Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto: Is it a Crime Comedy? Is it a Rom-Com? Is it a Family Farce?
Dial A for Aunties
DETAILS: Series: Aunties, #1 Publisher: Berkley Publication Date: April 27, 2021 Format: Paperback Length: 320 Read Date: August 12-13
“Easy,” Big Aunt sniffs, shaking her head. “I don’t think it’l be that easy.”
“Why not?” Second Aunt says, raising her chin,
Big Aunt shrugs. “Because it’s never easy. Otherwise people would get away with murder all the time.”
I wince at the word “murder,” even though she said it in Mandarin. And even though I want to have faith in Second Aunt’s simple plan of “get there, find cooler, bring cooler back,” I have a feeling that Big Aunt is right. When it comes to hiding a dead body, it’s never simple—a lesson I’m quickly learning from the previous night.
What’s Dial A for Aunties About?
I feel compelled to assure you that I am not making this up—Jesse Q. Sutanto did. But as I try to summarize this, it feels like I’m just typing random words onto the screen.
Meddy Chan is a photographer for her family wedding business—one auntie does the baking, one auntie helps with makeup and hair, her mother does the floral arrangements, and another auntie is in charge of the entertainment. Meddy wanted to do other things with her photography, but being a good filial daughter, she went along with her mother and aunties when they started the business. Their biggest wedding to date is just around the corner; there’s a pair of children of billionaires getting married at a resort and the Chans are on-board.
But first, Meddy’s mother has a surprise for her. For the last few weeks, she’s been posing as Meddy on a dating site, and things with one suitor have gotten to the point for their first in-person meeting. In just a few years. Meddy doesn’t have the time (or willingness) to explain to her mother how inappropriate this all is—so she goes on the date. Fast-forward: by the end of the night, he’s dead (accidentally). In her panic, Meddy doesn’t report this to the police or anyone. She drives home with the body in the trunk. Her mother calls her sisters in to help. They come up with a hare-brained scheme to dispose of the body after the big wedding and get some sleep before the big job.
Naturally, a mix-up happens when the helpers come and pack up things like the cake to take to the resort. They include the cooler the body is hidden in. While they scamper around trying to decide how to hide and/or dispose of the body while at the resort, Meddy’s college boyfriend, the love of her life, the one who got away (and the one her mother and aunties never knew about) shows up.
And then things start to get weird with the wedding.
And then…well, that’s about enough to get you started, right?
Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?
I got this from a Blind Date with a Book last year at some event at Shared Stories—which was fine with me, I’ve enjoyed Sutanto’s Vera Wang books, and the one YA book by her I listened to wasn’t bad. But I put it on the back burner, and it likely would’ve stayed there except I needed”a book by an author who is not from the UK or USA” for The Book Tempter’s TBR Challenge, and this was the only one that fit. So…
I kept at it because I started laughing within pages—and then you add the dead body and everything else? You have to find out where it goes. I was still laughing and chuckling up to the end (along with uttering the occasional “awwww”). Because as goofy as the above section was…it gets wackier.
What does this book tell us about humanity?
“Meddy is probably cautious because last time when you tried to set her up with Wang Zhixiang’s son, he turned out to be, you know,” Fourth Aunt says.
Ma waves an irritated hand. “Why do you keep bringing up Zhixiang’s son? So he turned out to be some maniac. How was I supposed to know?”
“Kleptomaniac,” I mumble. By the time our date was over, he’d stolen my makeup bag from my purse and, somehow, one of my shoes. I mean, the guy’s an asshole, but you’ve gotta give it to him. Or let him steal it.
In a letter to the reader before the prologue, Sutanto talks about the origin and inspiration of the book (and explains the broken English of many of the characters) and writes, “I hope that this book gives you a little peek into the fierce love with which my family raised us and protects us to this day.” To go with that, there’s a lot about the role of family in the book. Not just Meddy’s family (although that’s so pervasive you could be forgiven for not noticing any others), but Nathan’s (the college boyfriend), and the families of the bride and groom.
These families are sources of comfort, security, aggravation. There are petty rivalries between the aunties that go back decades and will never be resolved—which doesn’t alter in the slightest their devotion to each other—it just flavors it (I’m not 100% certain they even notice them). I’m sure at least one auntie realizes how insane it was for Meddy’s mother to pose as her on a dating site, but doesn’t say anything.
And whether it’s family by blood and birth, a family by choice, a found family, or…whatever. There’s something that everyone can identify with, something that everyone can see themselves in. Something we can all learn from and see humanity in. It might be easier to see it in an eccentric collection of fictional relatives than in our own—but we can then transfer that into our non-fictional families.
