also a lovely, southern town. The racism in the story is a bit unsettling but it’s definitely true to some areas of the south—I’m not proud of that, but facts are facts. We do seem to have a lot of people who are unkind to others down here based solely on their skin color. I hate it and it makes me uncomfortable reading some of the language used.

The book itself is very intriguing. The premise is great with the heroine having a unique job as a forensic odonatologist. She inspects bite marks for criminal cases and I love that as a career choice for a character. I wasn’t sure I was going to like her from the blurb of the book since she is involved in an affair with a married man. Not only that, she and he jeopardize their careers with working together on various cases where she is not hired on officially as a consultant. He is a homicide detective who brings her into cases to help him look good as she has a good eye for details. She is also a functioning alcoholic. She has a family full of secrets. Her father was murdered when she was a small child.

I did end up liking her. The author piled on the trauma with this gal. She was messed up and even though she put on an appearance of being strong, she was an absolute mess.

As the story progresses, we learn exactly why she is a mess. It’s truly a miracle she wasn’t in a padded room of some sort with all that happened in her life.

The story is good. Complex and satisfying. She grows and learns and her character arc is well done. She makes some bone-headed moves a few times in the story and so does her homicide detective lover, but overall, it was an excellent read. It’s close to five-hundred pages, but it is really a pretty quick read with the page-turning plot.

Jun8

Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras by Tom Williams

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Another great spy story from Tom Williams starring his spy, Burke and the sergeant, William, who helps him in his missions. I had not heard of the fortifications at Torres Vedras before picking up this book.

I love this series as it combines history with intrigue and exciting stories. This one was no exception. It was more of a slow burn than a minute by minute danger zone, but was very enjoyable. Our hero is tasked with rooting out spies in the Portugal city of Lisbon and the surrounding area. It wasn’t going to be quick and it wasn’t going to be easy. The pacing was slower than the last book, but as a fan of the series, I can see how that was necessary for the plot. While every minute of a spy’s day is dangerous due to the nature of the work, the actual tedium of doing the groundwork to root out the spy being sought might not be moments of breathless excitement.

Poor William caught the brunt of the issues in this adventure. I felt sorry for him. Poor guy.  But as usual, he didn’t let it bring him down.

The respect Burke shows to one of the adversaries near the end of the book was intriguing and admirable even though I was a bit surprised. He’s a good man and I love the way the author has taken a real historical figure and made him someone we in this modern era can relate to even if we sometimes can’t relate to the tactics that were used in those days in the Army and the art of war.

In short, this was another success and I recommend it for those who enjoy historical fiction with a lot of realistic scenes of danger and violence as each side of a war try to win. Man’s inhumanity to man is definitely on display in this one. Five stars.

Jun5

A Murderous Relation and Dark Road to Darjeeling – Both by Deanna Raybourn- Review

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I’ve been meaning to review these books for a while but have had a number of personal family issues that have made reviewing difficult recently.

A very long time ago, I read the first books in the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn and truly enjoyed them but didn’t keep going in the series. I did pick up a couple more of them as the years went on but they were in my pile to be read and I never got to them.

In the meantime, I picked up A Murderous Relation in paperback not too long ago and read it in January. I enjoyed the two main characters, Veronica Speedwell and Stoker. They had a great relationship and the mystery they solved was intriguing and interesting.

Reading this book made me decide to dig out the other books I had by her and I started reading Dark Road to Darjeeling. As I read the first couple of chapters, I was thrown off by the fact that Lady Julie was the daughter of an earl and had siblings with her as they traveled in India. It took me a while to catch on that this was a different heroine than the one in A Murderous Relation.

I am truly not an idiot but having recently read the Murderous book, I wasn’t thinking about those older books with Lady Julia as it had been over 10 years since I read those. The two main characters in each of the book series were so alike and spoke in the same voice that it took me a while to differentiate what series I was reading.

Lady Julia is an aristocrat and the legitimate daughter of an earl. Veronica is the illegitimate child of the Prince of Wales. Veronica is a lepidopterist involved with a man name Stoker who is a jack of all trades and enjoys taxidermy. Lady Julia is a wanna-be detective married to a detective named Brisbane who has a myriad of skills like Stoker. They are both independent-minded women (which I love) and are not cowed or intimidated by strong men.

