A Gaggle of Book Reviews

No Humans Involved is the newly released paperback by New York Times Bestselling author Kelley Armstrong. No Humans Involved is the 7th book in Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” series, and as such it continues a theme of strong, sexy, magical women and otherworldly mysteries. While I am sure that if you have read the first 6 books you will pick up on the characters and background quickly, this book is a fabulous read as a stand-alone book, too (though it will encourage you to read the first 6 books!).

Jaime Vargas is a spiritualist who has been performing on TV and on stage her whole life, but unlike most spiritualists, she really does “see dead people”, and is an accomplished necromancer. Jaime walks the line between the otherworld and the mundane – she is on the Interracial Council, helping to regulate the actions of the members of the otherworld, and yet she is also hoping to boost her career with a new TV show. In No Humans Involved, Jaime has agreed to be a part of a reality TV show in which 3 spiritualists attempt to contact deceased celebrities, culminating in a séance attempting to reach the ghost of Marilyn Monroe.

Once ensconced in the Brentwood home “on location” where the spiritualists are staying, Jaime finds fractured ghosts in the garden, ghosts which she cannot banish, nor can she fully contact; they won’t leave her alone. Jaime’s spirit guide is unavailable, so she and her fellow council-member Jeremy use research, other spirits, and his werewolf-nose to try to understand and solve the mystery. Readers who are sensitive about human sacrifices and worse may not want to read this book, as No Humans Involved does involve the death of children and S&M. Armstrong does a good job of minimizing the amount of gore, but the deaths are not good bedtime imagery!

All books that are a part of a series have to walk a fine line between enough information to help acclimate new readers, but not so much that it slows down the storyline. Armstrong does an admirable job with No Humans Involved, introducing characters from previous books with enough background information that we don’t feel lost, yet leaving enough questions so we will still find surprises in the earlier novels.
It’s always interesting to see the paranormal world created by a new-to-you author, and the otherworld in No Humans Involved is filled with half-demons, werewolves, necromancers, and spirits; all of whom follow their own rules and come to life through the characters. All of Armstrong’s characters have strengths and weaknesses that make them realistic – Jeremy’s werewolf heritage makes him gun-shy about women, and Jaime keeps recalling her mother’s intense stage-mothering and verbal abuse. Faithful readers will enjoy seeing friends from earlier books pop up, helping Jaime and Jeremy research the phenomenon of the fractured spirits. Hope, the main character of the upcoming hardcover Personal Demon, plays an important role in No Humans Involved, whetting your appetite for more.

No Humans Involved is an engrossing, suspenseful, thrilling read, which quickly pulls readers in and is loath to let them go. Parts of the book are disturbing, but the characters and plot pull you through to the next chapter. If you’re an urban fantasy lover, a lover of suspense/thrillers, or a sci-fi/paranormal reader, you should at least check out the first chapter, you will quickly be pulled into Armstrong’s world and No Humans Involved. I want to learn more about one of the secondary characters, Hope, and she’s the lead character in Personal Demon (Women of the Otherworld, Book , to be released in hardcover at the end of March – it’s available now for pre-order!

Pick up No Humans Involved for your Kindle, and read it right away!

This book was received from the publisher for review

Jackfish, The Vanishing Village is a new novel by Sarah Felix Burns, published by Inanna Publications of Canada. The story is a mix of real historical events and places, combined with a fictionized storyline of a woman which reads like a memoir, moving back and forth between the past and the present day. Jackfish, The Vanishing Village is a deeply moving and haunting book that will stay in your thoughts long after you put it down. It is not an easy read, but it is one will help you understand the lives of others, and be grateful for your own life.

Jackfish, The Vanishing Village is divided into 4 parts, each section dealing with the emotional growth of Clemance, our narrator and main character. Clemance is trying to cope with a multitude of emotional baggage that all comes to a head when she is taken off her anti-depressant due to an unexpected pregnancy at 42. The book is dedicated to all those who "battle the demons of guilt, shame, addiction, and mental illness", all of which are present in Clemance. Sarah Burns’ writing deftly brings us inside the mind of a woman trying to cope with her present life and her past life, as the demons of her past haunt her daily.

