Category Archives: Authors K-O

Publish this Book: Lethal Inheritance by Tahlia Newland

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Lethal Inheritance
Tahlia Newland
Seeking a publisher.
Read the first chapter >>

Product Description (from the author’s Website):
If last night was real then Ariel should be dead, but her mother has disappeared, there are bruise marks on her neck and that hideous beast in the photo looks frighteningly familiar.

When demons kidnap her mother, Ariel undertakes a rescue mission in a mysterious and unpredictable world in a hidden layer of reality. Demons who feed on fear are hunting her, and they’re aiming to kill. She needs help fast, but can she trust the quirky old guide who says he can teach her how to fine tune her mind into a powerful weapon? And what should she do about Nick, whose power is more than he or she can handle?

Ariel’s journey challenges her perception, tests her awareness and takes her deep into her heart and mind to confront, and ultimately transcend, her fear and anger.

It was a while ago that Australian YA author Tahlia Newland introduced herself to me and her book Lethal Inheritance, but I’m glad she did, because not only is she a delightful person to have as a blog buddy, she’s also a talented author.

Frequent visitors to this blog know that I’m a strong proponent of YA novels. I think the female characters we meet in YA (young adult) fiction are some of the best female characters in contemporary literature, and because the target audience is a little younger, a little fresher, authors have a lot more room to play with reality. Not that their writing can come from any place other than Truth – even the most preposterous stories (ahem – Christopher Moore’s work – ahem – still have some kind of basis in Truth) and teens are especially adept in finding the places where things do NOT ring true. But they can bend physics a little, and adjust life, the way writers who work in adult contemporary fiction (and I mean small-a adult not ADULT XXX adult) cannot. Well, Christopher Moore and the whole magical realism genre aside.

But I digress. The sample chapter of Lethal Inheritance is gripping and compelling. There’s character, there’s action, there’s suspense, and there’s risk…it grabs you, shakes you up, and leaves you dangling over a cliff.

Someone needs to publish this work.
Someone needs to publish it now!

Goes well with: a warm blanket, hot cocoa, and comfort food – mac-n-cheese or s’mores.

Review: The Flim-Flam Fairies, by Alan Katz

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The Flim Flam Fairies
The Flim-Flam Fairies
Author: Alan Katz
Pages: 32
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Buy from Amazon.com >>

Product Description (from Amazon.com):

Say the word “fairies” and it conjures the image of little winged beings made of gossamer and light, exquisitely dressed in shimmering gowns or twirly little bejeweled skating costumes. Not so with The Flim-Flam Fairies. Be prepared for the crazy antics of the Fart Fairy, Snot Fairy, Dirty Underwear Fairy, as well as a few other less-than-enchanting fairies as they persuade their way into and out of children’s lives in attempts to take over the Tooth Fairy’s under-the-pillow enterprise. A silly story that will have the kids falling into their pillows with laughter!

To be honest, I’d never heard of this book until a friend recommended it as a good audio selection for my nephew, who is dealing with a serious illness. If you’re between the ages of four and eight, you’ll love this book, because it’s got pictures that are rich enough to almost be art prints, as well as a story that gathers up all the gross, disgusting, imaginative things that kids love, and mixes them with fairies. I mean, how cool is that?

In terms of plot, there really isn’t much, as this is more a series of introductions of these disgusting alternative fairies and a game of gross one-upping, but it’s silly and fun and perfect for young kids.

Review: Key Lime Pie, by Josi S. Kilpack

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Key Lime Pie
Key Lime Pie
Josi S. Kilpack
Buy from Amazon >>

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
When Sadie Hoffmiller’s new friend, Eric Burton, receives word that his missing daughter’s body may have been found in Florida, he immediately packs his bags. Sadie is determined to stay home and prove to everyone that she is not a busybody. But when she senses Eric is hiding something, Sadie is compelled to take action. Before she knows it, she’s in the heart of Miami, trying to piece together a trail that might just give Eric the answers he’s so desperately searching for. In the process, Sadie finds herself in the company of some colorful characters and some good ol’ southern cooking. But despite the drama and intrigue, all Sadie really wants is to go home … as soon as she does just one more thing.

