Vol. 10 #3
Just a reminder, the books reviewed here are recommended. I can't see wasting time reading a book I don't like when there are so many fabulous reads out there. Every book here kept me reading instead of dropping it and going on to the next book.
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Fantasy/ Fairy Tale / World of Faerie
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Brass Rat, a rock band that had been around for ages comes to town and student journalist Callie McCallan figures she will use homework as her ploy to get her parents to let her go. She had no idea that they had been Brass Rat fans in the long ago! After the concert she rushes backstage to ask one more question and overhears a heated argument between the concert promoter and Peter Gringas rhea flute player. Then she hears Johnny Alabas, the drummer, and Scott Morrison, the gorgeous guitar player talking about how every seven years Gringas must send silver, gold, or souls Under the Hill to pay a teind. Callie, having a horrible time writing her article stays home the next evening, Halloween, ensconced in her room with her head phones on. and while all the other children and teens in town disappear. Setting off to search for her brother she begins to hear flute music. Scott picks her up and on his motorcycle they arrive at a state park just before all the kids from her town go into an opening in the rocks. She follows them into the borderlands of Faerie and if she is to free them to return home she must figure out how to break a curse on Gringas. A terrific combination of the world of Faerie, our world, and the Pied Piper.
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YA/ Paranormal/ Vampires
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There must be something in the air -- or the water -- or who knows what but this seems to be the year of outrageously good vampire novels. Bella, moves to Forks, WA on the Olympic peninsula to live with her dad when her mother remarries. The move from the sunshine of Phoenix to the gloom of the Pacific Northwest is a difficult one for her. Becoming accustomed to a new school poses its own challenges but when she is forced to sit next to the mysterious and stand-offish Edward, a member of the elusive Cullen family she begins to hate her new life even more. At first Edward acts like he hates Bella but when he saves her life she discovers that he is as fascinated with her as she is with him. This unusual take on the vampire myth with some striving to do not harm while others see humans as prey. Twilight is one of those rare books that one is loath to close the book and leave the world and characters so effectively brought to life by the extremely talented Meyer.
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YA/ Paranormal/ Vampires
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Westerfeld rocks! Every one of his novels is well-conceived and beautifully executed. Cal (from Texas) went to the Big Apple as a college freshman and on one of his first forays into urban nightlife lost his virginity to a beautiful woman who gave him more than he bargained for. She infected him with a parasite that turns its host into a vampire. Fortunately Cal is one of the rare people who even though he is infected (and has a huge appetite for rare meat) does not turn into a ravening monster with an entourage of rats hover he is a carrier and can and has transmitted the parasite by kissing. Recruited by a secret city agency that has been keeping tabs on the Peeps - those who are parasite positive, Cal is assigned to hunt down the girls he infected who have become vampires. Attempting to find the woman who infected him, Cal meets Lace, a journalism major who lives on the floor in the apartment building where Cal was infected. On the wall of her apartment, under a hastily applied coat of paint, is a horrific message written in human blood and gristle. While Cal does his utmost to protect Lace and keep from infecting her there are other forces at work and possibly other vectors. This is one of those titles that leaves the reader wanting more. The factual information about parasites that starts alternating chapters is chilling and adds to the ambience of the page-turning story.
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Western / Singular Women
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Addie French , not the name she started life with, has been through much in her life going from abused child, to con artist, to whore, and now to owning The Chili Queen parlor house in Nalgitas, New Mexico, but what she really wants to do is own a chili restaurant in San Antonio. Her mysterious cook and housekeeper, a former slave named Welcome, may have turned up out of the blue a month ago but has proven to be of more worth than the whores who work at The Chili Queen. The handsome and gallant Ned Partner, a notorious bank robber frequently makes The Chili Queen home. Emma Roby, a mail order bride, claims to think The Chili Queen is a respectable ladies’ boarding house and moves in taking Addie’s downstairs room when her fiancee abandons her at the station leaving only a note saying that she is too old. As the four get to know each other they fall into planning a bank robbery, in part to avenge an insult to Addie. The 1880’s are wild and wooly in this caper within a caper within a con.
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Western/ Mountain Men
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On the day following his eighteenth birthday and the second anniversary of his father’s death, Sam Morgan is shocked by the betrothal of his sweetheart to his brother. Seeking solace in the woods he calls Eden, he meets a Delaware named Hannibal MacKye who advises him to follow his wild hair. Determining that there is no longer anything for him in Morgantown he heads out on the river, armed with the rifle inherited from his father, to find adventure. The adventures are endless for a young man in 1822, first on the river then in the West where he becomes a mountain man. Along the way he makes friends, fights enemies, and falls in love. The meticulous research based on actual adventures of real early nineteenth century mountain men facing wild-fire, capture by the Pawnee, and a seven-hundred mile solitary trek makes Sam’s adventures feel very real.
