Tag Archives: feminist fiction

Bad, Bad Seymour Brown, by Susan Isaacs*****

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Susan Isaacs has been writing bestsellers since the late 1970s, and she’s hilarious! I’ve been a fan since then. During that earlier time, a period of third wave feminism, her tales often featured rotten husbands and ex-husbands reaping what they’d sown. Her creativity and trademark snark have always kept me running back for more. Her new novel, Bad, Bad Seymour Brown is the second in the Corie Geller detective series, and it’s deeply satisfying. My thanks go to Net Galley and Grove Atlantic for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Seymour Brown was an accountant for the Russian mob. “I’ve never heard of a violent accountant before,” my mom observed. “At worst, they’re a little pissy.” But by all accounts, Seymour was a rotten guy. “He made regular bad look good.” Bad to everyone, that is, except his five year old daughter April, his only child, for whom the sun rose and fell. But Seymour’s family was tucked away for the night when an unknown assailant came and burned the house to the ground with the Browns inside it. Happily, April made it out the window alive. The case was never solved.

Now April is an adult, a professor in film studies. She’s put her past behind her, and now, all of a sudden—someone is trying to kill her! She contacts the detective that was assigned to the murder investigation; he’s retired now, and he is Corie Geller’s father.

All of the things that I love about Isaacs’s work are here in abundance. The story is full of feminist moxie—Geller isn’t an assistant to her father, but rather retired from the FBI in order to raise her stepdaughter—she is his partner in this new investigation, and as it happens, in the new detective agency they’ve begun. But another thing I’ve always loved about Isaacs’s prose is her trademark snark, and I snickered and chortled all the way through this engaging novel. The pages flew by, and I found myself looking for extra reading time when I could sneak off to plunge in once more. Susan Isaacs writes the most creative figurative language I’ve seen anywhere. She’s funny as hell.

You can read this book as a stand-alone, but I’ll tell you right now, once you read the second, you’ll want to read the first one, Takes One to Know One also.

Highly recommended, particularly to feminist boomers.

With My Little Eye, by Joshilyn Jackson*****

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Joshilyn Jackson is one of my favorite writers, first as an author of brilliant—and often hilarious—Southern fiction, with bestsellers such as Gods in Alabama and Almost Sisters, and now with acclaimed suspense novels. All of the latter have titles that use the names of children’s games to chilling effect. She began with Never Have I Ever, followed with Mother May I, and her current release, With My Little Eye. Jackson never disappoints.

My thanks go to Net Galley and William Morris for the review copy, though I’d have paid cold, hard cash if push came to shove. This book is for sale now.

Meribel Mills is an actor with a past and a problem. Years ago, she fled her hometown in Georgia and her marriage following a traumatic surgery, but she realized her dream of becoming a working actor. But a persistent stalker has caused her to flee Los Angeles with her adopted daughter, Honor, and now she’s back in Georgia, laying low, working locally, and stalking her ex-husband.

Wait. What?

This intrigues me, the notion that a stalker might also be stalked. Meribel’s intentions are benign, as she wistfully revisits the past, but she’s also over the line, obsessively following her ex’s social media accounts, mostly via his second wife, and at one point following them out to dinner. The heck? And so I wonder if that will be the focus of the story.

But Jackson never does anything predictable, and that’s part of what keeps me coming back.

Throughout the story, I am on the back foot, trying to ascertain which of her would-be swains is a genuinely nice guy, and which is the creepo. At one point I begin to wonder if she has multiple stalkers! And Jackson makes a strong point about the worthlessness of law enforcement when it comes to dealing with stalkers and women threatened with violence:

“Rape threats, abduction threats, death threats, and I got forms and tutting and sad jazz hands…I made copies [of the letters] and took them to the police, who filed them for just in case he killed me, later. Then it would be serious. Then someone would find his ass and get him into prison. It would make a great Lifetime movie, with a purely fictional, leggy lady cop as the necessary strong, female protagonist. And me? I’d be playing the dead girl, once again.”

