The Spark by Leanna Renee Hieber

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Genre: Fantasy
Secondary genre: historical mystery
Format read: hard copy
Series: The Eterna Files vol .5
Positive rep: biracial, epilepsy
Rating: planchet-3

I’m sorry to say that this prequel novella did not live up to my expectations.

While I love The Eterna Files, after reading many of Hieber’s work (all of it, pretty much) I can safely say that her style is definitely suited more to longer works, as for me anything shorter than 300 pages has come out rather flat.

This short little book tells the story of one of the main characters in Eterna, Clara, meeting her love interest, Louis–and then losing him, an even that–ahem–sparks the beginning of the series.

It’s a fluffy little meet-cute, but I just feel like it needed more. More of the falling in love, more of them together.

I wanted to see more of how Louis handles Clara’s seizures and her ability to see ghosts, more of their developing romance. I wanted more insight into their thoughts and more plot. I wanted to see more of Louis’s work at combining science with voodoo mysteries. While it still would have been a rather short book, I feel like this needed expanded to double or even triple the length.

It’s a fun read, but not really necessary for the rest of the series.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

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Genre: adult mystery
Secondary genre: historical
Format read: audiobook
Rep: autistic coding
Series: Flavia de Luce vol 1
Rating: planchet-4

This book is unusual in that it is written for adults, but the main character, Flavia, is only eleven.

I’m a sucker for a girl genius, especially one living in a previous era, so when I heard about this book I was eager to get my hands on it.

Set in 1950, Flavia lives with her two older sisters–who are horrid–and her distant father in a big old English manor house.

When Flavia discovers a dying man–who expires right before her eyes–in the garden, it sets the wheels turning on a mystery that dredges up her father’s past and puts out intrepid young chemist on the path to no only uncovering one murder, but two.

I gobbled up this book in two days. I loved the dynamics between the sisters, and how, in this stiff-upper-lip family, they show affection by tormenting each other. I do wish that Daphne, the middle sister, were just a little more fleshed out–I feel like if the three of them could find common ground, they’d be hell on wheels if they worked together.

I adored the complexity of the mystery, the characters, the setting–everything about this book, and I will definitely be looking for the next in the series.

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

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Genre: YA Contemporary
Format read: audiobook
Rep: POC (asian), mixed race
Series: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before vol. 2
Rating: planchet-3

After faking a relationship for several months in book one, Laura Jean and Peter are finally, officially, a couple.

However, their obstacles are not over yet. They have definitely succeeded in making Peter’s ex jealous–as evidenced when spreads a video of Peter and Laura Jean making out in a hot tub on a school trip. Despite their best efforts to get the video taken down, it keeps showing up in unsurprising places, leaving Laura Jean humiliated.

When she gets a response to her one missing letter from the previous semester, she rekindles a friendship she thought was gone forever. Peter, however, is jealous. Worse, he can’t understand why Laura Jean gets so angry when he spends so much time with his ex–and then lying about it.

With their fledgling relationship on the rocks, Laura Jean escapes into her volunteer work at a local retirement home, where the ladies are always happy to see her, offering advice on dealing with boys, and are more than willing to set her up with their grandsons.

When one of those grandsons shows up unexpectedly, sparks will definitely fly. But will they be romantic, or just friction?

The Laura Jean books are so cute and sweet. I do have a bit of a problem with some of the things in them–like the jealousy issues, and the fact that apparently Peter’s “best quality” is his face.

This book delves a lot into Laura Jean’s insecurities with sex and her attitudes about it. At times I think it got a bit obsessive, but maybe that’s just because I’m not sixteen. Personally, I think Laura Jean can do better than Peter, though he was very sweet in the way he tried to protect her in this book.

While this isn’t my favorite series, it does evoke some of the feelings I got from Fangirl, which is one of my favorite contemporaries of all time. I guess I have a soft spot for insecure teenage girls.

Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo

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Genre: YA Contemporary
Format read: hard copy
Content warning: extreme diets
Rep: POC (S. Korean), mental illness (anxiety)
Rating: planchet-4

Lucky is a K-Pop superstar, and she’s 48-hours from her career skyrocketing into entirely new territory: she’s about to debut on an American late-night now, an honor few Korean pop stars see. If all goes well, she’ll go from being one of the most popular solo artists in a tiny country to being an international hit.

