All about the books we love

Cinders of Yesterday by Jen Karner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I often take chances on indie published authors at cons and the results are often a mixed bag. This one was stellar, easily as good as anything I've read from the big publishing houses. Well edited, well crafted urban fantasy that draws on the heritage of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural (which the author admits to having as inspiration)

The chapters go back and forth between the two women, Dani and Emilie. Dani is a Hunter. They go after Talented people who are lost to their powers and no longer human. There is a third group of magical people out there, Sentinels who are meant to be neutral and keep the balance between Hunters and Talented.

Dani lost her partner to Spectre, the bogeyman of the Hunters and her mentor sends her to Dawson MD, in search of one of the legendary veilblades, one of the few things left that might stop him. When she gets there she runs into Emilie, who is from a Talented family but she doesn't know it. She left town years ago after a deadly fire that took her mom and ended her sister in a mental hospital. Emilie doesn't want to be there but her beloved grandfather is there and she's out of money and can't afford her place in Baltimore.

However, Emilie learns quickly her father had bound up her Talents to hide her from Spectre who has been killing all the talented women on her mother's side of the family but he accidentally bound her memories too.

Naturally Emilie and Dani cross paths and are drawn to each other because they have a common enemy and an unspoken mutual attraction to each other. All of it leads to a showdown with Spectre and us learning bits of both women's back stories as well as leaving it open for the next book in the series.

I liked both of them (and the twin Sentinels in this Andry and Merc) It was well paced without bogging down in the back story. That said I wanted a bit more from Dani when she learned a bit of her own connection to Dawson. There was a bit of an emotional void there. In some ways they almost seem too harsh on Emilie's father who did what he did to save her life (but he did it without permission which is skeevy) You'd think that would have been a bit of a consideration (then again when her father finally shows in the last quarter of the book, he's sort of dick so maybe it's justified). there was one thing that did bother me is there is a good reason for what her grandfather does at the end but he doesn't tell Emilie leaving bad feelings which there was no reason to do this. But really that's my only complaint. I'd love to see more of these ladies (especially since their attraction to each other is understated and just beginning in this book)



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Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I almost gave this a much lower rating but then thought, it's not badly written, I just didn't like Archie or Gretchen (who are the titular characters), couldn't respect Archie and the ending was such hot crap it insured I wouldn't read another of these. (Also I hadn't read the first four which is on me)

CW - serial killers, child killers, dismemberment, skinning, murder, very graphic gore, body shaming, adults failing children left right and center

Gretchen Lowell is a serial killer who tortured Archie and his partner Henry. But of course Archie can't be done with her, especially after she contacts his journalist friend Susan to say the new killer who skinned someone in the park is her former mentee, Ryan Motley, and she wants Archie to go after him to save her daughter.

Archie naturally gets involved, does bizarre mental dances around Gretchen because 'the beauty killer' is now fat and acne-ridden from her meds (that he helps direct as if that would EVER happen) and later (mild spoiler) is even laying in the bed with her.

The first victim (there is a second) was known to Pearl, a foster kid Archie and Susan apparently know and she goes on the run only to later come to Susan and the choices made by Archie and Susan and everyone are so dumb and such obvious plot contrivances to put her in harm's way I nearly DNFed this book.

Or maybe I should have DNFed it when Archie's new neighbor just keeps coming into his apartment or when he enters her place, no warrant, no real reason, to check it out and demands to check her clothes and she strips for him. Later they of course have sex. I was wondering if this was a red herring and she was the killer (that would have been more interesting) because what woman acts like this? If some man barged into my home and told me to strip I'm surely not going to do it and I sure as hell am not going to pursue a sexual relationship with him (had to check to be sure this was written by a woman)

Archie gets zero respect for how unprofessional he is. He even tells Gretchen about the man he purposely killed to save a kid (why? I mean seriously why would you tell her?) Or how is this guy even on any case remotely around this woman since she kidnapped and tortured him?

The ending was nonsense. Predictable, sad nonsense.



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I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For me it was a 3.5 read but I rounded up. Oddly enough, this is the second mystery with an advice columnist as the amateur sleuth (they're at least 150 years apart in timeline). Alex Marks is annoyed to find the newspaper is running an ad to replace Francis Keen as Dear Constance, an advice columnist.

Francis was murdered at her beach house about a year ago. Alex thinks no one can replace her and more or less rage-applies for the job and gets it. Now she's working for her dream editor, a pulitzer prize winner whose personal assistant seems to take an instant dislike to Alex. As for Alex, she's fearful when her picture is run in the paper as the new Dear Constance which is a big red flag she's hiding from someone and I assume it's an ex lover (and that made me wonder why she didn't tell them not to run her picture. You can do that which is what one of my coworkers had to do so her stalker ex wouldn't be able to find her)

Francis worked in the old part of the building and for some reason they put her in that office without even cleaning Francis' stuff out which struck me as dumb (and too much of a plot contrivance) Francis' personal assistant, the girl who works in the mail room and helps Francis sort all the letters seems deathly afraid of the editor and avoids him at all cost.

