1996 Books of the Week
Vol.1 #3
Horror/Ghosts/Dark Fantasy
Requiem
Graham Joyce
Tor 0312860889
Recently widowed by a weird tragedy, Tom Webster resigns his teaching position and goes to Jerusalem where Sharon, an old college friend lives. In Jerusalem he is haunted by visions of an old Arab woman who seems to be trying to tell him something. He is given a segment of the Dead Sea Scrolls that seems to translate as a very different telling of the crucifixion of Christ from the viewpoint of Mary Magdalene.
Like an onion, layer after layer is peeled gradually going deeper and deeper into the heart of Tom's fears. Requiem is one of those quiet dark fantasies that haunts the reader long after the last page is turned and one that is so enthralling that it must be finished in one sitting.
Science Fiction/Humorous/Alien Beings
Callahan's Legacy
Spider Robinson
Tor 0312857764
The good news is that Robinson's previous Callahan books are going to be reprinted. This is a droll series of stories within stories about the denizens of a saloon where nosy questions are prohibited and a traveler from any time space continuum is welcomed. The bad news is that inCallahan's Legacy the delight is wearing thin.
Jake is the proprietor of Mary's Place the bar he opened when Callahan's was blown up by a nuclear bomb. Jake's beloved Zoey is nine and a half months pregnant when they discover, through the timely appearance of Mary Callahan and her alien spouse Mickey Finn that total annihilation is on the way in the form of a three breasted lizard. In a Heinleinesk maneuver the folks in the bar form a collective consciousness to combat this peril.
Fans of the series will find this a "must read" but it is not the place for the uninitiated to start.
Young Adult/Death and deadly disease
A Time for Dancing
Davida Wills Hurwin
Little, Brown 0316383511
Best friends since age nine, high school seniors Jules and Sam are both talented dancers with promising futures. That is until Julie acquires a pain in her hip that just won't go away. After endless testing the diagnosis is cancer. Sam tries to be a good friend but Jules keeps pushing her away. Told from alternating viewpoints, each of the two girls inner feelings are eloquently portrayed.
This is a poignant and touching story not a manipulative book like so many that elicit tears from the reader. Sam and Jules become real. Be prepared with lots of hankies. Tears streamed down my face for fully half of the book.
Fans of Harry and Norma Fox Mazer's Heartbeat and the many titles by Lurlene McDaniel will love A Time for Dancing.
Crime/Police detectives/New Mexico
Before She Dies
Steven F. Havill
St. Martin's Press 0312139276
Posadas County undersheriff Bill Gastner finds himself in a maelstrom of deception and death after he wrests his service revolver away from a drunk at a high school basketball game. In quick succession the drunk dies, a prominent young woman disappears, a deputy is murdered, and a young reporter shotgunned into near death.
Havill effectively captures the ambiance of the rural southwest. The setting engulfs the reader much as Joan Hess's Maggody captivates her readers. Havill breathes so much life into characters such as the feisty detective who wants to run for sheriff and the the injured but still doggedly determined reporter that the reader knows them as living individuals not just characters on paper.
While Havill's Posadas County series is unique, certain aspects remind me of other beloved series. A couple are Tony Hillerman's southwest when Chee or Leaphorn must interact in the Anglo world and Lawrence Sander's Francis X. Delany from the early "Deadly Sins" books, aging but not too old yet.
Crime/Amateur sleuths/senior citizen sleuths
The Historical Society Murder
Mystery
Graham Landrum
St. Martin's Press 0312142559
In this fourth mystery solved by the senior citizens of Borderville, Tennesse and Viginia, a million dollar painting that had been left to the historial society is discovered to be a forgery. As the assorted sleuths investigate the crime they discover that Randy Hartwell, a wealthy bohemian type, who has been murdered was involved with the crime.
The elderly sleuths are charming, each participating in whatever way he or she can. Graham Landrum died in 1995 so it is doubtful that more additions will be made to this delightful series. The earlier titles were The Sensational Music Club Mystery, The Rotary Club Murder Mystery, and The Famous DAR Murder Mystery.