But Lucky can’t manage the enthusiasm everyone else has for the show. She’s supposed to be grateful, but as she sits in her hotel room after another exhausting show, it occurs to her that as much as she loves singing and performing, her passion for being “Lucky”, the pink-haired, 5’10” phenomenon known for her thigh-high silver stiletto boots, has waned in the past several years. Everything is routine.

It starts out as a simple quest: a hamburger. Shouldn’t be too hard to find at 11pm in one of the busiest cities in the world, right? Lucky sneaks past her handlers and security and out onto the lively Hong Kong streets. But one thing she doesn’t account for are her anxiety and sleeping pills kicking in at just that moment, leaving her dazed and apparently drunk, sleeping on a bus.

Jack, a Korean-American photographer who has been living in Hong Kong since high school, finds Lucky passed out on said bus. He doesn’t recognize her at first, but can’t seem to leave the poor drunk girl wandering around in her hotel slippers alone. Afraid she’ll run into trouble, he tries to take her back to the hotel but instead ends up following her around the city as her drugged brain leads her from one shiny object to another.

When she finally passes out for good, he takes her back to his apartment so she can sleep off whatever is in her system. It’s then that Jack, who moonlights for a tabloid, realizes “Fern,” the drunk girl he picked up on a city bus, is really Lucky.

Both of them are looking for escape. Once their paths cross, adventure follows as Jack shows sheltered Lucky around the city he calls home.

I loved every single page of this book. It helps that I’m a big fan of K-pop myself, and there was a lot of the culture behind the media in just the first few pages: the expectations to be grateful, to work hard, to always be perfect, both in appearance and behavior.

If you were a fan of the Laura Jean series, this is a good step up, straddling the line between YA and New Adult (the romance is light and doesn’t go very far; I’m referring more to the age group NA is aimed at). If you’ve ever questioned your path in life, then this is a must-read.

 

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

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Genre: fantasy
Secondary genre: historical/political
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: attempted sexual assault, violence, pet death
Series: His Fair Assassin vol 1
Rating: planchet-3

**This review contains major spoilers, which are marked below**

After being abused by her parents, Ismae is sold into a marriage contract. But when her new husband sees the mark on her back–a blood red scar leftover from her mother’s attempted abortion–he beats her, rejects her, and sends her fleeing into the night.

She finds refuge in a convent dedicated to Mortain, one of the old gods of death. Populated by women and girls that have led hard lives much like Ismaes, they train from dawn to dusk in every manner of death.

When Ismae finally reaches the point, some years later when she goes out on her first solo mission, her assignment is interrupted by a man determined to keep her victims alive.

After a second run in, the mystery man tracks Ismae back to the convent. After explaining that he works for the Dutchess–the country’s teenage ruler, in danger of loosing her power to the invading French army–Ismae and the mysterious Duval have no choice but to work together. With Ismae’s ability to not only see the mark of Death on a person, and her immunity to poison and magic-enhanced healing, she soon becomes close to the dutchess and secretly takes a role not only as her confidant, but also her body guard.

But Duval has secrets of his own and may not be trustworthy, no matter what the reverend mother and the convent’s patron say. If she wants to keep herself and the dutchess safe, Ismae will have to track down the leak in their security network.

But to do so may mean betraying everything she’s come to believe about herself, the world, and the convent that saved her life.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, it has great historical and political details that dovetail nicely with actual historical fact, but with an added fantasy element.

However, I found Ismae to be annoying, stubborn, and willfully obtuse at points, and I really didn’t like Duval. While he did have his good points, it’s clear almost from the first time he appears that he’s meant to be the love interest, and I really just don’t like him in that role.

There were some very funny bits, and some that were more heart wrenching. Honestly, my favorite scenes were the ones where Ismae killed someone she wasn’t supposed to (because ASSASSIN). She just can’t seem to help herself. 🙂

And then there’s the bit about Ismae’s powers. **spoiler** Ismae can literally cure poisoning by sleeping with people. That scene made me want to scream.

I don’t know if I want to continue with this series. I liked the beginning and the ending, but the bits in between left me somewhat cold, and there were still unanswered questions at the end.