So, what did I think about Dial A for Aunties?
Now we know, when it comes to fight or flight, I am neither. I am: freeze like a hamster and then melt into a useless shivery puddle.
Before I get into anything else—I love Meddy’s description of groom-zillas, and how they’re a bigger problem than any supposed bride-zillas. And then this is borne out by the actual bride and groom for this particular wedding.
If you just had the long-lost love showing up at the wedding gig, the story wouldn’t have been as good. If you just had the Chans dealing with the corpse and the wedding, it would’ve been funny, but it wouldn’t carry much emotional weight. If you had the corpse and the long-lost love storylines…I’m not sure any comedy would’ve survived. But somehow when you combine the three elements with Sutanto’s gift for storytelling and comedy, it’s just magic. Madcap magic, but magic.
I’m sure there’s more to be said about the book, but I’m drawing a blank on it. It’s just… Ridiculous. Deliciously ridiculous. Ridiculously sweet. You’ve gotta read this.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
Do anachronisms in fantasy bother you? Should fantasy be “similar” to the time period it’s based on, either in terms of language used or things like invention, fashion, customs, etc.?
I’m nervous about my answer to this, because I think it will be easy to go through the last 13 years of posts here and find places I’ve said something other than what I’m about to say. Eh, there’s that old maxim about foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds, right?
By and large, I don’t care.
Let’s start with the language used–either by the characters or the narration (assuming it’s 3rd person). I remember a Creative Writing professor in college saying that you need to choose to either stick with time/place appropriate language or contemporary language–and stick to it. If you falter at the language usage just a bit, you ruin the whole effect, and likely the book. And don’t think you can get away with “what people think people in the fourteenth century sounded like”, you need to know that. And then, since what most people “know” about that century is wrong…well, you’re doomed. You litter your manuscript with “verily”s, “forsooth”s, “thou”s, and “thine”s, you’re apt to flub something up–and the prose is going to feel clunky. Add in the fact that most people don’t understand the proper use of ye, thou, thy, etc. (see John McWhorter’s Pronoun Trouble for a quick discussion of that). I want to say that Stasheff’s Warlock of Gramarye series uses that kind of language, and it bugged me as I read it.
Also, profanity was used to a degree that we don’t like to acknowledge. And the words used to describe minorities, women, and social classes would get authors and publishers in trouble (see the difficulties people have with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for example. And that’s relatively modern compared to a Middle Ages-set book)
And then the technology? Well, again, we run into our own chronological snobbery and understanding of earlier eras largely based on fictional depictions in TV and movies rather than pesky facts. Same for fashion.
And then we have to deal with the “time period” idea. Books like the dozens of Shannara books take place in our far-flung future, despite their semi-Medieval trappings, right? So… how do you determine an anachronism? Ditto for Brooks’ Magic Kingdom of Landover series. Or when is the Broken Blades trilogy set? Berne’s Partial Function can sort of be mapped out in relation to his Hybrid Helix, but as it’s on another planet than Earth, who’s to say what counts as legitimate custom for the time?
I can pile on examples along those lines. But you see where I’m going. One of the cruxes of the issue is that by and large, Fantasy novels don’t have a time period to be anachronistic about. They’re (mostly) some sort of Medieval/Middle Ages thing. Although some are more Renaissance-ish (The Gentlemen Bastards leap to mind). And I’m honestly not sure when things like Winter’s The Burning or Chu’s The War Arts Saga is supposed to be. Don’t even get me started on Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven or Vadney’s Crownfall (books that I will be returning to in a few weeks for another topic)…
Now, at the same time–someone sitting around a campfire with their armor and sword sitting next to them using a post-Edison device–like a phonograph or a pocket calculator–is going to throw readers out of the moment. But a retired mercenary orc using a goblin invention to introduce humans on the other side of the kingdom to espresso-based drinks is fun. If you can justify it in-story, go for it.
Part of the fun is that it’s Fantasy, we get to set aside a lot of the reality of time, place, custom, and whatnot for something that serves the story and characters best. People complaining about a warrior riding a gryphon into battle wielding a musket instead of a crossbow is missing the point. Also, now that I’ve thrown that sentence together off the top of my head, if anyone can point me to a series/book that fits that scenario, please tell me.
I’d encourage you all to go read some of the other responses to this prompt, I can tell from the title of Briana’s post at Pages Unbound that there’s going to be some good diversity of opinion. I think it’s entirely possible that people like Briana are going to make me alter my position (I’m going to wait until Monday evening to read her post, so all I can go off of is the title).
Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
Rakuten Kobo Returns to U.S. Retail as Sales Double —worth the read even if you don’t care about Kobo just for the commentary on e-book sales.
Ebooks are coming to Libro—the audiobook store that supports local bookstores is adding eBooks to the app next year.
How Readers Find Books—a new project from Debbie Ridpath Ohi to help with new ways to discover books. Readers of this post may want to look into contributing
Interview With an Author: Lee Goldberg—from the LA Public Library
Perhaps We Could Find Some New Book Topics to Argue About—Molly Templeton calls for finding new evergreen topics to argue about. (while giving her $.02 about some of the current crop)
My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week:
“If I am wrong about this, then there is no sense in listening to anything else I might say, because it would reflect a misunderstanding so profound as to necessitate my retirement from sharing my thoughts with other people.”—The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious by Scott Lynch
To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
The Purloined Poodle by Kevin Hearne
Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart
And I mentioned the releases of: How to Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings; Nevernight by Jay Kristoff; and Killer Instincts by Linden Chase
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Killer’s Mark by M.W. Craven—not in the US, we have to wait for October (or cough be willing pay a lot for interational shipping cough), but I’m still counting it. “When a teenage girl walks into their office, looking for the mother she long believed to be dead, they agree to take the case. As Poe and Tilly investigate the girl’s claims, they find themselves drawn into a murky world of trafficking, pornography and prostitution.”
Killing A Perfect Beast by Thomas Trang—Trang wraps up this summer’s trilogy about crime and politics mixing on Mars.
The Tailor by Tim Sullivan—DC Cross’ 8th adventure puts him into “the world of spies and state secrets.” I have a few to go before I get to this, but I’m looking forward to it
Under the Falls by Richard Russo—”at once a propulsive thriller, a gut-wrenching portrait of a tight-knit rural community undone by the sins of its past, and an unflinchingly honest depiction of how porous the line between right and wrong, good versus evil, can become.” Honestly, of all the books that didn’t need a sequel, Empire Falls is near the top of my list. But I’m not sure I can resist the pull.
The Dungeon Book by Gareth Hanrahan—”A young girl is left to die in a wizard’s dungeon but finds a new home with the monsters around her in this humorous and heartfelt standalone epic fantasy.” Since I read Witty & Sarcastic Book Club’s review in June, I’ve been jonesing for this release.
Don’t Cross Mo Ellery by Birdie Horne—”A laugh-out-loud mystery following the indomitable hot mess Mo Ellery, whose job as a school crossing guard pulls her into an unhinged murder investigation.”
You’ll Love It Here by Natalie Sue—”One day is all it takes for Mona’s life to implode. After years of climbing at her marketing firm, she was supposed to be getting promoted and finally moving out of her crumbling apartment building. Instead, she’s jobless, aimless, and still stuck in a space barely big enough for a yoga mat. Then her eccentric landlady takes a tumble and asks Mona to step in as the building’s reluctant super. The deal is simple: help prep the place for sale, and she can secure the upgrade she’s been chasing. But that’s easier said than done when the neighbors treat ‘boundaries’ as optional.”
The Wandering Inn by pirateaba—The indie book makes it’s trad debut, it’s the first volume in a LitRPG “a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn. She’s an [Innkeeper].”
image source: The Goodwill Librarian
Detained: A boy’s journal of survival and resilience
by D. Esperanza and Gerardo Iván Morales
DETAILS:
Publisher: Atria/Primero Sueno Press
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Length: 241 pg.
Read Date: July 20-August 1, 2026
The Politics of Immigration
Is something that I won’t be addressing. And really, neither does this book, no matter what your first impressions are. (I had similar ones, too) Yes, the primary author clearly acted in a way that indicates a certain perspective on it—as much as a 13-year-old from Honduras might have one.
Anyway, the book isn’t about that. I’m not going to talk about that either—and I will trash any comments that do, too.
But enough of that:
What’s Detained About?
After his grandmother died, 13-year-old David Esperanza tries to provide for himself and his cousin in their small Honduran home. His parents went to the States when David was so young he can’t remember them, really. Aside from the weekly phone calls, anyway.
David finally admits he can’t make enough money to keep them fed and housed, so he and his cousin decide to join his parents in Nashville. David doesn’t relate this information to them, sure they’d forbid it. But he feels that he has no choice. They have great misconceptions about how long their journey will take, but it doesn’t take long for them to learn that lesson.
They stop in Guatemala to spend a day or two with an aunt, who sends her two sons with them for many of the same reasons. Hope for work, hope for food, hope for peace exists in the U.S., not where they live.
