My Summer Reading List......so far

Ah summer. The living is easy and the publishers bring out the books that they hope will be be Summer Blockbusters. Often over-sized escapist reading to tempt the vacationer and those who have an easier work pace for a short few months. Not only that, most people seem to like to read for sheer enjoyment. So this is the list (so far) of the books I want to read this summer.





Overseas
Beatriz Williams
Putnam Adult
May 10, 2012


There has been a lot of buzz about this debut novel by Beatriz Williams and I plan to kick off the Memorial Day weekend by at least starting it. It appears to be a combination of mystery, romance and time-travel between WWI and present day New York City. Both critical and reader response has been very good. It seems like the perfect summer read, called "delicious" by the cover blurbs and decidedly not a "Fifty Shades of Grey" clone.

Shadow of Night
Deborah Harkness
Penguin Group
July 10, 2012


Shadow of Night is the follow-up to one of last summer's biggest book successes, A Discovery of Witches, Book 1 of the All Souls Trilogy. It features Oxford Scholar Diana Bishop and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Their discovery of an enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782 catapulted them into a supernatural battle. The cliff-hanger ending of A Discovery of Witches sent them to Elizabethan England, a world of spies and the mysterious School of Night. While Elizabeth and Matthew are  consorting with such personages as Sir Walter Raleigh and Chistopher Marlowe the mystery of Ashmole 782 continues. While I thought A Discovery of Witches could have done with some judicious editing the story caught me in it's magic.

Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel
Bruce DeSilva
Macmillan/Tor/Forge
May 22, 2012


Cliff Walk is the second Liam Mulligan novel after Rogue Island, winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Liam is back at work in Providence, RI at a dying newspaper as an investigative reporter. He manages to get under the establishment's skin again with his reports on legalized prostitution in RI and the governor taking bribes to keep it that way. When a child's severed arm turns up in a landfill and the body of an internet pornographer is found on the rocks at Cliff Walk Liam thinks there may be connections to the sex industry. As anyone knows who read Rogue Island, nothing can stop Liam on the trail of a story. Bruce DeSilva gives Liam a unique and gritty "voice" not to be missed. As a former reporter himself, he knows the territory.

  




The Janus Affair: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel
Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine
Harper Voyager
May 29, 2012




For sheer fun, nothing can beat "steampunk" and The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novels. Agents Eliza Braun and Wellington Books hold the fate of England in their hands as they investigate several unexplained disappearances. Ingenious Archivist Books and beautiful, intrepid Eliza Braun are up against a fiendishly clever adversary but are equal to the task. Books and Braun are sort of a Victorian "Avengers" (the television series, not the Marvel Comics) with steam driven modern wonders. Evildoers beware, retribution is at hand!




More to come, I'm sure!

Stunning Historical Mystery set in old NY

   

THE GODS OF GOTHAM

Lyndsay Faye

Amy Einhorn/Putnam

March 2012

It's August 1845 in New York City and everything seems to be looking up for Timothy Wilde. Orphaned at an early age, Timothy has a steady job, $400 in his mattress, dreams of starting his own business and is finally ready to approach the girl he has known and loved for years. He has accomplished all this by keeping his nose clean, working hard and staying out of the orbit of his venal, vice-ridden Tammany Hall operative brother, Valentine. All of this disappears in just a few hours when fire destroys his neighborhood, workplace and partially disfigures his face. All his dreams are gone and he is homeless as well as penniless. The effects of the Economic Panic of 1837 are still being felt so recovery from the disaster will not be easy.


