Category Archives: feminist fiction

The Slate, by Matthew FitzSimmons*****

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Author Matthew FitzSimmons is a veteran novelist, but he is new to me. I picked up on the buzz generated by his most recent book, a political thriller titled The Slate. What a ride! This is a true thriller, one that gripped me at the outset and didn’t let me go till it was done with me. I’d had surgery and was dealing with a lot of drowsiness from the various medications and anesthesia, but this book didn’t care about any of that. This book—aided and abetted by narrator Mia Barron– made me read it anyway, and I’m glad.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Brilliance Publishing for the review copies. This book is available to the public now.

Agatha Cardiff is retired. She used to be a political mover and shaker, but many years ago, she was roped into doing something she didn’t want to do, and should not have done. Since then, she’s been hiding. A neighbor offers her some bedding plants, and she takes his damn head off in a single bite, because she does not want to get to know him. She doesn’t want to get to know anyone.

To make ends meet, Agatha rents out her basement flat to young Shelby. Shelby is late with her rent, and has done something regrettable in order to rectify the problem. Now, Agatha learns, Shelby is in deep trouble, being held captive on board a ship.  Well, there’s no choice, not really. Agatha has to save the kid, even though it means stepping out of seclusion. And sure enough, all hell breaks loose.

As Agatha emerges from her self-protective exile, we begin to see exactly what she’s capable of. It’s a revelation! Our point of view changes occasionally, but make no mistake, this is Agatha’s story. FitzSimmons is such a badass writer that he even manages to develop this character, something I rarely see in a thriller, because it’s hard to maintain rapid pacing while dealing with backstory and internal monologue. He makes it look effortless, but you try doing that. Go on, give it your best shot.

See?

I often shy away from political thrillers because so many of them have a hugely conservative bent that sets my teeth on edge. The Slate, in contrast, plays it right down the middle, and shouldn’t offend red hats, the woke, or anyone anywhere else on the political spectrum.

Because of the narrator’s skill, I lean toward recommending this as an audio book foremost, but if you are a visual reader, don’t let that stop you, as the print version is also excellent. Highly recommended.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, by Kirsten Miller

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Lula Dean is a deeply unhappy woman. Neglected by her children, alone and unappreciated, she strikes on a way to gain the attention she knows that she deserves. She embarks on a crusade to remove books she deems objectionable from local libraries, and she sets a sterling example for her town by erecting a little library on her lawn, a collection of the wholesome material she thinks is most appropriate. Little does she know that one of the town’s youths has snuck out in the dead of night and inserted banned books inside the dust jackets of the books she originally placed there. Her library becomes wildly popular, and Lula hasn’t a clue why.

My thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The moment I saw the synopsis for this novel, I knew I had to read it. The First Amendment is a hot button for many people in the U.S., and as a language arts teacher, it’s been at forefront of my mind for most of my adult life. And I think I can safely say that Lula Dean is a soft sell; readers are generally a receptive audience, and so any novel containing the word “book” or “library” in its title should, I would argue, be held to a slightly higher standard. It’s not that hard to preach to the choir.

I love the premise of this story, and I laugh out loud more than once at the beginning. After that, though, things flatten out a bit. There are a lot of characters here, and whereas I have no difficulty keeping them straight, their numbers may have prevented author Kirsten Miller from fully developing them. I feel as if I am reading, for the most part, about cartoon cutouts rather than real people;  had I felt as if the characters were real, I would have been more deeply invested in their outcomes. However, everyone in this thing is either a fine, enlightened character or a despicable, ignorant blowhard. It accurately represents the way many Americans regard those around them, blue versus red, and that is not helpful. Two characters that stand out better than others are side character Beverly Underwood, and the young Elijah. However, even these are not dynamic characters. Nearly everyone here is the same going out as they were coming in.

Those looking for a short, funny novel to toss in their suitcase over the holidays could do worse; they could also do better. The sad thing is that had this been written in a more intentional way, with the literary standards one would hope to see in any novel, it could have been impressive, might even have changed a few hearts. This book isn’t going to do that, and so I see it as an opportunity squandered.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern*****

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Augusta Stern is about to turn eighty, and she’s being forced into retirement, darn it. Her beloved niece persuades her to leave New York and spend what remain of her golden years in a Florida seniors’ community. From there, a wave of surprising events unfolds, changing Augusta’s life.

