Mini-Reviews: Darling Girls and Wild Women

Two books that couldn't be more different, other than I liked them both and don't have a ton to say about them - so it's time for another round of mini-reviews!

First up is Wild Women and the Blues by Denny S. Bryce, a dual timeline historical fiction, with romantic elements, novel set in 1925 and 2015. 1925 Chicago is flowing with bootleg liquor, mobsters, and hot jazz clubs. Honoree Dalcour is a former sharecropper's daughter from Louisiana, having been in Chicago since she was a child. Her parents are both now gone (father dead, mother basically took off) which means Honoree has been left to make her own way in the world, as a dancer. Her life's ambition, to work at the classiest black-and-tan club in town, The Dreamland Café, is about to come true - until a ghost from her past waltzes through the door at her current job. The boy she desperately loved and coughed up her virginity to. The boy from a respectable wealthy Black family. The boy who ghosted her three-years ago and she assumed was dead.

In 2015 Chicago, film student Sawyer Hayes is hoping to finally finish his overdue doctoral thesis. He discovered a hidden box in his grandmother's attic containing photographs and a film cannister he thinks contains a long-lost film by the legendary Black filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. He needs to get the film restored and talk to the last living link to Micheaux, a former dancer who appears in some of his grandmother's found photographs, Honoree Dalcour. Yes, she's over 100, still alive, and living in a nursing home in Chicago. Unfortunately she's stubborn and extracting her secrets is taking precious time Sawyer doesn't have.

This was an entertaining story with a lot of good historical color and flavor. The 1925 portion of the story is more richly drawn and while the book cover is bright and vibrant, the story itself is a bit darker around the edges with the plot leaning heavily on bootlegging, mobsters and the numbers racket. It's one of those plots where something good happens, immediately followed by something bad - so it definitely kept the pages turning. The 2015 storyline was interesting because it's chock-full of family secrets waiting to be uncovered, although I felt like Sawyer's personal baggage is largely left adrift. Also, while I'm a sucker for secrets, Honoree's Big Secret was a bit of a head scratcher for me - I mean why?! What was the point exactly? I'm not sure it entirely works. That being said, I did like the story overall and will read more of Bryce.

Grade = B

Sally Hepworth writes the type of suspense that's great for folks who like suspense but don't want to wade through a bunch of violence. She also knows her way around writing tension. The kind of tension that suffocates the reader from the first page to the last. Darling Girls tells the story of Jessica, Norah and Alicia, three women who were rescued from family tragedies and raised in foster care by Miss Fairchild, who owns an idyllic farm out in the country. Things, of course, are not what they seem. The girls, now grown, are called back "home" when construction workers, tearing down the house to build a new development, uncover the skeletal remains of a small child.  The "sisters" are now called back as potential witnesses (or possibly suspects) and none of them are all that ready or willing to revisit the past.

Out of the gate, all the trigger warnings for childhood trauma and abuse (psychological and emotional).  Miss Fairchild is one of those evil adult characters whose milk and cookies image is hiding a monster underneath. It's very hard to read and unsurprisingly all that childhood trauma has manifested itself in unhealthy ways now that the girls are adults. 

Told in a dual timeline between past and present, the suspense is very slow burn (hence that suffocating feeling) and doesn't truly begin to cook until the final third, when I could not tear myself away.  There's a twist at the end that had me gasping out loud, but also took off a bit of shine. It moves this book firmly from suspense to the thriller category - meaning it leaves a door open more than a crack and I'm not convinced the person how needs to be punished (mightily!) truly will be. However, all three women do end up in a better place by the end of the story, which goes a long way in making me feel less annoyed. While I'm assigning this the same grade, The Soulmate edges this one out for me, but it sure as heck is still plenty riveting.

Final Grade = B+

Mini-Reviews: Barely Any Spoons

Hey, so yeah. This blog has fallen into Dead Zone space again and that's largely because I've barely been reading. And what I have been reading? I don't really have the spoons to blog about - but dead space is dead space, so it's time for some patented mini-reviews of meh reads that I don't have a lot to say about. Strap yourselves in kiddies!