All of these red flags make Alex's two friends at the diner nervous, one is a former detective and the diner server. Added into this mix is a would-be boyfriend for Alex. These friends agree with Alex something hinky is going on and decide they need to solve Francis' murder especially because the former detective knows the current one is not good at his job.

We also get a running interlude of Lost Girl's letters to Constance that we're not sure if Francis saw these letters. Are they to put us on edge about Alex's would be boyfriend? Who wrote them (Figured that out half way through)

There were things that made me eye roll though, like the above mentioned office thing. I mean the pictures are still there? (because they play a role in solving this mystery), the idea that there are still mountains of paper mail letters instead of emails (though I will buy if you wanted an abusive partner to not know about it, that would leave less of a trail) and the salary they offered seemed ridiculously high in this day and age for a physical newspaper.

Lastly the whole subplot with the former detective seemed completely unnecessary (unless this is planned as a series and it's needed for later) and just took me out of the story. It was obviously not meant as a red herring.

Overall though I did like it. What I loved, however, was the cover. It's not a pretty one by any means but it had a cool effect. The red is slick and the typewriter keys are rough, giving it a tactile sensation and that was neat.



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Verses for the Dead by Douglas Preston

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've had this library sale find lying around for a long time. I don't know why. I've forgotten just how much I like Pendergast. I should revisit him more often.

In this one, it opens with Pendergast getting a new boss, Pickett, who doesn't like him and is looking for an excuse to fire him or at least transfer him out of NYC's premiere FBI spot to somewhere like Nebraska (sorry Nebraska) Pickett also assigns him Agent Coldmoon, a Lakota from Pine Ridge sent to spy on him.

They're sent to Florida where a heart has been dug out of the chest of some poor young woman and put on the grave of a suicide. Elise Baxter's suicide was odd, a young woman who was on a business trip in Maine who suddenly decided to kill herself. How Mr. Brokenhearts (as he signs the note he leaves) picked her grave seems random until another heart show up on another out of state suicide's grave.

Naturally Pendergast thinks there is a connection no one is seeing and that the original suicides aren't actually suicides and being Pendergast you already know he's going to be right (It also touches on how MEs can be guided by the detectives assurances that this is a suicide and don't do their due diligence which sadly has happened more than once in real life)

As they work Coldmoon feels trapped in his role as spy and he comes to respect, at least a little, how Pendergast works and to be fair Pickett has a point about how people around Pendergast (perps and partners) end up dead.

I enjoyed this immensely so why not five stars? The ending. There was a red herring having you think one character is going to do something dumb and unprofessional but the reality is this other thing over here. However that other thing is something you couldn't have predicted from the clue and I felt a little cheated by it. But overall, a strong mystery (especially coming in as #18, long series do tend to get tired).



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Anima Rising by Christopher Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I won this one from Goodreads. I'll admit it I have a love/hate relationship with what is essentially professional real person fanfic and it's usually hate. This was somewhere in between and a 3.5 read for me but I rounded up. Honestly had I gotten this from the library I might have DNFed it not that it's bad in any way but it's not really my sort of story (though I thought it would have been).

CW - murder, domestic violence/rape (basically the Bride of Frankenstein is depicted as a sexual assault survivor)

It's as weird as I've come to expect from Moore and the tag line Klimt, Freud and Jung meet the Bride of Frankenstein is what sold it for me in requesting this arc.. And it's more than just those three real people in this. There is also Egon Schiele, Wally Neuzil, Emilie Floge and Alma Mahler to name a few. The problem for me in any real person fictional story about them is how well do I know them and how well do I think the author did. But outside of Freud and Jung, I knew very little. I know Gustav Klimt's art (and love it) and some about Alma. Never heard of the others including Schiele (after looking at his art I can see why. Not my thing).

The story opens with Klimt finding Judith as she comes to be called in the canal, naked and apparently dead and he takes her home. Judith (Adam's bride) revives and is more or less insane. Klimt puts his model Wally in charge of watching over her. That same day a Dutch policeman is also found in that same canal, headless.

As Judith is slowly recovering her sanity, we get interspersed chapters of the captain's log of the ship that took Victor Frankenstein to the arctic and Adam (the monster) finding them. It also details how Judith was created via Frankenstein's serum/blood and it heals any injury).

Once Judith can communicate, insisting she's been murdered four times, Klimt takes her to Freud (who eventually consults with Jung) and in his sessions we get Judith's history about being created as a sex slave for Adam (since she hadn't chosen to be a wife which seems like a valid take on the situation) She details his abuse (he's angry she's pretty when he isn't) and how they survived at the top of the world)

In the meantime, someone is tracking Judith with the intent of kidnapping her. This is actually the main threat in the novel and shaped the entire ending in a way that worked very well.

