Review of INDIE Ebook Bringing Stella Home – Book 1 of the Gaia Nova series by Joe Vasicek #Brainfluffbookreview #BringingStellaHomebookreview

I picked this one last year during a Book Funnel sales promotion, when the cover and blurb caught my eye. Would I enjoy it?

BLURB: The New Gaian Empire is crumbling. An undefeatable enemy from the outer reaches is sweeping across the frontier stars, slagging worlds and sowing chaos. Soon, they will threaten the very heart of civilized space. James McCoy never thought he would get caught up in the Hameji wars. The youngest son of a merchanter family, he just wants the same respect as his older brother and sister. But when the the Hameji battle fleets conquer his home world and take them away from him, all of that is shattered forever.

So… a younger brother manages to flee the ruthless invaders along with his father, but then is determined to return to rescue his older brother and sister. This one is told in multiple viewpoints where we learn of James’ desperate efforts to get back to Ben and Stella, in between discovering what happens to them. The risk in swinging around the viewpoints is that the reader will identify more with one storyline and skimread the others. I have to say that Stella’s story particularly held me as her character developed from the panicky, desperate teenager quite rightly terrified by the prospect of what lies ahead of her, so at times I did whip through the other plotlines to get back to her. However, as the story moved forward, I found I was doing that less and less as Vasicek is good at showing character development and peopling his space opera adventure with characters I cared about, even some of the bit players. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the eunuch detailed to serve Stella in her new life, since I finished the book.

The other strength of this story is that while events unspooled reasonably predictably at the start – they had to in order for the premise to work – Vasicek quickly allowed his plot to take several left turns into something for more edgy, so that by the time I was in the middle of this one, I genuinely couldn’t work out how it was going to end. Which was also something of a shock.

All in all, this pacey, well-crafted space opera adventure served up some real surprises and laid a strong groundwork for this series. Recommended for fans of space opera adventure, where the plot doesn’t go according to plan. But be advised the storyline involves forced abduction and rape, although that isn’t depicted in any detail.
8/10

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Old Bones – A DCI Bill Slider Case by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles #Brainfluffbookreview #OldBonesbookreview

In case you are experiencing a slight case of deja vu, yes… this is a book I’ve previously reviewed back in 2017, which I didn’t realise when I requested the arc. There didn’t seem any point in writing a different review, given that when I reread it, nothing new jumped out at me…

‘You can’t upset anyone looking into old bones.’

DCI Bill Slider’s out of favour in the force – for accusing a senior Met officer of covering up an underage sex ring. As a punishment, he’s given a cold case to keep him busy: some old bones to rake through, found buried in a back garden, from a murder that happened two decades ago, and with most of the principal players already dead. Surely Bill Slider can’t unearth anything new or shocking with these tired old bones?

Slider’s desert-dry viewpoint is a joy. He is an old fashioned copper who is heartily sick of all the new management-speak, but nonetheless straight as a dye without being remotely starchy. His irreverent humour bubbles continually away in the background, annoying his superiors and exasperating his subordinates. For a nice change, he isn’t some grizzled loner but has a happy marriage to a professional musician.

I liked the fact that the loss of a little girl isn’t just treated as some dry academic puzzle – there is a real sense of poignancy of a life unfulfilled as Slider and his team try to grapple with who had murdered her and buried her in the back garden. I also enjoyed the fact that we don’t have a CSI-type approach where they have shedloads of forensic evidence to answer all the questions. In fact, there is precious little to go on, except the faulty memories of those involved all those years ago.

As with all the best police procedural mysteries, there are a number of candidates and possibilities, though I did guess one of the major twists well before it was revealed. Not that it mattered all that much – I was too invested in the main characters to mind and besides, there were still some interesting developments. There is a lovely subplot that develops regarding one of Slider’s team and a youngster caught up in the system.

I appreciated the absence of any grisly details, undue violence or gore – but I certainly wouldn’t peg this in the cosy mystery genre. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining read that comes highly recommended.

