Category Archives: Authors A-E

Review: Once Wicked Always Dead, by T. Marie Benchley

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Once Wicked Always Dead
Once Wicked Always Dead
T. Marie Benchley
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Summary (from Amazon.com);
Molly Madison is unaware of the Sociopath who is on the loose, creating havoc with a sense of their own justice. Her life is shattered by the sudden death of her beloved parents and the revelation of her husband Phillip’s affair – with another man – Molly leaves the life of Country Clubs and the luxury of city life in Florida and heads west to Montana, resolved to run the family ranch, and to move on with her life. Her attraction to Clayton Leatherbe, the ranch foreman, is instant, but before a romance can blossom, the ranch falls prey to sabotage by wealthy land developers determined to drive Molly out, and Clayton learns of a family secret and collides with the Sociopath that could put the ranch – and Molly’s life – in jeopardy.

A sharp mystery that swirls with family secrets, betrayal, love and loss, Once Wicked Always Dead is a strong debut from an author with literary blood in her veins.

I love a mystery, and have been devouring them lately, so when I was offered a copy of T. Marie Benchley’s debut novel, Once Wicked Always Dead, I jumped at the chance.

Let me just say, if there’s anyone who needs to consider buying affordable health insurance, it’s Molly Madison: first her parents die tragically, then her husband’s lover/assistant outs him, and then she has to deal with the pressure of going back to Montana after a less-than-happy life in Florida. Oh, and then there’s that pesky sociopath who spends most of the book murdering men before we actually meet her. It’s enough to make anyone sick.

From any other author, this collection of events would be preposterous, but Benchley manages to weave it all together into a mystery/thriller that also does equal time as a romance novel. While Molly frustrated me at times, I know that there are women like her in the world, who let their husband’s dreams obscure their own. I alternately disliked and pitied Molly’s husband Phillip – hiding your sexuality for so long would twist a person – and loved Clayton Leatherbe, the ranch foreman/manager.

Benchley’s book could easily have been dumbed down and labeled with a Harlequin symbol, but instead, she made the romantic elements take a backseat to the mystery/thriller part of the story, which results in a gripping story, and a fast, entertaining read.

If you love a mystery, you’ll love Once Wicked Always Dead.

Goes well with a perfectly grilled steak and a bottle of wine (I like syrah, but your mileage may vary).

Review: According to Jane, by Marilyn Brant

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According to Jane
According to Jane
Marilyn Brant
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Summary (From Amazon.com):
It begins one day in sophomore English class, just as Ellie Barnett’s teacher is assigning Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. From nowhere comes a quiet ‘tsk’ of displeasure. The target: Sam Blaine, the cute bad boy who’s teasing Ellie mercilessly, just as he has since kindergarten. Entirely unbidden, as Jane might say, the author’s ghost has taken up residence in Ellie’s mind, and seems determined to stay there. Jane’s wise and witty advice guides Ellie through the hell of adolescence and beyond, serving as the voice she trusts, usually far more than her own. Years and boyfriends come and go – sometimes a little too quickly, sometimes not nearly fast enough. But Jane’s counsel is constant, and on the subject of Sam, quite insistent. Stay away, Jane demands. He is your Mr. Wickham. Still, everyone has something to learn about love – perhaps even Jane herself. And lately, the voice in Ellie’s head is being drowned out by another, urging her to look beyond everything she thought she knew and seek out her very own, very unexpected, happy ending.

I have to confess: one of the reasons I chose to read According to Jane was that I got it free for my Kindle, and I like free. I’m really glad I downloaded it though, because this was a delightful novel, and totally worth its real cover price.

As someone who dabbles in fan-fic from time to time, I really liked the concept of an author or character taking up residence in someone’s brain and spouting off advice, and Brant managed to take that concept and spin a delightful story. Imagine having Jane Austen herself whispering in your ear when you most need it, or just making curt observations about the people in your life. Lead character Ellie doesn’t have to imagine, it happens to her, and while the version of Jane who has moved into her brain restricts her advice to love and personal relationships, and not general info (like acne rosacea treatment, for example) they end up in a very special kind of long-term relationship.

Of course this is a contemporary piece of fiction that skirts the lines between women’s fiction, chick-lit and true romance, so it has to have humor and it has to have sex, and Brant delivers just enough of each to keep the reader satisfied. There’s also nice character growth, particularly from Sam (the main male lead in the novel, and Ellie’s love interest) and Ellie’s older sister, who starts out as a bully and ends up as a friend.

This isn’t the type of novel people are going to write long treatises about, or debate in classrooms, but if you’re looking for an entertaining read that can be devoured in a single rainy afternoon, this book is for you.

Goes well with: hot chocolate and Milano cookies.