The Great British Bump Off by John Allison and Max Sarin was featured on one of our booklists at the Day Job. I'm not a huge graphic novel reader, but I'll pick one up when I stumble across a plot description that tickles my fancy and this one sounded fun.  The publisher is marketing this as "An Agatha Christie-style murder mystery set in the world of English competitive baking..." and what I was hoping for was the charm of the Great British Bake Off mixed with the sinister underbelly of a traditional British mystery. What I got was the story of an insufferable jerk getting poisoned on the eve before filming starts and a quirky, manic butterfly heroine flitting about. Basically she's the first cousin of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and is annoying beyond measure.  Just because Agatha Christie was British and this riffs on a popular British baking show does not make it a good comparison anywhere on the planet Earth. I finished it, but seriously graphic novel. Those are harder to DNF than category romance.

Final, Not-For-Me, Grade = D

The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes was on my Kindle because of the Michigan connection (I'm from Michigan...) and the fact that Open Road Media reprinted it 2016.  It was originally published all the way back in 1976, was an Edgar Award Finalist, and it's age is what made it memorable. This true crime book tells the story of several young women, brutally murdered, around Eastern Michigan University in the late 1960s. What makes this interesting is the time in which this book was written - the author changes the names of nearly all the players (including the victims and the murderer) to afford the families some small measure of privacy. In a world where we have amateur cold case detectives digging around in victim's and their family's pain for podcast fame and hopeful fortune this was....quaint is the word I think I want to use.  Also, I found it interesting to read about the murders and how flummoxed the cops were given it was the late 1960s.  These days the case would have been cracked in a speedier fashion thanks to DNA evidence and everybody having a Ring camera installed on their front doors. The methodical first half is where the meat and potatoes were for me and I thought the author did a good job of conveying the tension and difficulties of the investigation.

Of course in the second half, after the cops identify a suspect, they do everything in their power to fumble the ball on the 20 yard line, and it's amazing to me the jury convicts given the sheer brain-melting, confounding hair analysis testimony. The trial part of the book was pure tedium for me, which I suppose means the author did his job since most trials are pure tedium. 

It was interesting and "fine" but what I found supremely perplexing was that there was no updated forward or afterword (yes, the author has since passed but literally throw a stone and you could find another true crime writer to take on that job!). Given that someone else was convicted of murdering one of the victims (who never quite fit the pattern) in 2005 thanks to, you guessed it, DNA evidence, this was particularly glaring.

Final Grade = C

I think I downloaded The Return by Rachel Harrison thanks to a Netgalley promo email and reading the description I think I was thinking it would be suspense.  It's really more horror, which is fine and I do read some horror, but honestly this was the very definition of middle-of-the-road read for me.

It tells the story of four college friends, Julie, Mae, Molly and Elise, with Elise, the least successful of the group, narrating the story. Julie is missing. As in she went for a hike and disappeared. Everyone is in a panic, including Molly, Mae and Julie's husband. But not Elise. Julie and Elise are a lot alike and Elise is convinced that Julie will return. And she does. Two years to the day she disappeared with no memory of what happened to her or where she's been all this time. After the dust settles the girls decide to take a girl's trip to reconnect and head to an exclusive boutique hotel in the Catskills. But the second Elise sees Julie she knows something is very wrong. Julie is not Julie. She's emaciated, with sallow skin, terrible teeth, and odd appetites. As in staunch to the point of insufferable vegan Julie is now eating raw and/or barely cooked meat. But if Julie isn't Julie, than who is she exactly?

This is a story of toxic friendship, with each character being a hot mess in their own way and basically being snide about whichever woman isn't around at that time. Instead of leaning in on each other for support, it's a friendship well practiced in avoidance. There are just things they don't talk about. Ever. It lends itself to not really caring for any of them all that much, so even though the author does a decent job of ratcheting up the creepy tension with Gothic tinged vibes, I spent the whole book kind of wishing everyone would end up dead. By the time I got to the end that tension ends up deflated by an ending that seems to go on forever and a very tell-y recounting of what happened to Julie when she disappeared. The whole thing has an oddly detached feeling and I finished it relieved it was one more book off the pile.