Young Adult/Science Fiction/Horror
Mind Storms
Neal Shusterman
Tor 0812551982
Memorable and intriguing short stories by a rising star in the YA sf/fantasy genre. Shusterman presents several different thought provoking scenarios ranging from a missing child turned into a tropical storm to a suitcase full of strange clothing transforming a boy into something else. While enjoyable by (and probably written for) middle schoolers, older fans of short science fiction will also find this a good read.
Romance/Historical/Ireland/Medieval
The Conquered Heart
Denee Cody
Zebra 082175002x
Denee Cody is the best writer of medieval romances out there today. In The Conquered Heart Irish princess and healer Eve MacMurrough finds herself reluctantly being won over by Richard de Clare, the Norman knight her father has brought over to the Emerald Isle to help him win his kingdom back. Eve's great love is her land and people and she will do whatever necessary to protect them. The conflicts between the couple are genuine not contrived revolving around the ways the two different cultures see each other.
The characterizations are deft and sure, the plot is intriguing, and the twelfth century Irish countryside and town of Dublin are beautifully drawn in making the reader smell the damp and feel the frequent rains.
Cody makes history come alive. She inspires the reader to go look up more about the time and place she writes about. Cody's books belong on library shelves next to those by Diana Gabaldon, Jean Plaidy, and Anya Seton.
Crime/ Women Detectives
Lamb to the Slaughter
Elizabeth Quinn
Pocket 0671527657
Lauren Maxwell has to leave her two children at home when she is called in to play host for a science conference her employer the Wild America Society is sponsoring in the Denali National Monument. Shortly after arriving, a prominent Russian scientist is murdered and Lauren's gun turns out to have been the murder weapon. Other deadly incidents occur as she teams up with widowed Russian scientist Konstantin Zorich to solve the mystery.
Lauren shares many of the qualities of toughness found in Kinsey Millhone and V. I. Warshawski but at the same time her maternal instincts lend a softness to her character as well as a fierceness. She is intelligent and resourceful. How on earth did I miss the first two books in this series? It is a situation that I will have to remedy soon, adding the first two books in the series Murder Most Grizzly and A Wolf in Death's Clothing to my list of future purchases.
Nevada Barr's mystery series features ranger Anna Pigeon and settings in National Parks. Kathryn Lasky Knight's sleuth Callista Jacobs is also a widowed mother.
Crime Reference/Women Detectives
By a Woman's Hand: A Guide to
Mystery Fiction By Women, second edition
Jean Swanson and Dean James
Berkley 0425154726
This terrific reference book is one that no lover of mysteries should be without. Listings of contemporary women mystery writers are arranged in alphabetical order. The listings talk about the author's style, series characters, and other important points. Indexes of character names, geographic settings, and type of detective are invaluable.
By a Woman's Hand is the best bargain I've ever found for helping mystery readers find the books they want. It just arrived yesterday (from Amazon.com) and I have been totally enthralled with it. I don't know how I missed the first edition. It is affordable for mystery readers but all the same, every library that offers any type of reader assistance to mystery readers should have a copy at the desk.
Crime/Amateur Detective/Women Detectives
Secret's Shadow
Alex Matthews
Intrigue Press 0964316137
In her first sleuthing adventure, therapist Cassidy McCabe is devastated to find that a patient she was attracted to committed suicide shortly after placing an unanswered call to her. Bad guys are dogging her for money owed by her ex-husband and a stray cat has adopted her. Into her life strides Zach, brother of the deceased who snares her into helping him solve what he is sure was murder rather than suicide.
Secret's Shadow has everything a new mystery series needs, a feisty heroine with a dose of introspection, a cat, a love interest, and some interesting secondary characters. It will be interesting to see how this series develops.