But the best part of this novel isn’t Meribel or her stalker(s), it’s the children. Daughter Honor is Autistic, though very bright and relatively high functioning. Her new friend comes with baggage of her own; both of these girls is so well developed that I feel I would know them if I saw them on the street. They develop a friendship with a homeless teen who also has an important role here, and these girls are what make the story shine.

The resolution is believable and nothing comes from left field. This is an outstanding read, and I recommend it to you.  

Collateral Damage, by J.A. Jance****

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Collateral Damage is the 17th book in the Ali Reynolds mystery series by J.A. Jance. My thanks go to Net Galley and Gallery Books for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

As fans of the series know, Ali is married to B. Simpson, and together they run a small but increasingly prominent cybersecurity firm called High Noon, appropriately named given their Arizona home base. In this installment, B. is on his way to the airport when he’s run off the road. He and the man driving him are badly injured, and the police take the lazy way out, assuming that Ali is behind the crime. Who could better benefit from his death? The business is worth a lot of money, not to mention B’s fat life insurance policy. Soon Ali and her trusted High Noon employees investigate, assisted once more by Frigg, the nearly sentient AI that can go where no one is supposed to go, and find out things that aren’t legally obtainable.

Jance is a veteran mystery writer, and she’s produced bestselling novels for decades. This time around, the novel is better than what most authors can do on their best days, and yet it’s not Jance’s most riveting story. The pacing is on the sedate side, and it’s not until we are well and truly at the climax that it feels urgent. I suspect this is because the story’s protagonist, Ali, and the other repeating characters that I have enjoyed so much over the past few years are sidelined here. Once Frigg ferrets out the critical information that suggests that the crime is the work of a longtime serial killer, Ali provides the cops whose unsolved cases are involved, and we mostly follow them, alternately with the baddie.

A side note, but one worth mentioning: Jance has a couple of long-running series that are set in Arizona, and there have been times when I’ve reported that I dislike the tinge of stereotyping that I have seen in the way her Latinx and Black side characters are depicted. I feel as if she’s turned that around here, and having registered complaints in the past, it’s only fair to recognize that this time, she’s done well.

Fans of the series will want to read this in order to enjoy continuity between the last, Unfinished Business, and whatever she writes next. For new readers, I advise beginning the series with number 11, Clawback. Going back to the first entry—which of course, you can do—requires reading the series before it develops into a strong vehicle. If you start the series here instead, you will have the information you need to move forward, and the quality is as uniformly excellent as any other series I have read.

I recommend this book to Jance’s readers, and I recommend it to new readers as suggested above.

Hang the Moon, by Jeanette Walls*****

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Jeanette Walls is the author of outstanding memoirs, most notably The Glass Castle. Her new novel, Hang the Moon, is brilliant, and you should read it. My thanks go to Net Galley and Scribner for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Sallie Kinkaid is born and raised near the turn of the twentieth century in a tiny backwater in Virginia, daughter of its wealthy scion, “Duke” Kinkaid.  Her mother has died, and Duke has remarried, and now Sallie has a younger half-brother, Eddie. Sallie is a daredevil, given to occasional recklessness, whereas Eddie has a gentler, more introverted nature, with a love of learning and music. But one day, hoping to awaken some more adventurous aspect of his personality, Sallie takes Eddie out for a ride in her cart, and he is injured. Just like that, Sallie no longer lives with her father; she is cast out to live with an impoverished aunt, and there she remains for nearly a decade.

Sallie is a young woman when she returns, and now she must navigate the shoals of local politics, keeping clear of Duke’s sometimes unpredictable temper.  Duke owns nearly every property in the county, and he is deft at doling out favors and keeping the local peace, always in a way that works to his own advantage. Sallie has a hundred questions, some longstanding, and others that develop as she works for her father. However, questions are discouraged in the Kinkaid home. An aunt tells her, “Honey, there are some rocks you don’t want to look under.”