The town of Jackfish, Ontario is was a real town, one that was kept alive through the fishing and logging industries; it was abandoned when trains started using diesel, and no longer needed to stop in Jackfish for coal. Sarah Burns has adapted Jackfish to fit her story, just as she has utilized other real people, places, and events to create a book that feels incredibly real. The rawness of emotion in Jackfish, The Vanishing Village also pulls the reader into the story, Clemance’s story tugs at you.

I had to put down Jackfish, The Vanishing Village a few times during the time I was reading it. Though I am a fast reader, it took several days to read this book; I needed to intersperse it with other, lighter fare. Clemance, her husband Bernie, her friends, and her family are drawn so clearly they jump to life, and the story follows these intense characters. Just as this is not a light read, it is not an easy read, either. Clemance’s life was not an easy one prior to her marriage and pregnancy, and the medication-free pregnancy is triggering memories of those hard times.

Switching back and forth between the present and the past is not easy for authors, nor for the reader. However, in Jackfish, The Vanishing Village, Sarah Burns has written segues that help us understand why Clemance’s mind drifts to the past from the present. The flashback style works so well because we can see inside Clemance’s mind and understand what she is thinking. There are many mysteries locked within Clemance’s brain, though, and we uncover them slowly as she is ready to deal with them. We, the readers, also grow to really like Clemance, and her earlier actions are easier to accept when we have developed a relationship with her.

Jackfish, The Vanishing Village is an amazingly intricate and intense book, one that truly feels real. If you are a memoir buff, and are considering reading some fiction, this is the right book for you! If you enjoy women’s fiction or literary fiction, you will not be able to put down Jackfish, The Vanishing Village. If you are very sensitive and easily troubled, I would not suggest this book. That said, I am incredibly glad that I read Jackfish, The Vanishing Village, it put my own troubles into a new perspective, and also helped me understand Clemance’s world, and the world of others struggling with abuse, addiction, poverty, and mental illness. Clemance’s life story is one that I will never forget, one that others should read.

Ghost of a Chance is a paranormal mystery written by Kate Marsh, a pen name for the fantastic paranormal author Katie MacAlister. I have raved about Katie’s books previously, and I was thrilled to find a new book written by her. If you have read her Dark Ones (vampires) series, you will have a good insight into the background of Ghost of a Chance, as she uses the same paranormal world for both. If you haven’t read the Dark Ones books, you will be able to quickly pick up the vocabulary of the paranormal society inside Ghost of a Chance, but you should really pick up Katie MacAlister’s books; they’re great reads.

While there are mysteries and suspense in all of Katie’s books, Ghost of a Chance focuses on the mystery, rather than romance. Karma Marx is an unhappily married woman whose job is to “clean” houses; she exorcises spirits from their homes and banishes them. She’s soft hearted, and tends to move the spirits to her own home rather than banishing them completely, so she has several entities living with her, but in hiding from her husband Spider. When Karma stands up for herself and asks for a divorce, Spider agrees to divorce without contesting, with the stipulation that she “clean” one last house for him.

Nothing is ever that simple, though is it? When Karma arrives at the house, she finds the previous owner, Adam, a poltergeist, disinterested in moving. While several people are in the house there is an unexpected death. Adam seals the house so that no one can leave or enter, and he and Karma set out to discover the identity of the murderer.

The reader follows along as we read about the investigation from Karma’s point of view. Ghost of a Chance is an interesting variation on the “locked room” type of mystery. No one is quite who they seem, and their supernatural powers alter the possibilities for alibis. Additionally, there are ghosts, a unicorn, and others within the house that can testify to a person/being’s whereabouts. There are clues that point you away from one possibility and towards another. Is the solution the one which is the most obvious, or is it one that you never expected? While parts of the mystery went exactly as I expected, there were several big surprises. The quirks and abilities of each character are as unexpected as the ending; and those quirks make the characters (living or not) incredibly realistic.

It was a lot of fun to read a book that included two of my top book loves – the paranormal world and mysteries! I highly recommend Ghost of a Chance, by Kate Marsh to anyone who enjoys Katie MacAlister’s novels, as well as to anyone who likes a good mystery or a good paranormal story. This novel is worth taking a chance if you haven’t read paranormals before – the mystery is great, and the characters have depth, you can really imagine having coffee with Karma – or maybe some tea. There is some great humor mixed with the mystery and paranormal; Ghost of a Chance is a great read.