Includes eight new mouthwatering recipes, tested and approved by the official bakers of Sadie’s Test Kitchen

While I’ve been reading culinary mysteries for decades now, ever since I first discovered Diane Mott Davidson’s work, I haven’t really read a lot of them recently. I mean, yes, Cleo Coyle’s coffeehouse mysteries do have recipes, but she puts them all at the end of the book. Josi S. Kilpack’s Key Lime Pie is the first I’ve read in a long time that has the recipes after each chapter, and while it took me a while not to find that jarring – it pulls me out of the book – eventually I was able to simply sink into the story.

I like Kilpack’s protagonist, Sadie Hoffmiller, woman of a “certain age” and ersatz detective, a lot. She’s smart, confident about most things, but retains a bit of the reserve that women who aren’t twenty tend to embrace. It’s nice to read a book about adults, and even see the way adults who are a bit older than I am handle relationships. I could see Sadie’s attraction to Eric – he’s a bit younger, a bit of a mystery, a bit of a scoundrel – but I like that she was honest with herself about him, and about her feelings for Pete, the steady, stable cop.

As to the story, while I thought the plot was interesting – follow your friend to Florida and help him find his lost daughter who may be dead – at times I thought things were just a little too convenient, a little too easy. Yes, people were injured, and people were killed, and yes, the ending provided a plausible resolution (I can’t say more without spoilers) – it was probably just me being overly picky as I’d read this novel in the middle of a personal marathon of the first four seasons of Bones (thank you, NetFlix).

Overall, I like Sadie, and I like Kilpack’s storytelling, and I’ll probably go read the earlier books in this series for a better picture of the character and her world.

I did not try the recipes, however. Well, not yet.

Goes well with key lime pie (obviously) and really good coffee.

Review: The Wedding Gift, by Kathleen McKenna

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The Wedding Gift
The Wedding Gift
Kathleen McKenna
Get it from Amazon.com >>

Summary (from Amazon.com):
17 year old Leeann Worthier is the perfect girl in town – or so she says. George Willets is the heir to a booming petroleum business. When they announce their engagement, George’s controlling mother is unimpressed, and Leeann absolutely refuses to live with her mother-in-law. So George gives his new wife a house as a wedding gift. Thirty years before, the same house hosted a grisly scene: George’s uncle and cousins were all slaughtered and his aunt Robina accused of both murder and suicide. The house is a gorgeous, well-maintained mansion, but has stood empty since the tragedy. It’s intimidating, but who is Leeann to turn down a free house? When the ghost of Robina begins to haunt Leeann, she realizes she’s made a huge mistake.

When people ask me to try their product, whether it’s a book or something else, I always have a moment of pause. After all my first instinct when someone says, “You should try out wholesaleinsurance.net… you will like them :),” is to run in the other direction. It’s the same with books – I love to read, and I review a lot of books because publicists ask me, but when authors contact me directly I always worry that I won’t like the book, and then their feelings will be hurt.

Fortunately, I did NOT have this problem with The Wedding Gift, when the author asked me if I’d review it. In this novel Kathleen spins a story that is equal parts silly, sappy, and spooky, and she does it well. From observations about what really goes on behind the Piggly Wiggly (it’s a southern grocery store chain, I swear!) to when Leeann snubs a rude waitress in the funniest, most horrible way, to the interactions between Leeann and George, and Leeann and her parents, this book is wonderful. I read it in the bathtub (as I often do) and at one point I had to get up and confirm that the window behind me was secure, while at another I realized the water had gone cold and my feet were completely pruney.

The Amazon.com page for The Wedding Gift mentions that this novel is the first in a trilogy. I look forward to parts two and three, and many more of Ms. McKenna’s books.

Goes well with chicken fried steak and sweet tea.

Second Attempt: Touchstone, by Laurie R. King

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Touchstone
Touchstone
Laurie R. King
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I’m struggling with the reading of Touchstone, by Laurie R. King, and I’m not certain why, because I love her writing. I mean, the woman can make asset based lenders seem like interesting fodders for novels, and her contemporary detective series set in San Francisco is as much a favorite of mine as her wonderful Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series.

But this is my second attempt at reading Touchstone and while the premise is right up my alley, I just can’t get into the book. If this were an author whose work was unfamiliar to me, I’d discard the novel, but since it’s someone whose writing I always enjoy, I feel like the fault is mine, like I’m missing something important that is preventing me from getting lost in the story.

