Vol. 12 #
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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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Teen/ Historical Fiction
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Amari, a fifteen year old anticipating her wedding witnesses the slaying of everyone in her African village but the strong young adults who are taken captive as slaves. After surviving the horrifying middle passage she is bought at auction as a gift for Clay Derby the son of a plantation owner in South Carolina. Polly, born in Beaufort, Carolina Colony is an indentured servant with fourteen years to serve for her parent’s debt who is sent to Derbyshire Farm at the same time and ordered to train Amari who has been renamed Myna. This harrowing tale of life for both girls and those they meet brings the early 18th century vividly to life. It is full of adventure as the two girls and the cook’s young son who had been used as alligator bait escape and head south toward Spanish Florida. Draper is known for her fine and compelling contemporary fiction but with Copper Sun she proves that she has what it takes to write compelling historical fiction with characters who come to life in a well researched milieu. It is one of those rare books that keeps the reader thinking and wondering about history long after the pages are closed.
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Science Fiction/ Bioengineering Themes |
The planet Fremont with its multitude of moons and hostile flora and fauna was settled by a colony that abhorred genetic manipulation. When a new ship of colonists, all with genemods arrives two centuries later the two groups find it impossible to live together and a war breaks out leaving six genemodified orphans behind when the few surviving new colonists depart. Adopted by settlers, Chelo, Joseph, Bryan, Liam, Alicia, and Kayleen try to use their biological advantages to help the community but still face discrimination. Alicia, adopted by one of the two wandering bands on the planet is treated as a prisoner of war. Kayleen has a loving adoptive mother. Liam is expected to succeed his adoptive father as leader of the other roving band. Chelo and Joseph, siblings by birth, are very happy as the adopted children of the leaders of Aristos, the only city on the planet but when those parents die forces prove that none of the six gen modified teens are safe. Politics drives this thoughtful tale of survival in a strange land. After a slow moving beginning the pace picks up and while the story comes to a satisfactory conclusion it leaves room and anticipation for a sequel.
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Science Fiction/ Bleak Future
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When a pandemic wipes almost every human of the planet sometime in the early 1990s, fifteen-year-old Eric survives. Sixty years later he is the elder in a small community of scavengers living in the remains of Littleton, Colorado. Van Pelt skillfully weaves the tale of teenaged Eric in the days after the pandemic hits Colorado with the elder Eric whose fears for his grandchildren and the other children born after the apocalypse take him on a quest to the University of Colorado Library in Boulder. Van Pelt's first novel is the best post-apocalptic novel in years.
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Romance/ Contemporary Romance/ Humorous
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Skye Wright is fairly new to Rock Creek but has made quite an impact with her belly dancing classes. Sheriff Nathan Thornton didn’t know who she was until he stopped her speeding and she wouldn’t stop shimmying her perfect body in her very sexy belly dancing costume so he had to handcuff her and take her to the jail. Her many new friends including a nun and Owen, the local undertaker all show up to protest. When she buys a lottery ticket for Owen as a thanks for bailing her out he gives it back to her and it turns out to be a million dollar winner which she uses to buy and restore the town’s dilapidated old theater. Somebody doesn’t want her to succeed and Nathan is going to make sure she won’t be hurt. Can a bad girl (in her own non-conforming mind) and a good cop find happiness together? Linz writes the best feel good romances out there. Witty dialog, delightful characters, and fast paced plots all add up to a terrific read. This is a companion novel to Good Girls Do that presents the romance between Skye’s sister Julia, a librarian in neighboring Serenity Falls.
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Speculative Fiction/ Fantasy/ Urban Fantasy/ Detective Fantasy
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Druid Connor Grey, once a shining rising star in the Guild, has lost his outstanding magical abilities in a bombing and is now eking out a living on disability payments. When a series of grisly murders strike fairy prostitutes in the grungy part of Boston called the Weird he is called in as a consultant by the police. The murderer leaves warded stones on each of the fairy’s wings and removes the victims heart leaving an unusual stone in its place. This gritty urban fantasy features a unique version of our world created about a hundred years ago when a convergence moved the world of faerie into our plane of existence. The rivalry between fairies and elves came with them and played a part in World War II. Now the Guild keeps all the high profile cases involving the fey and other cases are relegated to the human police department. The world is enticing and del Franco’s style of combing mystery noir and urban fantasy is truly satisfying.