While I obtained the arc of Old Bones from the publisher via NetGalley, this has in no way influenced my unbiased review.
9/10

Review of hardback book The Death Chamber – Book 6 of The Detective’s Daughter series by Lesley Thomson #Brainfluffbookreview #TheDeathChamberbookreview

Anyone who has been on this blog for any length of time knows that this is one of my favourite authors as I find her detailed worldbuilding, steady accumulation of clues and layered, complex characterisation adds up to a thoroughly satisfying read. See my review of her first book in this series, The Detective’s Daughter. I had acquired this copy at a book signing and reading and then put it down in the kitchen, where it promptly got buried under a pile of other books. I was delighted when I unearthed it…

Queen’s Jubilee, 1977: Cassie Baker sees her boyfriend kissing another girl at the village disco. Upset, she heads home alone and is never seen again.
Millennium Eve, 1999: DCI Paul Mercer finds Cassie’s remains in a field. Now he must prove the man who led him there is guilty.

When Mercer’s daughter asks Stella Darnell for help solving the murder, Stella see echoes of herself. Another detective’s daughter. With her sidekick sleuth, Jack, Stella moves to Winchcombe, where DCI Mercer and his prime suspect have been playing cat and mouse for the past eighteen years…

Stella Darnell’s father was a detective married to the job – and Stella bears the scars. She set up and now runs her own very successful cleaning company, but is increasingly drawn to the drama and tension surrounding the business of solving cold-case murders. Jack, her partner in these investigations also has a fascinating backstory, which I won’t be revealing here as it wanders into spoiler territory. Each of them is a loner, and I enjoyed the increasing tension as they now both feel uncomfortable keeping secrets from each other to an extent that occasionally trips into humour. Lucie Mae, local journalist and long-running character, also crashes into this investigation and brings along her budgie.

Thomson manages to evoke the countryside very well from the viewpoint of two confirmed Londoners as they rent a ramshackle cottage while investigating the crime. Her vivid worldbuilding is her superpower, as we get the sound and feel of Winchcombe and the sense of a tight-knit community, who nevertheless enjoy the chance to talk about the murdered girl, especially as her convicted killer is due to be released on parole. Though a fair few people don’t believe he committed the crime.

I found it difficult to put this one down as Jack and Stella steadily gather evidence and red herrings, while someone is also trying to persuade them to walk away. As ever, I didn’t guess who the murderer was until I was supposed to – and this time in particular, there is a development near the end that means Jack’s life is about to change forever. The thing I find with Thomson’s books, is that once I’ve finished reading one, the characters and situation goes on living in my head. And no… that isn’t usual for me. Normally once I’ve put a book down and written the review, I usually move onto the next book and rarely recall it. But Stella and Jack have wriggled into my inscape and rearranged my mental furniture. Highly recommended for fans of intelligent, murder mysteries set in a vivid contemporary setting.
10/10

Discovery Challenge 2017 and Tackling My TBR – June Roundup

After reading Jo Hall’s post on the problems women authors have with getting discovered, I’ve been taking part in the challenge to read and review at least 24 books by female authors each year that were previously unknown to me for the last two years. During June, I read three books towards my 2017 Discovery Challenge, which brings my annual number of books written by women writers I hadn’t read before to nineteen. They are:

River of Teeth – Book 1 of the River of Teeth novella series by Sarah Gailey
In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true. Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. This was a terrible plan. Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.
This is a real roller-coaster ride with plenty of mayhem and violence along the way. That said, there is also a large dollop of humour amid the tension – think of The Magnificent Seven set in a swamp with hippos. See my review here.