Romance/Historical/Western
Hunter's Bride
Jessica Wulf
Zebra 0821754637
Engaged to her life long friend but uneasy because of a lack of passion for him, Sarah Hanock is surprised at the overwhelming desire that grips her when she meets the romantic and ruggedly manly scout Orion Beaudine. Her problems with her fiancé's aunt, the formidable Mrs. Colonel Rutledge, escalate as she becomes friends with several other residents of the remote Fort St. Charles including the Rutlege's African American maid and a laundress with a bad reputation. Sarah realizes she is not cut out to be an army wife or to live in a passionless marriage so she breaks her betrothal to Adam Rutledge and becomes a laundress while she awaits Orion's return.
This sprawling Western tale sees Sarah and those around her in danger from a variety of sources including a group of trappers set on rape, a war party of renegade Indians and whites, and a deranged sadist. While Orion Beaudine or Hunter as he is known, is always in on the rescue, Sarah proves herself to be able and resourceful, not waiting for rescue but taking steps to save herself. Hunter is a terrific hero, handsome, strong, and supportive.
The supporting cast of characters is well drawn. Hunter's brothers, one an army lieutenant and the other a Cheyenne warrior are so enticingly portrayed readers will be eagerly awaiting their stories. Sarah's friends Lucy and Theodora come to life on the page. Mrs. Colonel Rutledge, while being a most disagreeable person, has reasons for being so onerous. Dancer, Orion's wolf companion, is a wonderful animal character, and integral to the relationship.
Hunter's Bride is a terrific read and an outstanding western romance. Wulf just gets better and better with every book. She is the Western Romance writer to read.
Romance/Historical/Medieval
The Court of Love
Denee Cody
Zebra 0821753762
Books like The Court of Love were the reason I minored in history in college. Cody brings the twelfth century vividly to life in this tale of a willful orphan who refuses to marry a child. Wealthy heiress Julianna Devereux, countess of Rosmar is sent to serve the imprisoned Eleanor of Aquitaine in the last days of King Henry's reign. When the king dies, the new king, Richard the Lion Heart sends Stephan de Manville to guard his mother. Stephan, a knight has dark secrets in his past and as an illegitimate son of an Earl is in no way suitable for Julianna who has been betrothed against her will to her eight year old cousin.
Against a lavishly depicted backdrop of political intrigue and social mores, Julianna and Stephan unwillingly fall in love. An abduction leads them into deadly danger and results in a perilous journey involving an odious disguise.
So skillfully written, it makes Cody my pick to be the next great success a la Jude Deveraux. Cody's passion for medieval history is infectious. She so subtlely but entirely immerses the reader in her time period it becomes difficult to re-enter the 20th century. One learns interesting aspects of racism, trade, and every day life in the twelfth century. Her earlier book, The Conquered Heart, has been moved to the top of my TBR pile.
Science Fiction/Militaristic/Space
Opera/Romance
Shards of Honor
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen 0671720872
Update!!! Shards of Honor is also on audio tape from the Reader's Chair. This is a great book to listen to and the audio provides a whole new perspective. Be sure to check the February 1998 issue of AudioFile for the review.
This is my favorite "comfort" novel. It is a swashbuckling tale of honor, heroism, and love that spans several planets. Betan Commander Cordelia Naismith discovers that her expeditionary force has fled the planet they were surveying after being attacked by Barrayaran force. While she tries to bury the one crew member left dead in the destroyed camp, Aral Vorkosigan an injured Barrayaran officer shows up plunging them into a relationship that defies both their cultures.
I always find it harder to write about my favorite books than about others. I just cannot do justice to the writer's work. Bujold is terrifically skilled at portraying the political machinations that take place in disparate cultures as well as evocatively shaping an intimate world of fully realized multi-dimensional personal relationships. One of the wonderful things about this story of Cordelia and Aral is that it continues on in Barrayar and beyond.
Fantasy/Magic/Alternate & Parallel
Worlds
Drum Warning
Jo Clayton
Tor 031286177x
In the first book of the Drums of Chaos series, master fantasist Clayton introduces the reader to a huge cast of characters, living in a variety of lands on different worlds. But the one thing in common is that a huge disruption in the pneuma has started. Sometimes the sky writhes and boils, assuming a cottage cheesy type texture. It portends a time of chaos and change when the worlds of Glandair and Iomard will meet.
