All Systems Red : the Murderbot Diaries / Martha Wells

 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Murderbot is a fabulous character! Although Wells goes to some trouble to tell us that Murderbot has no gender or sexual desire, I couldn't help feeling that it was female. I bet male readers feel that it is a man. Murderbot is so human in its desire to do only as much work as it has to and in its desire to lose itself in media to avoid an uncomfortable reality.

Just like anyone, this SecUnit likes people who like it. It is used to being treated like property, so when Dr. Mensah and her team start to treat it decently and like an actual sentient being, they become a priority for this rogue SecUnit. Because Murderbot has managed to hack its own governor and it no longer has to obey human commands.

Murderbot is many things. A pessimist, for one. If it knew about Murphy's Law, it would undoubtedly recognize it. But it's also pretty good at thinking outside the SecUnit box, which it credits to all of its media consumption.

I found the ending surprising, but this obviously there is more to the story that will be revealed in the next installment. I look forward to it.


View all my reviews

How Not to Diet / Michael Greger

 

How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss by Michael Greger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The path to health is paved with good intestines."

Finally, I have found the book I was looking for, one that gives practical, scientific advice on how to improve the health of the microbiome! And it's pretty much one word, people: FIBER. You can't go wrong eating more fiber foods and weeding out the CRAP (calorie rich and processed) foods.
There is still so much that we don't know about the human body. There are all kinds of receptor cells all through our systems and we don't know what they are set to receive.

Two of the mystery receptors…were found heavily expressed in our gut, on our nerves, and in our immune, muscle, and fat cells. We knew they must be vital, but we didn't know what activated them until 2003…And the keys that fit into those important locks were short-chain-fatty-acids that our gut bacteria make when we feed them fiber. This may be how our gut bacteria communicate with us….[these receptors’] existence gives us crucial insight into how fiber could play such a critical role in so many of our chronic diseases.

The good news? You can eat large amounts of fruit, veg, and beans, enough to keep you nice & full, and still lose weight as well as make all your receptors happy. Happy receptors mean less inflammation and perhaps will mitigate allergic response. I need to read this book (or at least sections of it) as inspirational literature on a regular basis. I'm working on developing my own collection of appropriate recipes in order to make this lifestyle happen for me. Plus spending more time in the produce section of the grocery store.

If you're like me and you have tried upteen diet plans, Weight Watchers (2 or 3 times), and hypnosis, and you still struggle with weight, I think this book is a must read. I may not agree with the author 100% on every issue, but he has amassed an enormous amount of research here. Before trying yet another diet, I would recommend reading his assessment of it.

Now, this is not a critique of library cataloguers (because I used to be one and would have done the same) but the only subject headings in the library catalogue were Weight Loss and Nutrition. Those two headings do describe the contents, but if I wasn't interested in those, I would have missed the microbiome aspect entirely. I think microbiome research is some of the most important for health being done these days.

Dr. Greger has a cookbook of course, so I'm going to have a look at that, but I've upped my consumption of salads, raw vegetables , and fruit already. I’d let that slip during this whole pandemic situation. Perhaps it's the good old placebo effect, but I'm feeling more energetic and maybe a bit happier. I have no illusions that I'll be able to do all the things he recommends (or even want to), but I can improve my habits gradually.

View all my reviews

There's a Murder Afoot / Vicki Delany

 

There's a Murder Afoot by Vicki Delany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was the perfect change of pace for this Friday evening! Delaney writes a decent cozy mystery. I'm warming up to Emma Doyle as a character and although I wondered about the author's choice to move this book to England instead of Cape Cod, I think I actually liked it better than previous books.

Delaney ingeniously brings the whole gang (Ryan, Jayne, Grant, even eccentric Donald) by positing a Sherlock Holmes conference that they are all attending. In London, we get to meet Emma's family, the retired cop father, lawyer mother, and apparently the spy sister. It explains some Emma oddities, as it was meant to.

I feel like Emma has evolved as a character—not quite so clueless about dealing with people as she's been portrayed in the earlier volumes. And she has plenty to deal with, as her father gets arrested by a vindictive former coworker for the murder of her uncle. Emma may stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, but in London she has sister Pippa backing her up. The sisters don't have the best relationship, but they make a formidable team. A lot of this book seems to be about Emma improving her relationships as well as investigating the family murder.