Both men are alpha types and get frustrated with the female main characters. Both are overly protective (which is right for the era) and have similar character traits.

As I read the first chapters, I kept saying, “Wait, I thought she was illegitimate and had no real relationship with her siblings.”  Eventually, it dawned on me that I was reading about different characters. I laughed and said “Duh,” as I recalled the first books I had read in the Lady Julia series.

But later on, I confess, I got confused again. There was a young boy character in the Darjeeling book who collected creatures, including butterflies. My first thought was, “With her being a lepidopterist, she will be able to relate to him well.” Another duh moment.  Wrong heroine.

I understand the author’s voice is the author’s voice, but I confess, the similarities of the personalities of Lady Julia and Veronica as well as similarities with both Stoker and Brisbane, I spent way too much time mulling over who was who and what series I was reading.

I very much enjoyed both books. The setting in the Himalayas in the Darjeeling book was marvelous and the brothel scenes in the Veronica book were delightful. The plots were intricate and well-done. The flow of the stories was also well done and the pacing was great. I just have to do better as I read them in the future. 🙂

Apr10

Dust Child by Nguyen Phan Que Mai- Review

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A beautifully written story that will stay with the reader for a long while.

Several storylines converge in this book over the course of the tale. 1969 Vietnam and 2016 Vietnam are the main settings of the novel.

Two sisters leave their rice farm in the Mekong Delta for Saigon in order to earn money to help their parents out of debt. They become bar girls. Asking American soldiers to buy them drinks in exchange for a percentage of the money they spend. And there are more things at stake than merely drinking with American soldiers.

An American helicopter pilot stationed in Vietnam during the war who is now in his sixties returns to Saigon with his wife in order to help with his PTSD. Some of his friends have made the return trip and it has helped them. He’s keeping a big secret from his wife though and on the first day in the country, his secrets threaten to spill out and endanger his marriage.

A young black Amerasian man named Phong has lived a hard life as what the Vietnamese call a dust child. Seen as the child of the hated Americans, these children are treated abysmally and discriminated against in both education and employment opportunities. He’s desperate to get his family to America. He was abandoned at an orphanage as an infant and eventually lived on the streets of Saigon, raising himself from age twelve. An adult now with a wife and two children, he wants a better life for them.

The author of this book has a wonderful way with words. Her prose is smooth and easy to read. Many of the passages are very moving. The way she ties the various storylines together is well done. I can’t praise this book enough.

The hard issues that still haunt Vietnam as well as veterans from that era are faced with dignity and caring. The Vietnamese women who were used by the GIs for sex and comfort are depicted as three-dimensional and the product of the horrible wartime they lived in. The reader cared about them and their fates as well as the trauma they went through.

The Amerasian character was also someone who the reader could root for. He overcame so much in his life, the reader wanted him to succeed. From the poor child he was to the family man who wanted respect and happiness for his family, he was really a character that spoke to this reader’s heart. None of the circumstances of his birth were his fault, but his whole life was spent paying the price.

As to the American helicopter pilot, he was depicted as worthy of respect in some ways, but in some ways, not.  Portrayed realistically in the ways of how the war affected young men, he was someone the reader could feel for in some respects and not in others. The things these soldiers saw and did during their time in the jungle changed them and not for the better.

It was clear the author spent massive amounts of time interviewing people who actually lived these kinds of lives and she did an excellent job making those interviews into a novel that one can enjoy the story, but also learn some things about human nature and resiliency. An important read, in my opinion.

I don’t think I can do justice to this book in this review but I absolutely loved this book. I think it’s one everyone should read. For the lessons in love and forgiveness that are at the heart of this book are something we can all strive for in our lives.

Apr6

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley- Review

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I love Paris. The architecture is amazingly beautiful and it’s a gorgeous city full of great things to do and wonderful art work (mustn’t forget the pastries either). When I saw the title of this book, I was immediately curious about what the premise of the story would be. Reading the back cover copy let me know it was exactly up my alley in the world of genre fiction.