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Crime/ Mystery & Detective Stories/ Amateur Detectives
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Steve Cline is down in Louisville to help his newly found father Chris Kessler in the two weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby and with time to kill he decides to work on an assignment for the private investigation class he is taking. Randomly picking a young woman who comes into the horse barn as his investigative target he soon finds himself in the middle of a mystery. He is roughed up at a party by two men looking for a tape that he knows nothing about. Going by his subject’s home he finds her missing and her keys in the street. Ehrman brings Louisville and the backside and shedrows of Churchill Downs vividly to life as the suspects and clues come together in a thoroughly satisfying mystery.
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Crime/ Noir/ Mystery/ Historical/ 1950s
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Kristin Van Dijk is back, now as a PI in partnership with Otis Millett and on the case of a missing seventeen-year-old oil heiress. Sherry Beasley has run away from her mansion and the relatives who want to keep her alive until her eighteenth birthday to secure their parts of the inheritance. In the past Otis and Kristin had retrieved her when she had run away to be with her lowlife friends. This time something is different. Could Sherry have actually been a kidnap victim? Kristin is a kick-ass heroine not afraid to mix it up with gangsters and Fate is not afraid to throw in blood and gore that works well in his fast paced 1950s mystery thriller. Baby Shark is currently my favorite mystery series. Read an interview with Robert Fate.
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Teen/ Fantasy/ Magic / Mythic Reality
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Reason is in Sydney with Jay-Tee, Tom, and her grandmother Esmerelda to learn magic. Her mother Sarafina is in a mental institution. When the door that leads to New York begins to pulsate and writhe a reddish brown blob comes through that bites Tom and then burrows into Reason making her feel very strange. In this version of our world almost everyone is imbued with some degree of magic although most don’t know it and those with a strong magical talent get closer to death every time they use it but if they don’t use it they descend into madness. With the door behaving so strangely the three teens take turns watching it but it sucks Reason through in her lightweight summer pjs so she ends up in New York city in a dead of winter snow storm. She cannot go back through the door to Sydney because an awful smelling man who has the same smell as the the blob they had decided was a golem is guarding it. Calling Danny, JT’s, brother who has a total lack of magic she ends up staying at his apartment while looking for the mysterious man with the awful smell. I missed Madness or Magic so I would have to say that Magic Lessons stands alone but it does make one want to go back and read it. This is a page turner of a story with just enough told to let a reader understand what has gone on before. The magic system and the Cansino family are fascinating. I can’t wait for the next book in the series. One of the things I really love about this book is that the Australian characters use Australian English and the American characters American English.
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Women's Lives/ Chick Lit / Women's Fiction
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Diedre McIntosh has made her (quickly frittered away) fortune showing the women of Seattle how to live simply and simply live on television. At forty she has given up on romantic relationships, perfectly happy to live in harmony with her gay best friend. Suddenly life as she knows it comes to an abrupt halt when her show is canceled when a local celebrity starts a competing show and her roommate falls in love and moves out of the apartment. Unfortunately the lease was not in her name so she is unemployed, almost broke (too many pairs of Manolos), and homeless. After an expensive lunch with her financial advisor, Diedre discovers she doesn’t have her wallet and is rescued by Kevin Johnson who when he meets up with her again offers her the use of his cabin at Lake Wish near the tiny village of Jacob’s Point, for which he draws a map. Out of options she takes him up on his offer and finds the cabin primitive and dirty but at least it is a roof over her head where she can try to regroup. As she becomes part of the community she begins to grow and change as she puts into to practice what she has been preaching for years. This feel good book has more substance than most chick lit and not as much angst as most women’s fiction. A delightful entertaining book.
