A Gaggle of Book Reviews

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!

I was very impressed with the first two books in the Jaz Parks series by Jennifer Rardin, which I reviewed here. Jennifer has created a fascinating world in which others (such as weres and vampires) are known to exist, and in fact, some of them work for the government. Vayl is a 250 year old vampire working as an assassin for the CIA, and Jaz Parks is his Sensitive human partner. In Once Bitten, Twice Shy and Another One Bites the Dust, Jennifer set up the world and the characters, leaving us with an elite team of three assassins plus an accomplished seer and a incredibly talented inventor. In her third book, Biting the Bullet, she takes us several leaps forward with a book that has a dual focus on Jaz’s relationships and continuing their fight against paranormal terrorists.

You read “I couldn’t put it down” in a lot of book reviews, as well as, “I was on the edge of my seat”. Biting the Bullet is a book that will keep your stomach in knots, keep you on the edge of your seat, and quite possibly cause you to burn dinner because you can’t put it down. Jennifer Rardin’s third book in her Jaz Parks series not only lives up to the first two, in some ways it surpasses them. Now that the background information is out of the way, we can focus on the current mission to eliminate a terrorist in Iran known as “The Wizard”, as Jaz’s team works in conjunction with her twin brother David’s Special Ops team. Add in the tension between Jaz and David (he blames her for his wife’s death), plus the growing sexual tension between Jaz and Vayl, and Biting the Bullet doesn’t let you catch your breath.

Jennifer Rardin’s books include a religious perspective with quite a bit of discussion of Hell, Heaven, and angels, in addition to the expected mystical phenomenon. Jaz pushes herself to protect the souls of the people she loves, in addition to protecting their bodies. While there is a lot of discussion of necromancy and zombies in Biting the Bullet, we continue to see Jaz using dreams to discuss options with her angel adviser Raoul. Jaz and her twin’s late wife had a pact that they would each kill the other if they were turned into vampires to save their souls. As Jaz spends more and more time with Vayl, I wonder if she is rethinking her side of that pledge, and if we will learn more about vampires and souls…

Overriding the excitement and sexual tension is a firm patriotic belief that drives Jaz and her team in Biting the Bullet and the rest of the series. In a time when it isn’t always popular to be patriotic, they are drawn to doing what is right above all else. Regardless of your political views, eliminating terrorists with ties to fiends from Hell can be agreed to be a Good Thing! It is fascinating to see the story arc develop, as different members of the terrorist organization are targeted by Vayl and Jaz – we learn about the terrorist organization along with them, and are pulled along for the ride as they find supernatural solutions to evil. The depth of the characters and the series is displayed as we follow not only the dramatic tension, but also become invested in the relationships between characters, we care about their family members, and we wait anxiously for romantic developments.

Biting the Bullet is a very impressive book – whether you call it vampire fiction, urban fantasy, paranormal, military mystery, or any other label. Many authors have trouble keeping the reader’s interest after the first book, but there is no such problem here! I highly recommend all 3 books in the Jaz Parks series that have been published thus far, and have only one complaint – I have to wait until August for Bitten to Death (Jaz Parks, Book 4)?!

This book was received from the publisher for review

Death of a Gentle Lady is the newest Hamish Macbeth mystery by bestselling author M.C. Beaton. Hamish is the local policeman for the small Scottish Highlands town of Lochdubh, or black lake. Lochdubh is small enough that Hamish is the entire police force for the town, and he lives in the police station. Sleepy town or not, his fellow townspeople are delightfully quirky, and Hamish appears to be quirkier still. Hamish lives with his dog and “domesticated” wild cat, plus he attracts an ex-fiancée and an ex-girlfriend, even as he is planning to marry.

I am appalled that I haven’t read any of the books in this series before, especially because I adore mysteries set in the UK and because there have been 22 novels by M.C. Beaton in the Hamish Macbeth series. While the newest book in the series, Death of a Gentle Lady picks up on threads that come out of previous novels, it is a wonderful stand-alone novel as well. Additionally, once you’ve enjoyed the detecting of Hamish Macbeth, you have a built-in book list to work through! Sometimes finding a series belatedly works out quite well.

