Tag: TLC Book Tours

Review: Lies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Lies in White Dresses by Sofia GrantLies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 384
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on September 17, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In the 1940s and 50s, women who needed a fast divorce went to Nevada to live on a ranch with other women in the same boat. This historical novel was inspired by the true stories of those who “took the Reno cure.”

Francie Meeker and Vi Carothers were sold a bill of goods: find a man, marry him in a white wedding gown, and live happily ever after. These best friends never expected to be on the train to Reno, those “lies in white dresses” shattered, their marriages over.

On board the train they meet June Samples, who is fleeing an abusive husband with her daughter, and take the vulnerable young mother under their wing. The three decide to wait out the required six weeks together, and then they can toss their wedding bands into the Truckee River and start new lives as divorcees.

But as they settle in at the ranch, one shocking moment will change their lives forever. As it brings their deceptions and fears into focus, it will also demand a reckoning with the past, and the choices that a person in love can be driven to make.

My Review:

This is a story about secrets, and lies. The lies we live with, and the lies we discover that we can’t. It’s also a story about female friendship and paying it forward and figuring out who we are when we have to stand on our own.

And it’s a slice of a tiny but important portion of women’s history, when divorce, while still not commonplace, and still stigmatized, was at least possible – if you had enough time and enough money – or enough moxie to carry you through.

The “Reno cure” could be thought of as the hidden shadow behind the post-war late 1940s and the 1950s – that era of supposed normalcy and happy nuclear families – between the war years and the swinging 60s. Not all marriages were happy, and not all women were thrilled to give up the jobs and the freedom that they’d experienced during the war.

But this isn’t exactly that story either, although it is the same era, and probably owes inspiration to those circumstances. Or, the Reno Cure itself is the product of those circumstances.

Frannie and Vi, middle-aged best friends from San Francisco, have come to Reno to get divorced from their cheating husbands. It seems as though they have finally both had enough, and that their well-to-do husbands are more than willing to pay for their six-week stay in Reno so that they can get divorced and live happily-ever-after, with other people.

Or that’s what the husbands’ want, and the wives have finally acquiesced.

Along the way, Frannie and Vi rescue young June Samples and her little daughter Patty, on their own way to Reno to endure those same six weeks at the cheapest and most down-at-heel hotel June could find, in the hopes that June can stay hidden long enough to get her own divorce.

The three women, a generation apart, bond together over their shared and secret truths. None of which turn out to be quite what the others thought as their journey began.

But in the end, they are all the better for it – no matter where that future leads them.

Escape Rating B+: The “lies in white dresses” that the title refers to are all those dreams that little girls have about so-called “perfect” weddings, a dream that is force-fed to those girls long before they are old enough to understand that their “dream” wedding is not the important part.

It’s a lesson that we’re still learning.

In their own ways, Frannie, Vi and June each bought into that “lie”, only to have discovered that they hadn’t looked nearly carefully enough at the hazy figure putting the ring on their fingers before it was far too late. Or is it?

June’s husband is an abuser. Frannie’s husband is gay – not that Frannie didn’t know. Vi’s is a narcissist who is constitutionally incapable of keeping his pants zipped.

June wants to be safe. Frannie wants to be free. And Vi wants it to be over.

In the wake of that “over” she gives her friends, both new and old, the gift of a fresh start. If they can manage to reach out and grasp it.

What makes this story work is the slow reveal, not of the secrets which are mostly obvious fairly early on – although Vi’s is a doozy that remains hidden the longest, and appropriately so. It works because we witness the events in the wake of Vi’s departure, and watch as her friends, her family, and their families move forward together, drawing closer ties between them every step of the way.

The story switches first-person perspective through every one of its major players, from the three women at its center, to the woman who plans to take Vi’s place, both her adult children and Frannie’s, and the hidden witness to the whole drama, the young wannabe detective whose mother runs the divorce ranch.

They all have their own secrets, they all tell their own lies, and they are all trying to make their way as best they can. Readers will identify and empathize with them each differently, depending on where we are and our experiencea in relation to theirs. I’ll admit that I found the pre-teen “Nancy Drew” crossed the line between precocious and “too precious”, and not in a good way. At the same time, the way that she redeemed herself at the end was a terrific moment.

In the end Lies in White Satin is a surprisingly involving story about just how supportive and empowering true women’s friendship can be. I do not envy them the times they lived in or the circumstances in which they found themselves, but the depth of their love for each other was wonderful to read.

P.S. One of last week’s books gave me a terrible earworm, as its title was a popular song in the 1980s. Lies in White Dresses also gave me an earworm, as its title scans exactly like Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, a song I remember being popular in the 1970s. The lyrics also fit in a peculiar way. But now both songs are endlessly repeating in my poor head!

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Review: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlaneDon't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance
Pages: 432
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on September 10, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Internationally bestselling author Mhairi McFarlane delivers a funny, romantic, heartfelt novel perfect for fans of Josie Silver or Sally Thorne, and anyone who loves Bridget Jones!

You always remember your first love... don’t you?

If there’s anything worse than being fired from the lousiest restaurant in town, it’s coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There’s only one problem: it’s run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn’t remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat... what more could a girl really need?

Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he’s also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina’s rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she’s allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it’s not too late for the truth... or a second chance with the one that got away?

My Review:

You probably have a song running through your head right now. At least, I know I did every time I even thought about this title. I think I read this book in the hopes of getting the earworm out,  that song by Simple Minds, in the back of mine. That it was part of the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club is what makes it oh so appropriate for this story.

Because Georgina and Lucas never forgot each other, or their sweet, secret end-of-high-school romance – even though it all turned to ashes.

We meet up with Georgina and Lucas more than a decade later, and life has, not surprisingly, taken a few twists and turns since the last time they saw each other – the night when everything went pear-shaped.

Georgina doesn’t seem to be doing all that well at, well, adulting. She’s 30, unmarried, semi-attached and doesn’t have a career or even a steady job. She also just seems to be one of those people to whom things just happen. She’s great at making funny stories about all of the unfortunate things that happen to her and the terrible situations in which she finds herself, but she’s also the recipient of all of her family’s well-meaning pity and the butt of all their jokes.

