Simon & Schuster/Atria, February 2016

From bestselling author Tucker comes another suspenseful story of the secrets people try, and fail, to keep.

When Maggie Sparks goes to her friend’s apartment to pack Celine Gonzalez’s things, she has been told that Celine killed herself. The overdose of drugs and alcohol isn’t like her, though, so Maggie doesn’t know what to think.

Soon enough, secrets start coming to life. A series of journals detail the ways that Celine was making money…as an escort who started out only as a high-paid companion but who soon moved on to providing sex. Then there’s a naked photo of a wealthy man who works at the same building where Celine held her day job. And a sex tape shows up later, one that can bring down someone whose career and life would crumble if the tape was leaked.

Blackmail, a vase worth millions, hidden cameras and tech spying are also discovered along the way. Maggie discovers that a friendly elderly neighbor can help in her quest for the truth while also discovering a possible new romance for herself with the building manager.

The plot is complex and the pacing is strong. The characters are well drawn, especially the elderly neighbor who might have been a paper cutout in the hands of a different author. The suspects in the crime are also well presented, and readers won’t know for sure who’s really involved in pushing Celine to the edge until the very end.

There was some loss of momentum at the end. Once the mystery falls away, the story is less interesting because the character support for the criminal isn’t as intensive at that point. The story still provides a strong reading experience, however.

5 stars!

If you are interested in a similar type of work, try Reparation: A Novel of Love, Danger and Devotion.

I received an ARC from the publisher so I could write this review.

The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones

Mulholland Books/Little, Brown

Told in alternating segments that switch between different times (3 timelines total: one current, one in the recent past, and one roughly a century ago) and places, the narrative finally settles primarily into the now.
Considering the vast geography (several European nations) and time covered, and considering the idea at the heart of the story, this work should have been more compelling than it was. But I found the characterization lacking. This likely is due to the vast territories and timelines the story covers, and so isn’t really a flaw. Books that deliver this type of story don’t have much space for character development. Considering those constraints, then, the author has done a fine job getting readers to care about the people in this book.
The supernatural elements…and the fact that the shapeshifter hunts a specific family throughout time and down through the generations…is a fantastic concept. Overall, this is quite an enjoyable work that can be your next beach read.

4 stars

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Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

Scribner Paperback/Simon & Schuster Inc. 1996

I finally picked up this book after remembering what a big splash the author made back in the mid-90s. I have to say that the splash was well deserved. If you know anything about the author’s books, you know that I mean that in the ways you’re probably thinking. But I also mean it in others.

The quality of the writing here is very strong. The characters are all generally drawn quite well, with the exception of

Andrew’s voice is compelling, and as he drives a majority of the events, having him take the lead in the first chapter is an excellent choice. And, despite the fact that he is a serial killer who revels in all the usual cruelty and unique bloodiness his obsession entails, he is a compelling character whenever his scenes queue up. A bad guy readers love to hate and love at the same time.

It is a particular testament to the author’s skill to note that the method by which Andrew escapes from prison is drawn quite believably in the novel…even skeptical readers will agree to suspend their disbelief.

Jay is a budding killer who has the discipline to avoid fouling the city where he lives with his own kills…until Tran, a particularly beautiful Vietnamese hustler throws his considerable charms at Jay’s feet.

Tran’s sections are very well drawn, and allow readers to walk in yet a third lifestyle and mindset that is very different than the first two offered up in this book.

Lucas is the one that is the least compelling. Perhaps this is because his illness keeps him quiet in terms of activity, or perhaps it’s because he has the most common, almost suburban, existence of all the characters. Still, his portrait, when added to the other three, rounds out this work and creates a richness that otherwise would be lacking.

The four are pulled ever more tightly together. The two killers begin to work together, and there is that bloody finale that had so many people squawking when the work came out. (The author was rejected by the publisher of all his previous books because of the gruesome climactic orgy.) Which certainly is shocking but really isn’t any more horrible or ugly to read than many of the sections the killer recalls and enacts in preceding scenes. Which leads you to wonder why this was rejected at all.

If you’re a gory fiction fan, this one is for you!

4 stars

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The Day She Died by Catriona McPherson

Midnight Ink/Llewellyn Worldwide 2011

Jessie has a fear of feathers. A phobia, really, total full-on medical name for it and everything fear of feathers. That’s where it starts.

Oh, wait. No. The book starts with a woman locked in some sort of box or vault or something. Readers aren’t sure because the space is dark. And the narrative doesn’t return to the box or vault except for a very few times.

So, the book whiplashes between a heavy, terrorizing scene and one that’s smarmily funny. Watch out, because these same weaknesses will show up again. The lady in the box isn’t visited enough to justify having her be at the opening, yet if we didn’t know she was in there the narrative wouldn’t have nearly as much drive.

Or would it? The rest of the book, Jessie’s story and the narrative flow and the characters and how the characters develop, are all quite enjoyable. How did it turn out that the lady in the box had to show up? Was this a publisher pushing the author to do something that wasn’t in the original draft, and the author caved because a contract with changes to the novel is better than no contract? Or were these scenes part of the original concept but haven’t been handled well by the author?

