Category: Fiction Page 98 of 341

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: May Day by Josie Jaffrey

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On April 14, 2022

In Fiction, Urban Fantasy

I’m very pleased today to welcome The Ultimate Blog Tour for May Day by Josie Jaffrey—the 2021 Book Blogger Novel of the Year award. I read and blogged about this a back in 2020, so I’m just going to post this spotlight and point you to the feed of @BBNYA_Official, where you can find the reviews for this tour. They’re written by some great bloggers and they’ll be worth your time.

May Day Tour Banner

Book Details:

Book Title: May Day by Josie Jaffrey
Series: The Seekers, Book 1
Publisher: Silver Sun Books
Release date: July 9, 2020
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Length: 392 pages

About the Book

If the murderer you’re tracking is a vampire, then you want a vampire detective. Just maybe not this one.

It’s not that Jack Valentine is bad at her job. The youngest member of Oxford’s Seekers has an impressive track record, but she also has an impressive grudge against the local baron, Killian Drake.

When a human turns up dead on May Morning, she’s determined to pin the murder on Drake. The problem is that none of the evidence points to him. Instead, it leads Jack into a web of conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the country, people to whom Jack has no access. But she knows someone who does.

To get to the truth, Jack will have to partner up with her worst enemy. As long as she can keep her cool, Drake will point her to the ringleaders, she’ll find the murderer and no one else will have to die.

Body bags on standby.

May Day is the first book in Josie Jaffrey’s Seekers series, an urban fantasy series set in Oxford, England.

Book Links:

Amazon UK ~ Amazon US ~ Amazon Canada ~ Goodreads

About the Author

Josie Jaffrey
Josie is the author of multiple novels and short stories. Most of those are set in the Silverse, a pre- and post-apocalyptic world filled with vampires and zombies.

She is currently working on a range of fantasy and historical fiction projects (both adult and YA). Ultimately, she hopes to be a hybrid author, both traditionally- and self-published.
​
After finishing her degree in Literae Humaniores (Classics) at the University of Oxford, Josie wasn’t sure what to do with her life.

She slogged through a brief stint working for an investment bank in London during the 2008 credit crunch, then converted to law and qualified as a solicitor specialising in intellectual property. She worked at a law firm for five years before moving to a UK-based international publisher in 2016. Whilst she loved law, in the end she didn’t love it quite as much as writing, which she now does almost full time.
​
Josie lives in Oxford with her husband and two cats (Sparky and Gussie), who graciously permit human cohabitation in return for regular feeding and cuddles. The resulting cat fluff makes it difficult for Josie to wear black, which is largely why she gave up being a goth. Although the cats are definitely worth it, she still misses her old wardrobe.

Visit the Author Website.

I received the material for this spotlight as part of the 2021 BBNYA competition and the BBNYA tours organised by the TWR Tour team.

BBNYA is a yearly competition where Book Bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors. If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website www.bbnya.com or twitter @bbnya_official.

The sign-ups are now open for BBNYA 2022 for authors and panelists. Click here to enter:
https://www.bbnya.com/how-to-enter/author-sign-up
https://www.bbnya.com/how-to-enter/panellist-sign-up

Constance Verity Destroys the Universe by A. Lee Martinez: Saying Good-Bye to this Hero

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On April 13, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Constance Verity Destroys the UniverseConstance Verity Destroys the Universe

by A. Lee Martinez

DETAILS:
Series: Constance Verity, #3
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press
Publication Date: March 7, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 290 pg    
Read Date: April 6-8, 2022
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

She pushed a chair into a corner of the room not visible from the street and sat. There was a feel to her life. Danger didn’t usually feel this dangerous. Danger was just background noise. But this was a lot of people trying to kill her. More than normal.

What’s Constance Verity Destroys the Universe About?

This book starts off with Constance Verity doing something almost unbelievable for her—normal things. She attends a dinner party to celebrate her best friend’s/sidekick’s upcoming wedding, she spends a day hanging out with her fiancé at a park and museum—sure, there’s a duel with an alien in there, as well as dealing with an international crisis, etc. But for Connie, that’s pretty sedate.

Then things stop happening—no death rays, mad scientists, pan-dimensional threats—not even a kitten stuck in a tree. It’s unnerving to all who know her well. On the plus side, Tia and Hiro’s wedding should go off without an interruption, right? And it does—the reception, however…

When things start happening again, there’s a distressing trend—people from all over the universe and time show up because they’ve been told that Constance Verity is going to destroy the universe, and they’re going to stop her. The assassins are plentiful enough that Connie’s getting nervous—so she does what she can to keep her loved ones safe and then sets out to see why people are saying she’s going to destroy the universe. All she’s ever done is save it, why would she change?

A Plethora of Ideas

Connie had a problem with Nebraska. And that problem was that it was too close to Kansas.

Kansas, where dark gods waited to rise from their forgotten tombs and bring about the extinction of mankind.