It’s not easy to get through Mexico—but they manage, relatively unscathed. One cousin has to turn back, but the rest make it. They get separated on the other side of the border and David spends months bouncing around from one facility to the next, waiting to learn what will happen to him. Throughout it all, he journals as often as he can.
Those journals—cleaned up and filled out a little bit—make up this book. Telling his story from before his grandmother’s death through his days in the various facilities.
Well, This is Just Too Eerie
So, so, so many of the events that happen to David and his cousins on their journey North—and what happens to David when he crosses the border felt familiar.
There’s a young character in Winslow’s Cartel trilogy who goes through so many similar things—I believe he’s sent North by his mother to prevent him from being forcibly initiated into a gang, so he can live with his aunt and uncle (it’s been a few years, so forgive me if my details are wrong). But the more exciting events on the walk/ride through Guatemala and Mexico are pretty much what befell David and his cousins (except condensed into one person), and a good deal of the events in the States were similar, too.
I have to wonder if Esperanza was interviewed by Winslow—although I can’t imagine that his experiences are all that unique, either. Anyway, it was just one of those parallels that I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?
A local bookstore was selling this as a fundraiser for a charity that I felt interested in supporting—and the book looked like it could be interesting, too.
I kept reading because I wanted to see how the kid came through it all—and maybe how. I wanted to see how many adults treated him decently, how he clung to and/or found some hope…something.
What does this book tell us about humanity?
On July 13, 2018—roughly two and a half months after he was apprehended by Immigration officers—David wrote:
…ever since this morning, I’ve been thinking a lot about a story in the Biblia that Padre Juan talked about at church once in Naranjito. It’s about a man who gets beat up and thrown in a ditch by a gang, just like what happened to Damián. He’s hurt and lying in this ditch, and a priest walks past without helping him, because it’d be too much work or he’s afraid it’s a trap or he doesn’t want to get his clothes bloody or whatever. The man only gets saved when a buen Samaritano stops to help him. In a way, even though the priest didn’t do anything, he was just as bad, or almost as bad, as the gang that beat the man up. Padre Juan says the priest in the story was bad because he didn’t do anything. I thought it was interesting that Padre Juan told us about it, even though the bad person is a priest like him.
The point is, there are two ways you can hurt people. You can hurt a person actively, like by punching them or stealing from them or whatever. But you can also hurt a person passively, by refusing to give them help when they need it, or by pretending you don’t see them, or by acting like they don’t exist.
Since leaving Naranjito, there have been a few adults who have tried to hurt me actively—like the hombres del cartel who shot at us while we were riding La Bestia, or the pissed-off Migra guys who put me and my cousins in a refrigerator to freeze half to death. And all that was horrible, obviously. But in a way, when someone hurts you actively, the damage is mostly just physical. Back home, gangs are a fact of life, and even though I was always lucky—I was never directly targeted until the cartel chased me off La Bestia—there’s always a risk that someone will hurt you in an active way. But that doesn’t give me this horrible, whole-body feeling of worthlessness. In Naranjito, I never saw anyone get passively hurt. I’m sure some kids had parents and family who were bad to them, but in some ways, anyone’s kids were like everyone’s kids. Ifa kid was hungry, obviously it was their parents’ job to feed them, but if thelr parents were missing for some reason, the rest of the pueblo wouldn’t just let the kid starve to death.
Since crossing the border though, until breakfast this morning, I don’t think a single adult in los Estados Unidos would have cared if I’d starved. In los Estados Unidos, the passive pain has been the worst feeling of all. Passive pain is a little harder to explain than active pain, but I’ll try;
It hurts in a different way. The adults who have tried to actively hurt me aren’t as bad as all the adults who stand around, seeing what’s happening doing nothing. Looking bored. This has been everywhere since I got to el Norte. There have been a million examples: the woman behind the desk at oficina de la Migra who called Papa and filled out my registration on her computer before her buddies in green uniforms stuck me in a refrigerator. The bus drivers who shuttled me and a vehicle full of innocent kids from one kind of jail to another and never stopped to ask what we did to deserve this, why we weren’t in school, why we weren’t with our parents, why we were crying, why we were dirty, why my foot was oozing blood and pus and stinking up the entire bus like roadkill. The servers in the cafeteria who see this food is making us sick but won’t do anything about it, who won’t let us grab another box of Frosted Flakes. The worst of all are the tíchers, these useless tíchers who call us by our bed numbers, these grown-ups who speak fluent English and could really do something to help us, but who just stand around looking tired and annoyed while kids like me are kept from our parents for no reason, tíchers who don’t sound any alarms when nine and ten-year-olds are passing out on the campo de fútbol because they’re afraid to drink water, because they’re afraid to use the bathroom.