Interesting things to think about if you like to think about those kinds of things. But don’t let that stop you from reading this book. It’s a better-than-average take on the somewhat funny, self-denigrating yet more than capable female protagonist who stumbles on a mystery that must be solved. In time for the lady in the box to live, preferably, but since readers don’t really need to know that to enjoy this story, we could just overlook that, yes?

4 stars

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The Blue by Lucy Clarke

Touchstone

An interesting story that holds some unique challenges for the author. Lana has spent some months on a sailboat with a handful of others who are all running—either from something or to something in their lives. She too was hoping to find herself and a new life when she joined the raggedy band. But then someone died and she bailed.

Now, the boat she was on has sunk in a storm. The Blue, a yacht carrying a crew of five at the time it went down, is the object of a search and rescue mission. After struggling with her memories of those months on board, she goes to the Coast Guard to see if her best friend is among the survivors.

What follows are the interwoven stories of her time on board and the rescue attempt. What is revealed about the captain and first mate, the other crew, and the best friends tells a tale not so much of sordid or shocking secrets but one that is burdened with all too familiar human drama. The complexities of how we present ourselves to others, as well as the illusions we attempt to maintain even in the forced intimacy of situations like a shipboard life, provides a compelling read.

Although at times the narrative feels like it wanders slightly, the writing is strong and the human interrelationships will draw you in. Well worth the investment of time to engage with this story.

4 stars

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The Dinosaur Feather by S.J. Gazan

Translated from Danish by Charlotte Barslund

Published in Denmark by Glydendals Bogklubber 2008

Published in US by Quercus 2013

Very interesting premise, and a strong female protagonist. So, great start! Plus I’m a sucker for books from Denmark and surrounding nations, so of course I had to read this one.

It turned out to be an all right experience. Interesting enough to hold my attention for quite some time. But toward the end things got shaky. The big reveal at the end, the solving of the mystery and dealing justice to the criminal, felt common and too easy. Additionally, having the female protagonist subdue the killer, who far outstrips her in weight and strength, by capturing him with nothing more than her wits and two zip ties…yes, you read that right, zip ties…oversteps the bounds of credibility.

Overall, though, a quite enjoyable read if you are in the mood for a lark that isn’t too demanding and has nice character development.

3 stars

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The Three by Sarah Lotz

Little, Brown

With an endorsement by Stephen King on the cover, this book is sure to sell. But don’t be fooled. What starts out as an interesting premise embedded in a format that could be mind-blowing turns into a plodding narrative with characters that are drawn with surprisingly less skill than is needed.

The idea is that four planes crash on the same day. From three wrecks there is one survivor each, and each survivor is a child. Thus on the face of innocence are we supposed to read dread and danger. And there is of course the “missing” survivor, the child who survived the last plane crash but who was whisked away before any officials arrived at the site.

Early on the author’s ability to handle so many different character perspectives shows through. It goes from being mildly annoying to, as the number of voices grows, being too difficult an issue to overlook. The fact that the plot doesn’t really move forward and instead relies on endless teasers of things readers have already figured out doesn’t help.

2 stars

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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

This is not your teenager’s dystopian novel.

I’m a fan of a certain type of dystopian novel…ones that show us the human side of people struggling against terrible odds to maintain their humanity. Among my favorites, Station Eleven has risen to the top.

Told from multiple points of view in chapters that alternate between pre-flu and post-flu years, this novel is ambitious but never feels difficult to read. That alone is a triumph of the author’s skills. Here the skills are turned toward the hearts of individuals who remember the world before the pandemic and those who were too young to really miss the ease of technology and industry.

The thread that runs throughout is the life of a single actor who dies the night the flu really begins to take hold. His death is not flu-related yet everything about his life is. He is an example of how individuals can rise toward the pinnacle of celebrity before tumbling into ignominy. He wants to inspire and enlighten through art yet somehow is mired in trappings he cannot control.

And yet his legacy lives on. The art he brought to the world is carried on by a traveling troop who provides music and performances to people starved of culture in the post-everything world. The love he felt resonates still in the hearts of those he loved and people he died too early to meet.

By showing how one life can survive even the decimation of 99% of the world’s population, the author has managed to show us how even we, in our rush of technology and industry, make a difference.

5 stars!

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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published 1911

This was pure delight to read. From the opening when the narrator calls Mary Lennox “as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived” to the end, this story and the characters held me enthralled. I expected to find the narrative outdated and overly formal; instead I found a pleasantly lilting narrative voice that readers of any age can enjoy.

My favorite moment was when Mary takes the “sickly” spoiled boy to task. Talk about a battle of wills! I laughed out loud several times. What a lovely book!

5 stars

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Fires of Invention by Scott J. Savage

This middle-grade reader is everything you’d expect it to be…which is both good and bad.