When the local economy is shaken by the unthinkable, Sallie must make some hard choices as she comes into her own. Moonshine has long been an unofficial, yet pivotal way that the local working class makes its living, and when feuds erupt and the government attempts to intervene, Sallie must choose sides. As she comes into her own, she discovers some hard truths about the family she thought she knew. Walls is at her best here, with a strong, resonant setting, a clear, credible plot, and unforgettable characters. This is the sort of book that one comes back to. Highly recommended.

The Wonders, by Elena Medel***

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Elena Medel is a Spanish award winning poet, and this is her debut novel. My thanks go to Algonquin and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review.

I am initially excited to be asked to read a work of fiction that “brings a half century of the feminist movement to life,” but in most regards, the magic has escaped me. I suspect part of this may be cultural, and/or a matter of translation, because the style is very different from North American and British novels. A single paragraph may last for pages, and there are vast swaths of internal monologue that leave me checking the page count.

And yet, there are some fine moments here. I can’t recall having seen a novel that demonstrates so decisively what happens to a woman that is not given the choice to terminate a pregnancy, or what kind of life the child is likely to have. We begin with Maria, who is completely disinterested in her baby, and almost immediately leaves her with her mother, parenting only by sending money home as she is able. She works the night shift, facing danger and harassment constantly.

Her daughter Alicia is not only disinterested in motherhood, but never develops human attachments. She takes joy in hurting other people, physically and emotionally, from an early age. She makes no true friends, and she doesn’t want any. Her character chills me to the bone.

Although it isn’t an enjoyable read for me, I recommend it to a niche audience, those that have a particular interest in international feminist literature. It will be available to the North American public tomorrow, March 1, 2023.

Back to the Garden, by Laurie R. King*****

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Laurie R. King is best known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes historical detective novels, but I have long preferred her contemporary mysteries. Back to the Garden is her latest of these, and it is excellent. My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Raquel Liang, a detective based in San Francisco. When a long-dead body is found in the garden of the Gardener Estate—a famous mansion and grounds that sound faintly reminiscent of Hearst Castle—Liang, who is working on a task force to find and identify victims of serial killer Michael Johnston, becomes involved in the case.

Rob Gardener is the heir to the estate, and he had clashed often and bitterly with his grandfather before his demise in the 1970s. Upon learning of his windfall, Gardener turned the manse into a commune, with murals on the walls of what were once imposing, grandiose rooms and vegetable gardens where more formal floral ones previously stood. Now the place is being restored, and as gardeners work to clear a thicket of overgrown hedge, a huge statue topples over, exposing the bones of someone long interred there.

Meanwhile, in a hospital in the big city, convicted serial murderer Michael Johnston lies dying. During the same period that the commune reigned, Johnston was spiriting girls and young women off so that he could murder them. Improved technology has provided a number of leads, but the window in which the cops can extract information from the old bastard is rapidly closing. Liang suspects that the body found on the estate, which dates back to the same time that Johnston was slaying women in the area, may be one of his, and so she makes frequent visits to learn as much about the place and its residents, past and present, as possible.

The intriguing bit about this mystery is that the members of the commune, other than Rob himself, didn’t use their birth names, and it makes them tricky to trace. With names like Meadow, Pig, and Daisy, they could be just about anybody. Is one of them the body beneath the statue?

King does a fine job of segueing from past to present and back again, and of juggling a moderately large number of characters. As I read, I never have to flip back to be reminded of who someone is. The reader should know, however, that this is not a thriller. It isn’t written in a way to grab you by the hair and make your pulse pound. The pace is a bit more laid back, but for some of us, that is a pleasure. I never lost interest, and I could read this thing while eating my lunch without gagging.

There’s a good deal of period nostalgia, and so I suspect that the greatest appeal will be to Boomers.

Highly recommended.

The Matchmaker’s Gift, by Lynda Cohen Loigman*****

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“The heart is big enough to hold both grief and love.”

I read Loigman’s debut novel, The Two-Family House, followed by The Wartime Sisters, and I loved them both, so when Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press invited me to read and review The Matchmaker’s Gift, I leapt. Once again, Loigman has me at hello. This outstanding historical novel is for sale now, and you should get it and read it.