Sometimes it makes me want to grab a piece of cardboard and write I’m a kid, do something on it. It makes me want to grab a megaphone and scream “I’m a person! I’m supposed to matter!” But more often, it makes me wonder if maybe I don’t matter, it makes me want to collapse, it makes me want to give up, it makes me want to melt into my bunk, it makes me want to climb down the porta-potty pit and dissolve in the chemicals. It makes me never want to look anyone in the eye again.
The hope-giving thing there is that “until this morning”—but that event (a tícher letting them have an extra serving of Frosted Flakes—without knowing that was unacceptable) isn’t common. This book doesn’t paint a particularly pleasant picture of humanity—especially in the United States.
So, what did I think about Detained?
As I said at the outset, this is not a book about Immigration politics. It’s about how we treat people—particularly children—who have been apprehended by Immigration officers. It’s about how a children are treated little better than animals—despite everyone assuring them, in practically a gaslighting way, “You’re safe.” A sentence that I can’t believe David would ever believe again.
There are moments of joy, of relief, of hope. David’s first experience with Elote, the day before they cross the border brought a smile to my face (and made me crave some). And there are more moments with that tícher above. Like, in Henry: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America, there are moments of friendship and happiness to be found in the camps, too.
Is the writing the best? No. But it’s based on a semi-literate (even in his native language), barely educated 13-year-old’s journals—you’re not going to find Gabriel García Márquez-level prose here.
But the story David tells is engaging, gripping, heartbreaking, and tension-filled. You will get drawn in very quickly and you won’t be able to stop reading until the end. You won’t be able to stop rooting for him—even if you’re not crazy about his choices (or downright disapprove), it’s more than easy to understand them.
The book will exercise your compassion. It’s definitely worth the (minimal) effort to read—and you’ll find it rewarding. I strongly commend it to your attention.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
This morning, I’m very pleased to welcome The Write Reads tour for Simon Bullock’s The Driftborn, a nifty looking Space Opera. Be sure check out https://twitter.com/WriteReadsTours over the next week and change to see other bloggers talk about it. Let’s learn a little bit about the book, shall we?
Book Details:
Title: The Driftborn by Simon Bullock
Genre: Space Opera
Release date: July 28, 2026 (digital edition) May 26, 2026 (hardcover edition)
Length: 480 pages
Publisher: 42nd Parallel Press
About the Book:
A forgotten wreck. A forbidden map. A gate that should never have been opened.
On the salvage moon of Veyra’s Fall, Kade Renn only wants one thing: a working air filter for his sick sister, Lira.
Instead, he finds a buried courier ship older than the official history books. Inside it is a dying Driftborn pilot, a forbidden star map, and a message from Kade’s mother, Elian, who supposedly died nine years ago.
The Directorate says the gates saved civilisation. It says the Driftborn are criminals, free-route smugglers and a threat to every recognised human world.
The Directorate is lying.
Forced to flee with Lira, their strange scrap-mech Nix, and a half-illegal ship called The Moth, Kade is pulled into a hidden war over the true origin of the gates. The deeper they travel beyond authorised space, the more dangerous the truth becomes.
The first crossing was not what humanity was taught.
The gates were not built by us.
And something has been waiting for us to understand what we woke.
For readers who enjoy grounded space opera, ancient alien mysteries, damaged ships, found family, dry humour and human stakes beneath the scale of the stars.
The Driftborn is a tense, character-driven science fiction novel about control, memory, survival and the danger of mistaking every door for an invitation.
Book Links:
Amazon Canada ~ Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Goodreads ~ The Story Graph
About the Author:
Simon Bullock is a British-born author living in the Netherlands. He writes psychological thrillers, historical fiction and speculative novels with a focus on believable characters, emotional tension and dark, understated humour. His work often explores ordinary people under pressure, hidden truths, and the consequences of systems that fail the people inside them. He also writes selected speculative fiction under the pen name Richard Randon.
My thanks to The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.
Another week, another WWW Wednesday. The end of my 20 Books is in sight–and thankfully, I’m having a blast with them. (we’ll see about the rest of my summer hopefuls next).
This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:
What are you currently reading?
|
 |
 |
| Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto |
Magic & Mystery Collection | The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman, read by Jeff Hays |
I just started Dial A for Aunties at lunch today, and am laughing already. I don’t know where this is going to go, but it’s going to be ridiculously fun.