Final Grade = C

Mini-Reviews: Aggressively Fine

Part of my reading resolution for 2024 is taking a deeper dive into my Kindle and pulling out long lost ARCs.  Unfortunately my first two picks for the new year fell into the "aggressively fine" category.  I don't know about you all, but there's something about average reads that can be just as depressing as the duds. 

Harlequin Blaze was never a favorite line of mine, but a few still ended up finding their way into my TBR, usually because the back cover blurb tickled my fancy in some way.  Make Mine a Marine by Candace Havens was published in 2016 (yikes on bikes Wendy) and is, from what I can gather, part of a series featuring hunky Marines. 

Chelly Richardson is marking time in Nashville when an obsessive ex who won't take the hint that they broke up has her making the drastic decision to get out of dodge. She heads to Texas only to discover the friend she was planning to crash with took off to elope (and said "friend" knew Chelly was on her way). She's near broke, her car is on it's last gasp, so Chelly decides to do the one thing that always gives her some comfort - she comes across an estate sale and stops.  That's where she meets said hunky Marine, Matt Ryan. His parents have died and he's left with their house full of "stuff" (Mom was a bit of a collector with plans to remodel the house) and instead of hiring an expert to liquidate the holdings, he's doing it himself - and a terrible job of it. Chelly tells him he's underselling stuff and before you know it - bingo bango she's staying in his pool house, takes on liquidating his parents' stuff, and will help him remodel the house to put on the market. He gets the help he obviously needs and Chelly gets a leg up in starting her own business.

On the surface this story is fine. Unfortunately it takes enough wrong turns that ultimately sink any hope I might have had for a solid category romance. Look, I get that the police do not have the best track record with domestic situations but Chelly doesn't even take a whiff near the cops about the obsessive ex. She just runs. In fact that's her solution to every problem life throws her way - she runs. Yeah, she's one of those heroines. Then there's the fact that she's a hot mess and our frickin' Lieutenant Colonel hero just offers her the keys to the kingdom even though he acknowledges she's a hot mess. She's flighty and artistic, he's so uptight he probably starches his underwear. The conflict in the story centers entirely around their inability to communicate with each other and assuming the worst. 

Is this the worst category romance I've ever read? Absolutely not.  Is it pretty ho-hum? Yes.

Final Grade = C

Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia was a debut historical mystery that I was pretty intrigued by when I downloaded the ARC in 2021 - and well, here we are.  And of course I was intrigued! It's set in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance!  What's not to love about that concept?  Unfortunately, while I found the heroine intriguing, I was let down by the pacing and writing.

It's 1926 and young Black women are turning up dead in Harlem. Their bodies are being dumped in front of Maggie's Cafe, where Louise Lloyd works as a waitress and where the dead girls all worked in the not-so-secret speakeasy run by the proprietor's son ahem serving the customers more than bootleg liquor if you catch my drift. Ten years earlier Louise escaped the clutches of a kidnapper and rescued captive girls in the process. She was dubbed the "Hero of Harlem" - notoriety she's been running from since and that helped lead to her estrangement with her father. Through a series of happenstance (OK, it's Louise's temper getting the better of her) she ends up in the cross hairs of the cops - and the lead detective on the dead girls' case says they won't press charges on one condition - she has to help them.  Frankly Louise can get into places, talk to people, that the white cops cannot.

What I liked best about this book was Louise as a character - she had depth and contradictions that I found intriguing. Her estrangement from her father, her relationship with her three sisters, her relationship with her girlfriend. The author really embraced the era and setting and it's also a book that is unapologetically queer. 

Unfortunately the pacing is a mess. Most reviews cite a slow beginning, but I was more bored with the final 1/3 of the story - which by then our "bad guy" has been unmasked and the whole thing slogs on until I literally noticed there was less than 5% left and we were rushed to the final showdown. The transitions between chapters were also a problem which didn't do the pacing any favors.  To give one example: in the final chapters of the story Louise breaks into an apartment and finds a secret compartment. Then the chapter ends.  One would think that at the start of the next chapter would be Louise still in the apartment revealing what she found, right? Nope. It's a completely different scene - we have no idea how Louise got out of the apartment undetected, and what was in the secret compartment isn't revealed until several pages into the next chapter. 