Review: Divorced, Desperate and Dating, by Christie Craig

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Divorced, Desperate, and Dating
Divorced, Desperate, and Dating
Christie Craig
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Just as people with healthcare jobs probably like to read about characters who work in their profession, I like to read novels and watch movies with writers as main characters. It makes sense then, that when I read about Christie Craig’s fun, flirty novel Divorced, Desperate and Dating over on KindleIQ.com, where it was being offered for FREE, I had to have it. After all the protagonist of this novel, Sue Finley, is a mystery writer.

Despite the fact that I don’t read traditional romance novels all that often, I found myself completely engaged by this book. Maybe it was the element of mystery, or maybe it was the fact that the author made a point of having her characters bring up birth control, or maybe it’s just that Ms. Craig is that talented, but I found the story – Sue is being stalked by someone using incidents from her as-yet-unpublished book, and developing feelings for a cop who happens to also be a friend of a friend, as well.

While I haven’t read any of Craig’s other work, this one feels like a sequel, and, once I have a slightly smaller to-be-read stack, I’ll most likely snag the others.

Until then? If you want fun, escapist reading that is still smart and sexy, I recommend this book.

Goes well with strawberries dipped in chocolate.

Review: Roast Mortem, by Cleo Coyle

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Roast Mortem
Roast Mortem
Cleo Coyle
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I cannot begin to tell you what the best colon cleansing pill might be because as a woman who was literally weaned on espresso, I’ve never needed one. Speaking of espresso, I’ve just finished reading Cleo Coyle’s latest coffee house mystery, Roast Mortem, which was also the first Kindle book I actually paid for.

As with all of Coyle’s coffee house novels, Roast Mortem is the perfect blend of coffeehouse coziness, romance, and mystery. This far into the series, we’ve met all the main characters – Claire Cosi, manager of the Village Blend, her ex-husband and business partner Matt Allegro, and his incredibly wealthy mother, the various baristas and their friends, and of course NYPD detective Mike Quinn, whose relationship with Claire has a new sense of stability, even (dare I hope?) permanence.

But it’s another Quinn, Michael Quinn, a NYFD chief, who is one of the stars of this novel. We first met him a couple of books ago, when he fished Ms. Cosi out of some frigid water, and his animosity-laden relationship with Detective Quinn, is first cousin, came to light, but in this book, which involves a serious of explosive-started fires at various coffee houses, we learn more about him, and we also – finally – find out why the cousins don’t get along.

Of course Claire is in jeopardy more than once, and ends up leading the NYPD to the murderer (and the NYFD to the arsonist), and of course there are all sorts of coffeehouse recipes scattered through the book (and listed at the end for those of us who love to cook at home), but even though these novels are fairly formulaic, they’re also so well written that the predictability doesn’t matter, and the stories remain compelling because Coyle is so good at setting scene and creating characters.

While the coffee house mysteries can be read as stand-alone novels, they’re much richer if you read the series in order, so you can watch relationships develop from book to book. Either way, however, I recommend Roast Mortem to anyone who loves a good mystery, and a great cup of coffee.

Goes well with a doppio espresso and any kind of chocolate baked good.

Review: Lunch in Paris, by Elizabeth Bard

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Lunch in Paris
Lunch in Paris: a Love Story, with Recipes
by Elizabeth Bard

When I picked up Elizabeth Bard’s wonderful foodie memoir, Lunch in Paris, I’m not sure what I was expecting. I mean, I knew the story of a young American woman in Paris wasn’t going to be about the side effects of diet pills or overspending with credit cards, but I think I was expecting something more like Julie and Julia.

What I got was sort of Adam Gopnik with food. This memoir begins at lunch, quickly moves to the author’s then lover’s (now husband) flat, and then into the kitchen before going back to bed. As I do, she associates food with highs and lows in her life, and has a recipe – familiar or French, sometimes both – for every milestone in her life. Her tales of going to the market are completely envy-inspiring, and her description of standing in her tiny kitchen licking the knife after making a flourless chocolate gateau are drool-worthy.

Bard is a journalist, by trade, of course, so it helps that she already knows how to hook a reader. I’ve never read any of her magazine writing, but I love her writer’s voice in this book, and really hope she does more like it. Soon.

And yes, I have tried at least one of the recipes.

Goes well with: a dry cappuccino and a single square of dark chocolate

Review: Skin and Bones, by D.C. Corso

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Skin and Bones
Skin and Bones
by D. C. Corso
Bennet & Hastings, 162 pages
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When I was offered the chance to read D. C. Corso’s debut novel Skin and Bones I jumped at it, because I love mysteries, true crime, and police procedurals, and the story – that of an FBI agent joining forces with a small town’s prodigal daughter to track down a serial killer who preys on children, and set just after September 11, 2001, – seemed like something I’d really enjoy. Imagine my surprise when the book showed up and wasn’t even 200 pages long. Well, don’t let the cover – or the size – fool you, because with this novel, less really is more.