Just when it seems that things couldn’t go much further downhill, she’s fired from the worst job in the world and surprises her boyfriend in flagrante delicto – in the middle of boinking someone else.

Then Lucas comes back into her life – or rather she walks into his pub – and he doesn’t even remember her – though she has never forgotten him.

Or does he just not want to be gutted yet again?

Escape Rating B: In the end, I liked this but didn’t love it.

The beginning put me off a bit. On the one hand, it’s the setup for the whole story, their sweet high school romance that ends in heartbreak. On that other hand, the way that part of the story fades to black, we’re all pretty sure what happened next. We know more than enough to see it coming from miles away, even though Georgina seems to be a willing participant in her own destruction.

As it turns out, we only sort of knew what happened, and we are only able to kind of guess what the result was. And it’s both better and worse than what we thought it was. But that initial assumption hangs over the whole story like the Sword of Damocles while the reader waits for it to fall and explain what happened way back when – and since.

That sword casts a long and dark shadow in more ways than one.

It killed the relationship between Lucas and Georgina – and it left Georgina with the metric butt-load of self-esteem issues that one expects. She sabotages herself at every turn because she feels like she’s responsible for what went wrong – even though she wasn’t. And still isn’t.

The story also feels like it exists in that limbo between chick lit and romance, and that it’s much, much more chick lit than it is a romance. There is an eventual happy ending, but the true heart of the story is Georgina’s relationship with her friends, her somewhat dysfunctional relationship with her family, and her eventual liberation and yes, catharsis when she finally lets out all the demons that have been eating her all along.

In the end, Georgina Horspool learns to not just love herself, but also stand up for herself. And when she does, she discovers that Lucas never did forget about her. They both just needed to grow up and get there the long way around to reach their happy ending.

P.S. That damn song is STILL stuck in my head!

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Review: Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Chilling Effect by Valerie ValdesChilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction, space opera
Series: Untitled Space Opera #1
Pages: 448
Published by Harper Voyager on September 17, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A hilarious, offbeat debut space opera that skewers everything from pop culture to video games and features an irresistible foul-mouthed captain and her motley crew, strange life forms, exciting twists, and a galaxy full of fun and adventure.

Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for even smaller profits. When her sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shadowy syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis, Eva must undergo a series of unpleasant, dangerous missions to pay the ransom.

But Eva may lose her mind before she can raise the money. The ship’s hold is full of psychic cats, an amorous fish-faced emperor wants her dead after she rejects his advances, and her sweet engineer is giving her a pesky case of feelings. The worse things get, the more she lies, raising suspicions and testing her loyalty to her found family.

To free her sister, Eva will risk everything: her crew, her ship, and the life she’s built on the ashes of her past misdeeds. But when the dominoes start to fall and she finds the real threat is greater than she imagined, she must decide whether to play it cool or burn it all down.

My Review:

First of all, any story that begins with genius, psychic cats on a spaceship has me from jump. And that’s exactly the way that Chilling Effect starts, with Captain Eva Innocente running around La Sirena Negra trying to chase down her cargo; 20 genetically engineered, hyper-intelligent and hypnotic felines.

And just when she thinks she’s finally corralled the last one – everything goes pear-shaped. Which turns out to be a metaphor for this entire space-romp of a story, as Eva and her crew find themselves running a game both with and against the biggest criminal organization in the galaxy, trying to save Eva’s sister, their own hides, and one of the big secrets of their universe.

It’s an edge of your seat ride through every jumpgate in the known universe to see if Eva can get her ship, her crew, her family and her soul through this adventure relatively unscathed.

And that’s adventure in the sense of something terrible and/or frightening happening to someone else, either long ago, far away, or preferably both. Eva only wishes it were happening to someone else – frequently and often, while cursing in Spanish, English and possibly a few other languages along the way.

But it’s happening to her, whether she wants it or not. And while she certainly doesn’t want that adventure, she does want to save her sister and the rest of her family. No matter who, or what, gets in her way.

Escape Rating A+: There have been plenty of comparisons already between Firefly and Chilling Effect. I think the best one that I read said something about if Firefly and Mass Effect had a baby midwifed by Guillermo del Toro, that Chilling Effect would be the resulting book baby.

I think there were more parents and grandparents involved, but I’ll still grant the idea of del Toro as the midwife because it’s just plain cool.

The resemblance between La Sirena Negra and Serenity, the Firefly-class ship in the series, along with its motley, barely-on-the-edge-of-legality crew, is out and proud and adds to the long list of stories inspired by that series. Firefly casts a long shadow for such a short-lived show.

There are also plenty of points where Eva reads a lot like the female Commander Shepherd in Mass Effect – just with an even looser relationship with the law and the truth.

But it feels to me as if Chilling Effect also has at least two SFnal “fairy godmothers”, Kylara Vatta from the Vatta’s War series and Tess Bailey from Nightchaser. In both of those female-centric space operas, you get the same kind of leader who is on the run from deep, dark secrets that are buried, not at all deeply in the family tree, that the heroine must confront in order to be free.

In addition to the terrific characterizations of Eva and her crew, part of what makes this story so good are its exploration – and eventual complete skewering, of a trope that normally makes readers cringe.

I’m talking about the overused and now hated convention of putting female characters in literal or figurative refrigerators, in other words, freezing them out of the narrative, so that they become an object to motivate a hero into action to either rescue or avenge them.

In Chilling Effect, Eva’s sister is put into cryo-sleep by a criminal organization known as “The Fridge”, moving Eva and her crew to great lengths in order to free her and ultimately discovering the secrets behind The Fridge and the ancient race who seeded the galaxy with jumpgates (and linking back to Mass Effect yet again.)

But instead of motivating a man and leaving the female character offstage for the rest of the story, we have a woman moving the galaxy to rescue another woman, with a mixed-species and gender crew. The whole thing works as both impetus and send-up in one glorious smash!

It’s pretty clear that I loved Chilling Effect from that opening scene, and that I can’t wait for the next book in the author’s Untitled Space Opera series. (That’s literally what the series is called, but the next book does have a title, and that’s Prime Deception.)

But there’s one more thing I want to get into before I let you go off to read Chilling Effect.

It’s an important part of Eva Innocente’s story that she and her family, and even the colony they came from, are, like the author, of Cuban descent. This isn’t just window-dressing, that origin story both underpins Eva’s actions and peppers her language with phrases from that heritage.