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Crime/ Detection/ Amateur Sleuth /Cozy
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There is no better way to while away a hot summer afternoon than to relax in a shady swing under a big tree with a glass of lemonade at the ready and the latest Beatrix Potter mystery by Susan Wittig Albert in hand. When Miss Potter and Mr. Jennings, her farm manager, go to Holly How to pick up some recently purchased Herdwick sheep, they are accompanied by Rascal, a Jack Russell terrier who discovers the body of Ben Hornby, the man who sold the sheep. Mysteries are nearly as abundant as gossip in the twin hamlets of Near Sawry and Far Sawry and involve both the human and animal residents. A badger and her baby are kidnapped. Miss Nash’s opportunity to be promoted to the head teacher at the village school is in jeopardy when Lady Longford champions a new candidate who doesn’t seem to be quite on the up and up. Sleuths abound with many having a hand in solving the various mysteries. Miss Potter, with her keen powers of observation is joined by Caroline Longford, the orphaned and unwanted grand-daughter of Lady Longford, Rascal, and Tuppence the guinea pig. July of 1906 in the Lake Country comes vividly to life along with the denizens of the neighborhood in this delightfully cozy read.
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Picture Book |
Every once in a while a picture book comes along that catches my fancy. Jack Sundance Herald, age 6, likes to bring his favorites to my attention. AlfaDinoBet is an unusual alphabet book written in both English and Spanish verse. Each time we read it together Jack finds something new to point out in the illustrations of different dinosaurs taking on alphabet shapes. Hidden in each illustration are drawings of natural and artistic wonders. The line drawings make my fingers itch to pull out a set of 64 color felt tip pens and get to work coloring each picture. The publisher's blurb is “A read-aloud book for ages preschool to prehistoric” and they are right. It does have appeal for all ages and the rhythms of the verses just call out to be read aloud.
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Romance/ Erotic
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Three deliciously erotic novellas of those finding love in the workplace. McLane’s tale is one of genreblending in more ways than one. A romance writer and a mystery writer spend a week in a secluded cabin to learn the techniques of each others’ genres. Ryan’s tale is set in Vegas at a smallish casino where a high roller seems well on the way to breaking the bank and a desperate young woman has been hired to find out what his system is. Blake’s tale is set in a small town bar that closes down for a week of painting by a down-on-her luck artist who finds herself unable to merely slap paint on the walls and instead paints erotic angels on the ceiling and falls for the owner. These luscious tales should garner new fans for their talented authors.
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Historical Fiction/ Victorian Era
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This unusual tale tells the stories of two boys from very different backgrounds who meet and form an intense bond as young men. Jack Rourke and his twin brother Michael live in the putrid London stews with their prostitute mother dreading the days their brutal father is home from the sea. Nicholas Stuart, the youngest child of a Puritan physician, grows up in the Cotswolds, learning how to minister to the health of both humans and livestock but he wants more and earning his father’s wrath he goes off to medical school. When Jack’s mother runs off, his brother dies as a result of their father’s abuse and he stabs the old salt. Jack joins a theater troupe and comes to the attention of Xavier St. Denys who eventually adopts him and changes his name to Kit. When Jack, who becomes a famous actor, and Stuart, who doctors the poor, meet they feel an instant blazing passion for each other. In the style of Victorian novels they both face many experiences and changes in their lives, some of them devastating. Sims has done a masterful job of creating characters who are real. She had made these two men and their enduring love for each other incredibly believable in what may be one of the most unusual books of 2005. The details of theater and medical practice as well the the depiction of London, the English countryside, and New York at the end of the 19th century add to the authentic feel.
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Crime/PI/ Humorous
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Sofie Metropolis at age twenty-six is working a sort of apprenticeship at her Uncle Spyro’s detective agency following the debacle of what was to have been her wedding before she discovered her groom and maid of honor in a more than compromising position. The very Greek Astoria, Queens is vividly depicted as Sofie pursues her new career, trying to get the goods on a cheating wife for the agency while also trying to find out what happened to a missing dog and a missing neighbor who just may be a vampire. A generous helping of the Greek-American lifestyle ala My Big Fat Greek Wedding and madcap adventures with a memorable office manager and mysterious man reminiscent of those found in Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series make for an entertaining escapist read.