The “Gentle Lady” in the title of Death of a Gentle Lady is a misnomer – the victims are not particularly gentle. Mrs. Gentle is a relative newcomer to the small town of Lochdubh, and she has already made quite an impact. Mrs. Gentle inhabits the “Folly”, a small castle built on a cliff on the Scottish coast. She is a perfect gentlewoman to the townspeople, but she is quite rude to Hamish when he sees through her facade, to the point of suggesting to his supervisor that Hamish should be removed from his post. After seeing Mrs. Gentle berate her maid, Hamish offers to help Ayesha with her visa. The offer of help turns into an marriage proposal, which would help both of them – Ayesha would have a British passport and could escape from Mrs. Gentle’s clutches and Hamish would be able to keep his police station.

Lochdubh is no longer a sleepy village when there are two deaths in a matter of days, police detectives visit to investigate the murders, and there are threats against the life of Hamish Macbeth. One wonders why the Superintendent had been considering closing the police station in Lochdubh once the body count rises – though perhaps the only crime in Lochdubh is murder! The interactions between the various police officers, Hamish’s ex-girlfriends, and the villagers are incredibly engaging. The characters in Death of a Gentle Lady are multi-faceted and show a freshness that is not frequently found in a series with this many books.

M.C. Beaton has created a wonderful mystery that leaves readers flipping back through the pages looking for the clues they missed. These are the best mysteries – the kind that are a surprise, and yet you kick yourself for not figuring out the clues that the author has left. I really enjoyed Death of a Gentle Lady, and recommend picking up a copy, and then reading the earlier books as well!

The Outlaw Demon Wails is the upcoming sixth book in the outstanding Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison. Rachel is a white witch who works with a living vampire and pixy as a type of paranormal bounty hunter. Harrison has created a parallel universe to ours where the Turn came in the late 60’s as humanity battled a bio-engineered tomato, and the paranormal species (weres, vampires, witches, elves, pixies) came “out of the closet”. Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks live in The Hollows, a neighborhood with a high Interlander population. They work helping protect Interlanders and humans from the bad guys, often assisting the I.S., but their techniques can be rather unorthodox, and are often misunderstood.

In The Hollows, there is very little black and white – no one is purely bad, and no one is purely good. Rachel’s main nemesis is a politician she has known since childhood – Trent Kalamack. However, Rachel has been forced to do some “bad” things, and sometimes Trent has done “good”; they are sometimes forced to work together, too. All of Harrison’s characters are so multi-dimensional it’s hard to put them into only one category. Reading her novels makes you feel as if you took a trip through to Rachel’s world; the descriptions are incredibly vivid, creating a strong mental image. Your mind holds tight to the illusion that you have been pulled into The Hollows, smelling the spells and coffee, and making it impossible to put down The Outlaw Demon Wails or any of its predecessors.

This chapter of Rachel’s life takes place a few months after the end of For a Few Demons More, during the time around Halloween. Al, a demon Rachel had bested, has found a way out of his jail, and is breaking demon laws by trying to kill Rachel, her family, and her friends – and they can’t all hide in her sanctified church home/office. Rachel needs to track down who is summoning Al, plus Rachel’s friend Ceri has a predicament that requires her help, there’s a new guy in town who’s interested in her, and there are a lot of surprises that pop up along the way.

Each of the sub-plots of The Outlaw Demon Wails is intertwined, bringing Rachel to an inevitable conclusion. This was originally planned to be the end of the series (but it’s not!), and it is the end of one segment of Rachel’s life. She is forced to accept things she never expected, and do things that are far outside of anyone’s comfort zone. It is, however, the beginning of a new life for Rachel, a time when she is growing up and realizing that her actions have consequences on the lives of her loved ones. The Outlaw Demon Wails is a very intense book, one that challenges the reader and the characters – I can’t count the number of times I was on the edge of my seat!

While I strongly recommend reading each of the Rachel Morgan novels, you could read The Outlaw Demon Wails as a compelling stand-alone book as well. Kim Harrison does a great job balancing background for a new reader or one who has forgotten aspects of earlier books without cluttering the book.

If you enjoyed her earlier books, you will love The Outlaw Demon Wails. If you were saddened by the ending of For a Few Demons More, you’ll enjoy the sense of closure in The Outlaw Demon Wails, and should also listen to this interview with Kim Harrison, and read the exclusive Kisten short story in the For a Few Demons More paperback. If you haven’t had a chance to read the other books by Kim Harrison, if you haven’t read much paranormal literature, and/or if you really enjoy mystery and suspense, you should pick up a copy of The Outlaw Demon Wails. I savored The Outlaw Demon Wails, knowing I would have a long wait until book 7. I look forward to rereading the whole series, picking up the early clues that later turn into important plot points. Kim Harrison spins a tale that catches you in its web, and you are caught in her world long after the novel ends.