Kansas, where all time travel led to a black void where a pale, wizened figure would greet you, playing a banjo and singing endless choruses of “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Kansas, where Connie had come the closest to death on more than one occasion.

Kansas, her kryptonite.

In a sentence or two—or five brief paragraphs in the above quotation—Martinez is able to tell a whole story—or at least hint at one. Most of these little stories could be fodder for a novella or a novel, but in this trilogy, they’re given anywhere from a sentence fragment to a page. And then he moves on to something else so the plot can be advanced.

Every A. Lee Martinez novel has a surfeit of ideas that come flying at you, that’s nothing new. But I think in these Constance Verity novels that he’s outdone himself. Martinez treats these all as throw-away remarks, with no real investment of time on the reader’s part. But it has to be the kind of thing that would drive your average novelist to exhaustion just trying to come up with them all.

You get just a taste of a fantastic adventure or death-defying feat that Connie’s pulled off (frequently with Tia at her side) in these. You add enough of these together and you really start to see all the things that Constance has done and you understand how much is riding on her successes and how she’s become a legendary figure throughout the universe.

Sorry, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus*

It probably says something about the way my brain works that my favorite writing on Free Will vs. Determinism comes from Science Fiction—particularly those prone to a comedic tone. Okay, it says a lot about me, but that’s for another time.

Constance Verity Destroys the Universe plays with those ideas a lot—even knowing (after being told repeatedly from reliable sources) that she’s going to destroy the Universe, Connie refuses to believe it and flat out says she won’t. This idea is treated with derision by some (rightly) and supported and echoed by others (also, rightly). The mostly retired demigoddess of destiny that has moved into Connie’s apartment building cannot muster up the desire to weigh in on this, and of anyone, you’d think she’d have a lot to say about it.

I’m not saying that I think Martinez has penned a well-developed treatise on the idea in the middle of this SF/Fantasy Action novel—I’m just saying he has a lot of fun playing with the idea and that anyone who enjoys that sort of thing will find the Free Will vs. Determinism discussion a tasty side dish to accompany the SF/Fantasy entree.

* Okay, not really sorry.

So, what did I think about Constance Verity Destroys the Universe?

“I don’t have a lot of other leads, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that when in doubt, point myself toward the nearest adventure and let it work itself out.”

I hate that this volume is the end of the road for this trilogy—but I’m not sure what else he could accomplish in this world. When the series started, Connie was an adventurer/savior-of-the-universe wanting a normal life and being unable to; and we wrap up things up with her finding her own brand of normal, which she’ll be able to enjoy if she survives the assassination attempts and doesn’t destroy the universe. That’s a pretty decent arc.

I think I like the arc that her side-kick/best friend Tia goes on a smidge better, but that might be because Tia’s a bit more relatable to those of us not burdened with cosmic destiny. Either way, it’s a good run.

The ending of this is perfect on several levels—exactly how a novel (or a series) like this should end.

Could you read this apart from the other two novels? Yeah, I suppose. But I don’t think it’d be a great stand-alone, but you could get away with it. Why you’d want to, I don’t know—the first two books in the series are a blast.

On Twitter and his blog, Martinez will insist that he doesn’t write humor or comedy, that he’s not that satirical. I’m not so sure, but let’s take him at his word. His SF/Fantasy adventures (this one and all his others) are so funny that you can see why people would make that mistake. But when you ignore the humor, you get a very satisfying SF/Fantasy story that takes tropes and themes you’re very familiar with and presents them to you in a way that makes you see them with fresh eyes and frequently makes you re-evaluate the trope/theme to come at it with a new appreciation. If you happen to chuckle along the way, consider that a bonus.

Obviously, I recommend Constance Verity Destroys the Universe to you—and everything else Martinez has penned. Thank me later (if you remember to).

4 Stars

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, opinions are my own.

REPOSTING JUST ‘CUZ: Constance Verity Saves the World by A. Lee Martinez: Connie Verity is trying to have it all — a personal life while saving the world on a regular basis

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On April 12, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fiction, Science Fiction

Like I said earlier, I’m not having any success with my post about the third book in this series. So I’m reposting what I said about the previous two books to 1: To Have something to post today, and B. To hopefully use this as a way to get my brain in gear.

Constance Verity Saves the WorldConstance Verity Saves the World

by A. Lee Martinez
Series: Constance Verity, #2

Trade Paperback, 385 pg.
Saga Press , 2018<br/
Read: August 18 – 20, 2018

“It’s a problem I have. When you’re ten years old and dangling from a cliff while rabid hyenas circle below, you learn to be stubborn. You can’t quit, because quitting isn’t an option. You dig your fingernails and pray that root doesn’t come loose. And if it does, you plan how best to fend off hyenas when all you have is a Pez dispenser and a priceless diamond in your pocket. I fight. It’s what I do. It’s how I survive. When people turn and run, I go forward. It’s kept me alive so far, but it’s skewed how I look at things.

“Somebody tells me I can’t do something, I want to do it more. Want isn’t a strong enough word. I need to do it. Give me that big red button labeled DO NOT PUSH in bright neon letters, and I’ll push it every time.”