I had to look up a lot of the idioms, and I highly recommend that you do. They are often hilarious, always informative, and add to the flavor and texture of the book and the characters in ways that just feel right.

As someone who grew up in a household where another language was frequently sprinkled into the conversation, there are concepts that just don’t translate from one language to the next, in spite of the English language’s often-quoted propensity to not merely “borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

The way that Eva mixes the Cuban phrases that she learned as a child add to the depth and verisimilitude of her character – and I feel that adds to the story whether I initially understand what she’s saying or not. (After all, that’s what Google Translate is for.) And I want that representation for her because I also want to see it in other stories – and am – for myself.

So I may have gotten into this story for those psychic cats, but I stayed for Captain Eva.

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Review: The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen WhiteThe Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction
Pages: 408
Published by William Morrow on September 4, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Forgotten Room comes a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century—two deep in the past, one in the present—to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.

May 2013Her finances are in dire straits and bestselling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history. Sarah embarks on an ambitious journey to England to enlist the help of John Langford, a recently disgraced Member of Parliament whose family archives might contain the only key to the long-ago catastrophe. . . .

April 1915Southern belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter’s marriage is in crisis. Her formerly attentive industrialist husband, Gilbert, has become remote, pre-occupied with business . . . and something else that she can’t quite put a finger on. She’s hoping a trip to London in Lusitania’s lavish first-class accommodations will help them reconnect—but she can’t ignore the spark she feels for her old friend, Robert Langford, who turns out to be on the same voyage. Feeling restless and longing for a different existence, Caroline is determined to stop being a bystander, and take charge of her own life. . . .

Tessa Fairweather is traveling second-class on the Lusitania, returning home to Devon. Or at least, that’s her story. Tessa has never left the United States and her English accent is a hasty fake. She’s really Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a roving con man, and she can steal and forge just about anything. But she’s had enough. Her partner has promised that if they can pull off this one last heist aboard the Lusitania, they’ll finally leave the game behind. Tess desperately wants to believe that, but Tess has the uneasy feeling there’s something about this job that isn’t as it seems. . . .

As the Lusitania steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot that will change the course of their own lives . . . and history itself.

My Review:

The Glass Ocean is the braided story of three women, separated by time, place, class or all of the above, whose lives are roiled by the wake of the RMS Lusitania, struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

As with the previous book by the Team W, The Forgotten Room, the story of The Glass Ocean slips from character to character – from woman to woman – as the reader experiences each perspective and follows the treasure hunt as all three of the stories finally come together.

And the truth sets them all free. Freedom from obscurity in the past, and freedom from heartbreak and loss in the present.

In exploring the truth about her great-grandfather, a steward on the RMS Lusitania, Sarah thinks that she’s going to be writing a spy thriller – if not the biography of a man who wrote spy thrillers. But as we follow her on her treasure hunt through the life and archives of Robert Langford, a passenger on the Lusitania and the author of spy thrillers that Sarah thinks were even better than Ian Fleming’s, we also see those pivotal events on board the Lusitania through the eyes of two women who both loved him.

The story that Sarah thinks she’s looking for is not the one she finds. But that’s the one that she writes. And in the writing of it, she brings the lives and accomplishments of two fascinating women back into the light of day.

And rescues herself along the way.

Escape Rating A-: Today, as this review is posted, is the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This book is an oddly appropriate read for today, as the sinking of the Lusitania and 9/11 were both human-created disasters that were intended to start a war. And both did, after their different fashions.

If you are interested in reading more about the Lusitania, I highly recommend – as does Team W in the afterword of The Glass Ocean, Dead Wake by Erik Larson. Dead Wake is the best kind of narrative nonfiction, in other words, a true story that reads as compellingly as if it were a novel.

But The Glass Ocean, like Dead Wake, confines itself to events that take place aboard the ocean liner, or that occurred to its survivors in the aftermath. The reader can and does speculate about the surrounding politics, but the story is the story of the doomed ship and what happened after.

While Caroline’s and Tess’ stories are part of that fateful voyage, Sarah’s is the story of the aftermath – nearly 100 years in the aftermath. I found Sarah’s story to be the most compelling – but then she’s the one doing the historical research. I always love the treasure hunt aspect of this kind of story, where the clues are revealed, sometimes slowly and carefully, and sometimes by “Eureka!” – and there are plenty of moments of both kinds in Sarah’s search.

Sarah’s story feels “present”, while Caroline’s and Tess’ stories feel almost as though they are leading the reader to the story behind those clues. And I was guessing right along with Sarah, sometimes, but not always correctly.

Part of what makes this so much fun is the way that in both time periods both end up as just the kind of spy thriller that Robert Langford used to write. Someone betrayed the Lusitania to the Germans. Someone smuggled a critical munitions formula on board the ship. Someone wanted to sell it to the Germans. Someone wanted to secure it for the British.

And over 1,000 people died for it.

But when Sarah unearths those secrets, she finds much more than she ever bargained for. Whether or not she’ll be able to keep what she’s found is a journey that is well-worth taking with her.

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Review: The Lost Daughter by Gill Paul

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Lost Daughter by Gill PaulThe Lost Daughter by Gill Paul
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction
Pages: 496
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on August 27, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

If you loved I AM ANASTASIA you won't want to miss this novel about her sister, Grand Duchess Maria. What really happened to this lost Romanov daughter? A new novel perfect for anyone curious about Anastasia, Maria, and the other lost Romanov daughters, by the author of THE SECRET WIFE.

1918: Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household. Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite are clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family—never realizing her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death

1973: When Val Doyle hears her father’s end-of-life confession, “I didn’t want to kill her,” she’s stunned. So, she begins a search for the truth—about his words and her past. The clues she discovers are baffling—a jewel-encrusted box that won’t open and a camera with its film intact. What she finds out pulls Val into one of the world’s greatest mysteries—what truly happened to the Grand Duchess Maria?

My Review:

“Into each life some rain must fall,” or so goes the old song. But into the lives of the characters in this story, not just Maria and Val, but nearly every one, seems to be inundated with that rain – as if they were each beset by their own particular – and misery-making – hurricane.