Brother Valentine gives him an offer he really can't refuse, a job as a "copper star" in the newly formed NYPD. Valentine himself is a volunteer fire-fighter as well as Captain on the new police force. New Yorkers are not at all sure that they want a police force and Timothy has no desire to be a part of it. His choices are limited but he does not want to be beholden to Valentine for his living or home. He accepts the job which entails a workday from four in the morning until eight at night in the poverty-stricken Sixth Ward, bordering Five Points, the most notorious slum of the time. Returning home one night footsore and heartsick from the day, a small girl barrels into him; a small, barefoot girl clad in a nightgown and covered in blood. Tim's job demands that he take her to the "House of Refuge" for indigent children but Tim would never take a child there. He takes her home and cleans her up with the help of his landlady, Mrs. Boehm. It becomes clear that the girl, Bird Daly, is a "kinchin-mab", a child prostitute from the house of Madame Silkie Marsh. Silkie is a former intimate of Valentine and large Tammany Hall contributor, further complicating matters.


Bird refuses to say what caused her to run but is clearly terrified. She does tell him that she knows where dozens of graves are located. Tim and the Police Commissioner investigate and find 19 small corpses buried in a meadow in shallow graves. In all probability they are Irish children.The fledgling NYPD does not want the story getting out and assigns Tim to investigate. Of course the story does get out and the tensions between "native" and Irish residents become a powder keg waiting for a match. The NYPD and Tammany Hall try to put a lid on the investigation but there is no way Tim will let the the deaths of 19 children be ignored. When he finds the answers everything he knows and believes about the people he either loves or respects is upended.


Lyndsay Faye throws us into a Manhattan landscape both alien and familiar at once. It is alien in it's total squalor. Her descriptions of a Manhattan before refrigeration and basic hygiene are so vivid that one can feel the heat and smell the smells of the time. It is familiar in the underlying tensions simmering in the city. Americans have always had a tendency to blame immigrants and those who are "other" for economic downturns and unwanted social change. The Irish just happen to be the targets this time and the hatred is particularly virulent due to their Catholic faith. I was completely enthralled by the historical detail and powerful descriptions in Gods of Gotham. The use of "flash", the street slang of the day adds to the "being there" feeling. Usually I love a book that I can't put down. I was able to put down the book this time but only to savor the writing and story. 


I am delighted that Ms. Faye is working hard on a sequel. A story as rich as this with characters so indelibly written deserves a sequel. Highly recommended!!!


Rating- 5 Copper Stars

It’s OK to Read Romance Novels « Beyond Her Book

It’s OK to Read Romance Novels « Beyond Her Book:

This is a great post from Barbara Vey, Publishers Weekly Romance Novel maven. I thought I would share it as I used to be the lady with the eReader. 

'via Blog this'

Never make a deal with a Trickster God

TRICKED (Iron Druid Chronicles #4)

Kevin Hearne

Del Rey

April 2012

Tricked, # 4 in the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne is another rocket ride with Atticus O' Sullivan, 2000 year old Irish Druid now based in Arizona. Atticus may be 2000, but looks and acts like a tattooed 25 year old and maintains himself by drinking an elixir called Immortali-Tea. The series is a hilarious mash-up of Norse, Celtic and now Native American mythology. In the first book, Hounded, Atticus has to deal with Aenghus Og, Celtic God of Love. Aenghus wants his sword, Fragerach the Answerer back but Atticus is not co-operating. The confrontation with Aenghus Og sets off a whole sequence of events that may just bring Ragnarock, the Norse Apocalypse.

In the events covered by Hexed and Hammered, Atticus and his faithful wolfhound companion, Oberon, ricochet from one major battle to another aided or hindered by various gods as well as werewolves and vampires. He has also gained an apprentice, Granuaile, and just wants some peace and quiet to spend the required 12 years training her. At the close of Hammered it becomes clear that Atticus needs to fake his own death. Way too many powerful gods are out to get him.

Tricked begins with Atticus staging a particularly bloody and violent death. In this he is aided by Coyote, Trickster God of the Native American pantheon. Coyote is a shape shifter who is immortal, which Atticus is decidedly not. He is hard to kill but it can be done even with his advanced healing skills. The price of Coyote's help is a deal that gets him in even more trouble facing an enemy that almost kills him several times- Skinwalkers. By the time it's over, Atticus finds that many of his decisions have been unwise (to say the least) and he is betrayed by someone he trusted.