I think part of the appeal to the change of scenery is that Delaney is able to break the characters out of the habitual ruts that she had written them into. Emma & Jayne still drink a lot of tea, just not in their Cape Cod tea house. Emma gets to annoy new police officers. Ryan isn't involved in the case, so he only gets mildly bent out of shape when Emma interferes. Violet the dog isn't being semi-ignored by her owner who is busy eating out at the same place repeatedly.

This surprises me, but I will definitely read the next installment.


View all my reviews

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day / Winifred Watson

 

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I felt a certain kinship with Miss Pettigrew—although considerably younger when I arrived in the big city, I was an unsophisticated farm girl, green as grass, totally out of my element and doubting whether I would ever attain the confidence that many of my peers demonstrated. I had a roommate who took me in hand and got me herded in the right direction, just as Miss Le Fosse and Miss DuBarry do for Guinevere Pettigrew.

However, Miss P has been a governess for many years and has taken care of herself during that time. She has what we now call transferable skills. She can cook an unexpected breakfast, find a way to heave a man out the door, convince the next fellow that those cheroots were hers, and manage a pouting young man back to his fiancée. And she is absolutely masterful at any of these tasks once she has a bit of alcohol in her. It overcomes her hesitations and self-doubts and allows her inner extremely competent governess out to deal with things. If you can run a classroom of small children, manipulating adults (who have ideas of social niceties) is easy, if you have the aplomb to carry it off. Frankly, a tot of something before facing the children would likely have made her into a better governess.

There is much to be said for being ladylike, but if it isn't working for you, letting go of it is the right move. Learning to dress, wear make-up, hold her liquor, and make conversation…that's a lot to absorb in a day. That tells me that Miss P is an intelligent, adaptable woman who has been denied advantages by the polite class. It's the not-so-polite-society folks who see her worth and her talent. Her inexperience shows and amuses them, but they don't hold it against her, in fact they encourage her, mentor her.

I found myself moved by the kindness of these people who had only known Guinevere for less than a day. And I loved Joe. I think that Watson stopped the novel at the perfect spot, where the potential for happiness is clear but we don't need to dwell on the detail. What a charming story!


View all my reviews

Right Ho, Jeeves / P.G.Wodehouse

 

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wodehouse is a masterful writer. You don't always notice it, as he writes Bertie Wooster as a bit of an idiot, but even B. Wooster has a way with the words! Obviously, playing with English vocabulary was great fun for the man.

I rarely laugh out loud when reading, but I confess that Gussie and his newt lore got me giggling on a couple of occasions. Of course, as usual, Bertie manages to mess up every situation that he gets involved in. During the course of this book, that would include two engagements, an academic prize presentation, the survival of a women's magazine, plus the retention of the fabulous French chef, Anatole.

If one had a small complaint, it would be that the general plot is somewhat repetitious—Jeeves solves all the problems, Bertie takes the blame/is the butt of the joke, but all is well because some fate worse than death, i.e. engagement, has been averted.



View all my reviews

The Skeleton in the Closet / Angie Fox

 

The Skeleton in the Closet by Angie Fox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
I really enjoyed this second installment of the Southern Ghost Hunter series. I really like the main character, Verity, and her ghostly partner in crime, Frankie. He's a gangster that she accidentally bound to her property when she dumped his ashes in her flower bed and watered them in. He wants to go wandering, looking for a good card game and maybe a ghostly dame or two, but he can't roam any farther than her driveway unless Verity hauls his urn to their destination.

Their adventures alternate between trying to set Frankie free and trying to solve mysteries of their small town of Sugarland. The investigative portion of these activities is often aided by Sheriff Ellis Wydell, Verity's maybe-boyfriend who is also brother to the man she almost married. The one who cheated on her and made a pass at her sister and who shafted her with the bills for the wedding that didn't happen.

Having sold everything she possibly can to hopefully hold onto her house, Verity hopes to regain her good standing in the small community, the social scene of which is lorded over by her almost mother-in-law. Verity must be careful not to reveal her ability to communicate with ghosts or nothing she can do will save her reputation.

Fox has built in a clever rivalry between Ellis and his brother, the charming cad Beau. The budding romance between Verity and Ellis is mirrored by a new relationship between two ghosts who play a large part in this adventure. They are, after all, still human although they are dead, just not gone.