My thanks go to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Loigman’s debut novel came in 2016, and as of now, she’s published three more. Every single one is golden. This author writes with warmth and intentionality, and although the first was wonderful, each subsequent one has been better than the last. And so, although I have gone on to read other novels by other authors since I finished this one, this is the one I’m still thinking about.

You see, in 1922, Augusta’s mother became gravely ill. Try though they might, neither the doctors nor her pharmacist father were able to help her, and she died. Augusta, her sister, and her father were all plunged into a dark and terrible place without her.  Great Aunt Esther showed up to run the household, and she brought with her a case full of herbs and tinctures; Esther was an apothecary. Her methods, which were sometimes unconventional, put her at odds with her nephew, but they got results, sometimes where conventional medicine had failed. Soon Augusta was spending her hours after school helping her father in the pharmacy, and sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night to observe Esther devising natural concoctions of her own. Esther declared Augusta to be her heir; she had a loving heart and a healer’s instincts.

Her social life was very limited, absorbed as she was with the family business, but the brightest spot in her day was when Irving Ripken, her father’s delivery boy, came to work. Often, they would talk as they worked; in time, they fell in love. Imagine her horror, then, when he abruptly married someone else and moved to Chicago! Augusta never recovered from the blow, and so she has never married.

Now, imagine her astonishment when sixty years later in Rallentando Springs, Irving shows up at the pool!

Much of what follows is what a reader might expect, but the details and character development take the story to a higher plane, and as we follow it, we also see the events of 1922, and these enable us to understand these characters and what drives them. There’s an unusually clever twist at the end, and it’s one that I absolutely do not see coming.

Ordinarily I would include ways in which the novel fell short or could be improved, but that’s impossible in this case. Loigman has spun magic for us from start to finish, and all I can do is bow in appreciation, and recommend this novel to you.

Identity Unknown, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series is among my favorites. Identity Unknown, the 28th in the series, is every bit as riveting as her earlier ones, and I am thrilled to have received a review copy. My thanks go to Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley, and Hachette Audio. This book is for sale now.

First, I have to offer a shout out to January LaVoy, who reads the audio version. I was unsure how I would feel about this one, because I read the first 27 installments with my own eyes, and so I had developed the voices for each character in my head. Would I be thrown by the way they were voiced by a professional? As it happens, no. The protagonist and her ever present sidekick, Pete Marino, who is now her brother-in-law, sound exactly as I had thought they would. Of course, much of this comes down to excellent writing. The voices of her niece, Lucy, who now occupies the top echelons of governmental spookdom, is softer and slightly higher pitched than I had expected, but it fits, and I made the mental transition easily. Kay’s husband, Benton, doesn’t have as deep a voice as I would have thought, but to make his voice that deep would require a second, male reader. All told, LaVoy does a fine job, and I didn’t feel distracted from the story.

I have begun reading the DRC when I am provided the audio, and so from there forward, I switch to the audio, referring occasionally to the DRC to make notes or highlight possible quotations. Once the climax comes, however, the tension gets the better of me, and because I know I can read faster than LaVoy can talk, I switch back to the text.

The premise is that there have been two deaths. The first is an old boyfriend of Kay’s, a man named Sal Giordano. They have remained friends over the years, and she saw him recently when she dropped off a basket of goodies for his birthday. He has been the victim of a death flight, which is new to me but apparently, according to Wiki, is a thing. It involves killing someone by dropping them from a plane.

Holy crap!

Now we get into aspects of the case that make it an even better October read, as well as darkly funny. The prose itself doesn’t appear to be intentionally humorous, and yet I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that Cornwell didn’t snicker a bit as she wrote it. The area where Sal is dropped is inside an abandoned amusement park with a Wizard of Oz theme. It’s been vandalized, and is seriously creepy. The higher ups within the U.S. military are in on the investigation, and so:

“’Let me make sure this is clear,’ General Gunner says to me. ‘He landed on the Yellow Brick Road in the middle of an apple orchard.’

“’Inside the Haunted Forest. Yes.’”

I couldn’t help myself. I squawked out loud!

Soon another corpse is identified, a child belonging to a pair of wealthy, powerful people that are also terrible human beings, and as it happens, horrible parents. The two deaths are connected. The parents throw their weight around and try to manipulate the investigation, but of course, they don’t succeed.

Ultimately it seems that one of the guilty parties is Kay’s nemesis, Carrie Grethen. Carrie was once Lucy’s true love; later, her evil nature became apparent, but nobody can seem to keep her locked up, and she has become Kay’s Moriarty. I mention this here because it is raised early in the story, so I don’t think it can be called a spoiler, but I won’t say more about that.

