THE LANTERN by Deborah Lawrenson - BOOK REVIEW/BLOG TOUR

Title:  The Lantern
Author:  Deborah Lawrenson
Publisher:   Harper Collins
Release Date:  February 28, 2012
Paperback, 400 pages
ISBN 10:     0062192973
ISBN 13:  9780062192974
The Book Depository / Amazon

September, 2011 Indie Next List

Goodreads description:

When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France. As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel. Whilst Eve tries to untangle the secrets surrounding Rachel's last recorded days, Les Genevriers itself seems to come alive. As strange events begin to occur with frightening regularity, Eve's voice becomes intertwined with that of Benedicte Lincel, a girl who lived in the house decades before. As the tangled skeins of the house's history begin to unravel, the tension grows between Dom and Eve. In a page-turning race, Eve must fight to discover the fates of both Benedicte and Rachel, before Les Genevriers' dark history has a chance to repeat itself.

My Take: 

I've wanted this one ever since it came out in hardcover.  With reviews comparing it to Daphne du Mauriers' gothic Rebecca, I just knew it had to be on my own bookshelf.  Given the opportunity to review it for its paperback release, I jumped at the chance :).

First paragraph:  Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear, like the effervescence of citrus zest or a bright note of mint.  Some are strange siren songs of rare origin that call from violets hidden in woodland, or irises after spring rain. Some scents release a rush of half-forgotten memories.  And then there are the scents that seem to express truths about people and places that you have never forgotten:  the scents that make time stand still.

I had to include this paragraph to give you a taste of the lush and evocative writing contained within these pages.  Shifting POV's give the reader glimpses into Les Genevriers' past and present, with both stories being almost equally entrancing.

As in Rebecca, the modern-day narrator remains unnamed, although her partner Dom calls her "Eve".  A whirlwind romance later, they are ensconced in Les Genevriers, an estate located in the south of France.    Eve finds herself at first enjoying their isolation, but then beginning to  have questions about Dom's ex-wife Rachel.  Her questioning is urged along by Sabine, a woman they meet at a party. Sabine insists that she remembers Dom from a previous visit with his wife, but Dom conversely insists he has never met her before.

Local girls are going missing, Eve is wondering about Dom and his secrets, and what appears to be a ghost fleetingly appears on the garden path of the estate.

Benedicte and her family grew up in Les Genevriers when it was a productive farm, with tenants and regular output. When we meet her, she is a haunted woman - haunted by memories and by the ghost of her cruel brother Pierre.  We learn of her sister Marthe, who became blind as a child, but grew up to become a famous perfume creator, and of the slow decline of the estate.

While not a retelling of du Maurier's classic, the same feeling of unnamed dread and questioning runs through the narrative, although THIS story actually does slowly tie many of the mysteries together in a wonderfully satisfactory way.

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

Until it happens to you, you don't know how it will feel to stay with a man who has done a terrible thing.

Surely, though, it was only natural to want to know their story.  It was precisely because he would not talk about Rachel that I found myself wondering more and more about her.

It was all such a long time ago, yet in so many ways the circle is closing. I feel closer to the past now than I did twenty years ago. Bats have recolonized the lower rooms. My clothes are torn and patched and I care as little as I did when I was a girl who ran all day in the hills.  The generator has broken down, so I live by candlelight and oil lamps.  Life is reverting to the ways I knew as a child.

Writing:  5 out of 5 stars

Plot:  4.5  out of 5 stars

Characters:  4 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:  3.5  out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:  4.25  out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

Author website

Author blog

Find Deborah Lawrenson on Facebook



BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

One of my listed titles for the 2012 150+ Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from TLC Book Tours to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  All I Did Was Shoot My Man
Author:  Walter Mosley
Publisher:   Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Group
Release Date:  January 24, 2012
Hardcover, 326 pages
ISBN 10:    159448824X
ISBN 13:  9781594488245
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

In the latest and most surprising novel in the bestselling Leonid McGill series, Leonid finds himself caught between his sins of the past and an all-too-vivid present. 

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space. 

For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and moved in with an ex-prostitute. His youngest son is working for him and trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias. 

A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his family.

My Take: 

Last year I read and reviewed my first (but Mosley's third) installment in the Leonid McGill series, When the Thrill is Gone (link to my review).  It was enough to make me love this character - a thinking man's P.I. with a philosophical bent:

 The path of my life appeared before me-hard and clear.  I could,

in the dream, turn around and take everything back.  I could pass

through time and decide not to help Zella or lie to Shelly.  I could

travel all the way back to the womb and be another person or no

one at all.  But I was too comfortable on that quartz plinth under

the summer's sun.  Laying there my life seemed to have enough 

meaning to engender nostalgia - the greatest enemy of human logic.