What are your thoughts? Have you read the His Fair Assassin series?

90 Church by Dean Unkefer

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Genre: memoir
Secondary genre: true crime/investigation, history
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: sexual assault
Rating: DNF

Wrapping up my nonfiction crime reading spree was 90 Church, a memoir about the start of the FBI’s first drug task force in the 1960s.

I was expecting something in the vein of Erik Larsen’s work, but that wasn’t what I got. Unkefer’s story is tawdry, gritty, and dark. It follows a dedicated, patriotic family man as he descends into the chaos of a corrupt department, doing drugs, drinking himself into a stupor, fighting with his wife and ignoring his son. It reads more like an HBO crime drama than anything else.

I was about halfway through when I reached the part that made my put the book down for good (CW): After picking up a woman at a bar and going back to her place, he’s so enraged when she doesn’t want to sleep with him that he beats and rapes her.

No. Hard pass. After spending five hours listening to him justify drug use, binge drinking, his mistreatment of his family, and falsified reports, I didn’t want to hear how he justified rape and assault. This isn’t a record of the early days of law enforcement, it’s a self-aggrandizing account of narcissist.

Pick something else if you want to read about true crime and criminal investigation.

Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian

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Genre: history
Secondary genre: heist
Format read: audiobook
Rating: planchet-3

If you read yesterday’s review of The Map Thief, then this book ties in very nicely with it, but is much more enjoyable.

Art enthusiasts and fans of heist fiction might be familiar with the story of the Gardner Museum theft in 1990 when 2 security guards were tied up and locked in a room, 13 works of art were stolen, and other were damaged in what appeared to be a random act of vandalism.

This book follows a slightly different investigative route than the police, arguing that the plan to rob the Gardner and the plan the thieves followed was thought up by another man–a may who was serving a prison sentence at the time of the robbery and had no connection to the crime. Which begs the question: Who were the thieves? How did they find out about the plan? And above all, where are the missing artifacts?

A real life mystery, Master Thieves reveals how what at first appears to be a hap-hazard robbery leaves many questions and no clues.

I really really enjoyed the story, though on audio it was a little hard to follow, frequently jumping between different criminal elements and naming many people in quick succession. I think it would have been a bit easier for me to read if I’d had a hard copy or ebook, but it was still quick to get through and I wasn’t bothered by my few moments of confusion.

Aside from the obvious link of being about theft of cultural objects, there is one other link between Master Thieves and The Map Thief: The changes in how crimes involving museum objects and cultural items had a direct impact in how the crime at the Garden was investigated, and how it would have been prosecuted, had there been any leads on who committed it.

If you enjoy art history, mob stories, or books like Catch Me If You Can, then this is worth giving a try.

The Map Thief by Michael Blanding

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Genre: biography
Secondary genre: history, heist
Format read: audiobook
Rating: planchet

Fans of Catch Me If You Can and White Collar might fight my next selection interesting.

The Map Thief is a biography of a dealer in antique maps turned con man. E. Forbes Smiley didn’t start out dealing maps, but rather fell into it through his interest in history.

For about twenty years he was above board and well respected, but then his high living finally caught up to his checkbook, and he started stealing from the libraries and museums he’d helped establish.

The case was huge, impacting American laws regarding cultural patrimony (that is, things of historical and cultural value that may or may not have a high monetary value). As someone trained in art history, restoration, and conservation, it was a fascinating read from that perspective.

Sadly, if this were a fictional account I’d say it was poorly written with flat, unappealing characters. Smiley is just another mediocre, middle aged man who can’t handle his money or manage to show respect for others, thinking the world owes him something. Through the book he takes criticism poorly, lashes out at those who challenge him, and justifies the thefts through the fact that he helped establish most of the collections his maps came from. From a cultural preservation standpoint, I have a hard time imagining he was even a very good thief, cutting and tearing pages, folding them, and retouching with materials that weren’t historically accurate.

I won’t deny he was treated unfairly by the justice system after his arrest (though nonviolent, he was put in solitary for months at a time and denied basic hygiene), but all in all I thought the book was dull and it’s subject unsympathetic. The author’s last name says it all, really.

