Year: 2024

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#BlogTour: The Body Next Door by Maia Chance

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a book with an intriguing mix of magical realism, cults, and a dual timeline mystery/ thriller. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Body Next Door by Maia Chance.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookHype.com / BookBub.com / TheStoryGraph.com / Goodreads.com):

Mystery/ Thriller With Cults And Magical Realism? Yes Please. First off, if you’re turned off by any discussion of cults… this book likely isn’t your thing. If you’re turned off by any element of magical realism… this book probably isn’t your thing. If you can’t handle books dealing with domestic violence and/ or sexual assault/ rape… this book probably isn’t your thing. If you can’t handle books with multiple POVs… this book probably isn’t your thing. If you’re turned off by books with dual timelines… this book probably isn’t your thing. If you’re turned off by books with any LGBT characters at all… this book probably isn’t your thing.

With all of *that* out of the way, I thought this book was done particularly well and told a not-overly-typical (because it dealt so intrinsically with cults/ life after cults) tale in new and interesting ways (re: magical realism elements). All of the various elements work well to create a story with an admittedly slow start that absolutely heats up later in the text, particularly during a somewhat detailed account of the night everything came crashing down in the earlier timeline. The overall mystery ties both timelines together well, and while the front of the book can seem a bit disjointed at times with its POV switches, it *does* all come together quite beautifully and dramatically down the stretch.

Ultimately a fun read that is different enough to stick out in a very crowded field of similar ish (re: mystery/ thriller) books, this is definitely one to check out – even if it is a touch longer than some will be comfortable with (just over 400 pages).

Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Body Next Door by Maia Chance”

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#BlogTour: The Bookseller Of Paris by Suzanne Kelman

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a book where one revelation – hidden deep in the past – can change everything. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Bookseller Of Paris by Suzanne Kelman.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookHype.com / BookBub.com / TheStoryGraph.com / Goodreads.com):

One New Revelation Can Change Everything. This is, ultimately, a tale of exactly what the title says. As a dual timeline tale, the linkage here is rare, but rare in the sense of the now-mythical banana chocolate chip cookie from Chips Ahoy – done once years ago, and *may* (HOPEFULLY, in the case of the cookie, I’ve missed it ever since!) eventually come back.

Discussing the 2010s era timeline at all is a spoiler in that it isn’t mentioned at all in the description of the book (at least as it exists at publication in August 2024), but it was one that I could very much relate to given my own family’s history. It was also the timeline where this book could be classified as a romance, but that is all that I will say here.

The WWII story is compelling, though we’ve actually seen its pivotal moment in at least The Last Day In Paris (Book 1 of this series), if not The Paris Orphans (Book 0). The story here is more both how we got to that particular moment and what happens after – both compelling, if at least slightly different, mysteries.

Overall this was a tense book full of both the peril of WWII in so many facets as well as the long tail of its aftermath in so many different ways. Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Bookseller Of Paris by Suzanne Kelman”

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#BookReview: The Vampire’s Valet by Kent Holloway

Stoker Meets Doyle With A Touch Of The MCU Approach. If you love the non-sparkly, dark, horrific, brooding, *evil* vampire lore… you’re gonna love this book. If you love the Sherlock Holmes type detective tale, perhaps with a more solo “beat people until they give you answers” Batman/ Jack Reacher type bent… you’re gonna love this book. If you like MCU style storytelling with a shared universe with lots of different well known characters… you’re gonna love this book.

Here, Holloway clearly shows that he too is a massive fan of all of the above, and he uses his skills as a writer to manage to combine elements of each into a cohesive tale that works both on its own and works to set up a “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” type saga. At just under 300 pages, this isn’t the shortest book out there, but it provides just enough… *ahem* red meat *ahem*… to tell its tale well without overstaying its welcome (a danger, with these types of characters, just sayin) and while effectively both satisfying the reader of this tale and leaving them wanting a subsequent tale in this shared universe.

Meaning the book did its job on all fronts, and did them all well.

Now I just need y’all to fall in love with this book and start preaching its wonders so we can see how far Holloway can take it. 😉

Very much recommended.

This review of The Vampire’s Valet by Kent Holloway was originally written on August 7, 2024.

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#BlogTour: Love And Other Lost Things by Melissa Wiesner

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a tale that will be very difficult for a lot of people – but you should read it anyway. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Love And Other Lost Things by Melissa Wiesner.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookHype.com / BookBub.com / TheStoryGraph.com / Goodreads.com):

Will Be Difficult For Many. Read It Anyway. This book is a romance that is about surviving domestic violence and the lengths some people will go through to do that. It is about the lengths two mothers will go to to protect their children in that situation, as best they can. And yes, there happens to be a second chance romance in there as well. Ultimately, it almost feels as though the romance plays second fiddle to the more women’s fiction domestic violence drama though, even though the book *does* meet all known romance novel “requirements”… *without* going the Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (which also meets them) route. And without being near as explicit in anything, though the “spiciness” here is at least say jalapeno level. So for those that prefer the spice level of maybe a warm glass of milk… read this book for the women’s fiction side and maybe shield your eyes or something when things get more “exciting”. 😉

Ultimately a solid book that does indeed begin to create at least the possibility of some dusty rooms, this really is one that everyone should read, even those who find it most difficult. Perhaps *particularly* those who find it most difficult.

Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Love And Other Lost Things by Melissa Wiesner”

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#BookReview: Polite Calamities by Jennifer Gold

Atmospheric But Long. This book almost feels like a Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but an East Coast variant. It has the same 60s era setting, the same type of fire-based setup and ending, but then tells a more “East Coast” feeling tale of the era, in some ways dealing with some of the same kinds of relational topics… but from that “Old Money” / “High Society” kind of East Coast / New England vibe.

That noted, this is far from a clone of the other, and it does what it does in showing the various relationship dynamics of its ladies – each in different societal strata – remarkably well. Gold clearly put in a lot of effort to make each of these women as real and relatable as possible, and she truly did a good job there – we begin to sympathize to a degree even with our ostensible villain of the tale… even as she continues to show *why* she is the villain. Along the way, we encounter so much of that admittedly lily white social scene and period the tale is set in, in interesting ways that show both the warts and the beauty of each of our characters.

The one real criticism I have here is that the book *does* go perhaps 30-50 pages long. Not a “Return Of The King After The Coronation” slog, but certainly a “this could’ve been trimmed a bit” feeling, at least after completing it. Now, where, exactly, could the cuts have been made… becomes perhaps less clear. Which would perhaps indicate that the book is exactly as long as it needed to be. I’ll leave it to the reader of this review to read the book for yourself and make your own calls there. (Also, please leave a review when you do. They don’t have to be anywhere near as wordy as mine tend to be – 24 words will be accepted on any review site I know of, including the big corporate ones.)

Ultimately this was a solid book of its kind, one that *should* be seen as an equal or perhaps even superior of Malibu Rising… but which clearly hasn’t had Reid’s marketing people behind it. 😉

Very much recommended.

This review of Polite Calamities by Jennifer Gold was originally written on August 1, 2024.

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#BookReview: Textbook Romance by Kristen Bailey

Solid RomCom in Shared World With Other Books From Author. This is one of those books where characters other than our main couple play crucial roles and while it isn’t *completely* obvious that they are pre-existing characters from other books… it also kinda is, or at least was for me. In part because I *did* read Sex Ed, Mia and Ed’s story, and remembered them so distinctly. As it turns out, the other couple that plays crucial roles here, Beth and Will, had their story told in one of Bailey’s other works in another series, Did My Love Life Shrink In The Wash? – book 3 of 5 in the Callaghan Sisters series.

But don’t get me wrong, this book can completely be read as a standalone with no knowledge of the other two books, and the only blatant spoilers aren’t really spoilers… gee, the main couple in a romance novel wound up together… hmmm… *BREAKING NEWS!!!!!* (/sarcasm :D).

As to this tale itself, I thought it worked quite well in showing the difficulties of an age gap romance, if in a slightly more socially acceptable way than the somewhat more common older man- younger woman, instead we get here a bit of a cougar, with an older woman – younger man dynamic… except that it isn’t really cougar so much as friend to lover. The opening prologue sets the scene, with our eventual couple meeting right as our female lead learns devastating news, and the tall proceeds in an almost Gilmore Girls – meets – 2020s manner, with a lot of banter and texting (and sexting, and confusion/ hilarity around the confusion regarding both forms), and, since this *is* set in the UK… soccer. (*NOT* football, no matter what those crazy Brits claim. There are *reasons* we in the US were the first of many to kick them out of our country, and this is just another (more modern) reason they continue to be wrong. :D) (To be clear, 99% of the prior parenthetical statement was a joke. Though they *are* wrong in calling soccer “football”. :D)

If you prefer “clean” / “sweet” romances with the spice level of a warm bowl of oatmeal… this ain’t your thing, as this is closer to jalapeno at least, *maybe* habanero. As in, at 41 years old myself, there are things in this book that I’ve both never done and have lost the flexibility to do. So kudos to our female main character for being so nimble. 😀

Overall a fun, solid romcom with the usual expectations and perhaps a bit more heart than most that manages to take some typical tropes in at least slightly different directions.

Very much recommended.

This review of Textbook Romance by Kristen Bailey was originally written on August 1, 2024.

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#BookReview: One Big Happy Family by Jamie Day

Lots Of Moving Pieces, Yet Feels Slow Somehow. I think a growing peeve of mine- maybe not yet a pet peeve, but certainly a major annoyance – is using a “hurricane” bearing down on a location and yet using it poorly… which is what happens here. Why a hurricane when a normal storm system would have worked just as well for plot purposes??? Hell, here in *Florida* (much less Maine, where this is set and where they get far fewer hurricanes), our daily thunderstorms (particularly in the summer) are generally worse than many of the hurricanes I’ve lived through here in North Florida (including Irma, just a few weeks after I moved here).