In All I Did Was Shoot My Man, Leonid is back, trying to atone for some of his past wrongs.  When a woman named Zella gets out of prison for the double crime of shooting her boyfriend for cheating on her with her best friend as well as being part of a multi-million dollar heist from the Rutgers Assurance Corp., he meets her at the station with start-up money, a place to stay, and a job.

When people Mosley knows are actually associated with the heist start to turn up dead, Leonid convinces Zella to go to one of his safe houses while he tries to figure out who is responsible.  The consummate multi-tasker, he is following up leads on his own father (who deserted the family when Leonid was young), trying to keep his younger son out of trouble by hiring him, looking for the baby that Zella was pregnant with when she went to prison, and working to keep from being killed himself.

Mr. Mosley has come up with another winner - part mystery, part thriller, part family drama - completely entertaining.

QUOTES

I mean Katrina and I hadn't been intimate or jealous of each other's lives in years.  We had three children but two of those had nothing to do with my DNA.  Katrina said they were mine and I went along with the sham because they were in my house and Katrina maintained that house.  She also made the best food I ever ate in my life.

"Mr. Plimpton, I'm going to sit on this couch and wait until I either speak to Miss Lowry or somebody she reports to.  You can go back into your rat's maze and tell the king rat that I said so."

"Somebody's trying to kill me?" I asked.
"I believe that your name might be on a list somewhere."
"What kind of sense does that make?"
"You think you're so innocent that no one could ever mean you harm?"
"No. What I wonder is why would you care?"
"I'm a cop, LT.  It's my job to protect the welfare of even garbage like you."
I disconnected the call.  No reason to argue or protest.  I was interested at the obvious anger that Kit was feeling.  He rarely showed his feelings.  I didn't much either.  That's why we might have been friends in another life.

Kit watched me for a few moments before saying, "That was some  impressive killing you did.  Naked too."
"I hope I didn't embarrass Officer Palmer."
"She said that after all she heard about you she thought your Johnson would be bigger.'
"Tell her that the air conditioner was on."

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:   4 out of 5 stars

Characters:  4 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:  4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   4 out of 5 stars

Sensitive reader:  Some rough language.

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Author website

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary ARC  of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

One of my listed titles for the 2012 150+ Reading Challenge

One of my listed titles for the Mystery and Suspense Reading Challenge 2012

One of my listed titles for the 2012 ARC Reading Challenge

One of my listed titles for the Around the Stack in How Many Ways Reading Challenge

One of my listed titles for the 2012 ARC Reading Challenge

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison - (Mini) BOOK REVIEW

Title:  The Butterfly Clues
Author:  Kate Ellison
Publisher:   Egmont USA
Release Date:  February 14, 2012
Hardcover, 336 pages
ISBN 10:     1606842633 / ISBN 13:  9781606842638
The Book Depository / Amazon /Goodreads


My Quick Take: 

Lo (Penelope) has OCD - she has to do things in multiples of threes (count, tap, brush her bangs back) and she can't go through any door without a tap, tap, tap, "banana".  She also feels compulsions to take items that she feels calling to her.

Her family has moved a lot due to her father's job as a consultant, and her brother Oren died (we find out when and why in small pieces).  After Oren died, her mother withdrew and her father spends almost no time at home, so Lo finds herself wandering far from home at times, trying to retrace Oren's steps or visit places she thinks he may have visited.  During one of these trips (to a very bad neighborhood), she hears gunshots in a house near her spot in the alleyway.  After reading an online crime blog, she finds that a stripper named Sapphire was shot and killed while she was just feet away - thus begins a new compulsion - to find out who killed Sapphire.

This novel brings the reader fully into the strange compulsions that form OCD - there were points where I really felt the desperation that Lo felt as she tried to get away from dangerous situations and was thwarted by her need to follow her rituals.  Flynt is an artsy, homeless teen that befriends Lo and tries to warn her away from pursuing Sapphire's murder and the reader wonders how much he actually knows about the crime and/or the perpetrator.

Although the depiction of Lo's OCD is enough to draw the reader in, there were quite a few situations that didn't ring true for me.  Lo's situation at high school, her interactions with the police, even at times her friendship with Flynt - I just thought to myself, "THAT would never happen."  Even so,  the underlying story kept me reading. 

Not a typical YA book in many ways, but well worth reading if only for the deeper understanding it provides of OCD impulses.

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Characters: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   3out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   3.4 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary eGalley of this title from the publisher through NetGalley to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Prophecy by S. J. Parris - BOOK REVIEW and GIVEAWAY {CLOSED}

Title:  Prophecy 
Author:  S. J. Parris
Publisher:   Doubleday
Release Date:  April 5, 2011
Hardcover, 375 pages
ISBN 10:    0385531303
ISBN 13:  9780385531306
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

S. J. Parris returns with the next Giordano Bruno mystery, set inside Queen Elizabeth’s palace and steeped in period atmospherics and the strange workings of the occult. 