 

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox

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Genre: biography
Format read: ebook
Rep: Jewish, women in STEM, autism coding
Rating: planchet-3

**This review contains minor spoilers**

The early part of the 1900s was not an easy time for women in STEM, even if they were exceptionally brilliant.

Rosalind Franklin had every advantage growing up–she went to a well respected grade school, where she left a year early out of sheer boredom to take up studying science at Cambridge. She came from an upper-middle class family known for it’s progressive values and charity work, which helped her not only financially, but also assisted in making the connections she would use later in her life.

A dedicated researcher, she was utterly meticulous in her study of crystals, gathering every possible piece of evidence before forming her conclusions, sometimes to the frustration of her research partners. Rigid in her habits and methodology, Roslind was not the type of person to be swayed by the opinions of other, in the lab or out of it, and it led to her making many enemies.

Despite this, however, she had many friends, and that is what makes the ultimate scientific betrayal of her career the worst: it came from two people she considered not only colleagues, but friends.

James Watson and Francis Crick are known for discovering the double helix structure of DNA. But what few people know–even after Watson’s tell-all book published in the 1960s–is that they came to their conclusions after accessing Franklin’s work through a back-door method and without her knowledge or consent.

I cheered for Rosalind through most of this book, even though I knew it would have a bad ending (spoiler: she never found out her research had been stolen, and died from cancer a few years later. This is possibly a good thing, since she never saw the way her friend Watson portrayed her in his book).

While I don’t agree with her on everything, Franklin led a fascinating life, and one that is worthy of both respect and remembrance. Like so many historical women, her contributions have been largely forgotten, except in a few small circles related to her field (Cambridge later dedicated a building in her name).

She never sought fame nor fortune, nor really to even change the world. She had her interests and wanted to pursue them, to ensure that her research was protected, and that she received credit for the work she’d done. She had little tollerance for 1920s-1950s England, where women were paid less, and limited to only 10% of college students, where they could complete the exams and class work but where not allowed to receive degrees.

Thankfully, this didn’t stop Rosalind Franklin or hundreds of women like her from studying, working, and changing the world–even if it was in their own quiet ways.

The Hoodlum Army by Elizabeth Roderick

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Genre: contemporary heist
Format read: ebook
CW: racist language, sexist language.
Rep: Hispanic, LGBT+, autism, fat rep, mental health rep
Rating: planchet

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

When I first heard this book pitched as “A gender-bent LGBT Robin Hood retelling” I knew I needed to get my hands on it.

Robin and Maryanne have a chance encounter at a bank–a bank they are both trying to hold up at the same time. Through a comedy of errors, they end up making a get away together, and decide to team up in a string of heists. Robin hopes to get enough money to buy back her parents’ farm, which has been foreclosed on by a predatory bank. Maryanne wants to open up an enrichment program to teach kids life skills.

What they’d hoped would be a straightforward robbery or two quickly spins out of control. They aren’t getting cash fast enough, and with Maryanne’s cop ex and two corrupt FBI agents on their tail, they need help. Assembling a motley crew of accomplices, they lay low while preparing the scam of the century on the wold’s biggest wealthy asshole: Larry Lemon.

I really wanted to love this book so much. I love gender bent queer retellings. But I had a hard time getting into this book.

While it’s billed as a romance, there was very little tension. Robin’s attraction to Maryanne is extremely one sided until the very end of the book, when all of the characters conveniently pair off.

I found the characters to be more like caricatures, particularly the bad guys. They couldn’t have been more obvious if a spotlight had been shined on them from space. I would say they were completely unrealistic, but considering Lemon is clearly based on the orangutan in the White House, I guess I can’t really say that.

Our two leads hardly even had roles in the final scam, which involved no face-to-face with the “Prince John” they were trying to dupe.

Additionally, their schemes were poorly thought out. They left evidence all over the place, and handed out their stolen cash like candy. Apparently, in this world, serial numbers aren’t tracked. It really just underscores how incompetent the law enforcement officers are, particularly the corrupt FBI agents. They would have been fired long before they were assigned to the case if they were that bad at their jobs.

All in all, I just feel like the entire book could have gone further than it did. I had more empathy for the side characters than the leads, and it left me feeling disappointed.