Maids of Misfortune - a Victorian San Francisco Mystery by M. Louisa Locke

Blurb:

It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt.

Annie Fuller also has a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen.

Nate Dawson has a problem. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to believe that Matthew Voss didn’t leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior.

Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted historical mystery set in the foggy gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco.

Review:

Maids of Misfortune is the kind of book that keeps you reading until the wee hours even when you have to be up early for work.  The characters are all aptly realized, the sort who you can’t help feeling something for.  The storyline is interesting and without holes, and the mystery - while adequately foreshadowed - manages to keep you guessing up until the end.  The best thing about this book, though, are the details: descriptions of San Francisco and the coast, daily life in the Voss household and at Annie’s boarding house, bits and pieces about the characters and locales.  Everything is richly imagined and brought to life without the long, boring descriptive passages that many authors resort to.

Highly recommended to readers of cozy or historical mysteries or those who love well-written ‘pageturners’.

Rating: 4 stars

Joe Cafe - by JD Mader

Blurb:

The murder at Joe Café is an abomination. It stops the entire universe. For Michael, it tarnishes everything, including his badge. For Chet and his hostage, it is the beginning of a chase that will lead them through dingy motels and the darkest corridors of their minds. Dogan just wants Sara back. Jimmy the Cat wants to make up for all the time he has wasted. Frankie wants to live a ‘moral’ life, erasing everyone in his path who does not live up to his standards. Conventional notions of good and evil quickly blur as they are all forced to look into the mirrors they have avoided for so long. Chilling and horrifying, whimsical and wretched, Joe Café’s cast of broken characters try to find their way in a world they never understood to begin with…for the Chens, it is easy. They are dead.

Review:

Joe Cafe is unlike any other book I’ve ever read.  Other reviews have classified it as a crime thriller, suspense novel, or psychological thriller, but it’s both all and none of those things.  It is a dark, complex, thought-provoking look at the complexities of human nature and the perceptions and social inequities that often-times contort it, paired with a crime-oriented plot.  

Joe Cafe draws the reader in from word one.    The style is simple and straight-forward, with evocative descriptions and creative turns of phrase.  The characters are richly-drawn and complex, the sort that you want to know more about.  The plot takes a backseat in this book, not because of neglect on the author’s part, but because the characters and the emotions they bring out in the reader are highly compelling.

I felt the ending was a bit abrupt, but it suits the story and its reflection on society and human nature.  I believe I only found it jarring because it is so different from what I’m used to reading or seeing in movies.  

All in all, a wonderfully-woven noir tale that kept me flipping pages long after I should have put the Kindle down and gone to bed.  I’m looking forward to reading more from JD Mader.

Rating: 4 stars

Hippie Boy: a Girl’s Story by Ingrid Ricks

Blurb (from the product description on Amazon):

What would you do if your Mormon stepfather pinned you down and tried to cast Satan out of you? For thirteen-year-old Ingrid, the answer is simple: RUN.

For years Ingrid has begged her free-wheeling dad to let her join him on the road as a tool-selling vagabond to escape the suffocating poverty and religion at home. When her devout Mormon mother marries Earl―a homeless Vietnam vet who exploits the religion’s male-dominated culture to oppress and abuse her family―she finally gets her wish. Ingrid spends the next few summers living on the margins while hustling tools with her dad and his slimy, revolving sales crew. He becomes her lifeline and escape from Earl. But when her dad is arrested, she learns the lesson that will change her life: she can’t look to others to save her; she has to save herself.

Review:

Hippie Boy is the autobiography of a girl who grew up in a dysfunctional Morman family.  It is essentially a coming of age story.  The story ends with the girl’s graduation from high school; I would have liked to have learned what became of the woman and her family without having to resort to a Google search, so that was a bit of a ‘minus’.  Other than that, the book was well-written and enjoyable.  The author’s style as much as the story she was recounting made me keep reading, even when I probably should have been sleeping.

Aside from the fact that there is not even an epilogue to tell the reader what became of Ingrid and her family, I can’t think of anything negative about this book.  I’m not sure that it’s one I’ll reflect on or want to read again, but I would recommend it to anyone who likes biographies.

Rating: 4 stars

I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Steve Earle

Synopsis:  (from the book jacket):

Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams - not just in the figurative sense, not just because he was one of the last people to see him alive, and not just because he is rumored to have given Hank the final morphine dose that killed him.

In 1963, ten years after Hank’s death, Doc himself is wracked by addiction. Having lost his license to practice medicine, his morphine habit isn’t as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Doc’s services, miraculous things begin to happen. Graciela sustains a wound on her wrist that never heals, yet she heals others with the touch of her hand. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank’s angry ghost - who isn’t at all pleased to see Doc doing well.

Review: 

When I first stumbled upon a book with Steve Earle listed as author, I assumed that it was an autobiography.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned that it was the singer/songwriter’s first novel.  I was intrigued.  As a songwriter, Earle is an outstanding storyteller.  I simply had to know if that storytelling talent would translate.  The short answer is yes, yes it does.

I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is a simple story at it’s core.  The plot isn’t convoluted or intricate, but it’s interesting and compelling.  The characters, both the MCs and the secondary cast, are multi-dimensional and captivating.  On top of that, Earle does an amazing job of painting pictures with words - and not just physical descriptions, though he does that well.  He uses creative language to evoke emotions, scents, sounds, and sights.  You can almost taste the dust and feel the heat of a San Antonio summer.