It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when the two most powerful planets, Jupiter and Saturn, align—an astrologi­cal phenomenon that occurs once every thousand years and heralds the death of one age and the dawn of another. The streets of London are abuzz with predictions of horrific events to come, possibly even the death of Queen Elizabeth.

When several of the queen’s maids of honor are found dead, rumors of black magic abound. Elizabeth calls upon her personal astrologer, John Dee, and Giordano Bruno to solve the crimes. While Dee turns to a mysterious medium claiming knowledge of the murders, Bruno fears that some­thing far more sinister is at work. But even as the climate of fear at the palace intensifies, the queen refuses to believe that the killer could be someone within her own court.

Bruno must play a dangerous game: can he allow the plot to progress far enough to give the queen the proof she needs without putting her, England, or his own life in danger? 

In this utterly gripping and gorgeously written novel, S. J. Parris has proven herself the new master of the historical thriller.

My Take: 

Giordano Bruno is an excommunicated Catholic monk now living with the French ambassador to Queen Elizabeth's court.  When one of Elizabeth's maids is found murdered, Giordano becomes involved in the investigation, although he'd much rather be working on his writing and philosophy.

The time of Elizabeth was a time of portents, omens, predictions, and astrological signs that some people appear to be using to their own ends - that end being the ouster of Elizabeth to be replaced by Mary Stuart.  Giordano is an utterly likeable character as well, very smart and moral.  I like the fact that he feels a bit of remorse for not being able to tell some of the people he considers friends the truth about his alliances, since quite a few of them would like to see Mary Stuart put on the throne and the return of Catholicism as THE religion of the English.

I have a soft spot for historical fiction, but an even softer one for well-researched historical fiction, and Prophecy definitely qualifies.  The fact that it is a mystery as well makes it even better.  Although it is the second in a series (the first is Heresy), I think that this sequel does a wonderful job as a stand-alone (but it still really makes me want to get Heresy on my shelf as well).  There are some references to events that happened in the first novel, but they work well as background filler without making the reader feel as though they don't have a good understanding of what is going on.

I've seen a couple of reviews where the reader says they knew who the "bad guy" was almost as soon as they "met" him/her in the pages - well, I didn't.  I had some suspicions .. and I was totally surprised by a turn near the end - and in the meantime, I enjoyed the twists, turns, intrigue and suspense.  This was a very enjoyable read for me, and if you like good historical fiction combined with intrigue and mystery, it will be a very enjoyable read for you too!

QUOTES

"You had better take care, Bruno," he says eventually, when it becomes clear that I am not going to respond.  "The reputation you enjoyed in Paris as a black magician already begins to spread in whispers through the English court." He gestures at the people around us.

For a moment I consider the path set out for a young woman of noble birth:  how briefly she is allowed to shine, to be publicly paraded and admired among her own kind, for precisely as long as it takes to find her a suitable husband.  Her wedding day is the zenith of her short flowering; after that she is expected to fade again into the background, to cover her hair and content herself with the reflected glory of her husband and children. 

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:  4 out of 5 stars

Characters:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:  4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   3.8 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

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Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Killed at the Whim of a Hat 
Author:  Colin Cotterill
Publisher:   Minotaur Books, a division of St. Martins Press
Release Date:  July 19, 2011
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN 10:     0312564538
ISBN 13:  9780312564537
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

When crime reporter Jimm Juree is forced to follow her family from Chiang Mai to a fishing village on the Gulf of Siam, she's convinced her career is over. Her journalism will surely dwindle to reports on the annual monsoon-induced floods, for what crimes could possibly happen in such an out-of-the-way place? Answer: plenty. A local palm oil plantation owner and his worker are excavating a well. They dig down six feet and hit metal. It turns out to be the roof of an old Volkswagen combi, which, once unearthed, is found to contain two skeletons - one of them wearing a hat. A monk is murdered in Lang Suan, the nearest town. There is apparently no motive for the killing and no suspects are found. But there are odd connections between this killing and several others. Suddenly Jimm's new life becomes somewhat more promising - and a great deal more dangerous.

My Take: 

The origin of the title comes from her school studies of oratory skills, where Jimm was picked to study George W. Bush:

George was in Washington DC and he'd fallen off the edge of the teleprompter again and he was caught somewhere between "on a whim" and "at the drop of a hat" and ended up with terrorists killing one another "at the whim of a hat."

This also explains the less-than-phenomenal Bush quotes that head each chapter.