I paid my own cash for this book and I think I'm willing to pay for book three as well.




View all my reviews

The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre

 

The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre by Robert Morrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃
I have long wanted to read John Polidori's tale, The Vampyre, as it dates from very early in the literature of that creature and this year's Halloween Bingo was an excellent excuse. I am an enthusiastic consumer of vampire fiction and it was rather like wanting to visit the ancestral home. I hadn't realized that writers have been exploring this mythos since the 17th century and the trend shows little sign of giving up yet. Interestingly, the tale contains echoes of old fairy tales, with the main character, Aubrey, forbidden to speak what he knows for a year and a day. Of course disaster occurs on the last day before this restriction is finished.

The other tales were of less interest to me, although they had their moments. The horror in them derives from issues that all of us can recognize: illness, misfortune, getting mixed up with the wrong people, making an awful life changing mistake, or losing a cherished loved one. It was particularly interesting in these days of covid-19 to read Some Terrible Letters From Scotland by James Hogg about a cholera epidemic of the time. It seems there will always be those among us who refuse to believe that they can be laid low by disease. It seems to me they had more excuse then, without the knowledge of bacteria and viruses that we have now.

I also wonder if the Sheridan Le Fanu story, about an uncle oppressing his orphaned niece was a practice piece which eventually became the novel Uncle Silas.

If you have no patience for old-timey writing, I would advise you to give this short volume a miss. Especially The Confessions of a Reformed Ribbonman, which was somewhat difficult to decipher in spots, but is apparently based on a true story. That fact upped the horror ante for me. If you are interested in the historical roots of the horror genre, this may be a book you are looking for. Sporting vampires, ghosts, curses, and gothic shenanigans, this is a perfect choice for Halloween Bingo.




View all my reviews

The Red Heron / Karen Dudley

 

The Red Heron by Karen Dudley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
First things first: this author is my friend. We volunteered together many years ago. However, if I didn't honestly enjoy her books I would read them surreptitiously and slink off without leaving a review. Here's the thing, I really do enjoy her writing.

This was another re-read for me—I first read it back when it was first published. I remember those good old days when Calgary had a huge bookstore downtown and I went to hear Karen do a reading from this novel. Her inscription on the title page brought it all back to me. But if possible, I remembered even fewer plot details of this second book than I did of the first.

You know, I got thinking about Steve Burrows' Birder Murder mysteries while I was wending my way through this book. How Burrows went for a policeman as a main character where Karen chose an amateur sleuth. But both main characters spend a fair amount of time outdoors to do their investigations and both would rather be birding. The joy of both series for me is the solid bird knowledge exhibited by the authors. (Quite a contrast to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, which most often leaves me muttering and spluttering about the inaccuracies.)

If you didn't share a volunteer workplace with the author, many of the character names in this volume wouldn't mean anything to you, but I got a lot of warm fuzzies reading friends' names in substantial roles. Plus I was reminded of several people who hadn't crossed my mind for decades! (George, I wonder where you are?) I seem to recall Karen revealing at one point that she used the names of those who ticked her off as the names of the murder victims. I wonder which Richard and Melanie won that honour here?

A very enjoyable stroll down memory lane.




View all my reviews

Hoot to Kill / Karen Dudley

 

Hoot to Kill by Karen Dudley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
First things first: this author is my friend. We volunteered together many years ago. However, if I didn't honestly enjoy her books I would read them surreptitiously and slink off without leaving a review. Here's the thing, I really do enjoy her writing.

I like Robyn Devara as a main character, her environmental awareness and her lack of luck in love. We also get a glimpse into her family dynamics, which have some troubles. I often struggle with humour in books, but I get Karen's sense of humour, possibly because I know her and can hear her voice in my head as I read. For example, Robyn has a cat named Guido, named after an unfaithful ex-boyfriend and subsequently neutered. She's not above some symbolic revenge!

By taking this mystery to a small B.C. town, Dudley is following the example of Dame Agatha Christie in using a small community as a setting. It's so much easier to write a good mystery in a small group of known quantities. She also sets up the character of Jaime Cardinal as the equivalent of Miss Marple, the villager who knows everyone and who can fill in the blanks for Robin and her coworker (and love interest) Kelt. (This interest in romance is in good gothic mystery/romance form.)

