Book Review: The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

The Sin Eater’s Daughter
Melinda Salisbury
Scholastic Press, February 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-81062-3
Hardcover

Twylla comes from an odd background. No father is ever mentioned and her mother is the Sin Eater for the crown. Her job is to sit by the casket of a recently deceased person and ‘eat’ their sins in the form of various foods, spices and drink laid out on the top of the coffin. For years, Twylla believed she would be the next Sin Eater, but everything changed when the queen declared her to be the Daunen Embodied, the first in over a hundred years.

Her position requires her to have a drop of her blood mixed with poison once per month. She then drinks the mix as a way to demonstrate her purity and ability to see truth in others. It also makes contact with her skin lethal. Touching the condemned is another part of her destiny, one she’s come to detest because the queen made her kill a boy she’d become friendly with after declaring him a traitor for unspecified reasons. Another bit of reality hanging heavily over her is the fact that she’s betrothed to Merek, the prince who will assume the throne after his mother and stepfather relinquish it.

Merek has been away on a learning journey for the past two years, but his return, with some very different ways of seeing the future of the kingdom, sets in motion a series of events that quickly spiral out of control. This spiral is fueled by the queen’s treachery, the forbidden attraction between Twylla and Lief, her new bodyguard who comes from another kingdom where medicine and alchemy are far more advanced.

As she becomes more attracted to Lief, she must also agonize over her bond with Merek because she begins to see things through his eyes. The last thirty pages reminded me of a literary tennis match as emotions and truth bounced all over the place, but in an impossible to put down way. Every time it seemed like Twylla figured out how she felt about Merek and Lief, some new angle threw everything out the window. This was done so well, I couldn’t really anticipate what would finally happen. That’s a rare feat these days.

This is an excellent YA fantasy, one that adults will like as well and has me eager to read the second book, The Sleeping Prince: A Sin Eater’s Daughter Novel which is told from Lief’s younger sister’s point of view.

Reviewed by John R. Clark, MLIS, July 2016.

Renovations Week 1—Done!

Umpteen Weeks To Go

Book Review: Thieves Fall Out by Gore Vidal Writing as Cameron Kay

Thieves Fall Out
Gore Vidal, writing as “Cameron Kay”
Hard Case Crime/Titan Publishing, April 2016
ISBN 978-1-7832-9249-3
Mass Market Paperback

It had been a long time since I’d read a novel by Gore Vidal (partially due to the fact that he passed away 3-1/2 years ago at age 86).  It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to read a novel by this prolific author, thanks to publisher Hard Case Crime, which discovered a lost pulp crime novel written in 1952, unavailable for more than 60 years and never published under his real name.  This is a tale of a down-on-his-luck American trying to smuggle an ancient treasure out of Egypt on the eve of a bloody revolution.

From the publisher:  It is a pulp yarn through and through, defiantly non-literary (and non-P.C., but then Vidal always was that, with echoes of “Casablanca” in its wartime intrigues and desperate rogues.  But it will also hold interest for modern readers for its depiction of Egypt in the throes of a revolution, with the ouster of a corrupt monarch leading to rioting in the streets, bloodshed and chaos.

Peter Wells, 31 years old, born in Salem, Oregon, finds himself in Cairo in July, the hottest possible time of the year.  He has been robbed by a prostitute and left penniless with nothing except, fortunately, his passport.  In quick succession, he meets two beauteous young woman, one French and one German, each of whom quickly has him under her spell, despite warnings against each and a slight unease that they may each cause harm, either directly or indirectly, to him, as well as the mission he is on: to smuggle out of the country a piece of jewelry said to be cursed but worth over $100,000, for a ‘commission’ of 10%, which he desperately needs.  The not-too-far-distant history of one of the women with Nazis, and of the other with the present Egyptian king, in addition to a mysterious hunchback known as Le Mouche, enter into the tale as well.

The novel reads quickly, and the plot is intriguing, neither Peter nor the reader knowing who can be trusted, and certain that each has been telling him nothing but lies.  It is a very interesting novel, especially considering its true authorship, and is recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, April 2016.