One of the most fascinating aspects is the way magical powers are invoked by the three mages trying to manipulate events to come out on top. One mage has magic devices tattooed all over his body, while another paints magical designs on when he needs them, and the third gowns herself in silvery wire twisted into magical meaning.
I did find the huge cast of characters hard to follow. The most memorable are Cymel, a young daughter of both worlds who seems to have powerful magic of unknown dimensions and Lyanz, a wealthy merchant's son who may be the hero needed for the time of Chaos.
Jo Clayton is always enjoyable to read but be forewarned this work merely the first part of a series and one must wait for subsequent books to be published to find out what happens. An other long intricate series that readers of Drum Warning may enjoy is the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Crime/Senior Citizen Sleuths/Amateur Sleuths
Death in a Distant Land
Nancy Livingston
Worldwide 1555048072
G.D.H. Pringle and the irrepressible Mavis Bignell are on holiday to Australia. Their cut-rate charter puts them in the company of FONE, The Friends of Nuclear Energy, who are looking for good dumping sites. On the first leg of the trip, Mavis befriends good looking flight steward Evan who unbenownst to her, involves her in a drug smuggling scheme. The sprightly couple are also on the trail of a missing child, the grandson of one of Mavis's friends from the pub.
Delightful characters, interesting settings, and a multi-faceted plot make this a good choice for readers who enjoy the Mrs. Pollifax series written by Dorothy Gilman.
Crime/Historical Mystery
The Venus Throw
Steven Saylor
St. Martin's Press 0312119127
The fourth book in the series about the ancient Roman equivalent of a private investigator takes Gordianus the Finder into the dark and dismal realms of perversion and politics. He is surprised in his study when Dio, a philosopher he knew and admired in Alexandria comes to visit dressed in women's apparel and accompanied by a gallus (castrated priest). Later, Gordianus is hired by Clodia, a wealthy and scandalous matron, to investigate Dio's murder finding that his impressions of people are not always true.
The historical detail and richly depicted setting evoke a feeling of "really being there" and makes ancient Rome come alive in a rich and vibrant way that is never found in history books.
Lindsey Davis also writes historical mysteries set in Rome. For more listings of Historical Mysteries consult Genreflecting:A Guide to Reading Interests in Genre Fiction
Fantasy/Historical Fantasy/ Alternate Worlds
Season of Storms
Ellen Foxxe
DAW 0886776929
The second book in the Summerlands series takes place approximately five years after the events in Season of Shadows. Katin Ander, aka Princess Oriana, must make some difficult decisions regarding her future and the future of the throne of Albin. Rolande, aka Vendeley, now a privateer for New Albin is quite successful as a spy and pirate.
This is a good middle book of a trilogy. It can stand alone, having a beginning, a middle, and an end but would probably be better enjoyed by reading it in order in the series. While not outstanding it is a good, entertaining read.
Science Fiction/Post-apocalypse
Amnesia Moon
Jonathan Lethem
Tor 0312862202
Chaos or is his name Emmett, dreams realities for other people. The narrative starts off in the small town of Hatfork, Wyoming where mutants are living in segregation. Chaos, their leader lives in the projection booth of a multiplex and nightly battles Kellogg in his dreams. Escaping with Melinda, a young fur covered girl, Chaos hits the road and finds that different dreamers control different territories and that he is always affected while Melinda is not. In his travels he discovers that he has another name and remembers a previous life and love.
The communities he encounters are truly bizarre. In one he is blinded by the color green that fills the world. In an other he falls in love with an unlucky woman who must change residences twice a week.
Amnesia Moon is an interesting surrealistic experiment but no where near the equal of Lethem's Gun, with Occasional Music which is a strange and unusual masterpiece that has cohesiveness and enough of a plot to be totally enthralling.
