Hachette Audio | Seattle Book Mama

“She was Theodosia Balfour. Good things did not happen to her.”

Theo is engaged to be married, despite her wishes; her mother has bartered her to an ancient, badly behaved duke for the prestige of his title and the money she must have to keep the family manse. Beggers can’t be choosers, amirite? Her stepsister and the prince have barred her from their castle due to her own unseemly behaviors, and her sister is about to be wedded to a more desirable man. There’s only one way out of it: Theo needs to find her stepsister’s notes on summoning a fairy godmother. Only magic can possibly get her out of this mess.

My thanks go to Orbit Books, Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

Because I am lucky enough to have both the print and audio galleys, I pair this book with my morning regimen on my exercise bike. While my feet are doing the work, my eyes and ears are on a pleasure cruise, listening to the story as read by the talented Josie Charles. At the outset, I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy it. After a handful of quick laughs, the story and voice actor seem to be a little over the top, perhaps trying too hard. However, a number of other reviewers that I respect have really enjoyed this thing, so I keep an open mind, and sure enough—about a third of the way in, I realize that I’m bonded to the protagonist. As I follow the narrative and become accustomed to the writing and narrative styles of the author and performer, the whole thing grows on me, and before long I find myself looking forward to my wretched exercise bike, because Theodosia needs me.

Once the fairy has been summoned, Theo is magicked away to fairy land, and she is provided with a set of tasks she must accomplish in order to be freed from the loathsome old toad to whom she’s betrothed. She is provided with some assistants and supervisors, and it’s a good thing because she needs rescuing now and then. The hardest part, perhaps, is the caveat that as she completes the steps required, she must behave respectfully—at all times!

The chapters are brief and have hilarious titles. A couple of examples: “Chapter 5 Where Theo Should Probably Think of Something Before She Ends Up Married,” “Chapter 11 Where It Becomes Quite Clear Theo Was Never Trained as a Lawyer.” There’s lots of snarky dialogue, with a tender moment or two tucked in here and there. There’s a twist at the end that I absolutely did not see coming.

Should you listen to the audio, or read the printed version? There are some American readers that don’t like a British accent, and Ms. Charles’s is a heavy one. Once I’m used to it, I rather like it, but you know what type of reader you are. Follow your usual go-to. If you enjoy an audiobook, this one could make your commute much pleasanter.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy fantasy and/or humor.

Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series is among my favorites. Identity Unknown, the 28^th 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.