To the faithful readership, I will also say this. As the book opens, two of Cornwell’s old standbys, ones that I’d be happy to see her retire, appear. First, she has to be driven to the scene in a helicopter, but oh no, there’s a storm coming. I was irritated. Can Kay not go anywhere without there being a storm? Just once? Please? And then something has to be retrieved by diving, which harks back to an earlier book in which she’s attacked with a spear gun. But friends, neither of these turns out to be key to the story, and we’re done with them in a heartbeat, so be patient.

I like to read a few books at a time for variety, but once this one began, it edged out the others—except at bedtime, because when I go to bed, I need to sleep! It’s among her finest work, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to you.

Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout*****

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“Lucy said, ‘So what is the point of this story?’

“Olive laughed. She really laughed at that. ‘Lucy Barton, the stories you told me—as far as I could tell—had very little point to them. Okay, okay, maybe they had subtle points to them. I don’t know what the point is to this story!’

“’People,’ Lucy said quietly, leaning back. ‘People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.’

“’Exactly,’ Olive nodded.”

Elizabeth Strout’s fifth entry into her Amgash series, Tell Me Everything, feels like a homecoming of sorts, as she integrates the main characters from all of her earlier novels, or most of them anyway, into a single volume. Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, the Burgess Boys—both of them! It’s a wonderful thing to put them, or some of them, together in the same room for a conversation, or have two of them become friends and take walks together. It’s a lot of fun for her readers, and it was probably a lot of fun to write, too.

My thanks go to Random House and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As is true with most books by Strout, the book isn’t—as the quote above suggests—so much about events as it is about the characters that live them. Publicists can call this a murder mystery if they want to, but if you are a new reader and you believe them, you will be disappointed, because the mystery is almost incidental to the story as a whole. The man under suspicion is living his life, and we read about him; the fact that his mother died under suspicious circumstances isn’t nearly as important as the life this poor fellow has been living. Meanwhile, there are a number of other plot threads that are just as important, and most of them have nothing to do with him or his family.

In fact, if I were to draw a theme from this story, it would perhaps be friendship; you might also make a case for fear. For example, Lucy tells Bob Burgess on one of their walks that “none of us are on sturdy soil, we just tell ourselves we are.” And then “when Bob thought about the state of the country these days, he sometimes had the image of a huge tractor trailer rumbling down the highway and the wheels, one by one, falling off.”

This is an easy theme to relate to; much of the polarization of the United States right now has to do with two main ideological camps, and a few smaller ones, being utterly terrified of what will happen next if the wrong people come to power; of course, opinions vary on exactly who the wrong ones are.

Nevertheless, I don’t see that as the main theme. The earliest Amgash books absolutely oozed anxiety. I felt as if I needed to take something before I read them, they were so fearful in their essences. But this story isn’t like that. Here, there’s a sense of acceptance, and also a sense that friendships, and the people inside of those friendships, can help one another.

So despite the mystery thread, this is what Lucy and Olive say that their stories are about: people and their lives.  It follows that those of us that have loved the earlier volumes will love this one even more, because Strout is doing what she does best: she sculpts characters so visceral that I feel I would know them if I passed by them in the grocery store.

Can you read this one as a stand-alone? Well, sure you can. I won’t try to stop you. But your experience will be richer and more satisfying if you treat yourself to some of the earlier stories. Some of them are rough reads, and I myself haven’t read everything this author has written, but if you grab a couple of them at least, particularly the Amgash and Olive books, you’ll appreciate this one more.

Highly recommended to all that cherish outstanding literary fiction.

Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward*****

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Reading Jesmyn Ward always hurts so good. In Let Us Descend, she conveys the heartbreak and sense of betrayal a young girl, Annis, faces when she and her mother are sold separately by their owner—who is also her father–and the ways that she copes, and also the ways she is helped by the spirits of her ancestors.

My thanks go to Scribner and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review. I’m sorry to be so late here, and am grateful that the literary world has recognized this book for the masterpiece that it is.

You may have seen other reviews in which I complain and gnash my teeth over historical inaccuracies; sometimes I rant over an author’s failure to portray a child in a way that is developmentally inaccurate. There will be none of that here. Ward has taken the time and done the research, and so her well crafted characters aren’t compromised by sloppy background details. I had to take this story in small bites because it is excruciatingly sorrowful.  For part of it I listened to the audio version; this is a treat in itself, as Ward reads her own novel.