Sherlock Mars by Jackie Kingon
Molly Marbles runs a successful bistro on terraformed Mars. But a virtual restaurant opens near her place, offering the experience of delicacies from across the Solar System with none of the calories. What will this do to her business? Then its owner is murdered in her kitchen. Molly, an amateur detective, springs into action to help the police solve the mystery, while also planning her pop-star daughter’s wedding, keeping her kitchen staff from feuding, and protecting her cyborg friend from the humans-only mob. Meanwhile, the infamous Cereal Serial Killer has escaped prison on Pluto and has everyone worried. Things are getting hectic, but Molly is a resilient and resourceful woman. And her knack for mysteries sees her nick-named ‘Sherlock Mars’.
This is basically a cosy mystery set in space. It has the classic ingredients – a victim that no one seems to care all that much about; a quirky, successful restaurant owner who inexplicably has sufficient time to shoot off here, there and everywhere to run down a number of clues; a friendly law enforcement officer who is happy to let Molly have crucial details of the ongoing case; lots of foodie details along the way. See my review here.

The Invisible Library – Book 1 of The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Gogman
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she’s posted to an alternative London. Their mission – to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it’s already been stolen. London’s underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book. Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested – the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene’s new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own. Soon, she’s up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option – the nature of reality itself is at stake.
I really enjoyed Irene’s character – brought up knowing that she would eventually always work for the Library as her parents were both Librarians, she is slightly apart from many of her colleagues. She is also cool-headed and used to keeping her own counsel – quite different from many of the rather emotional protagonists we are used to seeing in fantasy adventure. Review to follow.

I also managed to clear two books from my TBR pile. They are:

The Dog Walker – Book 5 of The Detective’s Daughter series by Lesley Thomson
January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage and disappears. Twenty-nine years later, Helen’s body has never been found. Her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her side-kick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago. But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Thomson’s atmospheric writing this time around has taken us to another obscure corner of London – she seems to specialise in those – where a crime was committed that shatters one family and blights the lives of others, including the husband of the victim. See my review here.

The Invisible Library – Book 1 of The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman
See above

This means I’ve managed to clear thirty-two books from my teetering TBR pile so far this year – a lot better than last year so far. Have you read any of the above books? If so, what did you think?

Review of KINDLE Ebook The Dog Walker – Book 5 of The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson

I was delighted to see this one on Kindle as I had wanted to attend the book launch, but simply been too ill. Now that I have got ahead with my Netgalley arcs, I could give sufficient time to properly savour this book as I love Thomson’s writing – see my review of The House With No Rooms.

January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage and disappears. Twenty-nine years later, Helen’s body has never been found. Her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her side-kick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago. But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Thomson’s atmospheric writing this time around has taken us to another obscure corner of London – she seems to specialise in those – where a crime was committed that shatters one family and blights the lives of others, including the husband of the victim. With two timelines running – one set around the time of the murder and afterwards as the consequences begin to stack up, while the other one is set here and now centred on the investigative efforts of Stella and Jack.

While there is not much in the way of gore in Thomson’s work, that doesn’t mean it is a particularly cosy read. Murder is not treated as an interesting puzzle here, but an act that has cut short a life and shattered the lives of others caught up in the investigation. Thomson writes particularly well from the pov of children who are involved, trying to make sense of what they see and hear. The sense of damage caused is reinforced by Jack’s own experiences as a child, which means he often imagines he is talking to his long-dead mother and goes on long, nocturnal walks as he has problems sleeping.

That said, this isn’t overall a gloomy read, either. While Thomson refuses to treat the crime with levity, Stella’s relationship with her mother, Suzie, is often amusing and her efforts to control Stanley, the little poodle she has acquired, are particularly funny if you have ever owned a dog. While Stanley is evidently fond of her, she clearly isn’t someone who is a natural around animals.

But for me, the reason why this is a standout read, is that in common with the rest of the series, the investigation into the crime slowly unravels. There are no speedy shortcuts. Between them, Stella and Jack piece together snippets of information to help discover who was doing what when the crime was committed. Some of those snippets prove to be wrong, or lead them astray – some we know from the start cannot be right, thanks to the flashbacks which give us, the reader, insights into aspects of the crime and its impact on the bystanders that Stella and Jack cannot have. Thomson’s thorough, precise approach means this book is a joy. In attempting to find out who killed Helen, Stella and Jack need to talk to all the residents in the row of cottages running alongside the towpath – in getting to meet all the potential suspects and witnesses, we also are introduced to a cast of characters who bounce off the page with their vividness.

