Darcia Helle's Blog, page 5
November 20, 2022
Book Review — SAVING GRACE by D.M. Barr
Grace Pierrepoint Rendell, the only child of an ailing billionaire, has been treated for paranoia since childhood. When she secretly quits her meds, she begins to suspect that once her father passes, her husband will murder her for her inheritance. Realizing that no one will believe the ravings of a supposed psychotic, she devises a creative way to save herself—she will write herself out of danger, authoring a novel with the heroine in exactly the same circumstances, thus subtly exposing her husband’s scheme to the world. She hires acclaimed author Lynn Andrews to help edit her literary insurance policy, but when Lynn is murdered, Grace is discovered standing over the bloody remains. The clock is ticking: can she write and publish her manuscript before she is strapped into a straitjacket, accused of homicide, or lowered six feet under?
With a cast of secondary characters whose challenges mirror Grace’s own, Saving Grace is, at its core, an allegory for the struggle of the marginalized to be heard and live life on their own terms.
I enjoyed the first quarter or so, as Grace’s mental health deteriorated and she tried to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. I felt her fear and instability, along with her suspicions that things weren’t as they seemed.
Then the plot took a turn, and the further we got into the story, the more implausible it all became. Soon we were in ridiculous territory.
I couldn’t buy into any of it. I almost gave up halfway through, but I kept reading with the hope that it all would make sense in the end. I should’ve given up.
*I received an eARC from the publisher, via NetGalley.*
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Review — THE FOREVER WITNESS: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes
A relentless detective and an amateur genealogist solve a haunting cold case—and launch a crime-fighting revolution that tests the fragile line between justice and privacy.
In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.
In deep-freeze, long-term storage, biological evidence from the crime sat waiting, as Detective Jim Scharf poured over old case files looking for clues his predecessors missed. Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in California, CeCe Moore began her lifelong fascination with genetic genealogy, a powerful forensic tool that emerged not from the crime lab, but through the wildly popular home DNA ancestry tests purchased by more than 40 million Americans. When Scharf decided to send the cold case’s decades-old DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, he hoped he would finally bring closure to the Van Cuylenborg and Cook families. He didn’t know that he and Moore would make history.
Genetic genealogy, long the province of family tree hobbyists and adoptees seeking their birth families, has made headlines as a cold case solution machine, capable of exposing the darkest secrets of seemingly upstanding citizens. In the hands of a tenacious detective like Scharf, genetic genealogy has solved one baffling killing after another. But as this crime-fighting technique spreads, its sheer power has sparked a national debate: Can we use DNA to catch the murderers among us, yet still protect our last shred of privacy in the digital age—the right to the very blueprint of who we are?
Release Date: November 29, 2022
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My ThoughtsThe Forever Witness is a fascinating look at a decades-old, unsolved double murder, a persistent detective, and the innovative use of DNA.
As the subtitle suggests, this book does a deep-dive into DNA and genealogy. Content gets science-heavy at times, but it’s written in a way that’s easy to follow and understand.
The cold case is an interesting puzzle, and of course, a sad one. I appreciated the way the author represented the young couple, bringing them to life for us to get to know as people instead of simply murder victims.
This case, and others to follow, raise thought-provoking questions of privacy in relation to our DNA. What are a person’s rights, exactly, once they upload their DNA onto one or more of the many ancestry sites? Should the police be allowed to access your uploaded DNA to form a family tree leading them to a killer?
We have opinions on both extremes of this debate, leading to legal battles that will need to be resolved for future criminal cases.
*I received an eARC from Dutton Books, via NetGalley.*
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November 19, 2022
Review — BINDLE PUNK BRUJA by Desideria Mesa
Luna—or depending on who’s asking, Rose—is the white-passing daughter of an immigrant mother who has seen what happens to people from her culture. This world is prejudicial, and she must hide her identity in pursuit of owning an illegal jazz club. Using her cunning powers, Rose negotiates with dangerous criminals as she climbs up Kansas City’s bootlegging ladder. Luna, however, runs the risk of losing everything if the crooked city councilmen and ruthless mobsters discover her ties to an immigrant boxcar community that secretly houses witches. Last thing she wants is to put her entire family in danger.