Some reviewers have taken issue with the amount of magical realism Ward employs. I disagree with them. How can any novelist portray such a story and such a character as Annis with any glimmer of hope, unless they employ these literary devices? Does anyone really want to read a book that is miserable at the outset, miserable in the middle, and miserable even at its bitter, wretched conclusion? Without hope, there’s not much incentive to keep reading, nor would it have been satisfying to write; but Ward will not and does not revise history simply to make her readers more comfortable. There was only one way to tell this story and be true to history and her characters, and Ward found it.

Yes, it’s a rough read, but it’s so well written that many readers must have smiled through their tears. Know that, of necessity, this story is absolutely loaded with triggers; assuming that you can navigate them without coming undone, I highly recommend this story to you.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe****

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Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe, is a bold, inventive, and very funny novel about a young woman cut adrift in a difficult, expensive world. My thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Margo is the daughter of a Hooters waitress and a former pro wrestler, an absentee father with a family of his own; her mother had been his woman on the side. Consequently, Margo has always understood that she would have to hit the ground running when she grew up, and so she’s enrolled in a junior college. When the brief affair with her English professor leaves her pregnant, she has nobody reliable to advise her. The women she confides in urge her to terminate the pregnancy, and of course, the professor does, too; yet Margo likes the idea of becoming a mother, and it’s her fetus. Nobody can make her do anything. She decides to keep it.

Her mother is about to marry a man with money and conservative values, and she sees Margo as a loose cannon that just might upset the whole ship, so she tells her to terminate or be cut off.

Wow, Mom. Really?

Margo’s roommates hadn’t agreed to share an apartment with a baby. They need to sleep! They have to get up early!

Early on, I’m rolling my eyes. Part of me is thinking that Margo is about as dumb as they come; part of me is wondering why no author in this entire world is writing—or, more likely, why no major publishing house is publishing—novels in which a young woman chooses to have an abortion and take back her body and her life. But I’m overthinking, because soon, Margo—who after all, is just young, naïve, and rudderless—admits her error. She loves her little boy, but she had no idea he would be so expensive, or that motherhood would be so difficult. She tells her father, who re-enters her life as her mother steps away,

 “’I shouldn’t have had him,’ as though some rip cord had been pulled inside her. ‘I know that, okay? Everyone told me it would ruin my life and it did. They were right, and I was stupid, and I didn’t get it. Okay? But now I’m here.’ And her father, who strangely enough becomes the most reliable adult in her life, says, ‘Yes. Now we’re here.’”

Later, Margo will comment that nothing can make a person pro-choice like having a baby.

Margo has been waiting tables, but she can’t find child care, and when she brings the baby to work, she’s fired. And the truth is, she doesn’t like leaving her baby. Then one day, while looking at her naked self in a full length mirror, she observes that she has huge boobs for the first time in her life. Men would pay to see this. She opens an account on OnlyFans.

And so this controversial choice becomes the crux of the story. Some friends reject her, and her mother has really had it with her now. But there are a lot of meaty conversations that are thought provoking, and so, even though this old lady schoolteacher reviewer is mighty uncomfortable reading about an online sex worker’s film process, there are related questions that cannot be ignored. For example, Jinx—her father—advises her against it, saying that she shouldn’t get mixed up with these kinds of girls, and she asks him, “What are ‘those kinds of girls’?” And it’s true. A man can send his dick pix out into the world any number of times and places, and whereas many will consider these gross, or obscene, which they are, how many people will condemn the guy’s entire character, his moral fiber, for having done it? So the double standard is screaming to be recognized.

Margo goes through a lot of grief, defending custody of her son when the skeevy professor resurfaces, as well as having to deal with housing crises and other problems. But the central issue lurking in the shadows is that of a young mother choosing sex work as a career.

I have to tell you quite frankly that I was way out of my comfort zone through much of this book. I am probably not part of its target audience, despite the fact that I was approached to cover it. Partway in, I considered not finishing it, but the quality of the writing is so strong that I kept going, and I’m glad I did.

The story is told from a third person omnipotent perspective, but it shifts in a surprising and funny way, and that’s all I will say about that, lest I ruin it. I wonder from time to time if we have an unreliable narrator, but this is more than that. This unusual point of view a brave choice, and I think she carries it off well.

There are a lot of worthwhile discussions that can spring from this novel; it’s fertile territory, if you’ll pardon the expression, for book clubs. It’s also being adapted for Apple TV. I recommend this book for any feminist that likes to laugh, and isn’t afraid to think outside the box.