This book was received from the publisher for review. Eos Books is celebrating a decade of publishing sci fi/fantasy. Check out the Eos blog and Eos Books for information, free ebooks, and previews as part of their celebration.

Atomic Lobster is the latest novel by bestselling Florida writer Tim Dorsey. Dorsey brings a sense of humor to crime and suspense in the Sunshine State. If you’ve read Dorsey’s other novels, you’ll be thrilled at the number of characters who return to the scene of the crime in this novel. If you haven’t read his other books, this is a fun crime story, with a lot of humor and unique characters. When you add in the flip-book of a lobster claw at the bottom of the pages, it’s fun for all ages!

Dorsey’s main character in Atomic Lobster, Serge, is a combination of mob boss, stand-up comic, and Jeopardy contestant – he murders people, has sex in the back of a car while his friend is driving, and collects dirt to create a Legacy for himself. Serge has his own moral compass that guides the story; he knows that the mild-mannered Jim Davenport helped him in the past, so now Serge will do anything to protect Davenport when he is threatened. Serge’s choices lead to some mind-boggling situations, plus a lot of damaged people and homes.

Atomic Lobster starts as a collection of vignettes; we catch a glimpse of each character as they move towards each other. Serge’s traveling companions are his rather dim-witted friend Coleman who is on a quest for the biggest bong, and a pole-dancer named Rachael. When the characters converge on Lobster Lane, we find a famous football player enjoying a game of catch, Serge “house-sitting”, a secret agent named FoxTrot, an ex-con released from prison, and a support group for non-confrontational men; a very unusual mix! As the story continues, we add senior citizens on a cruise, some smugglers, and an accidental virgin named Johnny.

Tim Dorsey’s characters each have enough quirks to make them feel real, but overdone. I’m not sure I’d want to have a beer with all of them, but I could easily picture them having a beer together! Dorsey uses each vignette with a character or group of characters to move the plot forward. The overlap between these characters shows that in Dorsey’s world there are no real coincidences; everything is inter-connected. Not many other authors would have one set of characters drop a body off a bridge, then have it fall into the windshield of another character’s car!

I really enjoyed Atomic Lobster, and recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of humor with their crime. If you want to get a taste of Tim Dorsey’s writing, you can read the beginning here. There are several other authors who mix crime and humor, and if you are a fan of any of those, you can’t go wrong with Tim Dorsey’s books and Atomic Lobster!

This book was received from the publisher for review.

I was excited to receive The Law of Three: A Sarah Martin Mystery, a new young adult novel by Caroline Rennie Pattison. I have always enjoyed mysteries, and amassed a large collection of Trixie Belden mysteries as a kid I was loathe to give up. I nostalgically read all the Encyclopedia Brown books to my daughters, and one or two Nancy Drews. As I was reading them, though, I noticed that so much was out of date: the expectations of girls/young women, the freedoms allowed children, technology, and the language used in the stories. I had to stop periodically and edit or explain the content of the book. I was looking for a mystery aimed at the tween/young adult age that was current.

I found a wonderful modern-day mystery in The Law of Three. Sarah Martin is our strong-willed, lively narrator and the daughter of a police detective in the small town of Muskoka, Ontario. She’s a newcomer (her family moved to the town in her first book – The Whole, Entire, Complete Truth: A Sarah Martin Mystery), and is still trying to find her place in the high school. She has a slightly older brother, some new friends, and is learning who everyone is in town and in her classes. Pattison writes characters who sound just like real teenagers, without making you squirm at your own memories of that age. As an added bonus, the parents aren’t perfect or stereotyped either!

Mysteries told in the first person have an added dose of realism, it feels as if we are observing what’s happening, and picking up the clues beside our 9th grade detective. Pattison has written the book so it is read as entries from Sarah’s detective journal, complete with dates and locations! The storyline of The Law of Three starts when Sarah has to pick up some dropped books in the hall, a girl trips over her, and then threatens her. Sarah soon finds out that Garnet Hopper (as well as her brother Byron and her parents) are the focus of a myriad of rumors – did Garnet drown another teenager two years ago? What is the secret about their family: Do they curse people? Are they in the Mafia? Witness protection plan? Devil-worshippers? Sarah wants to find out, and starts using her detective skills to learn the truth.