But this bruja with ever-growing magical abilities can never resist a good fight. With her new identity, Rose, an unabashed flapper, defies societal expectations all the while struggling to keep her true self and witchcraft in check. However, the harder she tries to avoid scrutiny, the more her efforts eventually capture unwanted attention. Soon, she finds herself surrounded by greed and every brand of bigotry—from local gangsters who want a piece of the action and businessmen who hate her diverse staff to the Ku Klux Klan and Al Capone. Will her earth magic be enough to save her friends and family? As much as she hates to admit it, she may need to learn to have faith in others—and learning to trust may prove to be her biggest ambition yet.
In theory, Bindle Punk Bruja has everything I love in a book: it’s set in the 1920s, with a speakeasy, a strong female lead, a gritty plot, and magic.
Why does there have to be a but?
This story is A LOT! Seriously, everything is tossed in here. We have racism, sexism, cultural and LGBTQ issues, family drama, Prohibition, mobsters, casual sex, abusive relationships…
Somewhere in all this is a magic system that has its own complexities, but it’s never fully explored.
The writing, though, is quite good. I know some readers have and will love this one, so please ignore me and give it a try if the premise appeals to you.
*I received a free copy from Harper Voyager as part of a Bibliolifestyle book tour.*
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November 17, 2022
Immersive Historical Fantasy — THE BOOK OF GOTHEL by Mary McMyne
Everyone knows the story of Rapunzel in the tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there? Told from her own perspective, The Book of Gothel is a lush, historical retelling filled with dark magic, crumbling towers, mysterious woods, and evil princes. This is the truth they never wanted you to know, as only a witch might tell it.
Haelewise has always lived under the shadow of her mother, Hedda—a woman who will do anything to keep her daughter protected. For with her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it.
Then, Hedda dies, and Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of—a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.
But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that reveals a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known…
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My ThoughtsWhat if the fairy tale got it wrong?
The Book of Gothel presents the story of Rapunzel, taking us back long before her birth, to the “witch” in the tower, and how it all came to be.
We’re transported to 12th century Germany, with all the trappings of Medieval life. I loved the way setting and atmosphere came alive. Religion and heritage collide, as the old ways of paganism are challenged and persecuted by the newer, stricter Christianity.
The magical element is a small but important aspect, perfectly woven into the fabric of the story.
This is a slow-burn historical fantasy with striking realism and thought-provoking content. Not a book to rush through, but one meant to be savored.
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November 16, 2022
Review — THE PERFECT GUESTS by Emma Rous
The USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair returns with another delicious, twisty novel—about a grand estate with many secrets, an orphan caught in a web of lies, and a young woman playing a sinister game.
1988. Beth Soames is fourteen years old when her aunt takes her to stay at Raven Hall, a rambling manor in the isolated East Anglian fens. The Averells, the family who lives there, are warm and welcoming, and Beth becomes fast friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even feels like she’s truly part of the family…until they ask her to help them with a harmless game—and nothing is ever the same.
2019. Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-paying gig to pretend to be a guest at a weekend party. She is sent a suitcase of clothing, a dossier outlining the role she is to play, and instructions. It’s strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she’ll be staying at, she figures she’s got nothing to lose.
In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she’d imagined—even with damage from a fire decades before—but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, Sadie starts to feel that there’s something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the party begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host is playing games with everyone…including her.
I’m catching up on my NetGalley books (finally!). This one sat on my Kindle for an embarrassing couple of years, and I apologize to the publisher for that.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much good input.
We have three timelines, a past, present, and vague snippets that feel like journal entries.
The past timeline has a gothic mystery feel, and I wanted to know what was going on in that mansion with the strange family. But despite the overall creepy vibe, not much happened. We had repetitive teenage angst and weird, mostly absent parents who occasionally did something odd.
In the present timeline, people are invited to the now abandoned mansion to play out a murder mystery. Each is assigned a part, and it’s played just like a game of Clue (or Cluedo in the UK). I love Clue, and this should’ve totally worked for me. But again, we have an implied creepy undercurrent without much forward movement.