Science Fiction/Nanotechnology/Time
Travel/Bioengineering
The Bones of Time
Kathleen Ann Goonan
Tor 0312859163
The promise shown in Goonan's Queen City Jazz is fully realized in this tale of a near future Hawaii. Two different stories with two different casts of characters are entwined, building on each other, but only linked by the bones of a long dead heroic king. Cen, a young runaway in Honolulu of 2007, is bewitched by visits from Kaiulani, the last princess of Hawaii. A romantic obsession develops leading him to a mathematical trail to achieve time travel. In 2034 Lynn, a scientist, estranged from her prominent family meets another young man, 13 year old Akamu, the spitting image of the long dead King Kamehameha. She saves him from being murdered and flees with him to China and then to Tibet and Thailand as he tries to reconstruct Cen's mathematical proofs. Meanwhile in the background the monolithic Interspace Corp. builds a starship that they will never be able to succesfully use.
Goonan, who is one of the current bright lights in the SF world, writes complex, involving stories with believable science and multi-dimensional characters. The Bones of Time is thoroughly enthralling.
Connie Willis's Nebula award winning Doomsday Book also features time travel and strong characterization. Somewhere In Time also published as Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson is also about a male character who becomes obsessed with a woman from the past and searches for a way to join her.
Historical/Coming of Age/Juvenile
Belle Prater's Boy
Ruth White
FSG 0374306680
When I was in New York for ALA I heard a lot of talk about Belle Prater's Boy and it was well deserved. The main characters are 12 years old making them awful young for a young adult book but this simple looking book is so complex, fully realized, and multi-dimensional that thoughtful readers of all ages will enjoy it.
Gyspy, the narrator, is also sometimes know as Beauty since she is pretty and popular and in the little town of Coal Station, Virginia in 1954 she is society. Her cross-eyed cousin Woodrow moves in with their grandparents next door after his mother Belle goes missing. Woodrow has grown up in a remote holler, poor in material goods but rich in the stories and jokes he had shared with his mother.
As Gypsy and Woodrow become best friends they find out about the hidden secrets that have shaped their family and themselves.
Belle Prater's Boy is one of those coming of age stories where the characters are so real that they live forever in one's memory. I would group this book with Lois Lowry's The Giver and Kathryn Lasky's Memoirs of a Bookbat as outstanding novels for all ages...juvenile to adult. Ruth White is also the author of Weeping Willow a Best Book for Young Adults selection and another terrific read.
Romance/Erotica/Short Stories
Secrets
Bonnie Hamre, Alice Gaines, Ivy Landon, Jeanie
LeGendre
Red Sage 0964894203
Four very romantic very sexy novellas in very different styles and settings. Virginia Henley and Bertrice Small the queens of the sensous romance genre both "blurbed" the book. All four stories have good solid, growing relationships, between a man and a woman. The settings are quite diverse taking the reader from Regency England to a remote and mysterious fantasy land, to an Arabian nights type setting, and finally to a contemporary urban setting. All the stories are explicit and the Hamre and Landon stories sizzle.
Bonnie Hamre's very erotic "A Lady's Quest" leads Lady Antonia Blair-Sutworth on an annonymous quest for the perfect lover to keep her out of the cluches of the very handsome Duke of Southerland for whom she could really fall.
Ivy Landon's "The Proposal" has some very interesting twists and turns as a frigid executive discovers that sensuality can enhance true love.
The fantasy world setting of Alice Gaines "The Spinner's Dream" makes the reader want more. I'd love to see a novel set in this world where a male sex slave has escaped and been hidden by a priestess in a remote hut. The world has the same feel as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover or the world of Elvenbane and Elvenblood created by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey.
The Sultan in Jeanie LeGendre's "The Gift" is the kind of man anyone would want to take home. In fact the men featured in all the stories are terrific, they all want to please and pleasure their women.
If you like erotic romance you will love Secrets.
Science Fiction/Detection/Nanotechnology
Murder in the Solid State
Wil McCarthy
Tor 0312859384
Not only an enthralling mystery, Murder in the Solid State presents fascinating glimpses of a near future where nanotechnology has changed the face of crime and civilization. Young scientist David Sanger is about to present two important papers on his developments in nanotechnology when his arch-rival, one of the most prominent scientists of the day, attacks him with a "drop foil" one of the only weapons that can circumvent the sniffers that have made the world a safer place. Another foil is thrust into David's hand with which he fences Vandergroot into submission. Sometime after returning to his room, David is arrested for Vandergroot's murder but that is only the first of a series of murders that send David into hiding. An interesting use of virtual reality games plays into the plot by David and his girlfriend Marian to expose and stop the real perpetrators of the crimes.