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YA/ contemporary/ humorous
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Scott Hudson is excited about starting high school but is also well aware that it is a road paved with peril. Being picked on by upperclassmen is only one of the terrors he faces. On the upside, Julie, a girl he shared crackers with in first grade is in some of his classes and the intervening years have been more than kind to her. As Scott tries to sign up for activities that will let him be close to her he ends up totally overbooked what with school newspaper, student council, and stage crew for the school musical. He doesn’t even get to write book reviews for the paper; instead he has to cover sports. How does one write each week about a team that loses by phenomenal margins? Scott also unsuccessfully tries to avoid Wesley, the school tough guy who shakes down freshmen for their money. Lubar is always funny. This laugh-out-loud romp is sure to please teens who are trying to live though the kind of schedule Scott is facing and will identify with the many sensitively drawn characters. Novels this funny are often given short shrift but underlying the humor is a realistic coming of age story with with a deft portrayal of how appearances are often misleading. This one is recommended for all teen readers.
Read what real live teens thought about it.
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Contemporary - Coming of Age
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Every bit as good as the buzz about it indicates, Castellucci’s first novel lets us into the life of the talented and unusual Victoria Denton who goes by the name Egg and wears a sweeping cloak like her favorite comic book / movie character. The daughter of a movie actress and a special effects maker, she is truly a child of Hollywood but is definitely her own person. She begins to really connect with people when an interesting new boy who ignores her keep-away-from-me stance starts attending her school and is in most of her A.P. classes. In course of meeting her favorite actress, struggling with trigonometry, being kicked out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy club, and becoming an outcast at the school newspaper, Egg finds out who she really is.
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It’s been a long time since I doggedly hunted down and read Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies but this new anthology of thirteen stories by contemporary authors took me back to the days when I reveled in tales of sword and sorcery, when my favorite movie was Conan the Barbarian, and my favorite author was Fritz Leiber. As with any good anthology there are stories that appeal to a broad range of readers meaning that a couple that seem like duds to me invariably are someone else’s favorites. I particularly enjoyed the offerings penned by Vera Nazarian in which a young warrior woman slays the invaders’ god and Joseph A. McCullough’s tale of a mysterious gem that conjured up fantastic (if graphic) images in my mind’s eye. The most powerful story in the collection is by master fantasist Tanith Lee. It is an unforgettable tale of a Sword’s man who is wed to his blade and what happens when she betrays him. Other contributors include John C. Hocking, D.K. Latta, David L. Felts, Howard Andrew Jones, Barbara Tarbox, E.E. Knight, Beth Shope, Jonah Lissner, Ray Kane, and Nancy Virginia Varian.
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Annie Szabo is back and Madame Mina, the Gypsy mother of her late husband, has again dragged her into mischief and mayhem. Having written a tabloid story about Jimmy Qi a youngster from San Francisco’s China Town who has the amazing ability to heal people by tuning the interior sound of their bodies, Annie feels responsible when fame brings him danger. Things escalate when Jimmy’s uncle is murdered. Meanwhile E. B., Annie’s talented artist daughter has some family secrets that she and her sisters have been keeping from their mom. Tarot cards and a televangelist also come into play. As always, the sexy, smart, sassy, young grandma uses her wits and a little family help to take care of business. Annie, a unique character in an unusual milieu makes me feel the way I did when I first read and became attached to V.I. Warshawski, Patience McKenna, Deb Ralston, and Kinsey Millhone back in the 80s or to Stephanie Plum in the 90s. I can’t wait to run into this endearing character again and see what kind of entertaining trouble she winds up in next go around.
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An incredible follow up to A Crack in the Line continues the stories of Naia and Alaric in their new time lines and takes them, via the family tree at Withern Rise, into a universe stuck in time. The thought provoking middle book of the Aldous Lexicon trilogy will leave readers eager for the concluding volume and for more information on quantum physics.
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Brian, the captain of his winning high school basketball team, is merely drifting through life after the shooting deaths of Amanda who had been both his best friend and his girlfriend and her mother and brother. At the same time as his American History teacher assigns him to work on a project about Leo Franks with Todd, the school outcast, he sees on television that Amanda’s father’s murder trial is beginning. Officer Daine’s defense is that he has an alibi and that his family was killed in retaliation for a spectacular drug bust he had made. Brian, who had a disagreement with Amanda the day she died feels guilty because she may have been saved if he had allowed her and her brother to play basketball with him. He is also pretty sure the Mr. Daine didn’t kill his family and wonders why the police never checked back with him about the jogger he saw around the time of the murder. Julius, the only black kid on the team is arrested for getting lost in a white neighborhood after dropping his parents off at the airport, and it changes his life and that of the team. As the Leo Frank assignment draws to an end, Brian, feeling more and more uneasy about Mr. Daine’s trial calls and leaves a message for his defense attorney but is never called back. Starting with a death experience and interspersed with medical dialog one knows from the very beginning that Brian has been shot and may be dying. Todd’s brother, an attorney, provides a touch of legal thriller to this suspense filled sports story (with lots of basketball court action) suspense thriller. The Edgar voters will surely be looking at this title and readers will be unable to put it down.