Set on an island off the coast of Seattle, the book opens with what seems like a flashback. I won’t tell you what that scene really is, because the main plot begins immediately after: a young girl is biking to the local minimart to meet her friends for the last slushies of the season, when a truck driver asks her for directions. She approaches, cautiously, and learns that the address the trucker is supposedly seeking is her own. From that point we jump into FBI agent Ash Severin’s world – he’s been sent to Carver Isle to manage the case, but unlike most feds, he works with the local law enforcement, not against them.

At the same time, local girl Parker Kelly has returned home, ostensibly because she’s concerned for her aged mother, but once she arrives on the scene, weird things begin to happen. She hears the signature whistle of her psychotic cousin, supposedly safely locked up in prison, and feels his presence all around her. With her mother dying, and more children being taken, this is the last thing Parker needs.

Ash and Parker initially don’t get along, but eventually her past and his present begin to intertwine – and so do they.

Skin and Bones may be relatively short, but author D.C. Corso writes with a compelling style that is neither too florid nor too plain. Her descriptions are vivid when necessary, and vague when called for, and the characters and settings she describes seem like real people you may encounter in ANY small town. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who loves this genre of literature – it’s a great read…though I’d recommend against reading it in the bathtub while alone in the house.

Trust me on that part.

Review: Hollywood Monster by Robert Englund

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Hollywood Monster
Hollywood Monster: a Walk Down Elm Street with the Man of Your Dreams
by Robert Englund, with Alan Goldsher
Pocket, 304 pages
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I have a memory from when I was twelve or thirteen (but probably twelve): I was sitting in the living room with my mother, stepfather, and stepbrother, textbooks strewn all around us on the floor, watching this movie called V, about aliens coming to earth to steal water and eat people. Mike Donovan, played by Marc Singer, was supposed to be the sex symbol in the show, but I was a geek, even then, and it was the friendly alien, Willie, that caught my attention. That was my first introduction to Robert Englund.

Two years later, had seen all of the V mini-series, and was excited to find out about an upcoming weekly series. I’d also seen one of Englund’s horror movies, Galaxy of Terror (notable for its weirdly impressive cast, and the scene in which Erin “Joanie Cunningham” Moran gets raped by a giant maggot), and was about to be introduced to another of this actor’s iconic characters, one Freddy Krueger, for the first time. While I was never the type of fangirl who wrote letters or anything, I’ll cop to having a crush on Robert Englund from the age of twelve. But we knew I was weird.

Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that when I read on Englund’s website (RobertEnglund.com) that he was publishing a memoir, and that one could buy regular copies from Amazon.com and regular booksellers, or pay a little more for a signed copy, I quickly whipped out my paypal ID, and ordered a signed copy. That was in October. On Halloween (appropriate, no?) I received an autographed photo of Robert Englund as Freddy, with an apologetic note that my copy would be delayed.

Things happened, and all of a sudden, I realized it was almost MARCH, and I’d never received my book. I sent a note to the customer service address, and received an email back that evening, that my order would be “checked on.” That was exactly a week ago, Sunday, February 28th. On Wednesday, March 3rd, I found my book in the mailbox. The cardboard priority mail envelope had been slashed as if by Freddy Krueger’s glove (not intentionally, I’m certain), and the post office had encased it in plastic, but the book was in bubble wrap, and unharmed. I read through all the postcards inside it, looked inside for the autograph (it came with an accompanying doodle of Freddy, drawn by Mr. Englund himself), and then left for Bible Study (and don’t think I don’t recognize a bit of irony in THAT).

I arrived home, did a bit of work, and then settled in to read.

By the time Fuzzy came to bed, I was two-thirds of the way through with the book, and I succumbed to the call and turned on a booklight, so I could finish it before going to sleep.

But, I promised a review. So:

Robert Englund’s memoir of his childhood entry into acting, and his resulting career as a character actor and horror movie icon is a delightful read. Candid and funny, it flows like a really good conversation, leaving you with the feeling that you’ve heard some great stories and sipped some excellent beer. The ghost writer/editor who helped shape the book was able to make everything sound like the voice Englund uses in interviews – a weird combination of erudition, cynicism, and charm, gregariousness. This is a man who takes his craft seriously, but doesn’t take himself too seriously.

I enjoyed learning more about the series of events that led Robert to the role of scream god Freddy Krueger, and about his relationship with role over the years. As much as I’m a bit disappointed that he won’t be reprising the part in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street due out this summer, I’ve read enough interviews stating that he’s okay with that decision, that I believe he is, and frankly, I’m enjoying catching him in dark, quirky parts that don’t require him to look like a mangled pizza.