Those three subplots are why I went as high as four stars and here is why I almost didn't. It's overly long. A lot of the scenes started to feel repetitive and the scenes with Wally Klimt and Egon were all nothing but sex talk. I'm not a prude by any means and if these scenes had advanced the plot more I would complain less. On the other hand if I had to hear about Egon's sister's snatch one more time (or anyone's snatches because they talked about them ALL so much) I was ready to hurl the book across the room. This included talking about them/showing the erotic art to children which did actually happen in real life.

One of the things I liked a lot was after the epilogue, Moore gave us the real history (briefly of course) of all the real people in this novel and where he took liberties with the time line). I enjoyed that.

Overall it's a well written book and I loved that the art work of these artists made it into this book (which seems fitting because the Nazis destroyed so much of Klimt's art)



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A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Mazzy and Nora are best friends and pagan magic users in Cape Cod, along with their mutual friend, Elliot (who Mazzy now has a crush on, in their senior year of high school) Mazzy is the cautious witch, researching everything (which helps her anxiety) and Nora is the risk taker finding spells online, like the one she insists they do at the beach under the full moon, a spell to uncover things.

They uncover a dead woman washed up on the beach. And then another one. It seems like they're now hooked into the Hand of Nepthys a group of magic users twisting Egyptian mythos, working to resurrect the dead (while making many dead of their own)

Detective Huld of the police seems to think they know more than they're saying. The kids think it's possible she's part of the Hand. Things go bad from worse as the dead woman's spirit attaches herself to Nora both amping up her powers but forcing to continue to find the dead.

Mazzy and Elliot have to solve the mystery of these women if they have any hope of saving Nora.

My biggest issues with this (and they were relatively minor) is we didn't really get to know Nora and Mazzy much before the spell. So as Nora starts changing we haven't even had a chance to connect with her. She just starts out annoying and gets worse. I did however like Mazzy and Elliot. There is some weirdness with the police that was hard to swallow but overall I enjoyed the story. It moved along well. The magic was cool and the red herrings worked. It's worth the read.





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The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


How great was it to luck into an arc for a story with a female PI that's not done comedically (nothing wrong with that but I am tired of it). Annie Gore is an interesting character, ex military, coming from an abusive household which is relevant later on. She drives a 50 year old Datsun named Honey (who is practically her own character in this) and is always hocking stuff to survive. She gets a job offer by an 18 year old boy, Max, who wants information on his sister's disappearance.

10 years ago three girls went missing in North Carolina's appalachian region and Max's sister was one of them. He wants Annie because she was raised in Appalachia too and feels she'd understand the area, the people. She reluctantly agrees and drives to NC. Ten years ago one little girl went missing but since she was the daughter of an abusive man and his wife, 'trailer trash' no one did anything. But then another girl is taken, Olivia, who is returned because she's a nonverbal autistic child (and the niece of the now sheriff) and a third child is taken. In place of each of them an apple-headed doll is left (non-relevant fact, those things creeped the hell out of me as a kid)

Annie has no shortage of subjects, the preacher and his wife, the abusive dad and his criminal cousins, the wealthy piano teacher, and the witch in the woods (i.e. old mountain woman who reads tarot and makes herbal remedies who I rather identified with).

What I really liked was the folklore aspect of this. There isn't any real witches but rather the story of her. And like oral storytelling traditions go, the story changes with the storyteller. This witch and her crows and her story is important to the story and I loved that.

I am very much looking forward to Annie, especially since we finally get a mystery in which the investigator doesn't do something idiotic to get in danger for the big exciting climax. It's great to see that because so many of them lean so heavy on the crutch of making them do something dumb to get into trouble. This didn't Annie is competent and empathetic. I liked her very much.



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Last Dance Before Dawn by Katharine Schellman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I requested this on Netgalley, I missed that this was book 4 of 4 and I hadn't read the first three. So I'm a little sad that I read the last book in the series as my introduction to the series. The Nightengale is a NYC speakeasy where Vivian Kelly works as a waitress (and as a seamstress in the day) This is her place, her found family and now Danny, the bartender is family, her sister Florence's husband and father of their little girl, Mei.

Viv and Florence have tracked down their father's sister (the girls growing up in an orphanage) in their bid to find family and this becomes (no spoilers) a prominent thread throughout this book. As is Vivian's growing attraction to her boss and owner of the speakeasy, Honor. Naturally there is fear there not just because of their very unequal social status but, of course, how lesbian relationships were seen in the 1920s.