Then suddenly, the last quarter of the book explodes. Everything happens at once—and I mean EVERYTHING! The plot became a convoluted, chaotic, tangled mess. I felt in sudden need of a flow chart to keep track of relationships and motives and timelines and who did what to whom. For me, it was too much of an implausible mess.
And there you have it. My opinion only, though.
*Thanks to Berkley Publishing for the eARC.*
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November 15, 2022
Book Review — DEADBEAT DRUID: An Adam Binder Novel by David R. Slayton
The living cannot be allowed to infect the dead.
Adam Binder has lost what matters most to him. Having finally learned the true identity of the warlock preying on his family, what was supposed to be a final confrontation with the fiend instead became a trap that sent Adam’s beloved Vicente into the realm of the dead, where none living are meant to be.
Bound by debt, oath, and love, Adam blazes his own trail into the underworld to get Vicente back, and to end the threat of the warlock once and for all. But the road to hell is paved with far more than good intentions. Demons are hungry, and ghosts are relentless, and what awaits Adam in the underworld is nothing he is prepared to face.
If that weren’t enough, Adam has one more thing he must do if he and Vicente are to return to world of the living: find the lost heart of Death herself.
Published: October 2022
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My ThoughtsDeadbeat Druid is an explosive, emotional, perfect finale to the Adam Binder trilogy!
But I’m so sad that it’s over!
I don’t want to give away any of the plot because of possible spoilers from the first two books. I’ll simply say I loved the way it played out, with all the pieces coming together in the end.
The magic and world building are fun and unique. Content gives us powerful emotional issues to contemplate, along with playful, light-hearted moments and a beautiful romance in the making.
Adam and Vic’s relationship evolves in a realistic, believable way. I love that Vic’s family is open and supportive of his choice. These two guys fit together so well, making me believe that love is its own kind of magic.
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November 14, 2022
Powerful Historical Fiction — CALL YOUR DAUGHTER HOME by Deb Spera
For readers of Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing and Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, this extraordinary historical debut novel follows three fierce Southern women in an unforgettable story of motherhood and womanhood.
It’s 1924 in Branchville, South Carolina and three women have come to a crossroads. Gertrude, a mother of four, must make an unconscionable decision to save her daughters. Retta, a first-generation freed slave, comes to Gertrude’s aid by watching her children, despite the gossip it causes in her community. Annie, the matriarch of the influential Coles family, offers Gertrude employment at her sewing circle, while facing problems of her own at home.
These three women seemingly have nothing in common, yet as they unite to stand up to injustices that have long plagued the small town, they find strength in the bond that ties women together. Told in the pitch-perfect voices of Gertrude, Retta, and Annie, Call Your Daughter Home is an emotional, timeless story about the power of family, community, and ferocity of motherhood.
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My ThoughtsThis story stole my heart, shattered it, then gradually pieced it back together.
The content feels real and so raw that it hurts.
I’m convinced the characters were real people, and maybe they whispered their secrets to the author as she wrote. They’re the kind of complex, well developed characters that could step off the page at any moment.
Setting and atmosphere are extremely well done. I felt like I was back in the rural south, a hundred years ago, experiencing each moment as the story unfolded.
I bought the ebook more than a year ago, but I wound up listening to this on audio instead. We have a full cast of narrators who brought this story to life. Absolutely fantastic listen.
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November 13, 2022
Review — WE REFUSE TO FORGET: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power by Caleb Gayle
In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations–even to Cow Tom himself.
Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.
I normally love to read nonfiction about indigenous people, but I struggled with this book.
I’m not sure Gayle’s personal story of being a Jamaican American had much of anything to do with the story of the Black Creeks. His choice to blend his memoir with unrelated history felt disjointed throughout. I get that he was trying to show the shared issues of being Black in a white America, but it was a stretch for me.
The writing is dry, informative over narrative.
Some content is unnecessarily repetitive, while other parts are quickly glossed over.
I found Cow Tom’s story fascinating, and the Black Creeks’ history interesting as well as sad, but overall I struggled to stay connected.
*Thanks to Riverhead Books for the finished copy!*
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November 12, 2022
Book Review — BETWIXT: Betwixt and Between, Book One by Darynda Jones
A Paranormal Women’s Fiction with a bit of class, and a lot of sass, for anyone who feels like age is just a number!