The story is told from the point of view of two protagonists, a woman and her grandmother; they were close, but Sara the grandmother has died, so her story is told in the past, beginning in 1910, when she arrives in the U.S. as a child, along with her family. Abby is her granddaughter; her story begins in 1994. Their stories are told alternately, but both are in the third person omniscient and told in a linear time frame, so I am free to lean back, relax, and get lost in their stories, without any confusion or doubling back to check things.

Sara was a matchmaker, although she initially had to be very careful, because Jewish tradition dictated that matchmakers be married men, and she was still just a girl. But she was gifted with visions of a sort, and could tell who belonged together. And so she was forced to create matches “in secret, pairing people together like a rogue puppeteer.” She never missed. And upon her passing, she leaves a cryptic message indicating that upon her death, Abby will inherit her special talent.

Abby is nonplussed by this, and even as she grieves her beloved grandmother’s death, she is confused as to what she should do. She’s a divorce lawyer, for heaven’s sake! Is she to toss her education and become a modern day yenta? She hasn’t even found a man for herself yet, let alone for others.

It’s always a joy to find a story that diverges from the well-worn path, and novels involving Jewish matchmakers—or any others, for that matter—are thin on the ground. But that is only a small part of this novel’s appeal. I love Sara and Abby; I almost feel they are my friends. I feel their sorrows and admire their courage and integrity. When either of them meets with unfair opposition, I want to smack their detractor with my cane.

But there’s something extra that’s infused into Loigman’s stories, an intangible but unmissable warmth. Nobody can teach anyone this. I can count on one hand the number of authors that can write heartwarming stories that don’t follow formulas or insult the reader’s intelligence. Loigman is one, and this makes her golden.

When I was halfway finished reading this glorious novel, I saw that an audio galley was available. I was a bit cautious, because I had already developed a firm sense of how these women sounded in my head, and I was afraid I might not like the narrators’ interpretations, but my concern was unfounded. I had a road trip ahead of me, and I listened to the next forty percent as I drove, and there wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t love. Narrators Eva Kaminsky and Gabra Zackman do a lovely job, and I have never had such a seamless transition from the digital galley, to the audio, and back again.

Highly recommended, and bound to be one of the year’s best loved books.

Joan, by Katherine J. Chen****

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“Once you lift a sword, it is hard to put down again.”

I’ve been curious about Joan of Arc for a long time. I love military history, and as a feminist, I also love that Joan was responsible for leading French victories centuries before women were permitted to serve in the military of any major power. When I saw that Katherine J. Chen had written a “secular reimagining of the epic life of Joan of Arc…a feminist celebration of one remarkable—and remarkably real—woman who left an indelible mark on history,” I was all in.

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

In her end notes, Chen tells us that Joan’s biographers tend to leave out her difficult home life, with a violent, angry father that hates Joan from the moment she draws breath; he has wagered heavily on her being male, and she’s failed him. Chen sees it as a major factor in Joan’s development as a warrior.

When Joan leaves home, after her beloved uncle leaves and her elder sister, her one true friend within the family, commits suicide after she is raped by English soldiers, she expects to labor for her bread, which is nothing new to her. But ultimately, she wants to get word to the Dauphin, the heir to the throne, who is in hiding: she knows how to win this war.

I absolutely love the version of Joan that Chen develops, and my only frustration is in not knowing what aspects of Joan’s life she has had to invent, and which are historically accepted as truth. She tells us that Joan’s biographers would have her praying constantly, and that they depict Joan as little more than a totem that they carry to battle, a sort of human version of a lucky rabbit’s foot. And then I wonder even more: what facts are undisputed? Of course the Church would depict Joan as hugely religious, given that she has been beautified as a saint. Did she actually influence the battle plans? This part is frustrating to me. Had more information been provided, this would be a five star review.

In any case, the battle scenes are riveting, and Joan’s character is unforgettable. I look forward to seeing what Chen writes next.

Recommended to all that love the genre.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle****-*****

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“You have to watch out for the quiet ones.”