As this story begins, there are, not one, but two lost daughters, more than half a century apart, and seemingly no link between them.

These two women shouldn’t have much to do with each other. Maria is one of the lost Romanov princesses, presumably killed at Yekaterinburg along with her brother, her sisters, and her parents, the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas and Alexandra. Or so history tells us.

But in this story, Maria is one of those lost daughters. She survives, through a series of nearly miraculous events, and by the hands of two men, one who was obsessed with her, and one who loved her. Both were her guards, and both were supposed to participate in her execution.

Instead, one misdirects the other guards, and one spirits her away, to a life of, if absolutely not luxury, then a life of, well, life, with all of its joys and sorrows, hidden in plain sight in the Soviet Union. While she mourns her family and always wonders if her sister Tatiana escaped (that story is in The Secret Wife) she marries her guard, raises a family, and pretends to have never been a Grand Duchess, a life that fades into her past more thoroughly each passing year.

Val, on the other hand, is an abused wife in Australia in the 1970s when her estranged father dies in a nursing home, suffering from dementia, crying out at the last that “I didn’t want to kill her,” leaving Val with no idea who it was that he didn’t want to kill, and what it meant.

In searching for the truth about her father, Val manages to finally break away from her abusive husband. At first, all she finds is a bigger mystery, but the pieces begin to come together as she puts her life back together. That search leads Val back into the past, to her father’s early life as a guard at Yekaterinburg. And forward, into her own career as a historian, specializing in the Romanovs.

And eventually leads her back to Maria. To the tie that binds them both.

Escape Rating B: It seems that The Lost Daughter is a loose followup to one of the author’s previous works, The Secret Wife. Which I have not read – and didn’t miss in the reading of The Lost Daughter. There have been plenty of books speculating, or fantasizing about the escape of one or more of the Romanov princesses over the past century, so the concept wasn’t exactly hard to swallow, even without the previous book.

Although, come to think of it, that one of them escaped feels more plausible than that two of them did – the later discovered forensic evidence notwithstanding.

However, and somewhat ironically into the bargain, it wasn’t Maria’s miraculous escape that bothered me half as much as Val’s abusive husband. There was something about that part of the story that nearly turned me off from the whole book. It feels like too many stories take the easy out of giving their female protagonists more to overcome by placing them in abusive situations that add to the angst but don’t move the story forward.

Val has plenty of problems to work on without having her part of the story start with her husband beating her. That when she finally does manage to leave him he turns into a paper tiger and slinks away made that part of her story feel like a cheat. Particularly since Val has plenty of stuff to work through with her mother’s disappearance and her father’s death – along with the revelations that follow. The abusive husband read like a caricature and felt like “piling on.”

The meat of the story is Maria’s life in the Soviet Union. The beginning of that is more than a bit rocky, as it takes Maria what seems like a long time to grow up and accept that things are never going back to the way they used to be. Not that she ever puts on airs and graces, but that she seems to continue believing that rescue and acknowledgement are just around the corner for a lot longer than seems logical.

And her husband has the patience of a saint. Not that she doesn’t truly love him, and definitely vice versa, but he seems just a bit too good to be true. Their love story, in spite of its origins, makes a lovely contrast to Val’s arsehole of an eventual ex.

But it is mostly Maria’s long and frequently traumatic life that the story focuses on. Her story is the one with all the secrets as well as the really serious trials and tribulations. (I find myself wondering if Val’s abuse was intended to make her story more equal to Maria’s – but it just doesn’t come close.)

Life in the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin, was often brutal and always dangerous. It seems as if everyone informed on everyone else and no one could be trusted, not even one’s own children. However privileged her beginnings, it is impossible not to feel for Maria at every twist and turn of life, the Communist regime, and the impact on her family.

(If this is a part of the story that speaks to you, I can recommend another book that covers the same period (without the Romanovs) that I found even more compelling, On the Sickle’s Edge by Neville Frankel. But I digress.)

In the end, it’s Maria’s story that carried me through the book. Val felt more like the vessel for that story coming to light than a big part of the story itself. At the same time, when the link between them is finally exposed, it’s a revelation that changes everything. And it’s a wow.

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Review: The Chocolate Maker’s Wife by Karen Brooks

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Chocolate Maker’s Wife by Karen BrooksThe Chocolate Maker's Wife by Karen Brooks
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction
Pages: 608
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on August 20, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Australian bestselling novelist Karen Brooks rewrites women back into history with this breathtaking novel set in 17th century London—a lush, fascinating story of the beautiful woman who is drawn into a world of riches, power, intrigue…and chocolate.

Damnation has never been so sweet...

Rosamund Tomkins, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, spends most of her young life in drudgery at a country inn. To her, the Restoration under Charles II, is but a distant threat as she works under the watchful eye of her brutal, abusive stepfather . . . until the day she is nearly run over by the coach of Sir Everard Blithman.

Sir Everard, a canny merchant, offers Rosamund an “opportunity like no other,” allowing her to escape into a very different life, becoming the linchpin that will drive the success of his fledgling business: a luxurious London chocolate house where wealthy and well-connected men come to see and be seen, to gossip and plot, while indulging in the sweet and heady drink.

Rosamund adapts and thrives in her new surroundings, quickly becoming the most talked-about woman in society, desired and respected in equal measure.

But Sir Everard’s plans for Rosamund and the chocolate house involve family secrets that span the Atlantic Ocean, and which have already brought death and dishonor to the Blithman name. Rosamund knows nothing of the mortal peril that comes with her new title, nor of the forces spinning a web of conspiracy buried in the past, until she meets a man whose return tightens their grip upon her, threatening to destroy everything she loves and damn her to a dire fate.

As she fights for her life and those she loves through the ravages of the Plague and London’s Great Fire, Rosamund’s breathtaking tale is one marked by cruelty and revenge; passion and redemption—and the sinfully sweet temptation of chocolate.

My Review:

The story of The Chocolate Maker’s Wife is every bit as lush and decadent as the bittersweet confection that she learns to make – and most definitely promote and sell – in her role as the young, pretty wife of an older man who owns both a revolutionary chocolate house and an entire bubbling vat of deep, dark, but not so luscious secrets.