In any case, here’s the Publishers Weekly description of the novel (via Amazon.com):

Set shortly before Britain’s disastrous General Strike of 1926, this stand-alone thriller from bestseller King (Keeping Watch) offers impeccable scholarship and the author’s usual intelligent prose, but a surfeit of period detail and some weighty themes—the gulf between rich and poor, the insidious nature of both terrorism and the efforts to curb it—overpower the thin plot and stock characters. When Harris Stuyvesant, an investigator for the U.S. Justice Department, arrives in London to look for the mastermind behind a series of terrorist bombings on American soil, he tells Aldous Carstairs, a sinister government official, that his prime suspect is Labour Party leader Richard Bunsen. Carstairs suggests Stuyvesant should talk to Bennett Grey, whose brush with death during WWI has heightened his sense of perception to the point that he’s a kind of human lie detector (he’s the touchstone of the title), and to Lady Laura Hurleigh, Bunsen’s lover and a passionate advocate of his brand of socialism. The threat of violence at a secret summit meeting held at the Hurleigh family’s country house about preventing the strike provides some mild suspense.

Review: Fixing Freddie, by Paula Munier

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Fixing Freddie
Fixing Freddie
by Paula Munier
Visit Amazon.com for a copy of your own.

When I was offered the opportunity to review Paula Munier’s wonderful book, Fixing Freddie: a true story about a boy, a mom, and a very, very bad beagle, I was excited. I’ve been in a non-fiction mood lately, and I love dog stories, so this seemed like the perfect match for my tastes.

Like someone already skinny who is taking clinicallix to lose weight, I was not disappointed. Munier’s first person account of her marriage, divorce, cross-country move, and first foray into home ownership and puppy parenthood is told with a blend of candor and humor that felt as if she was sitting in my living room telling me about her life. I could see her son playing video games, smell the roasted chicken that the dogs (Freddie had an older friend named Shakespeare), and see Freddie’s cute face. In fact, I was so caught up in the book that I brought it into the bath with me, despite my personal policy against reading hardcovers in the tub. It was that gripping.

Maybe it’s because I have three dogs of my own, at ages 10, 3 and 1.75, two of which I’ve had since they were eight weeks old (the oldest and the youngest) that I could sympathize when Freddie escaped from the yard, got caught on a frozen lake (my dogs have all done the former; my oldest dog has fallen into the swimming pool several times), or eaten something he shouldn’t (Miss Cleo and my chihuahua, Zorro, now at the Rainbow Bridge have eaten things as diverse as an entire t-shirt, the backs of my suede shoes while I was wearing them, the string from a roast, half a London broil, a stick of butter, and, once, all the topping from a pizza, though they left the crust and closed the box when they’d finished), or maybe it’s just that in Freddie we see the lost puppy in all of us – the part of our human selves that wants someone to direct us where to go, feed and bathe us regularly, and let us curl up in a warm bed, in exchange for mere affection and coming when called.

Or maybe it’s just that any woman who’s ever dated (or married) a man can understand Munier’s frustration with that species.

Or maybe it’s because Munier’s story is universal, and boils down to the search for a safe haven and a cozy home.

Fixing Freddie may be essentially a “dog story,” but it’s also a memoir about life and love and growing up, and letting go.

Even if you’re a cat person – even if you don’t even have a pet rock – you will enjoy this book, and come away from it with a new perspective.

Goes well with: roasted chicken, and a begging dog.

Review: My Fair Lazy, by Jen Lancaster

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My Fair Lazy
My Fair Lazy
by Jen Lancaster

I’ve been a great fan of Jen Lancaster’s memoirs since before she published them, and was just another snarky blogger. I mean, even though our politics would never mesh, we’re pretty close in age, and have similar cultural landmarks because of it. It is with some regret, then, that I say I found her latest offering My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or, a Culture-Up Manifesto less sparkly than her previous offerings.

Maybe it’s because we’re both getting older, or maybe it’s just because Jen is funnier when she’s playing her shallow consumer act (it is an act, right? Right??) but some of this book just seemed sad to me. I mean, her voice is still as sharp as ever, but I think I’m losing interest in her version of the world.

On the other hand, I did turn into a prune while reading this book in the bath, using my toes to add alternate doses of hot and cold water. I’d have preferred to be reading it while seated on my new-this-year outdoor chair cushions, but even the best Jen Lancaster book isn’t worth sacrificing oneself to the mosquitoes for.

But yes, I will buy her next book.
Whatever that is.