Having fought for the ability to have a normal life in The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Connie’s out to try to have one. Which is harder than saving the world a few times a week. She’s still saving the world regularly, as well as having all sorts of adventures. She’s trying to settle down with her boyfriend Byron the accountant, while relying on her best friend/sidekick Tia some more (all the while, Tia is trying to strengthen her relationship with her ninja-thief boyfriend, Hiro). There are evil geniuses, aliens, robots, and vampires living in her condo — all of them behaving themselves, thank you very much.

One of the activities that takes most of Connie’s time right now is trying to help out an old friend cleanup the supercriminal organization that he’s in charge of now that his mother has apparently died. There’s a lot of rogue agents, assassins and experiments that need cleaning up if the organization is going to be come a legitimate force for good — or at least not a force for evil and chaos in the world. Connie’s tempted to spend more time doing that than she should, to the detriment of her relationship with Byron. Thankfully, Tia’s there to help keep her priorities in order. Hopefully, that’ll be enough.

You ever find yourself eating something — say, some cake — and you’re not sure if it’s too rich, if the frosting is too sweet? And then you realize how stupid you sound? Wondering if the cake is too good? Well, that’s the experience I had with this (and, I’m pretty sure with the previous Constance Verity book) — where there too many quips? Too many (seemingly) random ideas, aliens, evil masterminds, robots, henchmen of a variety of stripes, strange occurrences? What a stupid thing to ask. Yeah, there’s a lot going on, but it actually doesn’t get to the overload status. It may come close, but it stays on the right side. It’s like asking if there are too many animated personages in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, if there are too many Easter Eggs in whatever your Super-Hero movie of choice is. No, there’s not — there’s a lot of good things that are fun. Shut up and enjoy.

Really, that’s the worst thing I can say about the book — occasionally, there are too many fun things happening. The pacing is great, the characters are rich, lively, and well-developed (including many of those only around for a page or so), you’ll laugh, you’ll be moved, you might even have a thought provoked. It’s just a charming book set in a delightful world.

Do not make the mistake of thinking this is a romp, just a free-wheeling ball of fun, snark and self-referential humor. It’s an A. Lee Martinez book, so yeah, there’s a lot of that — but laying underneath that is a good story, some interesting ideas about relationships, about trust, about fate. A whole lot of other things, too, I’m sure, but let’s stick with those. Too many people will read this, focus on the “fun” stuff and will miss the very thoughtful portions — it’s Martinez’ strength and weakness that it’s so easy to do with his works. There’s nothing wrong with a silly adventure story, and there’s nothing wrong with a book that’s about something. But when you have a novel that’s both — you should pay attention to both.

I knew Martinez could write a series if he wanted to — I had no idea what it was going to look like when he did. I’m glad I got the chance to find out. Constance Verity Saves the World is equal to its predecessor in every way that it doesn’t outdo The Last Adventure of Constance Verity — which is no mean feat. It’s fun, the characters are better defined and have grown some, and there’s never a dull moment. Constance Verity, the caretaker of the universe, the Legendary Snurkab, possibly the only woman with more titles than Daenerys Targaryen, is a character you need to get to know. Her sidekick Tia is, too. I cannot wait to see what the two of them do next.

—–

4 Stars

REPOSTING JUST ‘CUZ: The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez

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On April 12, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fiction, Science Fiction

I’ve spent a couple of hours trying to say something about the third book in this trilogy, but haven’t come up with more than “this is good.” So I’m going to repost this (and then what I said about Book 2 later on) while I go back to the drawing board.

The Last Adventure of Constance VerityThe Last Adventure of Constance Verity

by A. Lee Martinez
Series: Constance Verity, #1

Hardcover, 384 pg.
Saga Press, 2016

Read: September 8 -12, 2016

“I didn’t think you believed in jinxes,” said Tia.

Connie didn’t.

But she wasn’t so sure that jinxes didn’t believe in her, and they’d had a long, long time to build a grudge.

I go in to a Martinez book assuming I’ll like it, this one took less time than usual for me to know I liked it. Lines like that are just part of why.

Thanks to a gift from a fairy godmother, since she was 7, Constance Verity has been saving the world as she goes on unbelievable adventure after unbelievable adventure — she travels the galaxy, time, alternate realities and all over (and under) the Earth. She’s run into demons, aliens, wizards, killer robots, mad scientists and many more threats — and overcome them all. A couple of decades later, she’s starting to think that she’s missing out on something despite all the excitement. She’s missing out on being ordinary.

Haven’t you saved the world on multiple occasions?”

“That’s what people tell me, but I’m beginning to think that the world isn’t as fragile as all that. The universe got along just fine for billions of years without me. I don’t think it needs me to save it. I think it all works out about the same in the end. Sometimes, I like to think of myself with a dead-end job that I dislike, a husband who is letting himself go, and some ungrateful kids I take to soccer practice. It sounds dreary, but at least it would be my life.”