The short of it is this: I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive held my attention from word one, and it’s a book that I would highly recommend to most readers (The book does contain somewhat sensitive subject matter, so I wouldn’t recommend it to people that might be bothered by that).  It’s the sort of book that you don’t forget five minutes after you finish reading it, and that you’re likely to find yourself picking up again in the future.

Rating: 5 of 6 stars (lightning review policy), 4 of 5 stars (mainstream sight review policies)

The Lure of Shapinsay by Krista Holle

Blurb:

Ever since Kait Swanney could remember, the old crones of the village have been warning her to stay away from the selkies. They claim that like sirens of old, the seal men creep from the inky waters, shed their skins, and entice women to their deaths beneath the North Sea. But avoiding an encounter becomes impossible when Kait is spotted at the water’s edge, moments after the murder of a half-selkie infant.

Kait is awoken unexpectedly by a beautiful, naked selkie man seeking revenge. After she declares her innocence, the intruder darts into the night, but not before inadvertently bewitching her with an overpowering lure.

Kait obsesses over a reunion deep beneath the bay and risks her own life to be reunited with her selkie. But when she lands the dangerous lover, the chaos that follows leaves Kait little time to wonder—is it love setting her on fire or has she simply been lured?

Review:

The Lure of Shapinsay is a tale of romance between a selkie male and a human female.   This in itself was enough to make the book interesting, as I’ve never before seen a novel that features a selkie. 

This book fits the typical romance structure – romance novels are formulaic for a reason, though, so that’s not a bad thing.  I did feel like the plot spun in circles in some places and was a bit thin in others, but overall the storyline was interesting enough.  The characters were believable, and some of Holle’s descriptions were the sort that set you right down in the middle of the story.

On the minus side of the equation, I’m not all that fond of the forced attraction plot device.  That’s a personal preference, though, and I realize that not all readers would have a problem with it (AND I knew about it going into the story - my preference here has no impact on my rating).  The bigger problem here is that a decent story ended up getting buried under an avalanche of adverbs.  One to two ‘ly’ adverbs per sentence is just too many.  They ended up detracting from the book in a major way, making it very difficult at times for me to keep reading.  I believe that this novel could benefit from a little editing.

Overall, The Lure of Shapinsay was a decent enough book, but I feel it could have been better.

Rating: 3 stars

REVIEW - Dreams and Nightmares

Title: Dreams and Nightmares

Author: Ann Werner

Blurb:

On what feels like the worst day of her life, instead of getting an expected marriage proposal, Decker Jones is dumped by her boyfriend of three years. Her heartbreak is tempered with joy when she receives the news that after ten long years of trying to get noticed, top literary agent Lillian Cardone has agreed to represent her, moving her a giant leap forward towards the dream of becoming a bestselling author.

Albert Crawford is a career bank robber who is planning to retire to live the good life in Mexico after pulling one last job. Things go horribly wrong when a bank guard is killed. Three time loser Albert is arrested and sent to spend the rest of his life in prison. Two different people. Two different futures on a collision course. Neither can imagine what the future holds.

Review:

For most of the book, I had no idea how Albert and Decker’s lives would intersect.  That Werner managed to keep that under wraps is impressive.  The book shifts from one character’s story to another until they intersect in the last quarter of the book.  The stories are interesting in their own right, but trying to sort out how they will come together – and then watching them collide – is what makes Dreams and Nightmares so compelling.

The story is well thought-out and well written.  The characters are believable and the descriptions evocative.

I enjoyed this book a great deal and would recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a novel that’s neither fluffy nor weighty but just right. 

Rating: 4 stars

Trevor’s Song by Susan Helene Gottfried

Trevor’s Song managed to take me completely by surprise.  Trevor himself was the biggest surprise, being one of the most dysfunctional leads I’ve seen in a book in a long, long time.  In the beginning, I didn’t even like him.  He wasn’t what you might call a sympathetic character.  But by the time I was halfway through the book, I was ready to shank anyone who so much as looked at him sideways.  It was very interesting to watch his character grow and change (even if I sometimes wanted to smack some sense into him).

The characters, dialogue, and storyline are all above average, and Gottfried writes in a smooth, straightforward style.  Even the minor characters have quirks and traits that make them stand out, and the major characters are fleshed out fairly well.  The dialogue is believable (and often amusing), and the storylines are all compelling enough to keep you reading.

My complaints about this book are very minor ones.  One was the way the backstory was handled.  Fans who were introduced to the characters through Gottfried’s blog might not have the same issues as I did, but I felt like a little more explication would have been nice in places.  I was glad, though, that Trevor’s entire backstory wasn’t hurled at the reader in one fell swoop.  However, I felt a little loss now and again in the first quarter or so of the book.  Another thing that added to that ‘being lost’ feeling in the early part of the book was the lack of anything to mark the passage of time.  I didn’t notice any reference to the month or seasons or anything, but it’s obvious quite a bit of time passes in relatively few pages.  This was a little confusing, but not enough to distract from the story.  The last ‘negative’ about this book is that it could use another round of proofreading.  I believe that almost every book has at least a few typographical errors, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there are a number in this book.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a lot.  Much more, in fact, than I thought I would when I first began reading it.  It was a sometimes fun, sometimes heartbreaking story set against an irresistible backdrop of rock and roll and one of the better indie books I’ve read.

Rating: 4 stars