I should be finishing the Magic & Mystery collection tonight, and I’ve been very satisfied with it.
I’ve listened to 13 minutes of the third Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and am very annoyed that I’ve been in an all-day meeting today, and will be in it all day tomorrow (unless people get really quiet, really fast). So it’ll be Friday before I can make real progress in it. I’m kicking myself for those 13 minutes…I should’ve known better.
What did you recently finish reading?
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 |
| Crownfall by Michael Vadney |
Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman, read by Alana Kerr Collins, Gary Furlong & Siobhan Waring |
Crownfall was almost as good as I’d hoped it’d be–and the last 100-150 pages are just fantastic.
It turns out that Good Eggs had been on my Goodreads “Want to Read” list for a while, so my picking it up last week wasn’t the fluke I thought it was. It was a good novel, not one that blew me away, but one I’ll recommend.
What do you think you’ll read next?
 |
 |
| Cold Iron Task by James J. Butcher |
Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block by Jesse Q. Sutanto, read by Eunice Wong |
Last year, when Cold Iron Task came out, I was so behind with ARCs and Tour reading that I loaned it to a friend immediately so it wouldn’t be around to tempt me. Then when I got it back, I was still so occupied by other things that I set it aside and never got back to it. That ends this week–and hopefully I don’t repeat this cycle next month when the fourth book in the series releases 🙂
Am I possibly overdoing the Sutanto? Yes. But when a Libby hold comes in, you jump on it. Hopefully this protagonist is different enough from Meddelin that I don’t OD.
Do you have anything good cooking?
Deadly Does It
by Abbi Waxman
DETAILS: Series: A Mason and Mann Mystery, #2 Publisher: Berkley Publication Date: July 21, 2026 Format: Paperback Length: 364 pg. Read Date: August 5-7, 2026
“Prison’s very dull, apart from the all-pervading fear of violence and the occasional bug in the food. Trust me, you’d hate it, not because it’s scary, but because it’s skull-crushingly boring.”
“I have no intention of going to jail.”
Julia laughed. “No one intends to go to jail, Mason, yet there they are.”
What’s Deadly Does It About?
It’s been six months or so since Mason has gone to work as an investigator/assistant to ex-actress turned activist lawyer Julia Mann. They’ve taken some cases to make money, and keep some room handy to take con cases to help people they like (and/or hurt those they don’t).
It’s the latter that comes into play when Mason’s sponsor reveals she’s been getting threatening notes, and someone seems to be following through with them—Alexa is an event planner and two of her recent events have gone spectacularly, headline-makingly bad. The threats promise to do more than just ruin her reputation soon. Julia and Mason assume it has to do with Alexa’s past—back decades ago when she was drinking, doing drugs, and some minor crimes—and was associated with people who were doing some more serious crimes. So they start looking into the past she’s tried to put behind her to uncover who’s trying to make her present unlivable.
Meanwhile, Mason’s father had a minor heart attack and she has to visit home a couple of times, connecting with her semi-estranged family. Also, Julia teams her up with a P.I.* to get some actual training rather than just fumbling around has she has been—it forces Mason to think about her future in a way that I’m not sure she’s done since she got sober, in addition to giving her some tools she needs for this case.
* The similarity between this P.I. (Teddy) and Peter Key’s mentor from Killer Vibes are pretty strong, but Teddy seems like a better guy to hang out. I’m curious if I’ll think the same after one more book featuring each.
Recovery
This book, more than One Death at a Time and similarly to the Assassins Anonymous books, is a tribute to AA and similar programs. Many things—many things near and dear to the characters—will be mocked by characters in the book—but not their sobriety and recovery. Characters will talk about getting to a meeting, their need for one, talks with their sponsor, etc.—and the investigation will stop for them to do so.
There’s even a clear need and justification to investigate people at a certain meeting, and discussion about it is shutdown by Julia so quickly it’ll make your head spin. She might get pushed to it by circumstances, she makes it clear—but it’s going to take a lot for her to go there and things never got there.
Due to the nature of the investigation, almost everyone they talk to is an addict in recovery or has been avoiding it for decades. Either way, Julia and Mason can relate to them, sympathize and empathize with them. This adds a different flavor to their interviews/conversations than you get in most P.I. novels. It endeared me to them even more than I already was.
Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?
Because Abbi Waxman has been an auto-read for me since 2019 and because the fist book in this series was so good that any future books in it would’ve been a reflex pick up as well.
The short version of why I kept reading it is that I have more fun with it than its predecessor. The longer version is that when it comes to heart, humor, convincing mystery, believable characters, and compelling story-telling—this book nailed it all.