Connie doesn’t stop to consider if she’s really cut out for ordinary, but if anyone can rise to the challenge of normality, it’s Constance Verity.

So she and her sidekick best-friend, Tia, head out to get that normal life for her. Step 1: Kill her fairly godmother.

I really don’t know what to say about the book beyond this without getting into more details than I ought. I guess I could say a few things about character. Connie is a great character, for someone who’s lived a superhuman life, she’s really human. Tia is incredible — wise, funny, caring, a real good friend. The relationship between the two is almost perfect.

This is a typical Martinez — a strange combination of loony and thoughtful. You can laugh and then be struck by a profound thought within a couple of pages. This is a fun adventure (a handful, really), and a bit of a commentary on heroes, villains, tropes and themes in SF stories (particularly the pulp-ier variety).

This is the first installment in a series — which is something Martinez hasn’t done before — I have no clue how he’ll pull this off, the book ends like I’d expect a Martinez stand-alone to end, so I have no idea how he’s going to follow this up. But I cannot wait to see.

—–

4 Stars

Under Lock & Skeleton Key by Gigi Pandian: A Modern Take on a Classic Mystery

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On April 11, 2022

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Under Lock & Skeleton KeyUnder Lock & Skeleton Key

by Gigi Pandian

DETAILS:
Series: Secret Staircase Mysteries, #1
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: March 14, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 333 pg.
Read Date: April 5-6, 2022
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

What’s Under Lock & Skeleton Key About?

Tempest Raj was an illusionist whose star was on the rise—until a new illusion went awry during a performance. We don’t get a lot of details, but it was bad—injuring people and property. Tempest herself might have died. Her career did.

Her career in tatters, she goes back home to lick her wounds and decide her next steps. Magic’s all she’s known—it’s a family business and has been for generations, but her grandparents and father never wanted her to go into it in the first place, and are hoping that she won’t return to it.

Instead, they’re hoping she’ll join the family business—Secret Staircase Construction. The company makes things like secret staircases, hidden rooms, and treehouses that you can double as residences. Tempest stops by their worksite one day when a large sack is found in the existing wall—inside that sack is a body. Not just anybody, but Tempest’s stage double.

The questions that leap to mind are: Who killed her? How did the body get in the wall (it’s a move worthy of her father’s or Tempest’s skills)? Why hide it there? Was it a case of mistaken identity—was that supposed to be Tempest? The police land on a quick answer, but Tempest doesn’t buy it.

So Tempest looks into things on her own, while she tries to come to terms with her life, rebuild some friendships she abandoned when she left home, and deal with some other personal stuff that we don’t have time to get into.

Illusionist as Detective

A few years ago, didn’t ABC have a series where a stage magician acted as a police/FBI consultant? Sort of a Mentalist/Castle/Instinct thing. I’m pretty sure I watched an episode of it and resented the time lost.

That said, reading this makes me think they were onto something with the Magician-turned-Detective. The way that Tempest thought about some of the aspects of this work because of her background/career is perfect for this kind of thing. She’s better equipped to tackle investigative work than a lot of amateur sleuths.

Oh, the Food…

So, Tempest’s grandfather is spending most of his retirement cooking (or at least that seems to be pretty much what he does). He moved from India to Scotland as a teen and only moved to California a few years before the novel. His food seems to be a combination of traditional Indian flavors and Scottish dishes.

Really, all I know about Scottish cuisine comes from So I Married an Axe Murderer, and I have a beginner’s appreciation for Indian food, but, boy howdy the food in Under Lock & Skeleton Key sounds great. The descriptions of all the food Grandpa Ash puts together just kept making me hungry. Thankfully, there are a couple of recipes at the end of the book that will help with the cravings the text induced (and more on the author’s website).

So, what did I think about Under Lock & Skeleton Key?

The character work—not just with Tempest, but all the characters she comes into contact with–is the best part of the book, I want to spend more time with these people and to get to know them better (even the killer!). They’re a great batch of personalities, backgrounds, and interests—a cast unlike any series I can think of.

The book as a whole is like a course in classic mysteries (think early 20th Century), especially in the vein of locked room/closed circle mysteries. And that’s before one character actually starts lecturing Tempest in classic mystery structure (I loved that section of the book and would’ve willingly suspended the action for a little longer for that section to be 2-3x as long as it was).

I’m not entirely certain that the mystery was as good as the writing and characterization would lead the reader to expect, and the solution was a little bit of a letdown. The reveal of that solution, on the other hand, was exactly what I wanted. Everything else about the novel more than makes up for the slight disappointment I experienced.

I see this is the first of a series, but it feels like a stand-alone to me. Also—how often can you find a body on the premises of a remodel? How many times can an author get away with these characters coming across a murder that’s magic-adjacent? I really don’t think I care. I’ll buy whatever weak excuse Pandian can come up with for at least another one or two of these.

I’d recommend this for die-hard mystery readers or even those who only occasionally pick one up–the premise and characters for this novel/series are fresh, intriguing, and entertaining.