The Wedding People, by Alison Espach*****

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It’s a good sign when I finish reading a book, and I’m smiling. Alison Espach’s new novel, The Wedding People, not only left me smiling at the end; it made me laugh out loud almost from the get-go, and it will do the same for you.

My thanks go to NetGalley, Henry Holt, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

I’m not usually fond of romances, but a friend mentioned the premise of this one, and I couldn’t resist. In a nutshell:  Phoebe, the protagonist, worn down by the pandemic and devastated when her husband leaves her, heads off to the posh hotel where they’d intended to spend their vacation. She takes no luggage or even her phone, because she plans to kill herself once she’s inside that lovely place.

Upon arrival, it’s clear that a mistake has been made. The entire hotel has been reserved for a wedding. But Phoebe’s room hasn’t been double booked, and so she is allowed, with apologies, to proceed to her room. However, the bride—wealthy, entitled, Bridezilla—learns of Phoebe’s presence, goes to her room, and orders her to leave. As they argue, Phoebe discloses her reason for coming, and assures her that she’ll be gone—so to speak—by the time the wedding takes place. But Lila, our bride, is having none of it. How dare Phoebe spoil her wedding! Absolutely not. She isn’t going to have guests gathering just as a corpse is being wheeled out to the morgue, right through the lobby! Phoebe must change her plans.

I won’t share any further developments, but I will tell you this: Espach can write.

Long ago, I decided that five star reviews should not be reserved for the rare gem bound to become a timeless classic. I give five stars to any novel that makes me unusually happy, and that represents the best being published within its genre. This book is one of those.

Helen Laser is the voice actor narrating the audio version, and she makes it even funnier. If you are strictly a visual reader, that’s fine, but if you like both formats, go with the audio this time, or use the audio and print versions together, which is what I did.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy a good romance, a good laugh, or both.

Trouble in Queenstown, by Delia Pitt***-****

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Delia Pitts has been writing mysteries for quite some time, but she is new to me. In Trouble in Queenstown, she introduces hardboiled sleuth Evander Myrick. Myrick’s friends call her Vandy, and that helps to distinguish her from her elderly father for whom she is named; he’s in a memory care unit.

My thanks go to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin’s Press for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

At first glance, I thought that this detective fiction was set in New Zealand. Queenstown, right? But in this case, the locale is Queenstown, New Jersey. The story opens with Vandy cleaning up a mess in her office just as Leo Hannah storms in and wants to see Evander Myrick. He assumes Myrick will be a Caucasian male, and that Myrick herself is a member of the cleaning staff.

Oops.

Hannah comes to hire Vandy in the wake of his wife’s murder. He knows exactly who did it, he tells her, and he wants her to prove it, starting with some surveillance. Vandy isn’t sure she should take this job, but she has to pay top dollar to keep her daddy in the best facility, so she reluctantly signs on. As the story progresses, there are numerous twists and turns, and the violence escalates. By the story’s end, three different people have tried to hire her for exactly the same case!

The thing I appreciate here is the way Pitts addresses cop racism. So many detective novels require the reader to suspend belief, to assume that every cop is fearlessly dedicated to finding out the unvarnished truth and arresting the perpetrator of the crime, regardless of race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But as Vandy conducts her investigation, Pitts keeps it real. At one point the detective speaks with a salon stylist that worked on Ivy’s hair, and he tells her that Ivy was afraid of someone at home. Vandy asks if he contacted the police.

“’The police?’ He jerked his neck, pursing his lips as if I’d farted. ‘Girl, you think the cops came here?’ He sniffed. ‘You don’t look like a fool. Maybe I read you wrong.’”

Sadly, the second half of the book doesn’t impress me as much as the first half does. I have a short list of tropes that I never want to see again in a mystery novel, and she trips a few, including my most hated one. I won’t go into details because it’s too far into the story, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but when it appears, I sit back, disengage from the text, and roll my eyes. Ohhh buh-ruther. As I continue reading, I can see who the murderer is well in advance, and the climax itself is a bit over the top, though without the tropes, I mightn’t have noticed this last issue.

In addition to the digital review copy, I have the audio. The reader does a fine job.

The more mysteries a person reads, the staler tropes become. I am perhaps more sensitive than most readers, having logged over a thousand novels in this genre. Readers that have not read many mysteries are less likely to be aware of, and therefore bothered by overused elements, and so this book may please you much more than it did me. But for hardened, crochety old readers such as myself, I recommend getting this book free or cheap, if you choose to read it. Newer readers may enjoy it enough to justify the sticker price.