What does this book tell us about humanity?
This book is about the capacity for change, and how that capacity (exercised or not) is something we all possess. It may be major changes—like working the 12 Steps—or something relatively minor—like Julia’s cook realizing she’s a cat person and starting to pamper Mason’s cat with cooking better than many people ever get.
Mason’s father has to make some changes due to his health, Mason’s sister and Mother need to acknowledge that Mason’s made some positive changes in her life (whether they do or not, I won’t say). Mason has to make some decisions about changing her life. Many of the characters in this book have made significant lifestyle changes due to substance abuse and addiction. There might even be a couple who haven’t made the changes they need to which creates the mayhem our duo takes on.
Regardless, the opportunity is there for the taking, the possibility is there.
So, what did I think about Deadly Does It?
“I think I can still write by hand, but on the few occasions I have to, it looks like a centipede has done two lines of coke, stepped in a tiny pot of ink and scrambled across the page in a hurry to get to somewhere else. Not exactly legible.”
There was a pause.
“Thanks for the colorful image, Mason,” said Julia, “no sure who would sell a centipede the minuscule amount o¢ drugs they could take, but your rich and vivid imagination will eventually come in handy, I expect.”
The interaction between Julia and Mason—and between Julia’s employees/friends/odd family—is the heart of this novel, in terms of character growth, the plot, and for entertainment. Most of the laughs come from them interacting with each other. It’s in this that the link between Waxman’s earlier novels and this series can be seen.
But the mystery and the investigative work are no slouch. As with One Death at a Time, Waxman shows she knows away around this kind of story. Yes, I was yelling at them (rightly) to pay attention to one character far earlier than they did, and I cottoned on to the motivation to the notes before they did—but it’s only because Waxman laid out the clues so clearly for the reader.
I like these characters—including the new ones and the new layers we saw in our old friends—I thought the main story was really well executed. I think Waxman could’ve done a little more with the arc about Mason’s family, but what was there was great. And the set up for future books is clear and I look forward to seeing what she does with the seeds she planted.
This would work wonderfully as a jumping-on point for the series, but it might resonate a little better with the reader if they go back to the beginning (which isn’t that far)—but either way if you’re looking for a mystery novel with dazzling characters, some genuine humor. great dialogue, and plenty to chew on, Deadly Does It fits the bill.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
(not that you actually go to a morgue in this book, I was just struggling with that headline)
One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman
DETAILS: Series: A Mason and Mann Mystery, #1 Publisher: Berkley Publication Date: April 15, 2025 Format: eARC Length: 400 pg. Read Date: April 11-15, 2025
What’s One Death at a Time About?
Natasha Mason is a twenty-something still trying to figure out what to do with her life—her alcoholism led to her leaving law school, and now she’s paying bills by delivering food and doing other gig economy standbys in L.A., and making sure she makes at least one meeting a day.
At one of these meetings, a vaguely familiar-looking woman shows up—and is not the friendliest of people. She seems—well, is—more concerned about getting her court-mandated signature than in anything else. Mason volunteers to be this woman’s interim sponsor. Now this older woman had been sober before, but on the night that led to the court-mandated meetings had a blood-alcohol level that stunned a rowdy twelve-step meeting into silence. She’d also come out of a blackout next to the dead body of a former lover/decades-long antagonist and what was probably the murder weapon. For a night she couldn’t remember—it’d clearly been eventful.
The next morning, Mason shows up at the gate of her obviously well-off sponsee. Thanks to some time on the internet, Mason knows her to be Julia Mann—a former box office star, now a lawyer taking on cases for as many Davids as she can in a city of Goliaths. Oh, and in between careers, she’d been in prison due to the death of her husband—the former business partner of the dead man she’s currently suspected of killing.
This meeting didn’t go the way Mason suspected—for one, Julia Mann’s housekeeper is an amazing cook, as Mason learned. Also, the two kept butting heads—Mason wanted to talk about Julia’s sobriety, but Julia was rather fixated on the murder. And yet…something clicked between the two. In between verbal jousts,* Julia ends up hiring Mason to be her personal assistant and help with the investigation. Mason justifies this to herself as a way to stay near Julia and keep her sober. The chance to eat more of Claudia’s cooking and make more money than an app can pay doesn’t hurt.**
Before you know it, these two have got themselves involved in a separate murder investigation (another David for Juila to work for), arson, tensions around Julia’s former career in the film industry, tensions around Julia’s future career in the film industry (she wants none of it, but no one seems to care), brushes with organized crime, multiple reasons for both or either of them to ditch their sobriety, and more things that I can fit into this rambling sentence.