I would definitely describe this as a "cozy Thai mystery".  When Jimm's mother, who is apparently suffering from senility, sells their family business and moves to a little-known backwater, Jimm, as well as her shy, body-building brother Arny and the normally taciturn Grandad Jah, who used to be a police detective, move with her, leaving her older brother-turned sister Sissi in Chiang Mai.

While Sissi practices her computer con games online, Jimm is forced to deal with an "inn" that gets no guests, and a store that has no customers.  When two bodies are unearthed in a van buried underground, Jimm quickly rides her bike to the scene and exaggerates her press credentials to get the scoop.

While undertaking her investigation of the two bodies, Jimm also manages to get caught up in the murder of an abbot.  As she works the cases, she's assisted by Grandad Jah, as well as the computer sleuthing skills of Sissi.

This was an entertaining read.  I enjoyed my dive into the culture of Thailand, and there was much dry wit scattered throughout.  The mysteries are engaging, and the relationships Jimm cultivates with the local police officers are fun as well.

If you like cozies, and want to try a different take on them, pick this one up!

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

I didn't want to sound ungrateful for the opportunity to move to the backwoods marshes of Maprao but, purely for my own entertainment, I'd put together a list of my top unfavorite things about my new home:
1.  Power cuts
2.  The constant smell fo drying squid
3.  Neighbors with nothing intelligent to discuss
4.  The thud of coconuts falling from trees in dearch of ahead
5.  A shallow sea so warm it breeds Jurassic life forms
6.  The drone of passing fishing boats at three a.m.
7.  The close proximity of reptiles
8.  No telephone line so no internet
9.  No nightlife (no daylife either)
10. Garbage from all the so-called high class resorts being washed up on our beach

I was starting to see myself as this Maprao-based Agatha Christie character pedalling off to solve crimes on her two-gear shopping bicycle and modeling in her spare time.

"And what if we're right and they throw us in a cellar and cut us up into little pieces?"
"Then that's proof that they're up to no good.  I'll be able to wear my captain's stripes to your funeral and shoot real bullets in the air.  Can you believe I've never fired live rounds outside the shooting range?  Such a shame.  I'm a terribly good shot."

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:   3.5 out of 5 stars

Characters: 3 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   3.5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   3.5 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This book is one of my listed titles for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through the Goodreads First Look program to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

The Girl Who Disappeared Twice by Andrea Kane - BOOK REVIEW/GIVEAWAY - US/CAN through June 14, 2011

Title:  The Girl Who Disappeared Twice
Author:  Andrea Kane
Publisher:   Mira Books, a division of Harlequin
Release Date:  June 1, 2011
Hardcover, 400 pages
ISBN 10:    0778329844
ISBN 13:  9780778329848
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

If she'd only turned her head, she would have seen the car containing her daughter, struggling to escape her kidnapper. Despite years determining the fates of families, family court judge Hope Willis couldn't save her own. Now she's grasping at any hope for Krissy's rescue. She calls Casey Woods and her team of investigators, Forensic Instincts.

A behaviorist. A techno-wizard. An intuitive. A former Navy SEAL. Unconventional operatives. All with unique talents and reasons for joining Casey's group.

Able to accurately read people after the briefest encounter, Casey picks up signs of a nervous spouse, a guilty conscience, a nanny that hides on her cell. She watches as secrets creep into the open.
But time is running out, and the authorities are bound by the legal system. Not Casey's team. For they know that the difference between Krissy coming back alive and disappearing forever could be as small as a suspect's rapid breathing, or as deep as Hope's dark family history.

My Take: 

FIRST SENTENCE:  When six-year-old Felicity Akerman went to bed that night, she had no idea that life as she knew it was about to change forever.

Felicity Akerman was 6 years old when someone came into her room at night where she and her twin sister Hope were sleeping.  When they left, they took Felicity with them.  Felicity has never been found.

Hope Willis, nee Akerman, is now a Family Court judge who lives in Armonk, NY with her husband Edward, a defense attorney with a prestigious firm, and her five-year-old daughter Krissy, who is in kindergarten.  She returns home one evening and her nanny, Ashley, tells her that the children at the school said that Hope picked Krissy up from school already.  But she didn't.  Krissy is missing and her favorite bear is missing from her bedroom as well.

After calling the police, Hope also calls Casey Woods, an independent profiler.  Her Forensic Instincts team includes Ryan (techno-wizard, gym rat, mountain bike pro, and ultramarathon runner), and Marc (former Navy SEAL, former FBI agent including a stint in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, base jumper).  Together, the team is formidable.  Working with the FBI, an intuitive named Claire Hedgleigh, a former FBI agent named Patrick Lynch who was the special agent when Felicity was kidnapped, and a human scent evidence bloodhound named Hero - Casey's latest present from her beau, they push hard to find Krissy before it's too late.