I've read this book before, back when it was first published (1998) and I remembered only bits and pieces, so it was once again a good read. I'm glad I bought all four books featuring Robin. I'm going to enjoy this re-read cycle.




View all my reviews

Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men / Molly Harper

 

Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men by Molly Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 RE-READ

🎃🎃🎃🎃
I’m upgrading my evaluation of this book to a full, happy four stars. It has helped me regain my joy in reading this month. When I've turned reading into a job instead of a joy, it's time to break out the urban fantasy!

I adore Molly Harper's sense of humour. I love a snarky, smart-ass main character and with Jane Jameson I get that in spades. Jane is just too intrinsically good to make a scary vampire. She's still mostly a neurotic, well read children's librarian with a cadre of fun friends. Zeb, the kindergarten teacher who is marrying Jolene, a werewolf with a large, overbearing family. Jane's boyfriend, Gabriel, who I like much more during this second reading. His vampire frenemy, Dick, who earns a dodgy living but loves the ladies. Andrea, human blood donor, who is being pursued by tricky Dick. Aunt Jettie, ghost in Jane's old Southern home. Mr. Wainwright, Jane's boss at the occult bookstore.

Jane may be a trifle more obsessive about relationships than I would like her to be, but I really wouldn't change her. After all her obsessiveness is one of her charms. She has made me into a happy reader once again. Thank you, Jane, and thank you Molly Harper. 💜



ORIGINAL REVIEW

I would actually rate book two of the Jane Jameson series as a 3.5 star, rather than four star, if I had the choice. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as book 1. Still a very enjoyable read and came very close to being as much fun as the first book.

I have to laugh at Jane’s mother and grandmother who both seem to believe that marriage and children are the only worthwhile things in a woman’s life. I’ve had to put up with a fair bit of that attitude myself and I love that Jane’s not taking it sitting down. On this note, I loved the Titanic themed wedding planned by Jolene, Zeb’s fiancée. I only hope that the marriage doesn’t suffer the same fate as the ship.

I also appreciate the circle of friends that Jane is building (view spoiler)[but did her bookstore boss really have to die so soon? (hide spoiler)] I get a kick of out of her vampire buddy Dick Cheney (much less scary that the politician) and I have a hunch that there are more werewolves in Jane’s future. Looking forward to some more information on Gabriel, who is acting entirely too much like human males do with his disappearing and refusal to talk about certain subjects, like where he’s been. Frankly, Dick may be the one on the sketchy side of the law, but he is seeming like the more honest guy.

Unfortunately, the “mystery” of what is wrong with her BFF Zeb is overly transparent and Jane’s brainy-girl status is threatened by not putting the pieces together quicker. I’m still enjoying the snarky dialog, but it will get tiring in the third book if the plot doesn’t move along a little quicker.

Still, a very cute series. My problem may be that I’ve read books 1 & 2 too close together. I’ve got a little late summer urban fantasy extravaganza planned, but I’ll leave Harper’s books out of that mix for the time being. I really want to keep on enjoying them.

View all my reviews

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs / Molly Harper

 

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 UPDATE:

🎃🎃🎃🎃
It's a sign of how much I enjoyed the Jane Jameson books that I purchased my own copies during these pandemic times. My public library has proven unreliable at maintaining holdings of my favourite books, so I ordered them through a local independent bookstore to help them through a difficult time.

And you know, I still loved Jane this time through. I liked Gabriel a little better this time around and Richard (Dick) Cheney still cracked me up. He and Jane doing their “Dick and Jane" routine. This was just what I needed to save me from reading slump hell. It was better than an antidepressant.

Harper knows how to make me smile.




ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Many of you who read my reviews regularly know that I am a devotee of urban fantasy and that I work in a library. The result of these two facts? When I read that there was an urban fantasy series that featured an unemployed children’s librarian who becomes a vampire, I absolutely had to give it a try! And I found it quite entertaining, too.

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs owes quite a debt to the Sookie Stackhouse series, I think. Like Harris’ series, this one is set in a small town in the Southern States. As in the Sookie books, vampires have recently come out of the coffin (now that there is a source of artificial blood available) and they have a rather hazy and somewhat threatening hierarchy that they are not over-fond of sharing. Quite quickly, we also have a werewolf showing up, so other supernatural people are obviously going to feature in this series too. Also, Jane, the heroine of this series, begins as a relatively sexually inexperienced woman, similar to the virginal Ms. Stackhouse. Several bad experiences have persuaded Jane to just focus on her career and put relationships on hold.