Murder in the Solid State is an unput-downable book. It pulls no punches in combining the best of near future hard science SF with edge of the seat suspense. Highly recommended.
Crime/Amateur detective/Historical mystery
The Cover Girl Killer : A Hobart
Lindsey/Marvia Plum Mystery
Richard A. Lupoff
St. Martin's Press 031213455X
Insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey and police detective Marvia Plum are vacationing at Lake Tahoe. Marvia's son Jamie and his friend are taking videos of their fishing expedition when a helicopter flying overhead begins the falter, thinking fast, Jamie ends up recording the entire crash leading to a discovery of murder. The dead passenger, P. Vansittart, was a policy holder with Hobart's employer International Surety. His unusual policy leaves four million dollars to a model whose picture was on the cover of an obscure paperback published several decades ago by an obscure and long defunct publisher. If she is found IS saves a million in finder's fees; if she's not found the Indigent Artists Fund, that employees Hobart's archenemy, will become the beneficiary.
Hobart searches for the model taking the reader through a fascinating tour of the history of paperback publishing with touches of the story of the Lincoln Brigade and the Spanish Civil War.
Lupoff's Hobart and Marvia mysteries never fail to satisfy. The growth of the relationship between the interracial couple and the evolution of Hobart's mother have added a depth to the series. The personal relationships in The Cover Girl Killer take a surprising turn making the reader anxious to read the forthcoming Silver Chariot Killer.
Romance/Contemporary
On Wings of Magic
Kay Hooper
Bantam 0553569651
Kendall James, looking and acting like a dumb blond shows up at a luxury island resort owned by Hawke Madison. Somehow he recognizes that she is a sensitive, caring, vulnerable individual and showers her with gifts in an expensive courtship.
Hooper is a prolific and popular author. I did get all the way through the book because I thought there would be some revelation that would bring all the elements together to make sense. The glamorous trappings and the suspense in the relationship were masterfully done but for me, the romance never made sense. I could see how Hawke and Kendall would love each other after they delved below the surface but I never did get any sense of why Hawke even wanted to meet her in the first place or why he would so relentlessly pursue her.
Crime/Amateur/Humorous
Skinny Annie Blues
Neal Barrett, Jr.
Kensington 157566058x
Wiley Moss, a Washington D.C. illustrator specializing in insect work, receives a telephone call informing him that his dad has died. Now Wiley, who hasn't seen the old man in seventeen years, not since he was arrested for stealing a fabulous French racing bike to give Wiley for his sixteenth birthday is so surprised he jumps right on an airplane to head to Galveston and find out who murdered Dad. He meets bizarre folks and has strange and unfullfilling sexual encounters. Everyone seems to know who he is including several people who want to kill or maim him. While billed as a mystery, there isn't much mystery to it. There is however some humor, not on a par with Carl Hiaasen, Mark Childress, or Elmore Leonard but all the same flashes of brilliance make Barrett an author to watch. Grace and Git, a blind mom and her deaf/silent young son are an engaging pair who together with the use of tapped out signals are capable of driving a car. And of course, you've just got to love a book that starts chapter 39, "The guy who drove the cab was from Pakistan or Utah or somewhere like that."
Poor old Wiley could use some real personality but if he develops some in future escapades (the cover says "A Wiley Moss Mystery") this is a series that could go places.