What a good book!  There's a bit of everything - decent character development, a little bit of romance, secrets, tons of suspects, affairs, duplicity, a little bit of Mafia action .. all of the things that make a reader want to keep on reading all the way through to the end, which is sad and surprising, although I did have the kidnapper figured out much earlier; I just wasn't sure how it would all play out.  Realistic?  Maybe not so; I really can't imagine the FBI being so free and loose with information to a civilian group.  Interesting?  Definitely.  The dialogue was a bit weak here and there, but the action more than made up for it.  A couple of times I found myself biting my lip, waiting to see what the next turn would be.  Would I recommend it?  Certainly, especially for a warm-weather read when you don't want something necessarily light and fluffy.

Sensitive Reader:  I really didn't see much in here that would put a sensitive reader off.  There IS some violence, and some of what might be considered mild profanity.

QUOTES (from an ARC: may be different in final copy):

". . . I"ll hack into the little girl's computer.  Casey, you can run down the list of suspects, interrogate the right ones.  Marc can beat the crap out of the scumbag who did this.  Then you'll size up his reactions until we figure out where he hid the poor kid.  And Krissy Willis will be safe in her own bed before the miserable prick who took her can do his worst.  After that, we can all go home and crash."

No matter how he played this, he was screwed.  If he spilled his guts, he'd go to jail.  And, if he kept his mouth shut, there was no way the mob would believe he hadn't talked.  So the options were being locked up or being killed.

"And the option you picked is something you don't plan on sharing with the task force.  Which means you're coloring outside the lines again."
"Coloring outside the lines?"  Casey had to grin at his choice of words.  "Does that mean you're going to tell on me?"

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:   4 out of 5 stars

Characters:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   3.8 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

Author website

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End Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST

 

This book is included in my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from Meryl Moss Media Relations to facilitate my review.  Prior to receiving a hard copy, I also received an eGalley through Net Galley.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Dead of Wynter by Spencer Seidel - BOOK REVIEW/GIVEAWAY - 2 winners! - US/CAN through 6/7

Title:  Dead of Winter
Author:  Spencer Seidel
Publisher:   Publishing Works
Release Date:  May 1, 2011
Paperback, 272 pages
ISBN 10:    1935557696
ISBN 13:  9781935557692
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

“Dolly, it’s your mother.” Dolly. Jackie Ruth Wynter had called Alice that for years. The conversation that followed led her right back to the place she had run from for years. Her twin brother, younger by just a minute or so, had been fading, transforming into an image of their drunken, narrow-eyed father. Now her father was dead, and her brother, Chris, missing.

Alice resigns herself to return, helping her mother and the local police with the mystery surrounding the crime. But there are some family secrets her mother would sooner take to the grave than reveal.

Reacquainting with her past brings fresh pain and new friendships as she struggles with who to trust with the details of her father’s murder and brother’s disappearance. As the authorities come closer to solving the mystery of the men in her family, she begins to realize her past life as Alice Wynter is the missing part of the puzzle. But who is searching out the former Alice? The sinister mysteries of the Wynter family will capture the reader’s attention well past when the fire has gone out.

My Take: 

This novel opens with a bang as we meet Chris Wynter running through the woods from someone who died 25 years ago.

We then meet Alice Dunn (nee Wynter), a successful marketing executive in a seemingly loveless marriage of 18 years.  She "escaped" from the small Maine town where she grew up and is outwardly successful.  She tries not to think of her "Wynter" family - her father and brother, both drunks, and her jug wine-drinking, enabler mother.  She has put her past behind her, and intends to keep it there, including her memories of her psychopathic cousin Ray, and all of the damage he managed to do to both her and to her brother Chris.

Then she gets a telephone call.  Her father Papa Wynter is dead, apparently the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on a country road.  Her twin brother Chris is missing.  When Alice tells her husband Gerald that her father is dead, his only remark was that they were "getting low on coffee".  Anxious to leave her distant husband, and worried about her brother, Alice makes the trip to Redding, Maine to help her non-effective mother in this crisis and in the hope of finding her brother before it's too late. 

As the novel plays between the past and present of both Alice and Chris, many dark secrets come to light, most of them leading to the present.  Honestly, one of the things that happened when Chris was young almost brought me to tears.  For the most part, this novel is extremely fast-paced, and it was hard to put down after a certain point.

This is a thrilling mystery, with lots of suspense, some shocking moments, and a family drama that is well-drawn.  When I finally closed the pages, I thought, "This would make a great movie!"  It has that edge-of-your-seat feel to it; the kind that keeps you turning pages long after you should be asleep.  I loved it.

