Vol. 11 #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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Crime/ Historical Crime/ Private Investigators/ Women |
Maisie takes on a case of discovering whether the fall that killed artist Nick Bassington-Hope was truly accidental as the police have ruled or if someone else was involved. Hired by Nick’s twin sister Georgina, Maisie meets the entire artistically gifted Bassington-Hope family. Eldest sister Nolly, like so many women of her generation lost her love to the Great War. Younger brother Harry is a ne’er do well jazz musician with a gambling problem. Maisie’s quest leads her to Dungeness, an artist’s colony on the blustery shore where smuggling has long been a way of life to the late night jazz clubs of London. Nick was an extremely talented artist who had chronicled the war with his paints as his twin did with journalism. Pithy issues of importance today are limned in historical light as Maisie confronts feelings and thoughts about war and the gap between rich and poor as the Depression picks up steam, where children die because the family can’t afford medical care. A wonderful addition to an outstanding series that has deservedly won several awards.
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YA/ Contemporary/ Romance |
Fourteen-year-old Felicia, a poet, the daughter of divorced parents, a student at the Manhattan Free Children’s School, and madly in love with gorgeous science prodigy Matthew tells her story in a fresh, first person narrative. She and her two best friends call themselves the Sex Kittens, their school -- The Pound, and their male schoolmates -- Horn Dawgs. One way for Felicia to get close to Matthew is to propose a science project for the annual school science fair that will draw his attention. Together they decide to explore “X” that undefined thing that makes people fall in love. Through interviews and observations they explore the love lives of friends and family. Felicia’s quirky voice is a delight and perfectly captures the contrivances of young teens who go to private schools which may not be anything the same as teens in other schools and areas. The secondary characters are well defined and interesting. As I was finishing this I couldn't’t help but thinking that it hit me the same way that Weetzie Bat by Margaret A. Edwards award-winner Francesca Lia Block did back in 1989 with location playing such a large role in the protagonists’ lives. The sweetness and yearning for love also brought Carolyn Mackler’s books to mind. A terrific read for junior high girls.
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YA/ Adventure/ Survival |
Hobbs has once again penned a page-turning adventure this time with both wilderness and urban settings. Victor Flores, at age fifteen is the sole support for his mother, brother, and two sisters, feeding the family by raising corn. When the bottom falls out of the corn market he knows that in order for them to survive he must go to El Norte, becoming an illegal immigrant. The coyotes charge $1500.00 to take someone across the border. Victor knows this because is childhood best friend Rico is already on his way to the border with money sent from a brother who lives in Tucson. Victor’s journey is fraught with peril. On the way to Nogales on a bus he is almost deported to Guatemala because he can’t prove his Mexican citizenship and he looks Guatemalan being originally from Chiapas, Mexico. He meets many people with many stories on his dangerous journey. As always, Hobbs excels at depicting the wilderness as Victor travels through the frigid Chiricahua mountains with a man almost crippled by a beating from vigilantes until being captured and deported by the Border Patrol. The rugged landscape of the rocky desert is illuminated when Rico supposedly finds them a coyote who will accept payment from the brother in Tucson but in reality has signed himself and Victor to carry water and food for heavily loaded human mules who are smuggling drugs. The pain, dangers, and difficulties faced by those who have no other recourse than to try to enter the U.S. illegally are brilliantly depicted.
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Nonfiction/ Memoir/ Sports/ Skateboarding
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Pro skater Robbie Weir, probably best known for a long ago Burger King commercial tells the story of his life in skateboarding. At age fifteen he was a pro skating for Stacy Peralta and the legendary Powell team. He skated with all the greats on both coasts including Alan Gelfland, the inventor of the Ollie and Tony Hawk, the best known skater of our time. Weir packs lots of inspirational tidbits into his story. While Miami Inverted could have benefited from some professional editing, teen skaters are not going to care. They will be thrilled to read about the legends of their sport. This should appeal to East Coast skaters, especially Floridians as not enough is made of their contribution to the sport. Readers who like Tony Hawk’s Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder and Andy MacDonald’s Dropping in with Andy Mac will enjoy this. It is also a good read for fans of the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys.
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Teen/ Speculative Fiction/ Science Fiction/ Time Travel
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Siara is at her school for the gifted and talented having a friendly conversation with Harry who is a genius gone psycho following the death of his father. The study hall monitor and the school outcast get into a shouting match and Harry suddenly starts arranging folding chairs into a strange configuration, which directs attention to him and security is called. When the outsider pulls out a gun and fires at the monitor, he is saved from death by falling into the chairs. Siara goes after Harry and he tells her an incredible story about A-time, another dimension where snaking spaghetti-like tendrils display everyone's life from the past to the branching futures. He is able to take her into A-space (A as in asexual, apolitical, etc.) where they can see Todd is going to commit suicide but they also see that it is not of his own accord. A Quirk, a bulbous beast with razor sharp pinchers and lots of teeth is manipulating him into it. The three teens end up waging a battle in both our space and A-space. Original and entertaining.