3.5 Stars

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, opinions are my own.

COVER REVEAL: The Watcher by Lisa Sell

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On April 8, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Welcome to The Irresponsible Reader’s part in the Cover Reveal for Lisas Sell’s Byline! We’ll get to the (intentionally) disturbing cover in a bit, but first, let’s read a little about the book, okay?

About the Book

The Watcher is a psychological thriller that will keep you hooked from the first page until the last…

What the reviewers are saying about The Watcher:

★★★★★ If you’re looking for something to keep you gripped, read this.

★★★★★ I have never read a book by this author, but I will definitely read more.

★★★★★ Such an intense, chilling, and spooky novel.

★★★★★ The plotline is superb, and the characters are brilliant and really help carry the story forward.

★★★★★ It had me captivated until the end. An easy, fast-paced read.

Harmony House has a voyeur. Someone with hidden cameras throughout the building. The residents are unaware they’re being watched, especially the ones up to no good.

I spy with my little eye; someone is going to die…

Purchase Link:

Amazon

About the Author

Lisa SellLisa Sell is a thriller, crime, and mystery author. She is an avid reader with a to-be-read tower rather than a pile.

Music rocks Lisa’s world too, particularly a good eighties tune. If lost, you’ll find her in a DeLorean, headed for her favorite decade.

Lisa’s cats try to help her write but often fail. The furry pests demand attention and desk space. Lisa is currently applying for cat wrangling to be recognized as an Olympic sport.

Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram

The Cover

The Watcher Cover
That just makes you feel all creepy, doesn’t it? This releases on April 20, but why not go pick up a copy today?



My thanks to Red Dragon Publishing for the invitation to participate in this reveal and the materials they provided.
Red Dragon Publishing

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi: Delivers Everything the Title Promises

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On April 7, 2022

In John Scalzi, Science Fiction

Kaiju Preservation SocietyThe Kaiju Preservation Society

by John Scalzi

DETAILS:
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: March 14, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 258 pg.
Read Date: April 1-4, 2022
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not say, ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park!’ to all of you just now.”

“Jurassic Park didn’t end well for anyone in it,” I pointed out. “Book or movie.”

“Well, they were sloppy,” Tom said. “We’re not sloppy. And, they were fictional. This is real.”

What’s The Kaiju Preservation Society About?

Jamie Gray drops out of his Ph.D. program (writing a dissertation on utopian and dystopian literature) thanks to a quarter-life crisis that gets him to want to make a lot of money. So he goes to work for a tech startup, starts to make decent money, and gets fired just as COVID lockdowns start. He starts scraping by on his savings and meager work for a food-delivery app.

Until he delivers shawarma to Tom one day—the two were acquaintances in college, and they have a brief conversation where a couple of things come out—Jamie hates delivering food, and the NGO that Tom works for has an immediate need of someone on his team. He doesn’t give Tom a lot of information, but that the work involves travel and large animals. His team is set to depart soon, and they can’t without a full team. They just need someone who can, and is willing to, lift things. Tom points out his nice condo as proof that they pay well. Jamie signs on.

A few days later, Jamie and a few other new people on the team find out what the initials in KPS stand for—after it’s too late for them to back out. They’ve traveled to a parallel Earth populated by Kaiju for a six-month stint at one of the human bases.

Obviously, like the book and movie referenced above, things go wrong. They just have to for the sake of a novel, right? (but up until then, I think I could’ve made a case for this being an entire novel without that—it exists as one for longer than I expected—and I would’ve liked it just as much as the one Scalzi delivered).

The Science Fiction-y bits

Given Tom’s work, and Jamie’s, Scalzi’s able to gloss over a lot of the how-they-eat-and-breathe (and other science facts…la! la! la!) stuff, but he does reference things like the square-cube law when it comes to enormously big creatures. Jamie’s new friends include scientists who can deliver some of the biology, chemistry, etc. that are needed for the story—but when it’s needed, they’re always explaining it to the liberal arts guy on their team, so the reader doesn’t have to wade through the heady stuff (something Michael Crichton could’ve used, for example).

It’s not a perfect way to deal with these things, but it sure works well, and Scalzi feeds it to the reader in his usual charming way, so I embraced it.

Pop*.* Fiction

In his Author’s Note, Scalzi states:

KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.

I’d been describing it as a popcorn movie in a book. He says pop song. It’s pop-something.

It’s the movie you escape to in the middle of a heatwave and forget about the oppressive weather, the sun, and everything else to enjoy the heat and some pure entertainment. It’s the song you find yourself overplaying because it’s just so catchy until you get sick of it (although you can’t help singing along) and abandon it for years until it comes up on some random mix and you become obsessed with it again for a couple of weeks.

What I found striking about Scalzi saying that is that it reminds me of Seanan McGuire’s comments about the last Toby Daye novel—she needed to write something like that (and I enjoyed it for similar reasons to this one). Are we going to see more books like this from other authors soon? Did 2020/2021 gift us a slew of authors writing happy books as a way to shake it off? (I wonder if Winslow’s Free Billy fits here).