But it will probably be the Kindle edition.

Retro-reading: Warped Factors by Walter Koenig

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Warped Factors

Warped Factors
by Walter Koenig

There are some celebrity autobiographies that make you kind of want to bitch-slap the authors. There are some celebrity autobiographies that make you think you should be curled up in a library with a crackling fire, smoking endless tatuaje cigars. Then there are the celebrity autobiographies that perfectly balance the behind-the-scenes, name-dropping dish we all claim to hate, but secretly crave, with the relatively candid story of a person’s life that makes them seem like a real person.

Walter Koenig’s autobiography is one of the latter kind.

I first read it several years ago when it came out, but when I was up in the Word Lounge a few weeks ago, looking for something entirely different, it caught my attention, possibly because I’d just re-read a Star Trek novel featuring the character he played. I sat down on my old blue couch to read just a few pages, and found myself, hours later, reading the last of it via booklight in bed, while my husband snored blissfully beside me.

As autobiographies go, this one, Warped Factors is free of major scandal. Instead, it’s a wry, sometimes self-deprecating glimpse into the life of a man who has a far larger body of work than most of us probably realize, and while there are some moments of bitterness in regard to his career, they’re not without provocation.

Reviewing an autobiography feels sort of like judging an actual person, which is silly, because it’s still just a glimpse. A peek.

But as glimpses and peeks go, especially if you’re any kind of classic Star Trek fan, Warped Factors is pretty good reading.

Review: Three Cups of Tea

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Three Cups of Tea
Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I initially picked up Three Cups of Tea some time last year, in the same shopping trip that included picking up a couple of different anti aging creams for my mother, having my hair done, and spending some time alone with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich at Barnes and Noble. I didn’t actually read it until recently, however, because it got lost in my house – so lost, that I actually picked up a second copy thinking I’d never purchased the first!

I’m glad I finally read this book though, because the story is beautiful. I mean, I disconnected a bit in the first third of the book when author Greg Mortenson, whose story this is, was living in his car to save money so he could get back to Pakistan, but by the time I got to the end of his book – which is really just the beginning of his legacy – I was completely invested in the man and his mission.

For the five people who haven’t read it, Three Cups of Tea is the story of an American mountain climber who fails to reach the summit of K2, becomes severely ill during his descent, and gets lost in a remote corner of Pakistan, where local villagers take him in, help him recover, and essentially adopt him. As thanks, he promises to return and build a school where the young women of the village can be educated. He eventually makes good on his promise, first building a bridge, then the first school, then heading a foundation with a mission of building more schools in Pakistan, all for educating women and girls, while still being respectful of local religion and customs.

And to top it all off, this is all taking place at the very beginning of the Taliban’s rise to power.

While, at times, my not-so-inner snob found her skin crawling at the less-than-pristine conditions of Mortenson’s living arrangements, I finished the book with tears in my eyes. I feel this book should be required reading for everyone, everywhere.

Goes well with: Tea and flat bread.

Review: The God of the Hive

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The God of the Hive
The God of the Hive
Laurie R. King
Bantam, 368 pages
Get it from Amazon >>

I’ve been a fan of Laurie R. King’s series about Mary Russell and her older husband, the legendary Sherlock Holmes, since the first book hit the stores, so of course, I had to have the latest adventure the very second it came out. When The God of the Hive arrived, however, I put it aside, planning to savor it while on vacation. Instead, I read all the paperbacks I’d brought with me, so that I could leave them for my mother, and didn’t read this novel until I got home.

One of the things I love about this series is the level of detail King includes. While she doesn’t have to know what passed for the best acne treatment in Holmesian London, she does have to know where one can find certain kinds of stationery, or where a bolthole might be located.

In this book, which is a direct sequel to the previous installment, The Language of Bees, Russell and Holmes are still separated by the requirements of their current case – Holmes fleeing with his injured long-lost son, and meets up with a Scottish doctor, who ends up being a fabulous addition to the existing cast of characters. Mary, on the other hand, has the aeroplane pilot, and Holmes’ half-Chinese granddaughter to contend with, though she, too, hooks up with a helper who turns out to be quite beneficial to all concerned.

There isn’t much detection in this novel – there is character and there’s plot, but it’s basically a chase scene interrupted by action.

The good news, however, is that it’s still, undeniably King’s work, which is always incredibly compelling reading.