QUOTES

It was his eyes that made him seem so much more dangerous than usual.  They'd changed.  They were colder.  Meaner.  Something had awakened in Ray the night before, something that made a little voice in Chris's mind speak up and warn him about staying away from Ray.

"...You, with your fancy German car.  That fake accent of yours.  I bet you tell people you grew up in Massachusetts of Connecticut." 
Alice felt stripped bare naked.  Her mother had called her on her bullshit and gotten to the core of it.  In one lousy sentence.

Before Chris blacked out, he thought:  Ray is f__cking crazy. I mean really kill-me-in-my-sleep horror-movie crazy.  

Writing:  4.5 out of 5 stars

Plot:   5 out of 5 stars

Characters: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   4.75 out of 5 stars

Sensitive Reader:  There are some graphic scenes of violence, sexual references, and profanity.

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Author Website

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End Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST

 

This book is included in my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

The White Devil by Justin Evans - BOOK REVIEW (Re-post)

Blogger appears to have completely lost this post from May 12th in the outage, so I am reposting it as well as re-inserting the comments that were received.

Title:  The White Devil
Author:  Justin Evans
Publisher:   Harper Collins
Release Date:  May 1, 2011
Hardcover, 384 pages
ISBN 10:     0061728276
ISBN 13:  9780061728273
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

“Evans is so good at nail-biting narrative.” — Washington Post
 
“[A] crackling literary mystery. . . . Harrow itself contains Shirley Jackson levels of gloomy passages and dark secrets. Smart, scary, sexy, and gorgeously written to boot.” — Booklist (starred review)
 
Joe Hill’s Horns  meets Donna Tartt’s The Secret History in this bold new thriller from Justin Evans, author of the critically acclaimed A Good and Happy Child. When seventeen-year-old Andrew Taylor is transplanted from his American high school to a British boarding school—a high-profile academy for the sons of England’s finest—his father hopes that the boy’s dark past will not follow him from across the Atlantic. But blood, suspense, and intrigue quickly surround Andrew once again as he finds himself struggling with a deadly mystery left unsolved by a student from Harrow School’s past—the enigmatic poet Lord Byron.

My Take: 

Andrew Taylor, given one last chance to shape up after being kicked out of yet another boarding school in America, is sent to Harrow School in England.  He lives in "The Lot", the same building that Byron lived in when he attended the same school.  He must learn to adjust to a different dialect, less tolerance for suspected homosexuals, and a different type of social class distinction than that of America, all while trying to shake the "drug dealer" persona perpetuated by Vasily, the thickset leader of the popular band of boys.

His unpopular housemaster is Piers Fawkes, who at one time won an award for his poetry, but is in danger of losing his present post due to his drunkenness and inattention to the boys who are his charges.  He is also writing the school play, centered around the loves of Lord Byron.

Andrew's similarity to Byron is noted by Penelope Vine, the only girl in attendance at Harrow, and she recruits Andrew to play the part in the upcoming play.

When Andrew comes across what appears to be a pale, long-haired, diseased-looking man choking a fellow student in a graveyard, he keeps quiet about it after alerting the neighborhood to the victim, as one of the detectives gives him information that lets him know that he COULDN'T have seen what he thought he saw.  As Andrew becomes increasingly haunted by visions involving a white-haired youth, violence, attempted sodomy, and murder, he finally confides in Fawkes, and together, they seek to unravel the mystery behind his visions:  Who is the white-haired boy?  What role did Byron play in causing the restlessness of what appears to be his spirit?   Why is he apparently fixated on Andrew?

Part Gothic mystery, part thriller, and part ghost story, The White Devil is a slow descent into the mind of an obsessive lover, full of past and present tragedy.  Some of the flashbacks in the Andrew's visions are a bit murky and confusing, and the novel does have a rather slow start, but, it is still a worthy read.  If you like well-written Gothic tales and ghost stories, and/or if you are interested in learning a bit more about Byron, you will definitely want to read this one.

QUOTES

She heard a sharp intake of breath - human breath, shaped by lips, but ghastly, ragged, popping - that struck a note she knew.  The deep inhalation before somebody started a nasty task, say, beating to death the old lady they were robbing.  She saw four white orbs appear on the rim of the door.  What were they?  Her heart thrummed a beat before she realized.  Fingertips.  She felt something at her feet.  She looked down.  Now she screamed.

"Lord Byron.  It was commissioned to go in Westminster Abbey.  But the church wouldn't accept the statue of a known sex maniac.  So they sent it to Trinity - where sex maniacs are always welcome."