There are so many things I love about this series from the non-stop action and snarky humor to the mythology. The Celtic Gods are pretty familiar to me but not so the Norse. I got lost somewhere between Asgard, Midgard and Vanaheimr when I read about Norse Cosmology in high school. Never mind the six other home worlds.Thor is pretty much a jerk in all the accounts I have read though! Granuaile is a welcome and helpful addition to the team. But the relationship between Oberon and Atticus is best of all and source of most of the good laughs. Atticus and Oberon can converse through a mental bond and are the closest of pals and companions. Oberon does have a bit of an obsession with sausages and poodles, but hey- he's still a dog if a really smart one.

The Iron Druid Chronicles are fun, clever and quick reads. I look forward to the last two books which should finish the series. Kevin Hearne is an author to watch. Highly recommended!

Rating- 5 Druid Staffs

Fly down to the bookstore to buy this one!

AS THE CROW FLIES (Walt Longmire Mysteries #8)
Craig Johnson
Viking Adult
5/15/2012




I would never have read the Walt Longmire mysteries had I not heard Craig Johnson speak at the National Book Festival several years ago. I belong to that generation of Americans whose appetite for Westerns was completely destroyed by TV and Hollywood in the 1950's and 60's. The very notion of a series about a present-day sheriff in Wyoming never appealed even though I was aware of it. However, Mr. Johnson was so humorous and self-deprecating that I had to give the books a try. Now the Walt Longmire series is at the top of my favorites and a must read as soon as a new book is published. So I was thrilled to get an advance copy and dived right in.


Most of the books are set at home in Wyoming, but Johnson has set a book as far afield as Philadelphia. As the Crow Flies takes place closer to home, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation,"the rez". Walt's Philadelphia lawyer daughter, Cady, is coming home to be married at a spiritually important and scenic site on the rez. Two weeks before the wedding, the arrangement to use the site falls through- a disaster that Walt and his life-long friend, Henry Standing Bear, must try to salvage somehow. As Cady's unofficial "wedding planners", they set out to find another acceptable location. In the course of the search they see a young Crow woman, Audrey Least Bull, plummet to her death from Painted Warrior peak, clutching an infant in her arms.


Mr. Johnson has the skill (and gift) of writing absolutely indelible characters, fully fleshed out human beings with all their quirks and follies. In As the Crow Flies, he introduces another fascinating character, the beautiful Lolo Long, Iraq war veteran and new Tribal Police Chief. Lolo has a whole lot of attitude and seemingly little natural ability for the job. She also appears to have an ax to grind with Henry Standing Bear. As a result of the many deficiencies in Henry's old truck, she even arrests Henry and Walt. Walt, of course feels the need to find out who pushed Audrey to her death and to mentor Lolo through her first major investigation. Many old favorites make an appearance and Henry is very much present. 


I highly recommend As the Crow Flies and if you have not read the series start at the beginning, "The Cold Dish". There is a whole lot of reading pleasure packed into the series if you enjoy well-crafted mysteries, rich characters and a thoroughly decent protagonist in the person of Walt Longmire.


Rating- 5 Stars

The Prophet (Graveyard Queen #3)

                                                                             

  

THE PROPHET (Graveyard Queen #3)

Amanda Stevens

Mira

April 2012

The Prophet, 3rd in the Graveyard Queen Series by Amanda Stevens continues as Amelia Gray returns to her home base in Charleston,SC. Amelia's devastating experiences in Asher Falls and the discovery of her true heritage have left her wondering if her ability to see ghosts might have a higher purpose than she has always thought. She knows that by breaking her father's rules about never interacting with ghosts and never becoming involved with a "haunted" man she has opened a door to the other side that she has no idea how to close. But John Devlin has texted her that he needs her.