This is where she parts from the Sookie mold, however, because Jane is a well-educated, well-read, feisty and sassy heroine. Her smart cracks remind me much more of Seanan McGuire’s writing (both Toby in the October Day series and Verity Price in the InCryptid series). Once she becomes a vampire, Jane acquires the ability to see ghosts, à la Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson. And her Aunt Jettie’s ghost has a number of wise and hilarious things to say.

I like that the author doesn’t take the whole thing too seriously, but I still completely comprehend her sense of humour. Perhaps because Jane has a tendency to quote Dr. Seuss and obsesses over organizing book shelves, I like her a great deal. It will also be interesting to see Jane continue to deal with her overbearing Southern mama. So far, Harper is following the "no female friends" pattern that most urban fantasy seems to adhere to--I'd be thrilled if Jane acquired a woman friend in the next installment.

So, yeah, I’ve found another series that I’ll be working my way through as I have time. Yay?

View all my reviews

The Twisted Thread / Charlotte Bacon

 

The Twisted Thread by Charlotte Bacon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃
This was a decent book and I had no trouble reading to the very end of the epilogue. The writing was skillful, but the whole thing felt a bit bloodless, a bit anemic. The murder victim herself was fairly unlikable, not an excuse for not caring, but making it more difficult to be interested in the investigation. A young, privileged woman is found dead in her dorm room, having obviously recently given birth. The baby is nowhere to be found.

There are some good details: faculty who make the people around them uncomfortable, a mysterious sorority that seems to possess more than its share of mean girls, dark tunnels under the campus, a potential blackmail plot involving the art instructor, and the involvement of the intern, Madeline, in many of these aspects of the whole mess. Of course, because this is an exclusive school for the wealthy, platoons of lawyers descend on the campus and the police department and despite that, between Madeline and the two detectives on the case, they uncover things rather easily.

I read for plot mostly. The whole “where's the baby?” question was the longest lasting issue. But everyone seemed awfully calm about that, like they had somehow been assured that everything would work out for the best. The main characters seemed more tired than anything else.

Not bad, but I won't be actively looking for more from this author. Three stars is kind of a big baggy category for me, holding a number of books that I neither love nor hate. Kind of the limbo in my book universe.




View all my reviews

A Dark and Stormy Murder / Julia Buckley

 

A Dark and Stormy Murder by Julia Buckley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
I have always been prejudiced against the cozy mystery genre but this year has taught me that there are good cozies out there, waiting to be discovered. This is definitely one of them, because Buckley is a good writer! It's all about the skill of the author just like other genres. Exactly what I would hope for in a novel about a young writer who gets her big break working for her favourite author. What a treat!

There are several mysteries on the go in this book. There's a mystery surrounding the house that Lena moves into, there's a murder that occurs on the day that she arrives, and there's a mystery involving one of the neighbours. The first two reach resolution by book's end, but we are left with the neighbour's situation still ongoing. And I am desperate to read on and find out what Buckley has planned with this plot line.

For those of you who appreciate a romantic element to these kinds of tales, there are two men who immediately make an impression on Lena. The best part is that they both seem like decent men, despite Sam, the aforementioned neighbour, being suspected of his almost-ex-wife's disappearance and suspected murder. The other guy, Doug, is a local cop and he gained my respect when Lena takes some evidence that may exonerate Sam to him and he treats it seriously, working to corroborate the information. He doesn't let his desire to win Lena's affection interfere with being fair to his rival.

I have filled up my reading schedule for the rest of this year, so I truly don't have a spot to squeeze the next book of this series into my schedule, but I'll be looking for a way to continue as soon as possible!




View all my reviews

The Mysterious Affair at Styles / Agatha Christie

 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I see that I didn't write a review of this novel when I first read it. I don't think I knew enough about Poirot, Hastings, or indeed Agatha Christie back then to analyze very much. I had only begun to appreciate Christie's fiction, just 3 short years ago. I have no idea what prevented me from reading her work long before then!