Did I Expect Angels? is the intense first novel by Kathryn Maughan. This is a story that will require a nearby box of Kleenex, but it is ultimately an uplifting novel about the effect one person can have on another’s life. Kathryn Maughan’s book has inspired others to talk about unexpected angels who have helped them on her book’s website. In a way, the idea reminds me of the concept in Pay It Forward – the book and the movie, but rather than focusing on a wide range of people, Did I Expect Angels? focuses on the lives of two people – Jennifer and Henry. While the storyline discusses faith and angels, this is not a novel to be dismissed due to your own beliefs; there is no preaching, just two beautiful stories.

When we first meet Jennifer, she’s despondently walking through the drug store, planning to buy 2 bottles of aspirin. Henry is the greeter at the drug store, a friendly guy with whom she has chatted frequently; Jennifer had visited Costa Rica, where Henry was born. Henry picks up on Jennifer’s desperation that evening, and asks her to come with him for a few minutes. Reluctantly, Jennifer agrees, and she joins Henry and his daughter Rosita for a hot chocolate at a local diner.

The story within Did I Expect Angels? happens at one table at the diner, in one evening. However, the story transcends time and space, recalling forty years of an older man’s life, and the love and loss of a younger woman’s life. Sitting with her at the diner, Henry tells Jennifer about his childhood in Costa Rica, how he and his family immigrated to the United States, and the joys and hardships in his life. As Henry tells her his story, Jennifer’s attention fades in and out; she listens to him, but also starts remembering her own story.

Kathryn Maughan skillfully weaves together Henry’s tale with the story of Jennifer’s love for her husband and daughter, and her profound grief after the loss of her husband. The reader is pulled into the lives of both characters, and needs to know what has happened to them, and how they will be helped. I had to put down Did I Expect Angels? a few times so that I could find tissues, but I did not want to put it down; I needed to know what would happen next for both Jennifer and Henry.

Maughan was inspired to write the novel after reading articles about the first Christmas September 11, and the grief of the widows and widowers as they coped through their first holiday.

As I read and listened to all these stories, I thought, “What about next Christmas? Is that going to be any easier? And the one after that? Will the newspeople talk about it next year?”

In our society, grief is given a time limit – if you are still grieving after a few months, it’s gone on for too long. Unfortunately, human minds and hearts are unique, and each of us heals in our own time. I am very impressed with not only how Jennifer’s debilitating grief is treated in Did I Expect Angels?, but also how sensitive Maughan is to those who continue to struggle. Jennifer and Henry share their grief, but they are also linked together with hope as their unexpected angels assist them.

I have been dealing with chronic pain for over two years, and have had my fair share of friends who couldn’t cope and thought I was too upset for too long. However, I’ve also been lucky enough to have a few unexpected angels who helped me when times were toughest. At the end of the novel, I found myself with tears in my eyes and an uplifted heart.

Did I Expect Angels? is a beautiful book that will deeply affect you. If you are looking for a beautiful and intense read, look no farther – this is your book. If you are surviving grief, Did I Expect Angels? can offer some hope. Be sure to check out the book’s website, and leave a video message about the unexpected angels that have helped you. I recommend Did I Expect Angels?, but though it is ultimately hopeful, I would still recommend a cheerful book as a follow-up to this one!

The wonderful novel Happy Hour at Casa Dracula has been re-released as a mass market paperback after its original release in trade paperback. I mentioned this book in a previous post about great vampire romances, and relished the idea of the story being available to a larger audience. Of course, I also relished the idea of re-reading Marta Acosta’s bon mots within Happy Hour at Casa Dracula! If you know how Happy Hour ends, you will spot Marta’s clues throughout the book – it qualifies as a top re-read – definitely a novel to be read more than once.