The Prophet brings back a character from The Restorer, Robert Fremont, the ghost of Devlin's former partner. Fremont is unlike any ghost Amelia has seen before. Not only can he appear in the daylight, he is corporeal and can actually speak to her. He wants her to help him find out who murdered him so that he can pass over. Not only is Fremont making demands, Shani, the ghost of Devlin's daughter becomes more and more able to invade Amelia's space, even her home. And Mariama, Devlin's dead wife becomes even more threatening. A new threat has come back to Charleston as well. Darius Goodwine, cousin to Mariama, is following Amelia and seems to have strange power over her. All these demands and threats are sapping her energy and will. All of these people, Mariama, Shani, Fremont, Darius and John Devlin are intertwined. Amelia is the only person who can stop the destruction, if only she knew how. By the time she solves the murder of Fremont both she and Devlin are placed in mortal danger.

There are multiple twists and turns in The Prophet, questions answered and new questions posed. The eerie atmosphere evoked in the previous two novels is even more oppressive in this newest novel. I am impressed by Amanda Stevens' ability to keep us guessing and wondering what will happen next! I also enjoy the look at Gullah culture and root-lore that is so important in The Prophet. I am looking forward to # 4 in this gripping series and as I have said before-I'm not a fan of spooky books in general.

Rating 4 Stars

                                                                        

200 and Counting!!

THE WITNESS

Nora Roberts

April 2012

Brilliance Audio, Narr. Julia Whelan

The Witness is Nora Robert's 200th novel, an amazing feat and an automatic NYT Bestseller.  Back in my Book Snob days Nora Roberts is an author that I would never read- first because they were "romances" and second because she is so prolific. "How can she write so many books and still write anything of quality?", I'd ask myself. Then a friend of mine whose judgement I respect recommended the In Death series written under Roberts' alter ego, J.D. Robb. I downloaded "Naked in Death" in audio form and was hooked! After listening my way through all the available In Death audios, I branched out into her stand alone novels and trilogies.I have to say that I am much more in tune with her later work rather than the early Harlequin Romances. She is still developing her story-telling and character skills with each new novel.

The Witness is the story of Elizabeth Fitch, daughter of a cold and controlling mother, a real "Mommie Dearest" without the physical abuse. There is no father involved in her life as Elizabeth is the product of a carefully screened sperm donor. A brilliant child, she has had every move and thought controlled. At the age of 16 she has completed a year of pre-med at Harvard and knows she does not want to be a surgeon. After her first argument with her mother she rebels, forging ID's, dying her hair and shopping for slinky dresses. She meets an acquaintance and the two girls head to a club rumored to be owned by the Russian Mob. This one rebellion changes her life forever when she witnesses a horrible crime and goes on the run for the next thirteen years.

Brooks Gleason is the Police Chief in a small resort town in the Ozarks and is fascinated by Abigail Lowery, a new area resident. She is always perfectly polite but makes no effort to be a part of the community. This is a red flag in any small Southern town where one always needs to know who your "people" are! He also notices that she is carrying a concealed gun, no crime in the Ozarks, but decidedly odd. When he goes out to her cabin to introduce himself, he finds a woman with extreme security, a very large and well-trained dog and packing a Glock on her hip. Brooks has a need to know why she is on the run and he is the personification of amiable persistence.

The story of their relationship forms the heart of the novel. Abigail finds that she must share her predicament with Brooks in order to break out of her isolation and have a normal life.She knows that she is still being pursued so this a very tall order. Abigail's use of her formidable intellect and hacking skills aid her, as well as Brooks' support. Abigail's "coming out" and her complete lack of social skills provide several welcome touches of humor.

The narration is excellent, even though I had to adjust to the very girlish sound of Julia Whelan's voice. My only quibble with The Witness is that the ending was not as full of fireworks as I had expected. It was, however, satisfying so that's just me.

Rating- 4.5 Stars