I cannot remember exactly what my first impressions of Styles were, but I awarded 4 stars. I'm sticking to that rating, but perhaps for different reasons. I love the way that Christie uses Hastings as the narrator of this story. We get to view the situation through his prejudices, which are many. Poirot is his friend, but is still a “foreigner.” He is easily distracted by attractive women. He wouldn't consider suspecting an old friend. He expects people of social standing to behave honourably. He is quite ageist, assuming that Poirot is old and over with. Basically, if Hastings thinks something, you should suspect it!

I am also amused by the contrast between the enthusiastic Poirot and the stiff-upper-lip-ishness of the Cavendish household and Hastings. At a couple of junctures the English folk look at one another and claim he has gone off his rocker because he expresses his emotion freely.

I was completely unaware when I first read this book that it was Christie's first novel. I think I am going to thoroughly enjoy reading her novels in chronological order and seeing how her characters and her style progress through time.


View all my reviews

Street of the Five Moons / Elizabeth Peters

 

Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
Elizabeth Peters wrote charming mysteries. I enjoy both this series (Vicky Bliss) and her Amelia Peabody books. Both main characters are strong feminists and both have a weakness for a handsome man. Both of them are intelligent and resourceful and their men are amused by their spirit and appreciative of their enthusiasm.

Would this count as a cozy mystery? There's a lot of being knocked unconscious, being pursued, and being threatened with firearms. That seems a little drastic for the average cozy. But it resolved so easily and painlessly and obviously so unrealistically!

However, it would be much less fun if the police behaved like the real thing. It's much more entertaining to not worry about explanations, passports, or alibis. Vicky can seemingly bat her eyelashes and sweet talk her way out of a fair bit.

A fun romp and I must see if I can scare up the next book in the series.




View all my reviews

The October List / Jeffery Deaver

The October List by Jeffery Deaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel begins with a Soren Kierkegaard quote: “ Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

That sets the reader up for this thriller written in reverse. If you are interested in the methods used by writers or by the structure of fiction, this is the book for you. It is fascinating! As promised, it starts with Chapter 36 and works its way back to Chapter 1.

I can't imagine how Deaver went about writing this. Did he start at the beginning and the reverse his chapters? Or did he write it in reverse too? One thing I am positive about: he must have used a strong outline! There's just no way you could write this without one. (I just read the Foreword at the end of the book, and sure enough, he planned it with post-its).

It was surprisingly difficult for me as a reader to keep track of the action and the characters in this novel. We are so used to following plot lines from oldest event to newest, it is extremely disorienting to adjust to events flowing in the other direction! And my other feeling is that this would be a boring book if written in the conventional way. The plot would be too straightforward and the characters would be too few and too stereotypical to hold most readers' attention. (And you would know too much).

You would think that if you started with the ending, there would be no surprises, wouldn't you? And yet, from Chapter 4 through Chapter 1 there were “Holy shit!” moments in each chapter. Suddenly, I saw previous events (or is that later events?) in a completely different light.

That said, please remember my usual caveat with this genre: I am not an enthusiastic consumer of thrillers. I am not the target audience and I know it. If you love them, this may be a much better reading experience for you. I admit to choosing it for the title as one of my October books. A frivolous reason which led me to a book with a most interesting structure. Still, that structure and the element of surprise that it provides makes this a firm 4 star read for me!


View all my reviews

Tempting Danger / Eileen Wilks

Tempting Danger by Eileen Wilks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
I love Lily Yu! She is a fabulous urban fantasy heroine, being a homicide detective, a sensitive (which allows her to sense magic yet be immune to it), a gardener, a practitioner of judo, and owner of an awesome cat, Dirty Harry. The only woman in the book who is more kick-ass than Lily is her matriarchal Grandmother!

Lily is so professional, such a good detective, but she has ended up in a situation vis-à-vis the lupus Rule Turner that can't be sorted out through questioning or analyzing, her preferred methods of processing life. Lupus is, of course, this author's terminology for a shifter or werewolf. It's an interesting fantasy world, also containing Fae (only by repute at this point), gnomes, witches, and the rare sorcerer. Of course the FBI has its own magic unit and Lily is forced to team up with them in order to solve this homicide.

Lily, I neglected to mention, is also Chinese American and has family ties that bind her tightly. How is she going to explain to them that she is bonded to a lupus, not a nice Chinese man? During this investigation she really doesn't need family drama too, but it seems unavoidable.