" . . . Starts with a guilt trip - where's the money to keep me well fed?  Where are the funds for my journey abroad?  He wants his rich boyfriend to give him some cash.  And Byron, typically, is selfish in all the wrong moments.  We're talking about a man who later left his own daughter to die in an Italian convent."

Writing:  4.5 out of 5 stars

Plot:   5 out of 5 stars

Characters:  4 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   4.5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   4.5 out of 5 stars

Sensitive Reader:  It involves Lord Byron; there's homosexuality.  There are teen boys; there's a lot of the F-bomb flying around.

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

OTHER REVIEWS:

Leeswammes' Blog

Author website

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This book is included in my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through Shelf Awareness to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Drood by Dan Simmons - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Drood 
Author:  Dan Simmons
Publisher:   Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Books

Paperback, 976 pages
ISBN 10:     0316120618
ISBN 13:  9780316120616
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens - at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world -  hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.  Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?  Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final,unfinished work -  The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Chilling, haunting,and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

My Take: 

Charles Dickens, while being one of England's pre-eminent authors, had a fascination with the underbelly of London.  A social progressive in certain areas, he advocated for the poorest of the poor, and frequently roamed the alleys and backalleys of London's worst tenements in his attempt to draw attention to their plight.

This book chronicles the final years of Dicken's life, beginning with a horrible train accident at Staplehurst that may have changed his outlook and the course of the rest of his life.

Told from the POV of Wilkie Collins, Dickens' friend, sometime collaborator, sometime rival, and brother-in-law (Dickens' daughter Katie married Wilkie's brother Charles), it is also Wilkie's story.

A lidless, pale man with teeth filed to points - that is Drood, who Dickens says he saw at Staplehurst moving among the injured and dying.  Dickens also thinks that Drood was taking the souls of those he visited, and he enlists Wilkie to help him track down this mysterious figure, going into the eerie Undertown that exists beneath London proper and coming back with a tale of Egyptian magic, mesmerism, and dark acts.

We read of Dicken's fascinations:  cannibalism, mesmerism, and his young mistress Ellen Ternan, who was traveling with him at Staplehurst that day - the reason he turned his wife of 22 years and the mother of his 10 children, Catherine, out of his home and life.

Wilkie has his own dark secrets, a dependence on large quantities of laudanum and later opium, a "housekeeper" who lives with him, and a mistress who he keeps rooms for as well.  He also has spectral, but seemingly corporeal enough to cause physical marks, visitors:  "The Other Wilkie", and a green lady with sharp teeth.

As Wilkie's murderous instincts grow and he and Dicken's friendship begins to flag, we begin to wonder if Drood is indeed a cruel murderer surrounded by equally heartless minions who think nothing of killing and disemboweling a former London inspector, or if this shadowy world of scarabs who inhabit bodies and dark Egyptian ritual is a product of murky hallucination or imagination.

A lot of research went into this novel, and Mr. Simmons was kind enough to list a lot of his reference material towards the back.  Ever curious to know more, I will be looking much of it up, as well as reading Collin's The Woman in White and The Moonstone, which both feature prominently in this novel.

If you like twisting, brooding, gothic, Dickensian types of mystery where the answers aren't always clear, mysteries that make you think and use your own imagination, you MUST have this one on your shelf.  I was totally drawn in almost from the first, and fascinated by this fictionalized account of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens (as well as Drood, in this novel the basis for Dicken's unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood).  There really were people who were so poor that they relegated themselves to living in the sewer systems of London and Paris.  We also "meet" some of the characters that were the basis for some of Dicken's own characters.  I want to know more - more about Collins, more about Dickens the man, more about the society they lived and worked in.

This is a hefty read, but so totally well worth it.

QUOTES

Did the famous and loveable and honourable Charles Dickens plot to murder an innocent person and dissolve away his flesh in a pit of caustic lime and secretly inter what was left of him, mere ones and a skull, in the crypt of an ancient cathedral that was an important part of Dicken's own childhood?  And did Dickens then scheme to scatter the poor victim's spectacles, rings, stickpins, shirt studs, and pocket watch in the River Thames?  And if so, or even if Dickens only dreamed he did those things, what part did a very real phantom named Drood have in the onset of such madness?

"If Drood is an illusion, my dear Wilkie, he is an illusion in the form of upper London's worst nightmare.  He is a darkness in the heart of the soul's deepest darkness.  He is the personified wrath of those who have lost the last meagre rays of hope in our modern city and our modern world."

Or perhaps he was attempting suicide by reading tour.
I admit, Dear Reader, that this final possibility not only occurred to me and made sense to me, but confused me.  At this point, I wanted to be the one to kill Charles Dickens.  But perhaps it would be tidier if I merely helped him commit suicide this way.