Frankly, I hope so.

So, what did I think about The Kaiju Preservation Society?

“Why isn’t he eating us?” I asked. We were now close enough to Edward that this was not an entirely irrelevant question.

“He’s asleep,” Satie said.

I glanced over at him. “Asleep?”

“They sleep, yup.”

“How can you tell when he’s asleep?”

“He’s not eating us, for one,” Satie said. “You can’t see his eyes, for another.”

I love popcorn movies, I love pop songs like that…and well, you can probably see where that’s going. I’m not the world’s largest Kaiju fan (don’t actively dislike them, either), but it really doesn’t matter, this book skips all that and jumps right to the pleasure center of the brain the same way a catchy tune can.

Reading The Kaiju Preservation Society reminded me of the first time I read Ready Player One (before the movie, distance, and the sequel made me take a second/third/fourth look at it). Or Snow Crash (a wise reference for Scalzi to make early on). It sort of reminded me of the first time I read High Fidelity, too. The catchy, irreverent narrative; the snappy dialogue; the first-person narrator you click with right away*…it just took me a few pages to know that I was going to find nothing but joy in these pages.

*or probably never.

And really, I don’t have a lot to say about the book beyond this. It brought me joy for a couple of days. Thinking about it now is doing the same thing. Go get your hands on this text-based dopamine hit in your preferred medium (I bet Wheaton’s audiobook narration is perfect), sit back, and enjoy yourself.

5 Stars

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, opinions are my own.

Citizen K-9 by David Rosenfelt: Things Get Personal for the Team with this Cold Case

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On April 6, 2022

In David Rosenfelt, Dogs, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Citizen K-9Citizen K-9

by David Rosenfelt

DETAILS:
Series: The K Team, #3
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: March 14, 2022
Format:  Hardcover
Length: 263 pg.
Read Date: April 4-5, 2022
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What’s Citizen K-9 About?

Due to budget cuts, Capt. Pete Stanton of Homicide has to be careful how he uses his too-small staff. He does however, have a decent discretionary fund that he can’t use for his staff, but can use on consultants. Seeing the work that The K Team has done in the past gives him the idea to hire them to close a cold case or two.

The first case the team picks centers on a High School Reunion that Corey attended and Laurie crashed. Marcus has no connection to the case but doesn’t care, he’s in. Two attendees, who really didn’t seem to know each other during High School, left early together and were never seen again. For seven years now, there’s been occasional speculation (following the initial, inconclusive investigation) about what happened to the pair, ranging from running off to start new lives under new identities to lying in a cold grave. Corey and Laurie have been curious about it, as they were there, but have never had reason to do anything about it until now.

Due to a combination of luck, skill, and a willingness for a witness to say something they withheld before, it doesn’t take long for the cold case to heat up. Once one of the victim’s connection to drug dealers and organized crime comes to light, it gets really hot, and legitimate threats are leveled at Corey and his girlfriend.

Second Verse, Same as the First…

I never do this, but I glanced at what I said about The K Team #2, Animal Instinct before I wrote this, and two of the sections are basically what I’d planned on writing for this post. Now I realize that most readers of this blog aren’t going to remember what I posted on March 31, 2021—but still, I feel awkward about it.

It’s not going to stop me, because I still think it should be covered (and I’m not creative/energetic enough to come up with something new). I just thought I should say that I’m aware that I’m in danger of going back to the well too many times.

Trying to find the silver lining here, if I’m being consistent in my comments about the series, I guess that means that the author is being consistent in writing the series. And since I like the books, that promises good things for the future.

Simon Garfunkel

We need more Simon Garfunkel in these books.

I’m not looking for Corey to become Bernie Little, I really don’t want that. But, if you’re going to name your Detective Agency after the retired K-9 member of your team, the dog had better be around more. I get that sometimes you need to leave the dog at home (and at least for one point, Corey’s narration explains why Simon isn’t around). It’s not enough to have him around occasionally, Simon needs to be by Corey’s side almost all of the time.

This goes for the author, too—If you’re going to refer to the dog in the name of your series, use him. Especially if he’s going to be on the cover of each novel.

Dani

Dani, Corey’s significant other, gets more time in this novel than she has in the previous ones—but not too much. Her increased presence fits plot-wise—and, even if she was just around for the sake of Corey’s character development, that’d be enough justification.

The challenges for Dani and their relationship are significant and needed to happen—it leads to some needed conversations between the two. This aspect of the novel is the best part about it—even more than the Team’s case.

A good deal about this series is what’s changing for Corey in his retirement from the Police Department—his attitudes towards legal processes, his ability to/interest in a committed relationship, his ability to put up with a particular defense attorney, and so on. His relationship with Dani is the biggest change to his way of living/thinking.

It’s a steady and believable change with him—this old dog (if you’ll forgive the expression—is learning some new, and needed, tricks.