As Sarah tries to find out what is going on with the Hopper family, she unexpectedly makes a new friend, has her current friends turn their backs on her (for a short time), finds out about the Wiccan religion, and tries to help locate a missing teenager. The themes in The Law of Three are more timely than in older mysteries – religious tolerance and the world of runaways and abductions are very different now. I was very impressed at how well-researched the novel was, and the way that Pattison shares that information with the reader without it sounding dry; we read Sarah’s notes after she’s researched something, complete with her thoughts on the topics.
Pattison has created a really unique character in Sarah: she jumps to conclusions, but also looks up everything online, and she has a passion for discovering the truth. I really enjoyed the character of Sarah, while she has her faults, she is a very strong girl, and one who pushes against peer pressure. The secondary characters are also very well-rounded, with each one having unique traits. Additionally, while Sarah’s father is a police detective, he doesn’t share confidential information about cases with her, and he has a very realistic feel. I kept giggling at the antics of Sarah’s mother’s new pet – a pot-bellied pig named Amber, a choice that sets her mom apart from any other mom I’ve read in this genre!

The Law of Three was hard to put down and incredibly engrossing (I finished it in a day), plus it had a mystery that kept me thinking until the end of the story. Residents of small towns are often distrustful of someone who is different, and that feeling is magnified for the Hoppers. So much of the novel felt real, and perhaps some of that is because Pattison lives in the real Muskoka, Ontario. She has a wonderful touch writing teenagers that sound like real teenagers, not like TV characters or bland stereotypes – everyone has a depth to them. The world inside Muskoka high school also rings true, from cliques to Sarah’s problems understanding Geography.

It takes a deft writer to make a book feel real and enticing, and Pattison has accomplished that in The Law of Three. I recommend it for the 10-15 age range, with the note that there is some discussion of kissing and crushes. If you have boys, don’t automatically rule this out – several of the important characters are boys, and the main character is a very strong girl, The Law of Three should appeal to both genders. This is a book that’s going on my shelf for my girls; it’s not being loaned out!

This book was received from the publisher for review

The Crazy School, by Cornelia Read is a novel and a mystery centering on the world inside a residential school for troubled teens, one that comes with very troubled staff as well. It isn’t often that my previous careers get pulled into my book reviews. However, my previous job working as a teacher in a residential school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders gave me a touchstone for the world in The Crazy School. There are many differences between The Crazy School and where I was teaching on many levels – it’s private rather than state-funded, it has teenagers rather than youngsters, and the discipline is very different. However, having experienced the world of teaching children with these problems helped pull me into the novel quickly.

Our narrator in The Crazy School is Madeline, a woman who was pulled to the Berkshires (aka Western Massachusetts) for her husband’s work, but then the job disappeared. She starts teaching at the Santangelo Academy – a private school that is used as a “last chance” for teens with emotional disorders and wealthy parents. Madeline is disturbed by the rigid discipline as well as the required therapy for teachers in addition to therapy for students. She is a bit of an outsider – the most recent hire as well as the only one who lives off-campus, in an apartment with her husband.

When you teach troubled children, you often end up with attachments to certain kids, and want to protect them. Madeline has a few students she really likes, and when one of them puts his hand through a window, she ends up wanting to protect him, but stifled by the rigid structure of the school. Madeline begins to question the structure as well as the founder, and finds herself deeply involved in the inner workings of the school and the mysteries that surround it.

In The Crazy School, Cornelia Read has created a large cast of characters, all of whom have life breathed into them. Madeline has so many different sides, she truly feels real. There are mysterious airs around many of the teachers, and given the diagnoses and medications given to the students, do we know what they are really thinking? Madeline has made a few friends she thinks are like-minded within the cadre of teachers, but are they all friends, or are some of them spying on them as they find hiding places to drink caffeine and smoke a cigarette? As we delve into the depths of the mysteries surrounding Santangelo Academy, we are investigating a horrible event involving the students as well as the backgrounds of the staff. There are twists and turns in this novel that left me completely surprised – but as I looked back, I could see the subtle hints that lead to the answers Madeline has found.

I found The Crazy School to be a truly unique book. I really enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it. It’s a mystery, and yet it is not a traditional mystery. It’s a novel about a boarding school, but it’s a very unusual boarding school. The characters are well-developed, and yet they still hide secrets from us. If you don’t usually read mysteries, but are attracted to Literary fiction or Women’s Fiction, you should definitely try The Crazy School!

This novel was received from the publisher for review.