Happy Hour at Casa Dracula could be put into many categories – Latina literature, vampire novel, vampire romance, paranormal mystery, and so many others. Marta Acosta does a wonderful job of introducing her audience to a new type of vampire and a new heroine – one with natural curves and a cooking style that includes “putting things in tortillas”. the vampire fantasy genre tends to be overrun with very Caucasian individuals, with very few “people of hue”. It’s wonderful to see Happy Hour at Casa Dracula and the rest of the series bucking that trend.

Milagro de los Santos, Mil to her friends, is a graduate of Fancy University, but hasn’t quite found her niche. She lives in a basement apartment, has a small gardening business, a “reading consultant” business for wealthy women who want to look well read, and writes novels and short stories she hasn’t been able to get published. When Mil attends a party held by one of her reading consultant clients, her ex-boyfriend from F.U. is there as the fêted author. As she leaves the party, she meets a handsome man and ends up kissing him, and falling down, so they exchange blood.

After the kiss, Mil’s world whirls out of control – she becomes very ill, and then she is hunted by one group of rabid extremists, and saved by another group. The kidnappers have money and political power behind them, the other group has money but is trying to remain secluded. Mil is thrown into a world of “genetically different” individuals who eat a lot of red foods and may drink blood – but they claim not to be vampires! Who should she trust? What about the handsome young men of the family – including the one with whom she shared a kiss? Happy Hour at Casa Dracula is a story of love, political machinations, and a woman’s search for her place in the world.
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Marta Acosta has create wonderful characters who are a lot of fun, characters with quirks and secrets that are exposed over time. No one is quite who they first appear, and as Mil finds herself, she is also discovering the true selves of those around her. It’s fabulous to read a book that takes on diversity in vampires, political machinations, and romance all at once. If you have never had the opportunity to check out a great vampire novel, Happy Hour is a good book to get you started – it isn’t cheesy, it is incredibly far from clichéd, and it has a great mix of suspense and fun.

Happy Hour at Casa Dracula is a truly unique book that I highly recommend. This is a book that you will devour, needing to see what happens next. But when you finish, you’ll re-read it, savoring the moments that have extra meaning after you’ve discovered the ending. When you’ve finished Happy Hour, you can pre-order the mass-market paperback of the sequel (Midnight Brunch at Casa Dracula), or if you’re impatient, pick up the trade paperback of Midnight Brunch. Then you just have to wait for the end of summer to read book 3 – The Bride of Casa Dracula!

While you’re waiting, be sure to check out Marta Acosta’s web site, as well as her Vampire Wire blog, which is filled with news and links to reviews of great paranormal/urban fantasy/vampire romance books.

This book was received from the publisher for review

Beet is the newest novel by bestselling author Roger Rosenblatt. Beet is a (fictional) small, elite liberal arts college located about 40 minutes north of Boston. It and the small town with whom it shares a name were founded by a pig farmer, so the theme and mascot for both is a pig. Of course, the school mascot is named Latin the pig… The college’s endowment has gone missing, and the faculty is going back and forth between attacking each other and trying to find a set of courses that will save the college.

Professor Peace Porterfield is one of the professors you love to have – he’s excited about teaching, and loves helping students learn. When he is named to the committee who is supposed to save the college, he takes his new work just as seriously. Not everyone agrees with his desire to save the now-desititute Beet, so he and his committee become targets for radical students protesting the college, the head of the trustees who seems determined to close the college, as well as the president of Beet. Even Peace’s wife Livi is tired of living North of Boston, where her skills as a hand surgeon aren’t well utilized. So why is Peace Porterfield so determined to help Beet fly, when everyone else is determined to close the college, including its president?

Rosenblatt pulls us into the storyline quickly – anyone who attended a liberal arts college in the Northeast will identify with the situation and the quirky characters immediately. If you’ve lived in the area 40 minutes North of Boston, you’ll be glad to know that Rosenblatt mixes the fictional town and college of Beet with the real towns and colleges in the area. If you’ve ever read a book about the angst of college life, you’ll love the satire in this book – the protesters aren’t sure what they are protesting against, one of the most integral students is considering being a suicide bomber as he tries to major in Homeland Security, and the college administration really is as crooked as most people assume it to be.