The K Team

Over the course of the three novels of this series, their jobs in the three or four Andy Carpenter books that have used The K Team, and whatever things they’ve done in the meantime, a real camaraderie has developed between Laurie, Corey, and Marcus. It’s great to see—it’s not the same feel that exists between the characters in the Andy Carpenter books.

One way this shows up is that Rosenfelt takes a long-running joke from the Carpenter books (I’m going to guess it’s been around for at least 23 books) and tweaks it—adding a new layer to it. I laughed out loud at this (something I haven’t done for at least 20 books).

This book, more than the others, is not a thinly-disguised Andy Carpenter book, and I’m glad to see it.

So, what did I think about Citizen K-9?

I really enjoyed this. David Rosenfelt has been a long-time (since before I started this blog) consistent source of entertaining reads and I’m glad to see that even with an increased output from him over the last couple of years, that hasn’t changed. I actually think this might be helping the books improve somehow.

Citizen K-9 features a clever mystery, some great character moments, some good slow-but-steady character development, a nice (if under-used) dog, who isn’t just around for window dressing, and a strong narrative voice. That’s pretty much everything I need to recommend a book, which I do. The sweet ending is a cherry on top.

This’d be a decent jumping-on point to either The K Team series or a sideways way of getting on-board with the Andy Carpenter series. If you like the spin-off, you’ll like the original. Check them out.

3.5 Stars

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, opinions are my own.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair: No case too tough. No case too crazy.

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On April 5, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Science Fiction

After you finish this, take a minute to go register for the Giveaway!

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Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For HireDuckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire

by G.M. Nair

DETAILS:
Series: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire, #1
Publisher: dS-dF
Publication Date: June 30, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 302 pg.
Read Date: March 30-April 1, 2022
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

What’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire About?

I have been dreading this day for a little bit now, because I have to answer this question, and I’m not sure I can. At one point, Stephanie Dyer describes their
experiences as:

It’s like Quantum Leap, but if Scott Bakula had a concussion.

I’m tempted to leave it there and move on, but you’re going to want a little more than that.

So, Michael Duckett shares an apartment with his best friend since childhood, Stephanie Dyer. Shares is being generous—he pays the rent, utilities, and food bills. Stephanie tries not to cause trouble for him. Sometimes.

Michael hates his/their apartment, his job, and his life in general. What he doesn’t hate is flirting with a particular woman at the laundromat. There’s really not much more to say about his life—until a woman accosts him on the way home from the laundromat, demanding that he takes her case. He’s confused, and she presents an advertisement for his detective agency.

He has no idea what she’s talking about or where the advertisement came from. Stephanie doesn’t, either. Soon they’re hired to look into a woman’s disappearance by that woman. Somehow, she knew she was about to disappear and wants them to find out what’s about to happen to her/has happened to her by the time they get on the case.

Clear as mud? Yeah, I know.

Meanwhile, a grizzled detective is trying to take down a drug dealer—until he disappears in a way he can’t explain. It’s not long before he crosses paths with Duckett and Dyer and things get stranger for him (by this time, they’re already pretty strange for the detectives, but it gets worse for them, too).

The Multiverse of Madness

(with apologies to a certain franchise)

“That’s it?” Michael scowled. “It looks like you took a stopwatch and glued some extra stuff on it.”

Matteo slammed the box closed and yanked it away. “You make your own dimension hopping device on a grad school budget and see how it looks.”

Without giving too much away, the duo finds themselves bouncing from parallel universe to parallel universe—some have a slightly asynchronous timeline, others have bigger differences—some have differences that are so small, like people’s hair color.

The explanation for both their travel and the research that led to it being possible (and how they’ll stop, I should add) is slightly more coherent than a certain someone’s “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” speech. Coherent, but goofy and entertainingly explained. The jumping from universe to universe is a great joke delivery mechanism, Nair was able to let his imagination run wild here—and it was worth it.

The Humor

“You’re kidding me. You’re traveling across dimensions using black holes?”

“Yeah. Plus I made the whole thing light up blue. Took me a whole weekend to figure out how to do that. I think it looks cool,” Matteo was quite pleased with himself.

Speaking of joke delivery mechanisms—Nair has quite a few of them at work here. Some of the humor is quiet and observational, some is the classic situational kind of thing that comes from the Odd Couple-esque pairing of Michael and Stephanie, and then there’s the ridiculous SF/Multiverse stuff—I don’t even know how to describe that.

This story felt like the love child of Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency and Comedy Central’s Corporate, but sweeter. The humor is sophisticated and juvenile, subtle and broad, cynical and sentimental. Not only was the story unpredictable, but so was the humor—Nair almost never went where you thought he would go with the jokes.

So, what did I think about Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire?

“I can’t believe there are people who actually want to hire a couple of detectives with no experience.”

“Don’t doubt the power of internet marketing,” Stephanie said.

“Also, the ad said we’ve been in business since 1989.”

“We were born in 1989.”