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YA/ Historical Fiction
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Anna, age fifteen in 1959 is a math ace in a world where girls are expected to grow up to be good wives and mothers. Raised by her beloved grandparents because of World War II, she is devastated by the death of her artist grandmother. Even though her parents had decreed sixteen as the age she could start dating, they make an exception for her to attend homecoming with new neighbor Mike who is good looking and a talented artist. As Anna makes her way through math competitions that offer great rewards in the time America was trying to best the Soviet Union through math and science, she also explores love and faith with Mike. An outstanding historical novel that makes sense of its era and an unforgettable protagonist make this one of the best books of the year for teens. It even makes math look like fun.
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Speculative Fiction/ Science Fiction/ Bleak Future / Hard SF
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Tyler Dupree grew up in the shadow of the Lawton twins, Jason and Diane who were one year old than him and lived in the Big House where Ty’s mother was the housekeeper. One night when Ty is twelve and the twins thirteen the stars go out. Somehow a shield, called the Spin, has encapsulated the Earth. As time goes on it is discovered that time inside the Spin is moving at a fraction of the pace that time outside is moving which means the end of the Earth is approaching much sooner than those alive on Earth ever expected. As adults, Ty is a physician, Diane, a religious fanatic, and Jason, the head of Perihelion, a non-profit that terraforms and seeds Mars with life. A few years on Earth pass while millennia pass beyond the Spin and Mars evolves intelligent life. Wilson's technique of gradually unveiling the story by switching back in forth in the lives of the protagonists from youth to maturity is particularily effective. Wilson has created a sprawling tale that spans the lifetimes of Ty, Jason, and Diane filled with the “what ifs” that make science fiction so tantalizing. Spin is deservedly on the final ballot for the 2006 Hugo award.
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Speculative Fiction/ Fantasy/ Bestiary |
In a battle with a French ship, Captain Will Laurence and his crew find that in victory they have also acquired a dragon egg. While still at sea it hatches and instead of bonding with the man who drew the lot it bonds with Will. Will’s family had not been thrilled with his choice of a naval career but now with a dragon, he must do his duty to king and country and join the Aerial Corps, no place for a gentleman. Adventures abound as the dragon Temeraire, and Will train together to fight the war and find that Temeraire is exceptional even for a dragon. Novik’s dragons are fully developed characters adding to the charm of this series. ?
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Teen/ Issues/ Life is Hard
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Iggy Corso tries, he really does, to get along in school but things just seem to always go wrong for him. His mother has disappeared and his father is always stoned so when he gets kicked out of school for what may be the last time, he really has no one to go to. Looking up Mo, a former mentor who dropped out of law school and the mentoring program, Iggy finds himself at the digs of the dealer who has made his life hell. When he is taken to Mo’s parents' home he sees what life is like outside the projects. Mo’s mom sees the goodness in Iggy and tries to help him but Iggy’s life is on its own path. Going has done a superb job of creating a living breathing character who is very sweet but was dealt a bad hand. I'm rooting for this one for the major YA lit awards and lists.
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Crime/ Suspense
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Mitch Rafferty, is pretty darn happy with his life, only in his mid-twenties he owns his own gardening business, he is happily married to Holly and they are contemplating having children, and they own their own (inherited) home but his contentment comes to a screetiching halt when his cell phone rings and he is told that Holly has been kidnapped and he needs to come up with 2 million dollars in 60 hours. The kidnappers, to prove their seriousness shoot a man walking a dog across the street. How is a gardener going to come up with two million? Returning home he finds that the scene has been set to make it appear he killed Holly and hid her body. A visit to his parents just shows how horribly messed up they are, intellectuals who had a totally skewed vision of how to raise children. As Mitch races through dangers to find a way to rescue Holly, Holly works on rescuing herself. Even though this isn’t Koontz at his best it will keep the reader turning the pages.
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Adventure/ Maniacs, Murderers, Psychopaths and Serial Killers
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A mysterious package turns up at the Museum of Natural History causing a panic when an administrator believes it is Anthrax. It turns out to be something much worse. The priceless gem collection that was stolen in an earlier book has been turned to grit and returned. In an attempt to build some positive publicity for the museum following this disaster archaeologist, Nora Kelly, is put in charge of opening an exhibition of the Egyptian tomb walled up in the basement of the museum. The Tomb of Senef had been one of the original exhibitions when the museum first opened but it was closed and bricked up in the 1930s following events the museum wanted hidden. Agent Aloysius Pendergast is being held in a Federal Maximum security prison that has never seen a successful escape but he is the only one that can stop the terror that is brewing in the museum. This is definitely the concluding volume of a trilogy so readers should start with Brimstone and Dance of Death before reading this.