As ubiquitous as chocolate is in the present day – and as much as its taste, aroma and flavor are loved or even craved, once upon a time in Europe chocolate was very much a curious novelty imported from the “New World” – as, for that matter, were both tea and coffee, although both had their origin in other places.

The Restoration period in England, the 1660s when The Chocolate Maker’s Wife takes place, was a time of great upheaval, of which the introduction of chocolate was perhaps the least if not the tastiest. This was the period when the monarchy was restored after Cromwell’s Protectorate, and Puritanism gave way to the Church of England.

Over 10 years of habits of life and thought changed overnight when Charles II took the throne that his father had been forced from – and later beheaded for occupying. This was a time when the universe as they knew it changed. And did again during the course of this story when the Great Fire of London consumed the city in 1666.

Each of these world shaking events had an equally cataclysmic effect on the life of Rosamund Blishwick, nee Tomkins. And it is her eyes through which we see this world, and hers, as it changes. And most definitely sparks.

At first it seems as if Sir Everard Blishwick is rescuing Rosamund not merely from tiny Gravesend, but also from multiple fates worse than death.

But of course, all is not as it seems. What seems like a rescue is only the first step in a long drawn out campaign of revenge that sucks Rosamund deeply into its web – and launches her into a future she could never have dreamed of.

Escape Rating B-: This is very much a mixed feelings kind of review. There were aspects of this book that I enjoyed, and others that drove me a bit bonkers. The Chocolate Maker’s Wife is the kind of lush, overblown historical epic that they don’t make any more. And as much as I loved just this kind of story once upon a time, it also reminded me both of why they don’t make them any longer and why I don’t look for them either.

(Something about this book reminded me a lot of Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen. Which I read decades ago. I think it had to do with the lushness of the setting, the darkness of the secrets, the disposition of the heroine and the more than occasionly repetitive and slightly overblown language. But it’s been a long, long time. Still, the impression lingers. Make of that what you will.)

The strongest part of the story is the period setting. The author’s research into the Restoration period is exhaustive – and occasionally exhausting for the reader. The early years of the Restoration were a period of great change, capped off by the Great Fire which wiped out so much of London and wiped so many slates clean – except for the ashes.

It is a fascinating period in so many ways, as the parliamentary experiment failed, the monarchy was restored and everyone tried to go back to the way things were. Except that the genie never goes willingly back into the bottle, too much time had passed and too much had changed. But this story takes place during that change and we see the effects on the ground, so to speak, through Rosamund.

She begins the story as a young woman slaving away for her stepfather, ignored by her mother and routinely sexually abused by her stepfather and two adult stepbrothers. It’s a brutal life that Sir Everard rescues her from. Her “family” seem to be trying to erase their past as loyal Cromwell supporters, even her stepbrothers’ names betray their earlier loyalties.

But Rosamund was used and abused by her family, and then used by her new husband as well. Not for sex, but in his schemes for his chocolate house and his revenge against a family he claims wronged him. That Rosamund’s advent as a woman in the public sphere invites at least attempts at abuse from every man at nearly every turn seems a bit egregious. Not that it wouldn’t have happened, but there is a point where one wearies of reading about it happening again. And again. And yet again. (Wanting to hex them all seems to be a common response.)

At the same time, Rosamund seems a bit too good to be true. Everyone who comes into her orbit either wants her, loves her, or both. The degree to which she charms nearly everyone gives her the aura of a “Mary Sue”. Her times absolutely fascinated me, but her personality just didn’t make me want to follow her through them.

In the end, as much as I loved both the concept of this book and its setting, I didn’t love the book because I didn’t find its central character compelling. Or perhaps I simply had enough of the frequent repetitive descriptions of her tinkling laugh.

Your mileage may definitely vary. Meanwhile, I’m going to have some hot chocolate.

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Review: Bursts of Fire by Susan Forest + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Bursts of Fire by Susan Forest + GiveawayBursts of Fire (Addicted to Heaven, #1) by Susan Forest
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Genres: coming of age, epic fantasy
Series: Addicted to Heaven #1
Pages: 394
Published by Laksa Media Groups Inc. on August 6, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

To survive. To fight. To restore balance.

The Falkyn sisters bear a burden and a legacy. Their mother, the imperial magiel of the kingdom of Orumon, protects her people from the horrors of the afterlife by calling upon the Gods with a precious Prayer Stone. But war among the kingdoms has brought fire and destruction to their sheltered world. When a mad king's desire to destroy the Prayer Stones shatters their family, the three girls are scattered to the wilderness, relying on their wits and powers they don't yet master.

Assassin. Battle tactician. Magic wielder. Driven by different ambitions, Meg, Janat, and Rennika are destined to become all these and more. To reclaim their birth right, they must overcome doubtful loyalties within a rising rebellion; more, they must challenge a dogma-driven chancellor's influence on the prince raised to inherit his father's war: a prince struggling to unravel the mystery of his brother's addiction to Heaven.

My Review:

I signed up for this tour because, well, epic fantasy has always been one of my loves, and this book looked interesting. I’ll admit that the series title, Addicted to Heaven, gave me more than a bit of pause, but as it turns out, the heaven that people are addicted to is nothing like contemporary Western versions of heaven.

Bursts of Fire is very much a part of the epic fantasy tradition. There were times, in fact, when it felt like specific epic fantasies. But it does such a good job of exploring both its new facets and riffing on the stories from which it sprang that it made for a darn good read.

And I was on an airplane and this book was next in my queue. Bursts of Fire turned out to be a terrific book to transition from Worldcon back to “real life” as I traveled from a place where everyone was talking about SF and Fantasy and back to the so-called real world where those discussions are not quite so commonplace.

The story of Bursts of Fire begins in the way that quite a few epic fantasies begin – where the kingdom is under siege and the heir to the throne gets smuggled out of town ahead of the rampaging horde.

And that’s where the differences begin.

The heir isn’t the heir to the throne. And the heir isn’t an heir. Instead, the heiresses to the king’s magical advisor, all three of them, sneak out of the capital with the help of their nanny. Who they still need, as the oldest girl is 17 and the youngest is 11. And none of them have the remotest clue about how to manage on their own – or how to manage period without people waiting on them hand and foot.

They’ll have to figure it out – and somehow manage to grow up, in the midst of a civil war where they are being hunted by both sides. The forces of the usurper believe that all magic is evil – and the rebels just want to use them for their powers.