It’s quickly paced with lots of interesting activities undertaken by the protagonist (a boy) and his inventive friend (a girl). While the author earns kudos for giving equal the mechanical abilities to the girl along with a heaping serving of intelligence, it’s odd that she isn’t the main character. She is the one who creates the mechanical dragon that will free their society from their imprisonment (both physical imprisonment underground and their society’s imprisonment to a government that lies to them about why they’re underground)…so why isn’t she the main character?

The boy spends a lot of time ducking his parents and other adults who might cause trouble. But other than that, he isn’t the primary active party here. The book therefore seems to move in fits and starts. Readers miss out on a lot of what goes into building the mechanical dragon, and instead have to follow the boy around during his days while he thinks about things. And we all know what happens to a reader’s interest when the characters start thinking about things and stop doing things.

3 stars.

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Moonlight on Butternut Lake by Mary McNear

Available from William Morrow Paperbacks April, 2015

Urgh. Slow, slow, slow. ‘Nuff said. (Other than the publisher gave me an ARC.)

OK, not enough said. Here are the issues.

The writing doesn’t have much vividness to it. That’s mostly about voice. This voice is fairly clean and simple, which in and of itself is fine. But it needs to be matched by something else…either characters that intrigue reader, or plot elements that captivate, or a combination of a little of each (or even a lot of each).

The author doesn’t really show much on either of these other fronts. Perhaps this is because this is the book out of a series, and a few have come before. But every book in a series needs to work as a stand-alone. While this does work as a standalone, it’s possible that the flaws in this novel appear because readers of the previous novels will have much more background coming to this one.

Since I can’t judge this as part of a series, I have to judge it as a standalone. And that produces a very low rating.

DNF: no star rating available.

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Freed by Stacey Kennedy

Available from Loveswept, 2014

Not my first foray into romance or erotica but this is my first full reading of a genre book about BDSM. I tried reading Shades of Gray but urgh, it was so terribly written I just couldn’t slough past the first chapter.

I can’t honestly say Freed was much better. The writing was basic…good enough not to be distracting yet lacking in a voice that was compelling. Not that I expected much of the voice in this category, so that point ends up with an average rating.

The characterization was pretty basic as well. Also as expected, so also average on that rating point. However, the narrative that dealt with the characterization was so terribly repetitive I skimmed much of it.

Now, in romance, the formula is that whenever the characters are apart, they pine for each other. Fair enough. But the pining of these two could be categorize as:

Guy: Desperately wants this woman who is clearly the woman of his dreams (oh, and every time he thinks of her, “his cock twitched in his pants.” Well, I was glad to hear he wasn’t going around dangling free all the time, so was grateful to learn that it was always in his pants. Always. Every time. Repetitive, see? And that’s only one example).

Gal: Still grieving for her dead husband but doesn’t know it. These bits at least have some flashbacks (very poorly handled by italicizing…italicizing!!! Like readers won’t otherwise know it’s a flashback!!!) so at least it provides new info. But the rest is summed up as: she wants something but are her feelings betraying her dead husband? Why oh why does she feel so torn?

And, since this is a steamy (erotic) romance revolving around BDSM, I am obliged to provide an analysis of the sex scenes. Pretty good, actually. Nicely drawn, lots of details without getting cheesy with the euphemisms.

So, the rating. For general reading, it would have to be 2 stars. But when you pick up this kind of book, you’re not looking for general reading, you’re looking for hot spicy sexiness. And maybe some true love on the side. So the rating in this category for this book would be:

4 stars

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Five Suns of Treason by Jim Heskett

Available from Royal Arch Publications 2014

This work was presented as a book for a review but is only part one of the full story. It is also too short to clock in even as a novel or novelette. Instead this is a handful of stories that follow different individuals dealing with the same event: the impending arrival of a meteor that will destroy the planet, or at least kill a ton of people. At the end of the collection, readers are invited to “continue” with part two, offered as a separate collection.

There isn’t much to recommend here. The collection format is misleading for readers who want to engage with deeper storylines, so book readers are out. The promise of interwoven stories that fans of linked short stories enjoy isn’t well done here, particularly as the offering ends at the first major turning point. And the writing, while not terrible, also isn’t much more than serviceable. The plotline has promise that is left unfulfilled, so the pacing turns out to be pretty slow.

2 stars.

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The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Published in 1895, this book has held up for almost 150 years now!

A great adventure through time with social commentary woven throughout. Consider that what Wells said then is relevant today: there are the ultra-wealthy who live lives of luxury, reliant on the workers to tend their crops and homes and bodies. Then there are the workers, stronger of body and knowledgeable of the machines that make life easy.

The divide between them is so vast they end up living in vastly different environments: one aboveground where the air is pure and light shines every day, the other belowground where the air is foul and darkness prevails.

And yet, when night falls aboveground, the Eloi retreat in fear. The Morlocks hunt them for food. Who has the upper hand now?
Simplistic in nature, to be sure, and it overlooks how leisure time allows man to create art and to consider his own existence. Yet somehow still a book for our times.

5 stars!

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