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Crime/ Noir/ Mystery/ Historical/ 1950s
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Kristin Van Dijk was only seventeen on the west Texas October night in 1952 when an outlaw biker gang overran Henry’s pool room killing her father and Henry’s son, beating and gang raping her, and burning the place to the ground. Henry, a Chinese immigrant, and Kristin survive. When they are healed from the beatings they wonder why the police don’t seem to be concerned with chasing down the murderers. The insurance company has paid the claim as an accidental fire. Henry and Kristin start training to survive, knowing that they won’t be safe as long as the four bikers are on the loose and that there is a mystery behind why they targeted Kristin’s father, a pool shark. Kristin takes up her father’s trade and acquires the nickname Baby Shark. This first novel is Texas noir at its best. Readers will be eagerly awaiting Baby Shark’s Beaumont Blues.
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Fantasy/ Shape Shifters
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Whitfield has created a stunning world populated by werewolves and policed by the few non-lycanthropes born each generation. Lola Mae Galley works for DORLA, the agency in charge of policing full-moon nights when when lycos become lunes and are supposed to lock themselves in their homes or in a shelter to keep people and possessions safe. Barebacks, those who would be normal in our world, face discrimination and have only one career open to them after their separate and not equal education. When a couple of officers are murdered with silver bullets, Lola is sucked into a mystery at the same time she is entering into a relationship with one of her “client’s” social workers. Part mystery, part romance, this shape shifter fantasy is a compelling story.
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YA/ Issues/ Abuse
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Edgar winner, Werlin, combines suspense with real life problems as Matt and his sisters Callie and Emmy try to keep their volatile and unbalanced mother happy. One day in the convenience store they witness Murdoch stopping a kid from being abused and become obsessed with him. For Matt’s birthday, Callie finds Murdoch’s address but their mother finds it and takes them all over to Murdoch's house. They begin dating and kids’ lives look so much better but Murdoch quickly realizes that the mom is unbalanced and breaks up with her. Each day with their mom raises the question of survival. Will she drive the car with all the kids in it into oncoming traffic? The relationships between the siblings are richly depicted and Werlin’s pacing is excruciatingly good. It is a page turner.
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Fantasy/ Paranormal Beings
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Kitty Norville is a late night DJ who bored one night, opens up the phone lines and calls start pouring in from those who claim encounters with or to actually be werewolves and vampires. The show turns into a huge success and soon she becomes Denver’s on-air advisor to the paranormal. Meanwhile she has a secret she has kept from her family for months. With vampires, werewolves, and other paranormals still deep in the closet, her show, The Midnight Hour, makes some feel uneasy, uneasy enough to try to get her show yanked by any means possible, especially when it goes into syndication.
In one way it is fortunate that I have come late to the Kitty series. It means that I can bounce right out and buy the second book in the series -- Kitty Goes to Washington. Readers who enjoy the books of C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp should really like Vaughn’s delightful series.
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Women’s Fiction/ Glitz and Glamour |
Gould, the reigning queen (I should say kings as Gould is the pseudonym of two very hunky guys) of sexy Glitz and Glamour novels has crafted another page turner. When the wife of half-mad Greek tycoon Nikos Papadaki gave birth to identical twin girls, Nikos, believing it to be a curse gave one of the infant girls to his right-hand man Adrian Single to place in a foster home. Ariadne was raised by foster parents on a tiny Greek island until suddenly at the age of ten she was whisked away to Connecticut and a different foster family. Nikoletta, Niki, grew up as a pampered and spoiled heiress, groomed to take the reigns of her late father’s business when she turned 21. In her avaricious hands Papadaki Private Holdings Limited becomes one of the biggest corporate polluters in the world and one with some of the worst labor practices including child labor and an abysmal safety record. Niki, as greedy for sex as for money, can’t stand to see any other woman have a man she can’t have with the result that her machinations cause not only colossal break-ups but one even results in death. Ariadne, a college economics student, meets Matt Foster who claims to be an art restorer, but the former CIA agent is really keeping an eye on her for the board of PPHL because they know that for the company to survive, Niki’s excesses must me neutralized. When the board finds out that the new headquarters building that will also house Niki’s 30,000 square foot penthouse apartment will be done in a few months they decide to make their move and bring Ariadne in to convince her to covertly take Niki’s place. Meanwhile Niki has hired a P.I. to spy on her board which could have deadly consequences. A subplot involves a radical ecology group’s efforts to stop the abuses perpetrated by PPHL. Gould doesn’t stint on the romance front with the story of a PPHL executive and a gorgeous male model as well as the very satisfying romance between Ariadne and Matt. This is great escapist fare.
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