Book Review: The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

The Weight of Blood
Laura McHugh
Spiegel & Grau, March 2014
ISBN 978-0-8129-9520-6
Hardcover

Seventeen-year-old Lucy Dane lives in the tiny rural town of Henbane, in the Ozark Mountains. Lucy is an appealing narrator: smart, practical, empathetic, pretty, and resourceful, she is not judgmental and tends to take the side of the underdog. Lucy seems to have a lot going for her, as she looks forward to finishing up high school. Her father, Carl, is protective and loving, a hard worker who supports the goal of getting Lucy away to college. Her uncle, Crete, owns the restaurant and store in town, as well as much of the surrounding land, and his prosperity makes him an important figure in Henbane. Birdie, the savvy old woman who is Carl and Lucy’s closest neighbour, is like a grandmother to Lucy, teaching her important skills about cooking and gardening. All of these relatives and friends have done their best to support Lucy through a significant loss in her life:  Lucy’s mother, Lila, died when Lucy was just a year old, under mysterious circumstances. Lila’s body has never been found, and there are rumours that she committed suicide in one of the old mineshafts in the area.

Although Lila’s death has left a permanent mark on Lucy, and grief and loss are always with her, she still manages to be a typical teenager in many ways.  She enjoys giggling with her best friend, Bess, about Daniel, a boy Lucy likes who is also smart and college-bound. Even in the Ozark Mountains, Lucy has a cell phone, and she and Bess get up to no good at parties held by the riverbank.

Henbane may be beautiful in many ways, but it is seedy and dark in others. Drug dealing is prevalent, and just a few months before the story begins, the town has been shocked by the murder of a mentally challenged girl named Cherie, who had been particularly close to Lucy. It is Cherie’s brutal death that really galvanizes Lucy into action and forces her to begin looking more closely at the people around her, as she tries to discover who killed Cherie. Are the people Lucy has grown up with who she really thought they were? She begins to pay keener attention to the rumours about other girls who have gone missing, and of course she can’t help but connect this with Lila, her own young mother who disappeared so many years ago.

The Weight of Blood has a strong sense of immediacy. The novel begins with first-person alternating narratives between Lucy and Lila. While Lucy relates what is happening in the present, the reader is shown, in Lila’s words, what has happened in the past, so that the stories of mother and daughter unfold together. Then, as the book goes on, more characters begin to pick up the threads, and chapters are written from Carl’s point of view, from Crete’s, from Birdie’s, and from others who know Lucy and who had known Lila.

Unfortunately for Lucy, it begins to seem more and more obvious that it may be someone very close to Lucy who is responsible for the horrible crimes she learns about. Henbane seems to become creepier and more sordid, and Lucy faces danger both for herself and for those around her.

The Weight of Blood is a perfectly titled novel. While the plot revolves around Lucy gradually solving the questions she has about Cherie’s death and Lila’s disappearance, the book is also very much about what Lucy will do with this information once she has uncovered it. The Dane family has lived in the Ozark Mountains for generations; Lucy can’t divide herself from her own ancestors, no matter what they might have done. Lila was an outsider, so Lucy struggles with her sense of herself as someone who is, like her mother, quite different from many of the people around her. At the same time, Lucy is entrenched in the town’s ways, as her Dane grandparents were before her. McHugh has done a very successful job of writing a creepy, oppressive-feeling thriller, while at the same time exploring how someone can accept themselves when they discover harsh truths about the people they love the best.

Reviewed by Andrea Thompson, July 2016.

Waiting On Wednesday (37)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event that
spotlights upcoming releases that I’m really
looking forward to. Waiting On Wednesday
is the creation of Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week’s “can’t-wait-to-read” selection is:

Book Review: Hard Latitudes by Baron R. Birtcher

Hard Latitudes
Mike Tavis #4
Baron R. Birtcher
Permanent Press, May 2015
ISBN: 978-1-57962-390-6
Hardcover

The fourth entry on the Mike Travis series is just as good as the earlier books, and that is high praise indeed.  The novel begins with the protagonist looking back at incidents that began eleven years prior, and an intricate and fascinating tale it is.  It starts in Macau in 1994, with an act of violence whose repercussions are felt in different far-flung parts of the world and do not, initially, involve Mike in any way.

