The Daughters of Palatine Hill by Phyllis T Smith

Rating: WARTY!

Erratum:
"listened to the laugher" should be, presumably, " listened to the laughter" While the former does make sense, it seemed, in context, to be more the latter that was required.

I began this advance review copy thinking it was about Julius Caesar's family, but in fact it was about the successor to Caesar, Gaius Octavius, popularly known as Octavian, who ruled in Rome's second triumvirate after Caesar was assassinated in 44BC. He defeated the other two legs of the triumvirate when it started breaking apart, and routed Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra 7^th's fleet at the battle of Actium, after which the latter two committed suicide, MA by falling on his sword, and Cleo not by a snake bite as is popularly believed (and to which this author evidently subscribes), but by taking poison. Their story was actually rather Romeo and Juliet-esque in its comedy of error. But this novel isn't about them unfortunately.

Palatine Hill is the center one of the so-called seven hills of Rome. It's close by the Tiber, and has been settled since around 10,000BC. Technically there are only four actual hills of Rome. The other three are really promontories of a larger mass. Palatine, from whence comes our word 'palace', was actually where Livia, wife of Octavian, lived. She is one of the three women which this story follows, the other two being Octavian's daughter, Julia the Elder, and his 'adopted daughter', Cleopatra Selene, aka Cleopatra 8^th who started out as a prisoner of war, her brothers all dead, and went on to a career which outshone her mother's, yet she's nowhere near as well-known. Go figure. History isn't so much written by the victors as it is the romantics! LOL!

These women all feel threatened in one way or another. Julia is set to wed Marcellus, who is a complete dick, but fortunately history shows us she did not have to put up with him for long. She is shallow and juvenile, and I found her uninteresting. Cleo understandably lives in fear of being killed off, since she's a prisoner of war for all practical purposes and risks being murdered if she's seen to pose any threat at all. She turned out to be as shallow as Julia was depicted. Perhaps the most interesting is Livia, Julia's step mom, who immediately shows herself to be a thoughtful and practical woman who knows how to play the political game even though, ultimately, women had very little real say in their lives in this world.

There were some errors in the historical information. For example, at one point, Julia says, "I stood there in my night shift", but Romans did not have a négligé, pajamas or 'night shifts'. They wore their underwear known as a tunica, taken from the Greeks (not literally! LOL!), or they would even wear their entire daytime outfit to bed, even the wealthy ones, so this seemed a bit out of place. Maybe tunica is was what was meant here. Another issue was also tied to Julia - she kept on fretting that her father was in Spain and wouldn't be there to 'give her away' on her wedding day, but this was not a tradition in Roman times.

If anyone could be said to give a bride away, it was a married woman who had not been married more than once, and the groom was supposed to 'wrench' his bride from her in a symbolic ritual representing taking ownership of the young virgin. Roman ceremonies were not like modern western ceremonies. Even the cake was not a cake as we perceive it, with white frosting and so on, but an offering to the gods of a grain 'cake', which was subsequently eaten by the bride and groom. For all we know it was some sort of a granola bar in effect! The bride did wear white (assuming her family could afford anything truly white), but the marriage ceremony was really a transfer of ownership of the bride from her family to the groom, and dad took very little formal part in it. The bride was supposed to travel to the groom's home signifying a break from her family and a joining of the groom's family.

Of course that did not mean that all relations with her family were severed, but in this case there is no divide at all and everything stays the same. Julia hangs around the First Citizen's home, which in this case is somewhat understandable because the groom evidently lived there too (she was his cousin). Given how wealthy Octavian was, it's hard to believe that the newly married couple did not have their own home. Worse than this though, she was invited to important meetings, which seemed highly unlikely given how women were viewed in Rome - pretty much solely as incubators for their husband's male heir.

There are always exceptions of course (as Boudiga all too briefly taught the Romans), but women were not considered to be part of the Roman men's political world any more than they were part of the military one, and while some of them no doubt shared many confidences with their husbands, it's highly unlikely that a fourteen year old girl, even one married to an relatively important man, would be invited to a power-brokering meeting! This is one of many problems with telling a story in first person PoV. If one of the three characters telling this tale in round-robin fashion isn't present, we can't know what happened, so you have to have women going to meetings to which, realistically, they would never have been invited, and there goes suspension of disbelief.