She shrugged, “So, technically, I guess. It’s true.”

This was just absurd (in the best way). It’s not novel to combine any of the genres involved in the novel, but the way Nair does it makes it feel fresh and original—why didn’t anyone think of this before?

Both Stephanie and Michael are hard to like sometimes—okay, Michael is difficult to like as a person more than sometimes—mostly you take him because Stephanie likes him. Actually, just about every character is realistically human and flawed—very flawed. That’s not something you often get in such a comic novel, it’s nice when you do.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire is a great start to this trilogy—it’s an SF romp with just a touch of Detective Fiction. Once things get moving, it’s one of the faster-paced books I’ve read this year, and the jokes keep the story moving well. You’re not going to find a lot of books like this one—you’d better pounce on it (and the sequel) when you can.

4 Stars

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.



My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

EXCERPT from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

By

On April 5, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Quotations, Science Fiction

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire Tour Banner
For the next part of my stop on The Escapist Blog Tour for Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair, I have this nifty excerpt. Enjoy!

from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

It was dark outside by the time he left. Michael couldn’t see his watch, but it was definitely around 9:30. He walked down the street past a row of cars, neatly angle parked. At the end sat Michael’s 1982 Mercury Zephyr, a car that he lovingly referred to as “the Garbagemobile.” The otherwise red car had a canary yellow passenger’s side door that failed to function since its previous owner had opted to weld it shut for undisclosed reasons. Still, the trunk worked well enough. Michael thumped his fist on the corner and it popped open, allowing him to toss in his laundry. Or was it clothes, now? When did your laundry stop being “laundry” and become “clothes”? When you folded it? When you brought it home? Or when you put it in your dresser? Michael enjoyed this pointless line of questioning brought on by the euphoria of his potential date with a beautiful woman, as it distracted him from overthinking about said date.

Michael slammed the trunk shut and turned to find the crazed blue eyes and wild hair of an entirely different, entirely angrier woman who had definitely not been there a second ago. He jolted backwards and tumbled onto the asphalt. A jeep whizzed by his head at what felt like 50 miles per hour, but was probably more like 5.

“Oh my God! What the hell, lady?” A situation in which panic was natural. Michael almost felt at home.

“You’re Michael Duckett!” The woman declared in a voice so far from Terri’s melodic tones, it would need a GPS to get within striking distance.

“Uh . . . yeah?” was all he could muster. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“I need your help!” She seemed less interested in his questions than her own agenda, whatever that was.

“You need . . . my help?” Michael pulled himself to his feet by leaning on the Garbagemobile’s rear bumper, which shuddered against the rusty nails holding it on. “For what?”

“I saw your ad. I need to hire you. It’s urgent.”

“Sorry. My ad? I think you have the wrong guy. I’m not for hire.” Michael brushed himself off and, being certain his life was no longer in any significant peril, took stock of the situation. He sidled past the woman, who was wearing medical scrubs beneath the folds of a long brown coat, and onto the sidewalk. If she had escaped from a mental hospital, killed an orderly, and stolen his clothes, that would explain the scrubs. It was a bit of a reach, but not an unreasonable conclusion given the circumstances.

“I have a case for you,” she said. Her eyes had a cold fire behind them that complemented the harsh red lipstick that popped against her dark olive skin. She would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been completely off her rocker.

“Yeah, a . . . nut case,” Michael winced. Another joke that didn’t land tonight, but there really wasn’t much time to workshop it. “Lady, I can give you bus fare or . . . uh . . . whatever you need. But I’m pretty sure you have the wrong person.”

“No. I definitely don’t. You’re the detective!” Despite her manic motions, the woman’s frizzy, curly blast of bright blonde hair refused to move very much.

“Detective? What the hell are you talking about?” Michael inched toward the door of the Garbagemobile. “I’m not—”

The woman slapped her hand on the door, blocking his escape. With her other hand, she removed a smartphone from her purse and thrust it at him. “I recognized you from your photo.”

Michael left the smartphone in her hand and awkwardly scrolled down with a single finger. It was not often that Michael got to use a fancy smartphone. His own was an elderly flip affair with a creaky hinge. The screen on this one was brighter and boasted a higher resolution which allowed the bold black headline to leap out of the bright white background in all-caps, silently yelling at him:

“MICHAEL DUCKETT AND STEPHANIE DYER – PRIVATE EYES FOR HIRE – NO CASE TOO TOUGH, NO CASE TOO CRAZY – REASONABLE RATES – ANY TIME DAY OR NIGHT.”

It was a simple internet classified ad—the Hail Mary of desperate schlubs seeking used leisure suits or unlikely missed connections. Below the headline was a picture of him and his oldest friend – and roommate two years running – Stephanie Dyer, standing side by side. It was cropped to focus only on their chests and heads, so Michael couldn’t place where or when it had been taken. Stephanie was making overenthusiastic gun fingers at the camera, while Michael seemed aloof in an attempt to appear cool. It had not worked.

 

Read the rest in Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair.

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

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