Powers that they mostly aren’t trained to use. They’re alone, desperate, and on the run. But at least they have each other. Until they don’t.

Whether they can figure out the right course to save themselves, save each other, and save the people that they feel responsible for, is a race against desperation and despair.

And just when they think they might have a chance to right at least a few of the wrongs – they discover just how bad things really, really are.

Escape Rating B+: Bursts of Fire turned out to be a terrific airplane book. Anything that can keep me distracted for 3-4 hours of an 8 hour flight is very much appreciated. And this certainly did.

As has been a relatively recent but also extremely welcome trend in epic fantasy, Bursts of Fire is a heroine’s journey rather than a hero’s journey. Or in this particular case, three heroines’ journeys. At the same time, the story begins on a familiar note, as the chosen one – or in this case chosen ones – are thrown from their original setting to make lives for themselves, and oh-by-the-way save the world.

Part of what does make this a bit different is that there is no mentor character to provide guidance – or for them to rely upon. They lose Nanny almost immediately. She was the one their mother gave the plan to, so the girls are on their own, lost and desperate.

Also very, very young and completely out of their depth. Only the oldest, Meg, has a real clue about just how bad things are and just how much things have changed for them. Little Rennika is too young to understand, and middle-sister Janat is too self-absorbed.

Janat is a character that I never warmed up to, and her self-absorption and unwillingness to grasp their situation continues throughout the story, making this reader grateful that the relatively mature Meg is the primary point of view character.

Meg understands the stakes earliest. Rennika is young enough to adapt. Janat is a problem from beginning to end, a problem that it looks like is only going to get worse.

What’s gone wrong with the kingdom did not make much sense at first. The reader is dropped into the middle of the story, just as the girls escape – and no one seems to know why their ally has suddenly attacked. As the story progresses, it becomes clear – for select definitions of clear – that no one really does know why he went off the rails. They just see the effects – and those effects are gruesome.

War is hell, and civil war is particularly hellish. The rebels want peace and they want to go back to the way things were – as much as is possible after two years of war. The girls, who have become young women fired – or broken – in the crucible of that war want to save as many people as possible, want to reverse the sudden upwelling of prejudice against magic users fostered by the usurper and his advisors, and want to take up the purpose that their family has always undertaken – to visit heaven and intercede with the gods on their people’s behalf.

The magic system of this world is fascinating and different, and their gods are real and act upon their world in ways that can be seen and measured if not countered. The primary manifestation of that magic is the magic users’ uncontrolled shifting through time. Magic has a price, and becoming unmoored from the time you are living is part of that cost.

The glimpses that all three sisters receive of their past, present and future are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes heartening, and always confusing. It is as much of a curse as a gift, but their ability to intercede with the gods is both powerful and necessary in this cosmos.

That the usurper is determined to break that connection powers his mad campaign against his former allies – and the reasons for that determination are shattering for the kingdom, the reader, and his heir.

That the heroines are all very young leaves this book, and presumably the series it begins, balanced on the knife edge between young adult and adult fantasy.  The protagonists may be young adults, but the situations in which they find themselves feel adult in their consequences.

In the end of Bursts of Fire, we, and the characters, know more about the reasons for the fractured state of their world, but are no closer to a resolution. This is a story about a world that is broken – and it is not made whole by the end. There must be future books in this series, and I’m looking forward to reading them.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a copy of Bursts of Fire to one very lucky US/CAN commenter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Review: The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan WiggsThe Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: women's fiction
Pages: 384
Published by William Morrow on August 13, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The #1 New York Times bestselling author brings us her most ambitious and provocative work yet—a searing and timely novel that explores the most volatile issue of our time—domestic violence.

At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific.

She’s come home.

Home to a place she thought she’d left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows.

And in the backseat of Caroline’s car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment—five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She’s now their legal guardian—a role she’s not sure she’s ready for.

But the Oysterville she left behind has changed. Her siblings have their own complicated lives and her aging parents are hoping to pass on their thriving seafood restaurant to the next generation. And there’s Will Jensen, a decorated Navy SEAL who’s also returned home after being wounded overseas. Will and Caroline were forever friends as children, with the promise of something more . . . until he fell in love with Sierra, Caroline’s best friend and the most beautiful girl in town. With her modeling jobs drying up, Sierra, too, is on the cusp of reinventing herself.

Caroline returns to her favorite place: the sewing shop owned by Mrs. Lindy Bloom, the woman who inspired her and taught her to sew. There she discovers that even in an idyllic beach town, there are women living with the deepest of secrets. Thus begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle—where women can join forces to support each other through the troubles they keep hidden.

Yet just as Caroline regains her creativity and fighting spirit, and the children begin to heal from their loss, an unexpected challenge tests her courage and her heart. This time, though, Caroline is not going to run away. She’s going to stand and fight for everything—and everyone—she loves.

My Review:

The Oysterville Sewing Circle turned out to be a lovely story with multiple themes – and everything I expected from this author. Particularly after last year’s marvelous Between You and Me.

First of all, this is a story about home – the Robert Frost version of home being the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Because as the story begins, Caroline Shelby is returning to tiny Oysterville because she needs to take refuge. Her life has both fallen apart and moved in a direction that she never expected, and she needs help and a place to heal.

Secondly, this is most definitely a love story – in multiple senses of that phrase. Partly, it’s a lovely second-chance-at-love story. The love of Caroline’s life is also back in Oysterville. They missed their chance back in high school, but chance has come around again – and this time they are both mature enough to grab it and hang on tight.

There’s another kind of love in this story. Caroline has returned to Oysterville with two children in tow, children that she never expected or planned to have. But that she agreed to care for out of love for her best friend, suddenly dead of a drug overdose. Over the course of the story, she comes to love Addie and Flick not just for their mother’s sake, but for their own. And it’s Caroline’s metamorphosis from slightly reluctant and completely overwhelmed guardian to adopted “mom” that gives the story much of its heart.

The soul of this one comes from the darker circumstances that gave birth to both Caroline’s need to flee New York and her guardianship of Addie and Flick after their mother’s sudden death.

Because their mother Angelique was a top-tier fashion model who had been chewed up and spit out by the cutthroat fashion industry. As had her designer friend Caroline, who had seen her award-winning designs stolen by the man she believed was her mentor.