One of the bonuses in having read the previous books – though it isn’t necessary to do so in order to enjoy The Dog Walker – is that we also have the pleasure of meeting up again with the likes of Suzie, Stella’s mother, and Lucie May, journalist and former lover of Terry Darnell, Stella’s father. I particularly enjoyed the role that Lucie played in this story and how it gave us a further insight into her character.

If you enjoy reading books more about the why than the gory deed itself – if you enjoy watching characters’ motivations and secrets unpeeled, then track this one down. While there are many cold case mysteries out there – books of this quality don’t come along all that often.

10/10

Sunday Post – 18th June 2017

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written.

Last Sunday was once again all about the garden. I’m very carefully not saying anything about the weather except that it isn’t raining and it isn’t cold, as last time I bragged about the marvellous sunshine we were having on my Sunday Post, we had gale-force winds and torrential rain for the next five days.

It has been a very busy week as my sister has finally arrived from France and is busy moving into a flat just up the road. I have been helping her buy furniture and sort out where important things like the best supermarket, the local branch of her bank, and furniture stores are. Once she has settled in, I’m really looking forward to showing her all the lovely walks and beauty spots around here. I still cannot quite believe she will only be living five minutes away from me.

On Thursday, Tim took his first external exam. We don’t know whether he has passed it or not, but he did brilliantly – remaining so calm throughout and answering all questions. I’m so proud of how hard he has worked to get where he is.

As you will see below, I haven’t got much reading done this week as my sister was staying with us for the first five days, only moving into her flat on Friday. We had a lot of catching up to do…

This week I have read:

The Dog Walker – Book 5 of the Detective’s Daughter series by Lesley Thomson
January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage and disappears. Twenty-nine years later, Helen’s body has never been found. Her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her side-kick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago. But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. One of the reasons why this is the only book I’ve read this week, is that The Dog Walker – with the steady drip feeding of clues, potential suspects and witnesses – deserves to be read slowly, so I took my time and savoured it. I will be reviewing it in due course.

My posts last week:

Sunday Post – 11th June 2017

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of River of Teeth – Book 1 of the River of Teeth novella series by Sarah Gailey

Teaser Tuesday featuring A Peace Divided – Book 2 of the Peacekeeper series by Tanya Huff

Review of The Sorcerer’s Garden by D. Wallace Peach

Review of The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Friday Face-off – My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself featuring Soul Music – Book 16 of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

Interesting/outstanding blogs and articles that have caught my attention during the last week, in no particular order:

Events – What to look forward to in Summer 2017 – http://earthianhivemind.net/2017/06/15/events-look-forward-summer-2017/ A very useful mini-roundup of some major events for SFF book lovers in particular – is anyone going to these?

Lessons Learned from John Kaag: Re-route, Re-boot – https://jeanleesworld.com/2017/06/15/lessons-learned-from-john-kaag-re-route-re-root/ Another beautiful, profound article from this talented writer on negotiating family life…

#WhenDreamsComeTrue with Sarah Hardy Publicist at Bloodhound Books https://mychestnutreadingtree.wordpress.com/2017/06/16/whendreamscometrue-with-sarah-hardy-publicist-at-bloodhound-books-sarahhardy681-bloodhoundbook/ A lovely article about how a woman is in the process of achieving her dream job

The Leaning Tower of Pisa – https://photolicioux.wordpress.com/2017/06/03/the-leaning-tower-of-pisa/ I love this photo…

Please Do Not Support my Patreon – http://writerunboxed.com/2017/06/17/please-do-not-support-my-patreon/ The hilarious Bill Ferris strikes again on yet another how-not-to article for aspiring writers and bloggers…

Thank you for visiting and taking the time and trouble to comment – and may you have a wonderful reading and blogging week.