Mike, 6’2” and a retired LAPD homicide detective, since leaving LA has been living in Hawaii, where he runs a chartering service for private scuba and luxury cruises out of Kona, on his 72’ sailing yacht, the Kehau, after running a similar operation off the Southern California coast.  Mike is the son of a very wealthy man, which he tries to forget, mostly with success, nor make others aware of it.  When his brother, heavily involved in the family business, calls from LA and tells Mike that his “indiscretions” have come back to haunt him in a big – and very public – – way, Mike makes immediate arrangements to return to LA to help him out (making his relationship with his significant other, Lani, even more problematical).

Along the way the author reflects on the history of both South Central LA in late April 1992, during the time of the riots, when he was still on the police force, as well as descriptions of the natural beauty of Hawaii, about which he says, e.g., “Twilight is my favorite time of day to walk the Kona waterfront.  The flickering lights of the village begin to cycle on, piercing the encroaching darkness, the heat of the day leeching from the concrete and up through the soles of your sandals while cool wind drifts in off the water.”  He pays tribute to LA as well, describing the sunrise as presenting a sky that is “a purple so deep that it appeared to bruise the sky.”  At the same time, he also says “Every time I come back to this town, it slithers back inside me.  I had never intended to be a cynic, never imagined I would feel such contempt, and especially had never wanted to lose hope.  I wanted to believe in greater things, like grace, like justice, like integrity; I wanted to believe in heroes or a higher purpose.”

The narrative is interspersed from time to time with the events set into motion in Macau over a decade ago.

Mike’s efforts on behalf of his brother as a “reluctant pi” have repercussions that place both him and his brother in jeopardy, as well as Mike’s former partner on the LAPD, Hans Yamaguchi, who assists him in his efforts, which have unexpected and serious consequences.  In addition to this story line, this is a tale of sexual slavery and human trafficking, not for the faint of heart I might add, with fairly frequent violence (happily, for the most part not graphic.)  It is a gripping story, beautifully written, and highly recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, March 2016.

Book Review: This Raging Light by Estelle Laure

This Raging Light
Estelle Laure
HMH Books for Young Readers, December 2015
ISBN 978-0-544-53429-2
Hardcover

From the publisher—

Lucille Bennett is pushed into adulthood after her mom decides to “take a break”…from parenting, from responsibility, from Lucille and her little sister, Wren.  Left to cover for her absentee parents, Lucille thinks, “Wren and Lucille. Lucille and Wren. I will do whatever I have to. No one will pull us apart.”

Now is not the time for level-headed Lucille to fall in love. But love—messy, inconvenient love—is what she’s about to experience when she falls for Digby Jones, her best friend’s brother. With blazing longing that builds to a fever pitch, Estelle Laure’s soulful debut will keep readers hooked and hoping until the very last page.

Having coffee (a smoothie in my case) with a friend last week, I told her about this book I’d just finished reading for the second time. I’m not talking about the usual kind of re-read that you might do months or years after the first time; this was immediately following my first read and that’s unheard of for me. I only very rarely re-read and never immediately but I guess I can’t claim that anymore.

So, why did I have a need to re-read right away? It’s because I was so consumed by outrage that I had to find out if it was just because of the initial shock or if my outrage was real. It was indeed real and still roiling in my innards, so to speak. I’m appalled that any parent could walk away from her own children without any concern for what would happen to them and my feelings about this mother are even stronger because I know this happens in real life.

The story opens on Day 14 since Lu’s mother left, supposedly on a brief “break” and Lu is becoming more and more panicked as she begins to realize that the woman—hard to call her a mother—is probably not coming back. That compounds the devastation of losing her father to a mental breakdown and the level of narcissism both of these parents display is amazing. They prove the point that some people should never have children.

This is also a story of the deep bonds between siblings, in particular Lu and Wren but also Lu’s best friend, Eden, and her twin brother, Digby, and the four of them pretty much save the day, with a little help from….who? Certainly Lu’s boss and her co-worker and friend, Shane, go above and beyond but someone else is really helping behind the scenes.

A troubled romance plays a part in Lu’s story but it doesn’t overwhelm the core of the tale, the ability of a girl to overcome great adversity and heartache with a little help from those who really do care. In the end, I’m still outraged but I also am left with a feeling of hope and belief in the goodness of most people.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, July 2016.