Once the truth finally comes out, Caroline discovers that she got off relatively easy, but that the damage that same man had done to Angelique was more than she could survive. Which leads to the three darker themes of the story.

Angelique was a high-functioning drug addict who hid her addiction well, until it killed her. Whether the man who regularly abused her got her hooked or simply drove her back to drugs when she couldn’t bear the beatings any longer is not known. But his physical abuse of Angelique as well as his deliberate destruction of Caroline’s career shines a bright light into the crawling darkness of the #MeToo movement.

And Caroline’s need to do something, anything, to give women like Angelique a safe place to talk, to be listened to, and to be heard, exposes the hidden-yet-not-hidden secret cesspool of domestic abuse, that it happens everywhere, even in small, seemingly perfect places like Oysterville.

And that both domestic abuse and addiction affect every person around the abuse and the addiction in ways that ripple out like a stone thrown into a pond.

Every town needs an Oysterville Sewing Club – and women like Caroline who stand up to become beacons of hope – and who receive hope themselves.

Escape Rating A: This was one of my airplane books on the way back from Ireland. I had 8 hours to kill, which meant plenty of time to read. The part of the trip I spent in Oysterville with Caroline absolutely flew by – pun definitely intended.

This is a story with a lot going on, taking a surprising dive into areas that don’t seem like the province of women’s fiction – particularly not so many all in the same WOW of a book.

There were a lot of things that I loved about this story. I think that the biggest was that Caroline never has all the answers. She just has questions – and the more she questions the more comes to light.

Caroline’s part of the story both echoes and illuminates the #MeToo movement. In her case, it was never about sex – only about exploitation. She had the ideas, but her supposed mentor had all the power. Her attempt to fight back against his blatant theft destroyed her career and left him even better off than before. And it’s both utterly disgusting and absolutely believable.

What made the story for me was Caroline’s attempt to understand what happened to her friend. Both because she feels guilty that she didn’t see the signs of the addiction, and because she didn’t speak up about the abuse that she suspected was going on. Out of her desire to understand, and admittedly to expiate some of her guilt, she starts the organization that becomes the Oysterville Sewing Society in order to give women in her old/new community a safe place. A place that she also needs.

And out of that comes her own healing, both emotionally and for the career that she thought was dead in the water. That she gets justice for her friend, and a happy ever after for herself and her children, is icing on a very lovely cake.

Bittersweet chocolate is my favorite, after all.

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Review: The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Dragon Republic by R.F. KuangThe Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2) by R.F. Kuang
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, grimdark
Series: Poppy War #2
Pages: 672
Published by Harper Voyager on August 6, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In the aftermath of the Third Poppy War, shaman and warrior Rin is on the run: haunted by the atrocity she committed to end the war, addicted to opium, and hiding from the murderous commands of her vengeful god, the fiery Phoenix. Her only reason for living is to get revenge on the traitorous Empress who sold out Nikan to their enemies.

With no other options, Rin joins forces with the powerful Dragon Warlord, who has a plan to conquer Nikan, unseat the Empress, and create a new Republic. Rin throws herself into his war. After all, making war is all she knows how to do.

But the Empress is a more powerful foe than she appears, and the Dragon Warlord’s motivations are not as democratic as they seem. The more Rin learns, the more she fears her love for Nikan will drive her away from every ally and lead her to rely more and more on the Phoenix’s deadly power. Because there is nothing she won’t sacrifice for her country and her vengeance

The sequel to R.F. Kuang’s acclaimed debut THE POPPY WAR, THE DRAGON REPUBLIC combines the history of 20th-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating effect.

My Review:

I thought that the first book in this series, The Poppy War (also the series title) was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t wait for this second book to come out. Now that I’ve read The Dragon Republic, I have to say that it’s even better than its predecessor. And I can’t wait for book 3, whatever it turns out to be called and whenever it appears.

The action in The Dragon Republic begins in the opium-clouded, blood-soaked aftermath of The Poppy War. (This is a series that desperately needs to be read in order, and as close together as you can manage – which makes waiting for book 3 absolute hell.) Our heroine, Rin, is leading a small remnant of the Cike, the ragtag unit of Shamans used by the Imperial Army.

But the Cike are on the run from their former masters. Or would be if anyone knew that some of them were still alive. Not that their incognito status is going to last long. Because whenever a situation is working in Rin’s favor – it NEVER lasts for very long.

Rin is supposedly their leader, after she got their last leader killed at the end of the first book. Well, at least that’s how everyone seems to see it, and their loyalty to her seems to be tempered by that condition. None of them seem to be sure whether she’s making good decisions or determined to get them all killed in her mad quest for vengeance.

That she spends the first part of this story in an opium-induced haze does not help them put their trust in her, does not lead her to making remotely sensible decisions, and makes the opening moves in this very long game seem as murky as Rin’s thought processes, which are disjointed at best and nightmarish at worst.

Just when it looks like their current employer is finally going to give Rin the weapons she needs to take her war back to the empire – and empress – that betrayed them, she is sold out. But then, that’s what pirate queens do – and what Rin should have expected if she were operating in the present even half the time.

That betrayal, the latest in a long, long line of betrayals that Rin has suffered and survived, is nearly the breaking of her. But she’s been broken before, and just like each of those previous times, Rin rises from her own ashes, only to fall and rise again.

Just like the phoenix that she is. She really, really is. And she’s finally ready to set her world on fire.

Escape Rating A+: I loved The Poppy War, and I loved The Dragon Republic every bit as hard. I say hard because this military epic fantasy is very dark.

I mean dark to the point where in order to call this series grimdark it would actually need to lighten up a bit. This is one of those stories where the light at the end of the tunnel is always the local equivalent of an oncoming train, and where things are always darkest just before they turn completely black.

And yet, Rin always keeps moving forward. Or sideways. Or through. She is relentless, even if, or sometimes especially because, she is heading in the wrong direction.

While the over-story of The Dragon Republic is the story of the doomed Dragon Republic, the underlying story is all about Rin fighting with her demons, trying to find a balance between using those demons, giving into those demons, or becoming those demons, in a scenario where giving into and becoming are manifestly not the same things.