The story is told from the point of view of six characters in alternating chapters. The girl who is seeking her brother; the matronly, dignified Parisian lady of leisure—and snobbery; a younger girl who is a bit of a lonely heart and loner; a man who is an old friend of the brother being sought; the building’s concierge; and another man who is a drunken lout.

All of the above people live in the same apartment building except the girl seeking her brother. He lives on the third floor and when she arrives to stay with him, he’s nowhere to be found.

Worried as her last communication with him was he’d be waiting up for her, she makes every effort to find him. His wallet, his keys, and his scooter are still where they belong.

As she makes her way to talk to each resident about where her brother might be, mysteries abound.  She finds a secret passage in the walls of the building and learns they were used by the Nazis when they occupied Paris.

She seeks out the police but they seem unconcerned even though she found blood in her brother’s apartment as well as on his cat. One of the residents returns to the police with her, as he is fluent in French and she is not, and they then promise to try to find him. But it still doesn’t seem to her that they are going to take any action.

As she investigates, weird things keep happening such as her getting locked in a wine cellar which may or may not have been an intentional act. Shenanigans at a Halloween party lead her to doubt who she can trust. Overheard conversations between other residents also cause her to worry. The questions deepen with every page and conversation. This is a great mystery story with a lot of twists and turns. It’s atmospheric and dark in places but all in all, it’s a very satisfying, suspenseful read. One big twist in the story was late in the game but it was an interesting turn and I quite enjoyed the premise as well as the journey to the solution

Mar17

Death by Pins and Needles by Susie Black

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I was attracted to this book by the blurb and thought it would be something I would really enjoy as I am a big fan of cozy mysteries. When I started this one, I immediately felt lost as the story dumped the reader in the midst of a lot of characters (mostly unlikable) and a scene that was hard to get acclimated in. It seems this book is part of a series and I certainly hope the readers of the initial book were oriented as to time and place and people in a better way than this book did. It was as if the reader was expected to have read the prior book and be familiar with all the characters and the setting.

I read three chapters confused and stopped reading for another week or so before picking it up again.

On the second try, things became a bit clearer but I still didn’t like any of the characters. The group of friends of the protagonist called the Yentas were rude and condescending and the woman I expected to be the murder victim was nasty as well. No one really seemed to be someone this reader could root for or even care about.

By the time I got to chapter seven, I was about to set it aside as one I wouldn’t finish.

I pressed on, hoping it would improve and it did somewhat. It still had issues I couldn’t quite get past but the story did start to make sense and I did enjoy the premise of the tale.

Some things that bothered me that stopped my total enjoyment of the story: (1) The author used a phrase that was something on the lines of, “I twirled my hands in a ta-da motion” or “I turned my hands in a ta-da motion.” I’d never seen such a phrase and it was used more than once in the book. There was quite a lot of twirling of hands and fingers throughout the book. (2) The author also used the phrase, “Gave me the big eyes” which threw me out of the story each time it was used.  (3) “Gave me the stink eye” was also overused. I think the story would have been better with some judicious editing out of some of these odd, repetitive phrases. One or two occurrences in a novel is one thing, but over and over was too much. (4) One other glaring thing was using words wrong—such as in one place, the protagonist said her “curiosity peaked” which should have been piqued. I blame this on her editor. I get that sometimes the wrong words get into books, but this should have been caught.

The main character’s way of questioning people she suspected of the crime was rude and she sometimes (a lot, actually) behaved in a stupid and reckless manner. She actively put herself in danger and alienated people. If I’d been on the other end of her questioning, I would have wasted no time telling her to go away, but these people answered her questions like she had some authority to ask them. Her style of confrontation was off-putting and I wondered many times why the other characters put up with it when they didn’t have to talk to her at all.