Crime/Police Detective/Woman detective
Genealogy of Murder
Lee Martin
St. Martin's Press 0312139756
Mom, grandma, and Fort Worth Police Department Major Crime team detective Deb Ralston is at it again. Her millionaire son-in-law has called her to the "body farm" (much like the one in Patricia D. Cornwell's book of that name) where an extra corpse has turned up. One would expect to find corpses there, after all it is a place for scientists, pathologists, and law enforcement to learn about rates of human decomposition under different conditions. But this corpse does not exhibit the symptoms of a normal dead, unprocessed body. It has already been embalmed. No bodies are missing in the Fort Worth-Dallas area so Deb is out to find out who he was. A local genealogist has gone missing who bears remarkable similarities to the corpse and then Deb's buddy Matilda who was ghost writing for the fellow is kidnapped. We get to see more of Deb's relatives and it is good to see that she is calming down her religious fervor a little.
This is the 12th outing for Deb and since I have read the entire series it is hard to discern if it would really stand alone. The reader would derive greater enjoyment by becoming acquainted with the characters in the sequence they were written.
Science Fiction/Time Travel
Historical/19th century/San Francisco
The Golden Nineties
Lisa Mason
Bantam Spectra 0553373315
Mason has penned one of the most enthralling SF novels of the year. Set in the same world as Summer of Love but in different times, she once again evokes a sense of place so real that one can smell it and feel the air of time on one's own skin. Chiron Cat's Eye in Draco plays a cameo role in the story of Zhu Wong, a 25th century Chinese woman, a Daughter of Compassion, who is imprisoned for possible murder. Her ticket out of jail is the Golden Nineties project. Tachyported to San Francisco in 1895, Zhu's mission is to find the aurelia, a golden brooch, and insure that it will be put into the hands of a green eyed Chinese woman not yet born. Equipped with a neckjack and an archive of information from an artificial intelligence called Muse, she sets out into the wild and woolly world of 1895 San Francisco. Jessie, Queen of the Underworld, purchases her from a tong (gang) and employees her as an accountant to keep the accounts straight for both her brothel and the cribs she owns. The seamy underside of 19th century life rife with prostitution, gangs, drug abuse, and slavery is evocative depicted.
This mature, thought provoking, and multi-faceted work has been nominated for the Best Books for Young Adults list.
Science Fiction/Alien Beings
The Galactic Gourmet
James White
Tor 0312861672
The ninth book in the beloved Sector General series jumps on the culinary bandwagon that has been so big in mystery and is now moving into the other genres. The only disappointment to be found is the lack of recipes but considering that the ingredients would be impossible to obtain this can be overlooked.
Gurronsevas, the most renowned chef in the galactic federation is a kind and caring being underneath his massively rugged six legged exterior. He truly has a mission in life to make dining an enjoyable experience for all he can. When he hears of the terrible food offered on Sector General, an enormous interspecies hospital on the galactic rim, he leaves his position as the esteemed chef of the most important interspecies hotel in the galaxy to help alleviate suffering by providing palatable meals for staff and patients. One of his first projects is to create a food substance that will act like the rapidly moving food savored by a race of water breathers. His efforts are complicated by working with a chlorine breathing nurse. Always trying to make dining enjoyable he finds himself involved in accidents that came out of his research. Told in a series of vignettes, Gurronsevas eventually finds himself and his culinary prowess the only possible salvation for a first contact species.
Crime/Women Detectives/Amateur Detectives
Margaret Chittenden
Dying to Sing
Kensington Books 1575660520
Meg Chittenden introduces a new sleuth to the mystery scene with Charlie Plato, ex-wife, ex-anorexic, and new co-owner of a San Francisco area country-western dance club. An earthquake rocks the club and when standing out front to assess damage, Charlie sees a skeletal foot in a fissure that has opened up in a flowerbed. With the help of business partner, Zack Hunter a former tv star and major hunk, Charlie snoops into the doings of neighbors and friends. In addition to a likeable cast, Chittenden provides some realistic romance elements leaving the reader hoping for future books. Dying to Sing is a delightful read for some hot summer relaxation.
Always willing to go against conventional wisdom, I do sometimes judge a book by its cover. OK, only so far as to picking it up or not to begin with. I am always enticed by attractive covers and this one is a delight. The book is also a comfy size and shape, larger than a mass market paperback but smaller than many standard hard cover ones.