I had an ugly upper respiratory flu, and this excellent novel was exactly what the doctor ordered. My thanks go to Net Galley and Zando Publishing for the review copy. Patricia Wants to Cuddle will be available to the public Tuesday, June 28.

As the story begins, we are midway through filming “The Catch,” which is a reality television show similar to “The Bachelor.” Our cast includes the four lucky women to have made it this far; producer Casey; a handful of crew members; and oh dear, Jeremy, a scuzz bucket if ever there was one. Jeremy is this season’s catch. We also have a handful of locals, since we are filming on location; included is a bashful cryptid in the woods, a lonely creature that reacts very badly to stressful situations. As you may guess, Patricia is that cryptid.

These people are on Otter Island, a fictional addition to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. Think deep woods, rain, and glamping. And…what the hell was that, just now? Too big to be a bear. And why are the sheep so agitated?

Baaaaa.

The contestants are mostly not interested in love; they are interested in publicity, for various reasons of their own. The shooting schedule leaves them sleep deprived on an almost permanent basis, and so given the premise of the show—competition, not cooperation—it doesn’t take long for the women to turn on one another.

Samantha Allen is new to me, but she’s on my radar now. This story is snicker-worthy at the outset, and by the time we reach the climax, I am howling with laughter. Part of the joy comes from the plot and pacing, but the biggest laughs for me are those that combine these outrageous events with some of the funniest figurative language I have ever read. In fact, were I to rate this story solely on its humor, without rating the more traditional elements such as character development, this would be a five star read.

This book will appeal most to those that lean to the left.

Recommended to those that love darkly hilarious fiction.

The Book Woman’s Daughter, by Kim Michele Richardson****

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Kim Michele Richardson broke new ground in 2019 with her blockbuster novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, which features an oppressed minority in Appalachia. In the early years of the 1900s, and possibly before, tucked into the hills and hollers of rural Kentucky were a small number of people that had blue skin. This first novel featured Cussy Mary Carter, a Blue woman that worked as a pack horse librarian as part of the WPA, a new government agency created by the FDR administration. In this sequel, it is her daughter, Honey Mary Angeline Lovett that joins this organization and in doing so, struggles toward emancipation when her parents are jailed for violating the miscegenation laws existing at the time.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Sourcebooks for the review copy.

When her parents are jailed for having intermarried—with “Blues” considered colored—Honey Lovett is sent to live with Retta, an elderly woman that has been like a grandmother to Honey. Returning to the area where she was born, Honey—who is also Blue, but only on her feet and hands, particularly when she is distressed—collides with many of the same biases and legal obstacles that her mother faced.

This sequel features more women that occupy nontraditional occupations; in her notes, Richardson says that she wanted to “explore themes of sisterhood.” The sentiment is a welcome one to this feminist Boomer; at the same time, it’s important to recognize that until the outbreak of the second world war, women seldom occupied positions with the government (our protagonist, plus her friend Pearl, who works for the Forestry Department as a fire lookout,) and as miners (another woman friend, who is harassed relentlessly.)  For there to be three such women inside such a sparsely populated area would have been unusual. That said, I like the character of Pearl a lot, and providing Honey with a friend and peer gives the author more opportunities to flesh out her protagonist.  

The novel’s greatest strengths are in the research behind it, the concept—informing readers about the existence and victimization of the Blues—and in the general setting of the time and place. Richardson knows her field.

Once again, I enjoy the return of Junia, the mule that I confess was my favorite character in the last book, as well as Tommy the Rooster, who is new. Another strength is that Honey is depicted in a more even and credible fashion than Cussy Mary, who was too saintly to be entirely believable.

However, I would still like to see some nuance in characters. There is a wide cast of characters here, but every single one is either a good guy—one that never does anything wrong—or a bad guy that never does anything good. This is a failing that would take the novel down, in my eyes, if not for the fact that Richardson has pioneered this particular time, setting, and topic. Even when a novel is primarily driven by setting, as this one is, the main characters need to be rounded out.

This book is for sale now.