Writing: 5 out of 5 stars

Plot:   4.75 out of 5 stars

Characters:  5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   4.5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:  4.8 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

This book is listed as one of the titles in my Chunkster Challenge 2011 list

This book is my April Just For Fun Reading Challenge title

Disclosure:  This is a review of my personal copy.

Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent - Release Date Today! BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Murder Takes the Cake
Author:  Gayle Trent
Publisher:  Gallery Books, a division of Simon and Schuster
Release Date:  March 29, 2011
Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN 10:    1451600011
ISBN 13:  9781451600018
The Book Depository / Amazon


UPDATE:  For today only, from Gayle Trent's website - join Tuesday, March 29: Virtual Book Launch Party on Facebook – If you don’t already, please “like” Gayle’s author page and then stop by on the 29th (starting at about 8 a.m.) to win some terrific prizes (books, gift cards, cookies, tote bags, etc.). If you’ve been to one of Gayle’s virtual launch parties before, you already know how much fun they are. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?!

Back-of-the-book description:

A routine cake delivery becomes a culinary nightmare when a small-town baker discovers her first client's dead body in this irresistible new mystery series.

It'll take more than a little sugar to convince folks Daphne Martin's freshly baked spice cake was not to blame for the mysterious death of town gossip Yodel Watson.  Getting her new cake decorating business, Daphne's Delectable Cakes, off the ground is hard enough now that Daphne's moved back to her southern Virginia hometown, but orders have been even slower since she found Yodel's body.  She soon realizes, however, that just bout everybody in town had a reason to poison the cantankerous busybody, from the philandering pet show owner, to Yodel's church potluck nemesis, to the Save-A-Buck's cranky produce manager-turned-bagger.  Now, to help prove she's no confectionary killer, Daphne recruits her old flame, Ben Jacobs, editor of the local newspaper, and quickly stirs up a long-hidden family scandal that just might hold the secret ingredient she needs to solve the case.  All she's got to do is roll up her sleeves and get her hands a little dirty before the real culprit decides that taking sweet revenge on Daphne will be icing on the cake.

My Take: 

One of the best cozy mysteries I've ever read, Murder Takes the Cake, like all cozy mysteries, has it's main emphasis on the characters; however, the mysteries here are pretty darn good, too.

We meet Daphne Martin, 40 years old, who has recently moved from Tennessee (where her ex-husband Todd is in prison for 7 years for trying to shoot her), back to the small town in southwestern Virginia where she grew up.  Her new cake decorating business, Daphne's Delectable Cakes, is just getting off the ground when she finds her only customer, Yodel Watson, dead on her living room sofa.

When word gets out that Yodel, the malicious town gossip, died from poisoning, it doesn't seem to matter that she never got to taste the cake that Daphne made.  With the help of one gossip in particular, the wife of a police officer,  Daphne's fledgling business is shot in the foot by the rumor that her cake may have been the cause, and Daphne, with the help of her old beau, Ben Jacobs, who is now the editor of the Brea Ridge Chronicle, sets to work clearing her name.  On the way, she discovers that Yodel kept a journal filled with malicious facts and gossip about the townspeople.  When Daphne reads some of the pages, she discovers an old scandal involving her own family (including her mother, who thinks she should have given Todd another chance), one that may lead to Yodel's actual killer.

This delicious first in a series is filled with fun, mystery, and baking and cake decorating tips like this one:  "Using unwaxed, unflavored dental floss, I cut the dough - floss somehow cuts it more neatly than a knife.".  It is also filled with all sorts of savory and unsavory characters, as well as all of the gossip and intrigue of a small town.

And, of course, the killer isn't who we think it is (but there are so many possibilities).

If you like cozies, you'll love this one.  Even if cozies aren't your preferred genre, you won't go wrong in reading this one; it IS an enjoyable read!

QUOTES

"Hard-nosed.  Is that the word I'm looking for? And she sure ain't two-faced.  She didn't like Yodel when Yodel was living; she ain't gonna pretend to like her now that she's dead."

If you're ever trying to forget your problems, don't watch TV.  The gardening channel did a show on poisonous plants growing in your own backyard.  Many of the women's channels had infidelity-themed movies, and the crime channel did a special on wrongly accused people getting justice after spending years in the penitentiary.
Even the most inane things made me think of either Yodel or Mom or Vern.  Or both.  Take the commercial of the woman serving brownies to a group of friends, for example.  My first thought was, "I wonder which of the men she's seeing behind her husband's back?"  Then, "I wonder if those brownies have been laced with poison?"

All I could do now was play it cool.  Snoopy cool.  Joe Cool.  Stay Alive Until I Can Get Away cool.

Writing:  4 out of 5 stars

Plot:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Characters: 4 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:  4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:  3.875 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Author's website

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.