It's a great mix of the personal, the professional, and the supernatural. I'm quite disappointed that my library doesn't have the next book, but I don't think I have room for it in my reading schedule for this year anyway, so this absence saves me from myself. But I WILL track it down eventually and I look forward to that day with pleasure!




View all my reviews

The White Order / L.E. Modesitt

The White Order by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Call it 3.5 stars?

This is another one of those series that I'm lukewarm about. The plots carry me along, but I find the people to be so wooden and predictable that I can tell from the beginning of each book just where it is headed. Take one young man with a talent and an unnatural sense of honour and dedication to hard work. Add a young woman that he's interested in, but he'll only admit that if pressed. He works his way through trials that would derail most young men, but prevails through sheer talent and honesty. He's basically a boy scout.

What made this book more interesting was that we finally get a look at the Recluce world from the White mages' point of view. Up to this point, we've had Black mage main characters and they've been set up as the “good guys.” But we all know that perspective is everything and there are good people on both sides of any conflict.

I seem to recall dimly from memories of previous volumes that we witnessed from the Black viewpoint as Jesek pushed up the mountain range outside Fenard. I also recall a White mage at an inn somewhere who resembled Jesek in attitude. Power hungry, dangerous, and self indulgent.

Switching sides gave this installment a little extra fillip for me. It also helps that Cerryl is clear eyed about being manipulated and is quite a bit less dim about women than previous main characters. At least so far. The next book follows him as a brand new mage, so he'll have plenty of time to screw up his burgeoning relationship with Leyladin!

Book number 381 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

View all my reviews

Pines / Blake Crouch

Pines by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃🎃
What a ride! A weird cross of the X-Files and Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. Ethan Burke starts out with amnesia (shades of The Bourne Identity) among other injuries, and he finds himself in Wayward Pines, where things just don't make any sense. He's unsure why, but it seems that someone is trying to contain him, maybe make him believe that he's losing his mind. He starts meeting people, trying to make allies, but everyone is evasive. The weirdness just keeps getting weirder.

It reminded me of the Riverworld by Farmer, where random assemblages of dead people are resurrected by unknown agents on a new engineered planet and have to learn how to survive. Like Burke, Sir Richard Burton is unsatisfied with merely continued life; he needs reasons and he also goes in search of them.

Crouch keeps the questions coming, with all kinds of anomalies that defy explanation. He expertly manipulated my reasoning, making it all extra spooky and raising my anxiety levels regularly. I'm not usually a thriller aficionado, but I sure enjoyed this one. Well done, Mr. Crouch!




View all my reviews

A Girl's Guide to Vampires / Katie MacAlister

3 out of 5 stars

🎃🎃🎃 This was a silly rom-com version of a paranormal romance, but I liked it despite myself. It had things that I usually deplore, namely a main female character (and her friend) whose only aims in life seem to be finding a spouse. They behave in ways that I consider too stupid to live and instead of being rightly shunned by the men around them, they are considered merely annoying or “spirited.” If that isn't enough, the author has them doubt the ability of the police to solve a crime which they then meddle in. Have I mentioned how stupid they are portrayed?

And yet this story really effectively makes fun of the vampire paranormal romances that feature fated romance, mating bonds, and irresistible controlling dark men sweeping the women off their feet (Christine Feehan's Dark series comes immediately to mind for me).

The tale begins with Joy as the sceptic, contrasted with her pal Roxanne, who has memorized a certain series of vamp PNRs and is a true believer. And they are, of course, going on holiday to the town in Europe where the author lives, after a scrying session with a Wiccan friend to determine their chances of finding suitable men.

 So naturally it is Joy who attracts the vampire's attention, forcing her to be much less sceptical, though she can't figure out who he is, just that he is trying to mind-meld her. She proves to be rather resistant to being controlled or bossed around, being rather more truly independent than most PNR heroines. Oh, she's still besotted with the man she's chosen (and she's pretty definite on the fact that SHE has chosen), but there's much less of the claiming to be independent while knuckling under to his every demand. Well, except sex, she never turns that down.

 As you can see from my ramblings, this book is a strange combination of strong, if silly, female lead in a cozy mystery type set-up. I mean it's printed by Avon, all right? It's got to be a romance with an HEA and some steamy scenes, yeah? It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea and I wouldn't want to read the next book immediately, but it would be fun to eventually see what's next for Joy.