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Science Fiction/ Militaristic |
Imagine a military that didn’t take the best and brightest of our young people. Imagine a military that required one to give up his or her entire life on Earth upon induction. Imagine a military with a minimum enlistment age of seventy-five. Yes, that is seventy-five not seventeen. In a distant future those who have colonized far-flung planets are defended by an intense military organization called the Colonial Defense Force. John Perry and his wife had both signed the papers to enlist when they were old enough but she didn’t live long enough to go. The main perk of signing up is renewed youth or actually just a new improved body. Scalzi’s debut novel is amazingly Heinlein-like. It is full of libertarian sentiment, comrades in arms willing to die for their cohorts, and even a little bit of romance.
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Horror/ Humorous
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Earl, a vampire and Duke, a werewolf, wander into an all-night diner in the middle of the desert where they are soon drawn into a full fledged fight against evil as a teenage vixen attempts to open a portal for the old gods to enter and destroy our world. A little bit Bubba Hotep, a dash From Dusk till Dawn, a helping of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, and a romance with a ghost, to say nothing of the dog, make for a raucous good read.
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Crime/ Mystery/ Detection/ Psychologist
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Psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware was called in eight years ago to examine two young teenage boys who had kidnapped, raped, and murdered a two year old. Now Rand, the developmentally disabled perpetrator who was not murdered in juvie jail wants to talk but doesn’t show up for his meeting with Alex and is found murdered. The investigation centers on a religious couple who had visited Rand in jail and had offered him a home upon his release. All is not pretty, however, in that household. When Alex and police Lieutenant Milo Sturgis start investigating they find hypocrisy, abuse, sexual misconduct, criminal machinations, and a serial killer. Filled with labyrinthine twists it is a riveting read.
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YA/ Contemporary/ Coming of Age
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Qualey is an incredible writer so I don’t know why I was so surprised to be totally blown away by her latest which features Hanna, an eighteen-year-old high school senior who is an extremely talented artist. She breaks up with her long-time boyfriend just before Christmas because she feels like she is just marking time with him and on a lonely night goes down to the frozen lake near her Minneapolis home where she meets a cross country skiing couple who tell her the ice is thin. Later, a couple drive out onto the ice in an ATV acting like fools and she fails to warn them. She is faced with horrible guilt when she discovers that they died after crashing through the ice. Unable to keep away from the scene of the tragedy she encounters a boy who she sees over and over again then discovers that he was the unidentified jogger who had found the dead girl’s body. Hanna and Will have an immediate connection but there are also many outside factors that can pull them apart. This is a totally enthralling story with smart teen characters and their fully developed families. Both families have tragedies in their pasts as well as missing members. The characters both primary and secondary, are so real and so compelling one does not want the book to end. Even though the relationship between Will and Hanna seems doomed and there is a lot of pain and angst in the story it is also funny especially when Hanna is out with Will’s sisters and they adopt aliases to dance with some cute farm boys.
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Crime/ Mystery/ Women Detectives
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Annie Szabo, a widowed writer working an article about circuses finds her life is rather like one when her Gypsy mother-in-law, Madame Mina, arrives unexpectedly and parks her trailer in Annie’s yard. Annie lives next door to a New Age circus that puts on high dollar performances and runs a workshop/camp for women in crisis. She is drawn into a mystery when one of the owners is murdered and the other one goes missing. I was enchanted by Annie and have added the first title in the series, The Hummingbird Wizard, to my to-be-read bookcase and am eagerly awaiting The Red Hot Empress, due out in September.
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Crime/ Mystery/ Women Detectives |
Annie Szabo was widowed young. When Stevan, her young husband, died suddenly she was left with three little girls and Madame Mina, a Gypsy mother-in-law who blamed her for the death. Years later, with her daughters grown, Annie takes off to San Francisco for a weekend with her lifelong buddy Jerry and uses her key to get into his house where she finds Madame Mina who claims she is worried that someone is trying to steal Jerry’s soul. The next morning, after a seriously sensuous dream and what she thinks was a fabulous night of sex with Jerry, she wakes up to find Capri, a circus trapeze artist, an alcoholic who drowns her breakfast cereal in tequila, Stevan’s sister, and Jerry’s ex-wife who tells her that Jerry has been found dead. The offbeat characters and crazy situations create a raucous laugh-out-loud experience. This brilliant debut novel is not to be missed.