Overall, even though I sound like I hated this book, the premise was good and the whodunit had a lot of characters to choose from which was a plus. I think it could have used a lot more editorial work. I’m not sure how the protagonist and her friends could be made more likable for this reader but I know a lot of readers enjoy this type of protagonist—irreverent, snarky, and sometimes over the top. For someone who likes that type character, this book is perfect. It just wasn’t for me. 3.5 stars

Mar1

“The Way They Were” by Robert Hofler- a review

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I received this book from Kensington Books in exchange for an unbiased review.

It’s hard to believe it’s been fifty years since the movie The Way We Were came out. This book celebrates that anniversary by giving behind the scenes details on the tug of wars between the writer, the producer and the director as well as the efforts to get Robert Redford on board to play the part of Hubbell.

As a regular person who doesn’t know much about the various personalities of the Hollywood scene, the first few chapters were challenging. There was a lot of name dropping without context and I had to stop reading to google who these people were and why they might be important to the book. That was a bit annoying. I think the author might have done a better job in the opening chapters in introducing the people involved a bit better. It felt as if the reader was dropped into a cocktail party where everyone knew each other and were gossiping about others not present and the reader was at sea without a navigator.

After getting myself oriented, the book moved a bit quicker. There were still a lot of names dropped in here and there and trying to remember who was who took me a while but eventually, things smoothed out and I enjoyed the read.

The writer of the story the movie was based on, Arthur Laurents, was really an interesting person and not in a good way. He seemed like an ego maniac and very focused on what he wanted even if it wasn’t best for the movie. Sydney Pollack deserved some sort of award just for what he had to put up with from that man. It sort of surprised this reader that they were actually able to get the movie made and on the screen in a form that made sense. Lots of filming scenes that never got used and cutting scenes they spent a lot of money making and it seemed to this reader that the film should have been a disjointed mess based on all this moving around of scenes. It sure didn’t seem as if they made the movie they started out to make.

Disagreements among all the principals about what the movie was actually about was a theme running through the whole book.

Sydney Pollack must have been a relentless man. His pursuit of Robert Redford for the lead male part and his commitment to make the role larger to get Redford on board was tenacious. I felt sorry for Redford with how hard Pollack tried to get him to agree to play the part.

I expected more gossip about Barbra Streisand as we’ve all read how much of a diva she is but the parts about her were mild compared to the parts about the writer, Laurents. He was much more of a diva than she was—at least in how the book portrayed them. She was definitely a control freak, but Laurents and his shenanigans put her in the shade.

Overall, I liked the book. I read it quickly after the first couple of chapters. It gave a lot of insight into the movie and the battles to get it on the screen. The author clearly did a lot of research and interviewed a huge number of people. His work paid off in an intriguing and informative work. A comprehensive bibliography and index showed exactly how much effort he put into this book.  

Feb26

Risky Whiskey by Lucy Lakestone – review

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This was a quick read with many things to like but also many things to wonder “what the heck?” 

First, the likes:

1. quirky, fun heroine with a unique view of life and a sad nuclear family history but an aunt who is supportive.

2. Hero who is strong and a rock for the heroine.

3. Unique premise with the cocktail convention location and bartenders as the main characters as well as the side characters.

4. Witty dialogue.

5. Wide cast of interesting characters.

6. Balance of danger and humor.

7. Good sense of place in descriptions of New Orleans. I’ve been there many times and the author was able to evoke the atmosphere well. 

The dislikes:

1. This reader figured out the culprit almost as soon as the person was introduced.

2. The red herrings didn’t fool this reader.

3. This reader was thrown out of the story by thoughts of how these people were functioning with the amount of liquor they ingested. I mean, they were at a cocktail convention in New Orleans and so drinking would be expected but they were also working and it seemed they were always buzzing.

4. Too much description of what everyone was wearing. Some is good but everyone’s outfit a number of times was too much for this reader.

5. The way the culprit tried to accomplish his crime was ludicrous. It would have been physically impossible. As someone who has experience with the weapon of choice (not that I’ve tried it on a person!), there is absolutely no way for someone to run and use that weapon. Can’t be done. I was laughing so hard at how insane it was. Definitely took me straight out of the story. 

In summary, good story with some issues but fun to read for the most part. Just be prepared to suspend your beliefs in that penultimate scene.