Beyond my irritation with the misuse of the hurricane though, which is admittedly a personal thing, the story works reasonably well, if seeming a bit slow and perhaps a touch unrealistic/ idiotic with some of the moves some of the characters make. But hey, we’re all idiots at some point, right? It just seems like our supposed “heroes” in this particular tale are particularly stupid at times… which grates some people more than others. (Indeed, reading over the other reviews, it seems like many have a hangup on this similar to my hurricane one above.) And yet the stupidity ultimately works to make this novel work, and perhaps that is the reason it is here – this near 400 page book may have been reduced by at least a third and perhaps as much as a half had one or two characters made even a single better decision, perhaps a couple of better decisions. And maybe Day had a word or page count to meet.

Still, there’s nothing objectively wrong about this book, and it *is* an enjoyable read that is *certainly* better than other books and is a solid way to lose a day or a few afternoons in a fictional world… which is becoming so much more important as election season ramps up in the US again. So forget the politics for a bit and pick up this book. You may be disappointed a bit in it, but it will still be better than spending that time watching the news. 🙂

Recommended.

This review of One Big Happy Family by Jamie Day was originally written on August 1, 2024.

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#BookReview: Shades Of Mercy by Bruce Borgos

Wildly Divergent Storytelling From First Book In Series, Still Great. The Bitter Past, the first book in this series, was a dual timeline almost historical fiction/ spy thriller, and it worked beautifully – to summarize my review of that book. This time, we get a lot of solid character work and even more solid action pieces (particularly towards the end, but also an intriguing prologue to bring us into the tale), with plenty of “what the hell is going on here” in the middle. Whereas the first book looked to the past to tell its tale, this one actually reads as though it is bringing the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine war into a tale set in rural Nevada. There’s some innovative action sequences one would expect more in a Vin Diesel XXX movie or one of the GI Joe live action movies than in a tale of a small town Sheriff… even if this particular Sheriff *is* a highly trained former soldier. (And yes, this comes into play as well.) Borgos does well to show Beck’s strengths *and* weaknesses, and it is the combination of both that make Beck feel like a fully “real” human rather than just another action hero.

Overall a solid tale more in the mystery/ action space than its predecessor, and yet it does its job of making the reader *need* the next book perfectly.

Very much recommended.

This review of Shades Of Mercy by Bruce Borgos was originally written on July 31, 2024.

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#BookReview: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Does NOT Predict July 2024 Assassination Attempt of President Trump. This is a book I’ve had for a few years now – apparently I purchased my copy in 2020, several years after it had been out, and I just this month read it after an Acton Institute Fellow claimed on Twitter that this book “predicted in 2012” that something like the assassination attempt of President Trump would occur. (Screenshot of tweet in question is below. Link is here: https://x.com/drantbradley/status/1812266568140628252.)

To be clear, if there is any indication at all of such a prediction, I must have missed it somehow.

Instead, what this book *does* do is show Haidt’s own work as a psychology based sociologist, studying both societies and how the brain gets to the decisions it makes. Here, Haidt actually has a lot of seemingly solid ideas… though it is clear in looking through the one star reviews that few on the left appreciate his candor, despite his own admitted background (and presumptive leanings at the time of writing this, at minimum, back in 2011 or so) being as a leftist himself.

Yet Haidt makes his points clearly and logically, and actively builds concepts up rather than just expecting the reader to understand complex points from the get-go. The narrative is well laid out, and the overall writing is such that nearly anyone should be able to follow along reasonably well.

I can’t speak to the bibliography, as I listened to the Audible form of this book and thus don’t have access to that particular information.

Thus, all that I can see here, all that I experienced here, was a reasonably well written, clearly thought out narrative structure that made clear Haidt’s own work and the work of others in his field in a way that proves particularly illuminating and worthy of conisderation.

Indeed, in the points Haidt actually makes within this text, we can all learn to understand each other quite a bit better… which actually leans to this book *not* predicting any assassination attempts on current or former Presidents.

Still, I’m glad I finally got around to reading this book, and I absolutely recommend you do too… just don’t think it makes any predictions on current events. (It doesn’t.)

Very much recommended.

This review of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt was originally written on July 31, 2024.

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#BookReview: Hello Little Girl by Kay Bratt

Orange Is The New Black Meets Deliverance. With this series in particular, Bratt has been making it a point of spinning a fictional world around all-too-real cases… and in this case, we get a version of the book form of Orange Is The New Black (ie, a far more serious take than the dark comedy that was the Netflix show) along with a harrowing tale of wilderness survival somewhat akin to Deliverance, but with Bratt’s own wilderness survival style she developed with Dancing With The Sun. Both parts of the tale are well done, though it does seem that perhaps the Orange Is The New Black part was perhaps a bit rushed in the ending, perhaps because of the zinger Bratt wanted to leave in the epilogue?

Yet again, another solid story in this world, and yet again another one that will leave the reader breathless for the next.

Very much recommended.

This review of Hello Little Girl by Kay Bratt was originally written on July 31, 2024.