Nothing about the pacing of this story was smooth and while I liked the story for the most part, I was just ready for it to be over by the time I got to 60%.  I will say this though, the author wasn't afraid to "go there" and kill her darlings. There's a shocking turn towards the end that actually made me gasp in a "Oh wow, I can't believe she did that..." sort of way.

Will I read the next book in the series? Jury still out but it's looking doubtful. Frankly I found Louise's lover a little annoying and it seems like she plays a more prominent role in Book 2. Maybe? But honestly, I'm feeling kinda meh about the idea at the moment...

Final Grade = C+

Mini-Reviews: Fake Relationship and Friends-to-Lovers Historical

Yes, it's time for another round of mini-reviews. What can I say? Words are still hard and my most recent romance reads haven't exactly inspired effusiveness. 

First up is The Bookworm and the Beast by Charlee James.  My book group's last two picks have been, to be frank, not great (a D+ and a DNF for yours truly) so I went diving into the depths of my digital TBR and convinced everybody to read this one.  What I got was a very sweet read. How sweet? I should have read it over the Christmas holiday when my tolerance for toothaches is higher.  Nobody but a category romance fan will understand this reference, but what we have here is Silhouette Romance vs. Harlequin  Romance sweet.  It's very sweet.

Izzy Simon is a librarian, which means of course she's taking on a two-week temp job to help her grandmother with the rent for her assisted living apartment (this rang depressingly true). Her assignment is to be the temporary assistant to Derek Croft, a grumpy children's book author (OK, sure).  He doesn't want or need an assistant but with his family coming in for the Christmas holiday, he realizes Izzy is the perfect decoy to get his well-meaning stepmother, who keeps trying to set him up with various single ladies, off his back.

I mean, it's fine.  It's very sweet and there's a scene with some wolves (seriously) in the woods that pushed this one into full-blown, eye-rolling, fairy tale territory.  But the one thing that I kept niggling on?  He's a children's book author. She's a librarian. Trust me - when librarians meet authors (especially successful children's book authors...) discussions are had.  Basically there's no talk at all about their respective careers and they don't factor into the story at all - other than Izzy making a dismal salary and needing to work a second job to help out Grandma.  Final Grade = C

If you're looking for a pleasant, low-angst read, look no further than Her Best Friend, the Duke by Laura Martin.  Caroline Yaxley is hopelessly in love with her best friend, James Dunstable, Duke of Heydon.  Their friendship is rather unconventional, and certainly gives the gossips something to speculate over, but it's all above reproach, which is the problem for Caroline.  She's now 24 and realizes that she wants children and companionship. At this point if she can't have the man she loves she can at least settle for amiable companionship and not growing old alone. 

James is looking for a love like his parents had. Love-at-first-sight, a thunderclap, heavenly choirs singing - the whole enchilada.  Never mind he's now 40 and this great love match hasn't miraculously dropped into his lap. He's instead done his best to dodge the matchmaking mamas and spent his time traveling the continent.  But now he's back in England and flummoxed that Caroline suddenly wants to marry.  I mean, what's that all about?  Still, he agrees to help her find a tolerable husband but the problem is no man is nearly good enough for her.  Also, why is he suddenly so distracted by his best friend?  I mean, they're friends - nothing more.  Right?

What's refreshing here is so often in historical romances it's the heroine holding out for twu wuv.  It was nice to see the shoe on the other foot.  The problem?  You know how eventually, sooner or later, those heroines get exceedingly annoying and you want to slap them them into next Tuesday and tell them to snap out of it already?  Yeah, just because we have a gender reversal on this trope doesn't fix that minor detail. It's not until the bitter end, even after his closest male friend tells him he's being a colossal moron, that the light finally dawns.  Also, even though this is a Harlequin Historical, it still felt too long.  It definitely sags a bit during the first third, but did eventually pick up.  Pleasant, but I'll admit I skimmed some of the slower bits.  Final Grade = C