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Teen Fantasy/ World of Faerie/ Fairy Tales/
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Marillier merges the fairy tales of the "Twelve Dancing Princesses" with the "Frog Prince" and throws in the vampire-like Night People in medieval Transylvania. Five sisters are left to winter in their castle, Piscul Draculi, that sits at the edge of the wildwood when their beloved merchant father travels to a distant place to regain his health. Jenica, the second daughter, the sensible one has a pet frog who is her best friend and with whom she communicates telepathically. All five girls travel through a secret portal in their room to the faerie kingdom every full moon where they spend the night dancing with all manner of fey. That winter, a band of Night People shows up and Tati, the eldest daughter falls in love with Shadow, a young man who has arrived with them. Back in the real world a young woman is found dead with puncture wounds in her neck and the sisters’ cousin Cezar organizes nightly hunts that bring disaster for one of the girls’ fey friends. Adventure, romance, and a delicious take on beloved fairy tales make Marillier’s first novel for teens a winner that will resonate with adult readers as well as with the publisher’s intended audience.
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Romance/ Contemporary
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Dean Robillard, a Chicago Stars football icon is driving across the country on his way to his Tennessee home when he picks up Blue Bailey, a diminutive woman dressed in a headless beaver costume. Dumped by her boyfriend and financially cleaned out by her activist mother, Blue, an off-beat artist goes along with Dean to Garrison, Tennessee, a small town owned by the over the top disagreeable Anita Garrison. At the farm an eleven-year-old girl named Riley who thinks Dean is her brother shows up followed eventually by Jack Patriot an aging rocker who is her father. April, Dean’s mother a former groupie, who still looks like a model has been putting Dean’s house in order, hired under an alias by the real estate agent, and unknown to Dean. Both Dean and Blue had horrible childhoods being mostly raised by strangers as Dean’s mother followed bands and Blue’s followed causes. Phillips is known for her sparkling dialog and feel good stories.
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Teen/ Horror & Paranormal/ Vampires
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Quincie Morris is in love with her lifelong best friend Kieren Morales who just happens to be half werewolf. She is sort of being raised by her young uncle since her parents died leaving her an Italian restaurant that had been in her family for years. With the restaurant in danger of going under her uncle who is dating a vampire wannabe has decided that it should sport a vampire theme so Sanguini’s is born. A few weeks before the grand re-opening, while they are still working out the menu, the chef who has virtually been Quincie’s grandfather, is savagely murdered in the kitchen in what appears to be a wolf attack. A new chef is hired and Quincie works on making him appear vampire-like and creating a suitable menu. While her life spirals out of control the new chef takes her under his wing and they start drinking wine together, she begins to suspect Kieren, and she allows both her Franklin Planner and school to fall by the way side. Tantalize is a seductive read, perfect to savor with it myriad twists and turns. Unlike many recent novels, the vampires here aren’t sexy heroes. This delectable novel is already creating quite a buzz among teen readers with good reason.
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Teen/ Contemporary/ Romance
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Hartinger’s latest to feature Russel, Min, and Gunnar from The Geography Club and The Order of the Poison Oak just goes to prove that he is one of the very best writing for teens today. Split Screen features two novellas that relate the events that occur during the same space of time while the Geography Club members are involved as extras in the filming of a horror movie. Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies is Russel’s story where he deals with being pursued by Kevin, the jock who wants him back, while at the same time his long distance boyfriend Otto is coming to visit, and worst of all his parents discover that he is gay. Min’s take is presented in Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies as she makes a mistake that causes problems for Russel and she falls in love with an other extra in the movie. The characters are real living breathing people and nothing is portrayed in black and white. Even the antagonists are fairly and generously portrayed. There are really no bad guys, just people with conflicting views. Min’s mom is terrific and the little story she tells as well as the story Gunnar uses to help both Russel and Min in their own dilemmas is terrific. They echo the book in showing that story is how we learn and grow. Kudos to Hartinger for his masterful storytelling. Split Screen is teen romance at its very best and the “flip the book” format is fun.
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