Thanks to both Emmalita and Mrs. Julien for their passionate reviews of this book that led me to track it down. Thanks to Interlibrary Loan, I have a yellowing copy from 1993 with some seriously sappy back cover art. However, that did not dampen my enjoyment of this 1926 gem. As the novel begins, Valancy Sterling is living a life of quiet and cowed desperation. She’s 29 years old, living with her mother, and surrounded by relatives that alternately snub and belittle her. They believe […]
Holly Black Gives Stephenie Meyer The Bird
I apologize in advance for those of you who are fond of sparkly vampires, but one of the biggest problems I had with the whole Twilight series was the sheer passivity of Bella and the fact that when she actually became a vampire, she wasn’t a monster struggling with blood thirst but simply a stronger, more sparkly version of herself. My favorite vampires (Angel, the heroine of Sunglasses After Dark whose name escapes me, Nick Knight, etc.) all struggled with the weight of the killing […]
Tess, It’s Been A While
It’s been a while since I read a Tess Monaghan mystery by Laura Lippman and I’ve missed them. Long before The Wire, I stumbled upon this series—drawn in by the fact that the main character was a rower and not small and skinny. However, I soon realized that one of the things I loved about this series was the setting. Like most of my favorite mysteries, place is an important character and most of the Tess Monaghan stories are love letters and sometimes hate mail […]
More Than the Sum of Its Parts
I had no expectations going into this e-book checked out from my local public library. I didn’t know that it was originally published in England (with a slightly different title) and then republished in the US a year later. Though there are a lot of familiar elements in this YA urban fantasy, there are also some memorable twists, most involving Japanese mythology, that made this a fun read. A day before her 16th birthday, Mio Yamata ventures into the attic to find an old family […]
Getting the Scoop with Lois Lane
I never saw the Lois Lane/Veronica Mars connection until I read this book. Gwenda Bond spins an enjoyable story of a high school-aged Lois Lane, who moves to Metropolis hoping for a fresh start. As the daughter of a three-star General, Lois has lived the classic army brat life—moving from place to place and never quite fitting in or getting a chance to put down roots. It doesn’t help that she has a penchant for standing up for the little guy, tackling lost causes, and […]
If Stephanie Plum were a 1920’s Society Dame
I got an advanced copy of Maia Chance’s Come Hell or Highball through Netgalley and found it a silly good time. Set in the early 1920’s, this novel is the first in a series (or so I predict) and is the origin story of Lola Woodby, Private Investigator. As the novel begins, Lola Woodby is a newly widowed society dame, about to find out many unpleasant things about her husband, Alfie. Lola already knew he was a gambler, a drinker, and a womanizer, but what […]
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