But there is no place Vivian is happier to be, no place and people she would protect more ferociously than those in the Nightengale. And into this comes a handsome redheaded mob boss, O'Keefe, who believes Honor and her people know who he is looking for, a man named Hugh Brown. People die just to get Honor's attention and more will die potentially, Vivian, her sister and family, her friend Bea and Honor herself unless they turn over Brown to him.

The problem is O'Keefe is mistaken. they have no idea who Brown is nor do they want to play ball even if they did. Still, Vivian has to discover who this name is and find a way to foil O'Keefe or she'll lose everything.

It's a good mystery, the slow reveals and the red herrings good. It's an ending that should satisfy the fans. Four books seems short for a series but in a way I appreciate that better than the thing limping along for 30 books that haven't been good since book 11. It's open enough that if she ever wants to revisit these characters down the road she can. As for me, even though I know how it ends I'm going to look for the first three books.



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We Can Never Leave by H.E. Edgmon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a hard one to rate because it leans heavy on the unreliable narrators which is a trope I don't enjoy much. Also this is super light on plot. It's purely character driven and we spend time in all of their heads. The caravan criss crosses the country made up of those not-quite-human enough to remain among humans. Their bohemian lifestyle includes a lot of dancing around the fire and stuff I won't be spoiling in the review but that takes me to the copious content warnings: domestic violence, child abuse, murder, violence, suicidal ideation, mentions of cannibalism.

We have several young people Bird, the golden child of the group, non-binary, human enough to live for a while in the human world and the novel opens with them returning to the group. They aren't exactly welcomed back by the group, especially Hugo, the young man with buck antlers and can spit fire. They were formerly a couple but now his love (a very offputting possessive sort of love) has flipped to rage. Felix, his younger brother (even more deer like) is the dreamer of the group. His powers seem to be blind optimism that becomes reality. Cal, the wolf fanged girl with the deadly venom is no more welcoming to Bird and finally there is Eamon, the mystery boy with the red eyes, new to the caravan and no one trusts him and his total amnesia.

Quickly the story kicks off with the adults of the caravan disappearing as if they never existed. Out of desperation the young teens all take off to Haven in Portland so they could meet up with others of their kind and that is the main plot. And honestly this is half forgotten for the entire book. As I said it is light on plot and there isn't much of an emotional response to their parents just disappearing (potentially dying). And oddly enough I could accept guys with horns and enbies who glow much easier than I could a bunch of older teens driving an RV cross country with enough money to gas up, pay park fees and eat when they can't earn money (how silly was that hang up)

Each character has trauma, like a lot of it. Each chapter is one of the above characters' pov and to make things harder to follow is it flip flops to the past and then back to the present and that's how we get to know them all. To make things a wee bit less enjoyable for me is Felix's point of view which is the only one not first person. No it's all fourth wall breaking narrator stuff (not felix) to tell us about how they're all liars, that it won't have a happy ending etc.

So based on plot I would have rated it lower but the characters are fascinating (even if you dislike them because trust me I did not like Hugo). The ending is what I expected but found intriguing none the less and the final paragraphs were open ended and with the promise of something could be revisited.

So if you don't like fourth wall breaking (I do if it's Deadpool, otherwise not so much), multiple povs and shifting timelines you'll want to give this one a pass. It's also quite dark (well it's horror) I found it well worth the read. Also it does have queer rep (not exactly happy rep but it's there and at the forefront)



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Snow & Ink, Vol. 1 by Miyuki Unohana

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This had such potential but I'll be honest I'm struggling to see how it went viral in Japan and I'm laying that squarely at the feet of Freya. The premise is intriguing. Neneo is a young murderer waiting punishment for slaughtering his whole village when he's purchased by Freya the heiress of an industrialist. She's on the run herself, more or less, having been forced out of her inheritance by another family member after she nearly ran the business into the ground. Half the country (apparently) is furious with her because she more or less created an economic depression and massive unemployment.

They're going to the far north to get away from it all...and that's more or less where the plot stops. It now needs the characters to carry it as it fast forwards into romance so awkward it's literally painful to watch. Freya has very little personality and zero background as she whips from simpering virgin to jealous twit to incompetent at most things.

Neneo fares much better especially when we learn why he killed everyone in his village. There is also the ethics behind this place's punishment system because even if he was rehabilitated and released they have him visibly tattooed over his arms and hands showing his crimes. How could anyone ever reintegrate with society after that (I'm assuming he's not meant to).

Even Halvard, Freya's former incredibly wealthy fiancé has more personality than she does as he joins their ranks because as a doctor he wants to understand what happened in Neneo's village. There is a tiny threat of subplot as it seems someone is pursuing Freya.

I've been known to stick with a series even though I don't much like the main character (Fruits Basket for instance) but there needs to be enough for me to dig into that I can ignore the MC. I don't think that's going to be possible here sadly. Too bad because Neneo was interesting and the art is lovely.



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