While Hollywood Monster is probably best appreciated by fans, it’s such a great read that even non-fans would probably enjoy it. In fact, I don’t think it feels like a celebrity memoir at all. But then, it shouldn’t, because even though his job site is generally a movie set, Englund describes himself as a “working stiff,” and his book serves to remind us that working actors come in many, many flavors.

Personally, I like the dark, sardonic ones, best.

Review: The Mermaids Singing, by Lisa Carey

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The Mermaids Singing
The Mermaids Singing
by Lisa Carey
Harper Perennial, 288 Pages
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When you’re on a road trip having a good book to read is just as important as having cheap auto insurance. I thought I’d packed decent reading material for our recent emergency trip to Iowa (my brother-in-law died of brain cancer on the 17th), but when faced with downtime, none of what I’d packed appealed to me. In fact, it wasn’t until we were on the way home, last Thursday, that I found anything that spoke to me.

We were at a used bookstore (Firehouse Books) in Ames, IA, and Fuzzy was checking out when a paperback on the rack near the door caught my eye. I picked it up, somehow KNOWING it would appeal, and said, “Add this. Buy this for me.” And Fuzzy did.

That night, in a hotel room in Emporia, Kansas, I began to read Lisa Carey’s first novel, The Mermaids Singing. It’s a multigenerational tale of three women, Cliona, Grace (Cliona’s daughter), and Grainne (Grace’s daughter), and their relationships with each other and with the men in their lives. It’s candid and well written, and you can hear the Irish accents in the voices of the Irish characters, and smell the sea when Carey writes about sand and surf.

While this novel is technically not that far from the types of romances that Nora Roberts writes, it’s also a deeper story than even Ms. Roberts tends to pen. It opens with Grace dying of terminal cancer, and the chapters alternate in voice, as each of the women, including young Grainne, get their shot at narration.

What I liked most about The Mermaids Singing is that the characters have growth, but not every problem is solved by story’s end. Carey could easily write a sequel to this, if she felt like it, and it would be a welcome tale, but the book is perfectly satisfying without it.

Goes well with a fisherman’s sweater (preferably ‘borrowed’ from a hunky fisherman) and a mug of strong, hot tea.

Review: The Thirteenth Hour by Richard Doetsch

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The 13th Hour
The 13th Hour
by Richard Doetsch
Atria, 352 pages
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Last summer, I got an ARC of The 13th Hour from Atria Books’ “galley grab,” and lost it in the house. A few weeks ago, the author, Richard Doetsch, started following my Twitter feed, and I realized I NEEDED to read his book, so I ordered a copy from Amazon.

I’m glad I did.

This mystery/thriller gripped me from the beginning, opening with Nick and Julia Quinn having the typical sort of argument that all married couples have, only for her to be brutally murdered just a few scenes later. Nick is brought to the local police station as the main subject (House would remind us that it’s always the husband), only to be shoved aside for a plane crash, and then presented with a gold watch and a letter by a mysterious stranger, and told he can go back in time, an hour at a time, for twelve hours, in order to save his wife.

What follows is a fast-paced, action-packed classic thriller, told in reverse, but with forward continuity, in a way that totally works. Even better is the fact that while the eventual ending made sense, it was not at all predictable or cliche.

In my view, mystery and thriller authors have two jobs: the first is to tell a good story, the second is to create a plausible puzzle for the characters to solve.

Mr. Doetsch did both of those, and more, in The 13th Hour.

Mini-Review: Decaffeinated Corpse

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Decaffeinated Corpse
Decaffeinated Corpse
by Cleo Coyle
Berkley, 288 pages
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Let’s face it, the recipes in the backs of Cleo Coyle’s coffeehouse mysteries are not exactly keys to quick trim weight loss, but the reality is, as much fun as the recipes are (and I’ve actually tried some of them) it’s the cozy Village Blend coffeehouse and the adventures of cafe manager Clare Cosi that keep us reading.

In Book 5 of the Coffeehouse Mysteries, Clare is investigating her husband’s friend, a coffee grower and playboy from Costa Gravas, who just happens to be the breeder of a decaffeinated coffee plant – as in, no need to water process the beans. There are, of course, corpses in the story, and the mystery this time seemed a bit trickier than the first four novels, but I also read this one out of sequence, since I reviewed another of Ms. Coyle’s books, Holiday Grind in All Things Girl over the holidays.

In that book, the relationship between Clare in NYPD Detective Mike Quinn had become pretty solid; in this one, they shared their first kiss.

As always, Ms. Coyle’s blend of romance, mystery, intrigue, and coffee suits me perfectly when I want light reading.