Divorced, desperate, and destitute, former restaurateur Defiance Dayne finds out she has been bequeathed a house by a complete stranger. She is surprised, to say the least, and her curiosity gets the better of her. She leaves her beloved Phoenix and heads to one of the most infamous towns in America: Salem, Massachusetts.
She’s only there to find out why a woman she’s never met would leave her a house. A veritable castle that has seen better days. She couldn’t possibly accept it, but the lawyer assigned to the case practically begs her to take it off her hands, mostly because she’s scared of it. The house. The inanimate structure that, as far as Dephne can tell, has never hurt a fly.
Though it does come with some baggage. A pesky neighbor who wants her gone. A scruffy cat who’s a bit of a jerk. And a handyman bathed in ink who could moonlight as a supermodel for GQ.
She decides to give it three days, and not because of the model. She feels at home in Salem. Safe. But even that comes to a screeching halt when people begin knocking on her door day and night, begging for her help to locate their lost objects.
Come to find out, they think she’s a witch. And after a few mysterious mishaps, Dephne is beginning to wonder if they’re right.
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My ThoughtsBetwixt is quick, light, and fun, but reads more like an introduction than a full book.
I loved the premise. Defiance inherits a “haunted” house from someone she never met, which comes complete with a mysterious tattooed handyman and lots of magic.
But the house isn’t utilized to its potential. Defiance doesn’t do any exploring, so we don’t see what was left behind in all the rooms. We don’t even get a sense of what the house is like inside, much less the supposed haunting aspect that we find out early on terrifies people.
Defiance is a newly divorced 44-year-old woman, and I had to keep reminding myself of that because she behaves like someone in her mid twenties. I couldn’t make her character fit with a woman in middle age, so I said screw it and in my mind I let her be twentysomething.
Just when things get interesting, when all the pieces tumble together, the book abruptly ends. The entire book reads like a setup for things to come, and we’re left with a major cliffhanger. I felt cheated, like the book had been handed to me with the second half torn out. This tactic is often used to entice (force) readers into buying the next book, but I’m a rebel and it usually works the opposite on me.
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November 10, 2022
Powerful Must Read — BEASTS OF THE EARTH by James Wade
James Wade, whose first two novels were praised as “rhapsodic” and “haunting,” delivers his most powerful work to date–a chilling parable about the impossible demands of hate and love, trauma and goodness, vividly set in the landscapes of Texas and Louisiana.
Beasts of the Earth tells the story of Harlen LeBlanc, a dependable if quiet employee of the Carter Hills High School’s grounds department, whose carefully maintained routine is overthrown by an act of violence. As the town searches for answers, LeBlanc strikes out on his own to exonerate a friend, while drawing the eyes of the law to himself and fending off unwelcome voices that call for a sterner form of justice.
Twenty years earlier, young Michael Fischer dreads the return of his father from prison. He spends his days stealing from trap lines in the Louisiana bayou to feed his fanatically religious mother and his cherished younger sister, Doreen. When his father eventually returns, an evil arrives in Michael’s life that sends him running from everything he has ever known. He is rescued by a dying poet and his lover, who extract from him a promise: to be a good man, whatever that may require.
Beasts of the Earth deftly intertwines these stories, exploring themes of time, fate, and free will, to produce a revelatory conclusion that is both beautiful and heartbreaking.
Published: October 2022
My ThoughtsJames Wade has stories in his soul.
It’s not just the way he creates characters, so you forget they’re not real.
It’s not just the way he captures setting and atmosphere in his hands, then sprinkles it all over the pages.
It’s not just that he weaves a complex plot around you, dropping pieces like breadcrumbs.
It’s the way he uses words sparingly, powerfully, beautifully. It’s the words he chooses to use, as much as the words he chooses to omit. It’s in the spaces he leaves and the spaces he fills. It’s his timing and eloquence and relatability.
With Beasts of the Earth, I wasn’t reading, I was experiencing; I wasn’t thinking, I was feeling. For me, that’s the rarest of all gifts to have and to receive.
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