In Beet, Rosenblatt’s writing is outstanding, causing me to laugh regularly (surprising the other passengers on the train). I’ve never read a book with so many quotes I needed to write down immediately…

• When Latin the pig is loose, “I don’t think he was going to devour you. In any case, it would have been the first time treyf ate a Jew.”
• One character has “hair the color of mixed nuts”
• Another has “a voice like dessicated fruit”
• A third looks like “an enlarged alter boy”
• The president’s “face had the folds of a Shar-pei”

While the satirical humor of Beet may not appeal to everyone, it should be on the “must read” list for anyone who graduated from a small college in the northeast and needs several smile and some guffaws. The plot and characters are well-developed, Rosenblatt walks the line between creating caricatures at whom he wishes to poke fun, and creating characters with depth that you can easily visualize.

I felt transported by Beet, back into the world I left 15 years ago when I graduated from college. It had that “inside joke” feel, but the reader was in on the joke, laughing. The mysterious loss of the endowment is a driving plot point, but it is the characters and the sharp writing that keep you turning page after page. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Beet – you won’t regret it!

This book was received from the publisher for review

Check out our interview with Melanie Wells, in addition to this review! 

My Soul to Keep (Dylan Foster Series #3) is the newest mystery and psychological thriller by Melanie Wells. Wells has previously written When the Day of Evil Comes and The Soul Hunter, both novels starring psychology professor Dylan Foster, who finds herself with appalling luck following her around. There are characters who are carried from one novel to the next, but no prior knowledge of the series is required for My Soul to Keep to quickly pull you into its thrall.

Melanie Wells and her protagonist Dylan foster share a background in both theology and psychology, and both live in the Dallas, TX area and have ties to Southern Methodist University. While there are similarities, there are also differences. Superficially, Wells has a dog, and Dylan has rabbits. But mostly, one hopes that Wells has never been involved in a real situation as haunting as the storyline in My Soul to Keep.

Before picking up My Soul to Keep, readers should be aware that this novel focuses on an investigation of a child’s abduction, as well as another child’s illness. When the book opens, Professor Dylan Foster is excited by the end of the academic year and her young friend Christine’s 6th birthday. As Dylan and her two friends are chatting, Christine and her friend Nicholas are playing at the park when Nicholas is kidnapped. It’s as if the earth tips off its axis at that point, as the next several days get stranger and stranger, and more and more fraught with anxiety. Melanie Wells’s writing is intense and vivid, painting word pictures of the characters as well as the life of the city of Dallas.

I have been noticing an increase in the number of books with angels or spiritual guides, and in this book Christine is known to be very open to the spiritual realm and has a guide named Earl who helps her. In fact, the searchers misunderstand Christine at first when she says the kidnapper is black – it is his heat and soul she is discussing, not his skin. When a police officer mentions Christine’s sensitivity as a “gift”, Dylan remarks to herself,

“I figured this would be an inappropriate time to mention that I’m sometimes cursed with the same gift, whch I would give back in an instant if I could locate the customer-service department.”

As days pass and Nicholas isn’t found, Christine herself becomes sick, and the tension rises. Wells writes children who act real – Christine may have a connection with the spirit realm, but she still freaks out about getting a chest x-ray! All of the characters act the way one would expect – no martyrs, and plenty of lost tempers.

The women in My Soul to Keep are very strong and supportive of eachother. In some ways their support is tied to unavailable male partners: Dylan is still emotionally tied to her ex-boyfriend David (who Christine insists is still her boyfriend, and that Dylan just needs to bake him snickerdoodles…); Christine’s father is on a missionary trip and unavailable to her mother Liz; Nicholas’s father is in jail, and his mother Maria’s boyfriend is a police officer, caught between supporting his girlfriend and his work. However, the support between the women would shine regardless of the situation.

In My Soul to Keep, Melanie Wells brought characters and the city of Dallas to life. I was transported back a dozen years to when we lived in Dallas – I felt as if I would run into Dylan and her friends at a playground or over enchiladas. I highly recommend meeting these characters and reading My Soul to Keep and the earlier novels by Melanie Wells (When the Day of Evil Comes and The Soul Hunter). I know I’ll be picking up the first two books and also awaiting the fourth book!  Don’t forget to read our interview with Melanie Wells, and pick up her books!