* The back-and-forth between these two is reason enough to try this book. Waxman will supply several others, it should be noted.
** Yes, this makes two books in as many months about an LA-based delivery driver turning amateur investigator.
The Murder Mystery(ies)
Murder mysteries surrounding the film industry tend to have a few things in common—secrets, petty grievances that get nurtured into full-blown rivalries (or worse), scandals (for an industry reputed to be filled with amoral hedonists, there really are a lot of moral scandals), and organized crime.
One Death at a Time ticks all of these boxes—and a few others that I should’ve listed above, but forgot to. This may be Waxman’s first mystery, but she clearly understands the genre and knows how to construct a classic whodunit in a contemporary setting.
You get all the twists, turns, red herrings, and layers upon layers of competing motives for multiple suspects that you need—doled out in just the right pacing with dollops of shocks and action along the way. The final reveal is satisfying, and every loose plotline is tied up. It’s a textbook example of the genre—pleasing in every way.
The Humor/Tone/Relationships
This might be a clumsy way to tackle these ideas, but it’s where I am.
Yes, Waxman is known for Rom Coms—or Rom Com-adjacent—books, so we all know she’s funny. This seemed to me to be more overtly comedic. There are jokes—many of them—not just funny situations and loveable, quirky characters doing goofy things. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of those (as well as non-lovable, quirky characters).
This reads like Dave Barry’s kind of crime novel, with the restraint of a Richard Osman. The verbal jousting is great, and the physical comedy is almost as good. The situations are frequently ridiculous, but never so much so that you get taken out of the moment.
The technical term that best describes Mason is “wiseass,” and one with poor impulse control. Someone who doesn’t know how to keep her trap shut, powered by Waxman’s wit is a fun character to read. Julia’s no slouch in that department either, but she’s more mature, she knows that she should pick her targets with care—and is therefore usually more effective.
The rest of Julia’s team (I will not tell you about them, so you can meet them properly) and some of the other characters the reader encounters have drier wits, largely fitting into the typical Waxman model. Oh, except this one actress…nope. You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to describe her.
Mason’s support system consists of the meetings she attends, her sponsor, and her cat. Julia has a strong team of employees and friends (the Venn diagram there has a large area of overlap)—they’re just not that effective on the sobriety front, but they make up for that with their loyalty. Julia also has a pretty strong network of former friends, employers, and employees in and around the film industry. These are loyal to their grudges against her and their own self-interest—however, they (or at least most of them) want her to succeed in her search for the killer, so they can move on with their lives and careers.
You combine all of this—with a (slowly) growing relationship of affection, trust, and appreciation between our protagonists—and you’ve got yourself a great basis for comedy with heart.
Sobriety
One thing that Waxman never made light of in all of this was the sobriety of the characters. Yes, Julia would mock Mason’s approach to being her sponsor, but that was about the characters’ personality differences—both of them took it seriously.
Not all of the characters appreciated the struggle and what the characters did to preserve it—but none of the comedy was about the drinking.
The opening meeting did get me to chuckle frequently, but that was character-based humor. The book never gets preachy at the reader, just to each other.
So, what did I think about One Death at a Time?
I had a blast with this—if you couldn’t tell. This is my fifth Waxman novel, so I went into it expecting that I would. I just wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy it, because of the genre. But if I didn’t know who she was before I picked this up, I’d be scouring the library for her Abbi Waxman now.
It does—as it should—feel very different than her previous works. I’d say this is closer to last year’s Christa Comes Out of Her Shell than the rest, but even saying that, this is different. The stakes are (obviously) higher for these characters; there are potentially lethal consequences for failure. Which might explain the more heavy-handed approach to the comedy.
I think I’ve said everything I wanted to above—the mystery part is really well done; the characters are well-designed and well-excecuted, the relationships between them are strong and obvious—you like the people you’re supposed to like enough that you wish you sat around the room with them, watching them go back and forth while eating whatever wonderful treat/meal Claudia has prepared. Also, it’s funny. That’s a one-two-three combination that I’ll always enjoy and recommend.
This feels like a standalone, but it could easily spawn a sequel or more. If it does, I’ll be first in line. If it doesn’t…well, that’s okay, too. It works really well either way.
Basically, reader, if any of the above tickles your fancy—you need to add this to your TBR. I practically guarantee you’ll have a great time.
Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for this post, which contains my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.
I may have soured on the new books, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Lee Child’s creation (and am having fun with the TV version). Gotta love this song (the first few and last seconds of the video are particularly nice):