Also there’s an actual demon. Or god. It depends on one’s perspective.

This is also one of those stories where nothing is remotely the way it seems – although many people seem to be aware of that. Just not Rin. She’s trying to avoid or avert her destiny, and one of many methods of avoidance is to allow herself to become someone else’s tool – not that she isn’t often perceived as a tool in other senses of that word.

And certainly not that there are not plenty of tools around. But Rin’s desire to not be responsible for her own actions allows her to be used by the biggest tool around – not that he isn’t also being used by even bigger tools.

It’s tools all the way down.

But Rin blazes at the center of this story, even when her own fires are banked – against her will. Burning is who she is and what she does. She is the living avatar of the Phoenix, and her fire is meant to consume everyone, including herself.

This is the story of her learning to master that fire – and learning to turn that destruction outward and away from herself – to the destruction of her enemies. Even if it’s only at the end that she finally figures out at least some of who those enemies really are.

And that she has the power – and finally the will – to take that fight to them. But not until OMG the next book. AAARRRGGGHHH!

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Review: The Hound of Justice by Claire O’Dell

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Hound of Justice by Claire O’DellThe Hound of Justice (The Janet Watson Chronicles, #2) by Claire O'Dell
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: mystery, science fiction
Series: Janet Watson Chronicles #2
Pages: 288
Published by Harper Voyager on July 30, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Dr. Janet Watson and former covert agent Sara Holmes, introduced in the acclaimed A Study in Honor, continue their dangerous investigation into the new American Civil War with the help of fresh allies, advanced technology, and brilliant deduction in this superb reimagining of Sherlock Holmes.

It’s been two months since Dr. Janet Watson accepted an offer from Georgetown University Hospital. The training for her new high-tech arm is taking longer than expected, however, leaving her in limbo. Meanwhile, her brilliant friend and compatriot, Sara Holmes, has been placed on leave--punishment for going rogue during their previous adventure. Neither is taking their situation very well.

Then an extremist faction called the Brotherhood of Redemption launches an assassination attempt on the president. The attempt fails but causes mass destruction—fifty dead and hundreds more injured, and Holmes takes on the task of investigating the Brotherhood.

Holmes is making progress when she abruptly disappears. Watson receives a mysterious message from Holmes’s cousin Micha and learns that her friend has quit the service and is operating in the shadows, investigating clues that link the Brotherhood to Adler Industries.

She needs a surgeon, Micha tells Watson. She needs you.

Reunited once more, Dr. Watson, Holmes, and Micha embark on a mission through the deep South to clear Holmes’s name, thwart the Brotherhood’s next move, and most important, bring their nemesis to justice for the atrocities she’s committed in the New Civil War.

My Review:

The Hound of Justice is even better than A Study in Honor, and I loved A Study in Honor. But Study needs to set itself up in its near-future variation on our world and its not-quite-pastiche of Holmes and Watson.

When the action picks up in Hound, we’re already there. We know who these women are, and we recognize their world – it’s all too close to our own.

It’s a world that feels like a direct – and not very far future descendant – of the world we know now. Obama was president, and so was Trump. And the U.S. flirted with fascism during the presidency of Trump and his enablers.

Resulting in a leftist backlash, and now a right-center response to that backlash. This is a future that is well within the lifetime of all of us reading the book, and it feels all-too-plausible from here.

Damn it.

It also feels like a variation of the alternative history of last year’s awesome American War. Because somewhere in those swings of the political pendulum, the New Confederacy declared war on the Federal States. It’s an ugly, brutal war, because civil wars are seldom civil at all.

And there are entirely too many people on the side of the supposedly liberal Federal States whose beliefs align much more closely with the Confederacy. Along with entirely too many people who profit from the chaos and carnage – and only care that it continues as long as bloody possible.

After the events of A Study in Honor, Sara Holmes and Dr. Janet Watson are living in the aftermath, where they were right for the wrong reasons, and Sara went rogue from her alphabet agency handlers to get the job done.

The problem is that the job was only partially done. Holmes and Watson will have to go behind enemy lines to finish it.

Or be finished.

Escape Rating A: I found the story in The Hound of Justice to be both fascinating and predictable, and those two things shouldn’t go together – but they do in this case. They really, really do.

Partially, it is that I love the setup. I hate that it feels so very plausible, but it works all too well. It feels like a logical extension of the current political climate – to the point that I was glad to see that my present home of Atlanta does stay within the Federal States.

The Federal States haven’t reached the level of being dystopian, at least not yet. And at least not if you are not black or brown or gay or gender nonconforming or female. Also probably not if you are some variety of Christian, but the fault lines on that particularly axis are not obvious so far, as our heroines are black, lesbian professional women.

Or really, heroine, singular. As in the original Holmes stories, Watson is telling the story of her life with – and often without – Holmes. But the Holmes of the Janet Watson Chronicles is even more mercurial – and less forthcoming – than the original. Truly this is Janet Watson’s story, while Holmes is a catalyst for events more than a participant.

And that’s a good thing, because this Holmes seems to have the emotional depths of a teaspoon – and the original, particularly at the beginning, wasn’t much better.

Janet Watson, on the other hand, feels too much. She’s a wounded war veteran (as was the original) who has to cope with the temporary and perhaps permanent loss of her identity as a surgeon. And has to deal with her ongoing PTSD, a condition that is exacerbated by the events of this story.

Because she feels, we feel with her. Her hopes, her fears, her dreams and especially her nightmares. Because she has to live them, over and over again. And yet, she keeps going. It’s the journey that she keeps going on, the road that she keeps traveling in spite of her fear, that make this story so fascinating.

The predictability factor comes from knowing just a bit about the original Holmes. And on the nature of fiction in series.

The villain was who the villain had to be, because there were so many clues about that job not being taken care of the first time. It just couldn’t be anyone else, particularly with such similar methods. The title of this story is a play on The Hound of the Baskervilles, a story which takes place just before Holmes’ “death” at Reichenbach Falls. Another clue to the ultimate ending of this version.

But there is so much marvelously taut tension in how The Hound of Justice gets from its bloody beginning to its cathartic but not quite victorious end that I got sucked in on the opening page and couldn’t put it down.

I hope that the author returns to these characters and this world, whenever. Preferably ASAP.

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