The blurb (which I know typically has nothing to do with the author thank goodness!) tells us: "Always suppressing their own desires for the good of Rome, each must fulfill her role." This is a despicable lie! There is no point at which any of these women suppresses her own desires. The entire story is precisely about them yielding to desire at every opportunity! It would have been truly boring otherwise. I do agree, though, that Livia is "astute." She's definitely my favorite. The other two are too juvenile and self-absorbed to be interesting.

It's thoroughly dishonest though, to claim that Julia has to deny "her craving for love and the pleasures of the flesh" Far from it! She indulges shamelessly, although her purportedly erotic scenes with her husband are really not very interesting. "Can they survive Rome's deadly intrigues?" Of course they can! What a dumb question! Why do blurb writers always write such patently absurd questions? Of course the hero succeeds. Of course the quest is successful! Of course true love wins! Of course the villain is brought to book. Do the blurb writers really think we're on tenterhooks because we don't know exactly how this will pan out ninety-nine times out of a hundred - especially given that this is historical fiction about real people, all of whom we know the fate?!

I ended up getting about 30% into this before I gave up on it because it was simply not interesting. Aside from Livia, the other two girls had nothing going on in their heads but sex and guys, which was ridiculous. Even Livia was really nothing more than an appendage of her husband, with no thoughts going on in her head that were not directly tied to him or how much she missed him. It wasn't credible and it was insulting to women. These women appeared to have no friends, no interaction with other women (not even the female slaves!), and nothing on their minds other than men, which means they failed the Bechdel test dismally!

I remain convinced that the real women who bore these names were a hell of a lot more interesting, had a lot more going on in their minds, and would have made a much more interesting story than these three fictional versions ever could, so I cannot in good faith recommend this as a worthy read unless you honestly enjoy books about shallow and unappealing women.

If You Have a Hat by Gerald Hawksley

Rating: WORTHY!

If You Have a Hat sounds like a Lyle Lovett song title, but it's really a young children's book of fun nonsense. I like children's books to try and offer some educational content if possible, but that doesn't mean there can't be room in your collection for those which are purely crazy, of course. Besides, what is there to do with a smile if you don't put it on your face? It's wasted! Now that's educational!

From the author who brought you Spot the Duck and Don't Juggle Bees neither of which I've read, but both of which seem eminently sensible titles, comes this lengthy (for a children's book) collection of colorful drawings and ridiculous rhymes. It begins, "If you have a hat, put it on your head. If you have a bedbug, tuck him up in bed." I'm frankly not entirely convinced of the wisdom of that latter idea, but definitely hats are in order if you live under a sweltering sun. It would have been nice if the bed bug had been gender neutral, as indeed their choice of victim is, but it's a minor issue in a full book of fun - minor as long as you're aware it's an issue.

You can't argue with the good advice to help seeds grow into flowers, and to build towers with bricks. Who doesn't want to build a tower when faced with a pile of Lego bricks? I mean, come on, they're asking for it! We get boats and Band-Aids, cameras and chickadees (okay so maybe it wasn't. Leave my alliteration alone!), music and hippos. This author seems very fond of hippos, by and large. Especially large. But at least they're clean hippos.

No one can argue that music requires dancing. Even if you're laying in bed listening to this story you can dance with your fingertips or try to dance your tongue on the end of your nose, right? But not on someone else's nose. That's stretching things too far! Apple pie and clouds in the sky, airplanes and fun and games and you have yourself a great romp for kids. I enjoyed this immensely, and I recommend it.

Night Owls by Lauren M Roy

Rating: WORTHY!

The vampire bookseller! Yes, that was what lured me in! I picked this up on spec from the local library (bless their little cotton pages!). Books are just like relationships, and if you've been bit as many times as I have by book blurbs, you tend to get book-shy, especially if it's a book in a genre that you're not given to reading. In my case, I am not a fan of vampire stories, but once in a while one comes along which shakes things up enough to keep it interesting. This was such a novel.

This is clearly intended to be the start of a series, and I am not inclined to follow series because they are way too repetitive and uninventive. They're a really lazy way of writing novels, and I have little time for them, with few exceptions, so this will be the only one of this series that I read.

The basic premise is that there are two factions on the side of good. One is Valerie McTeague, the bookseller, and the other is Elly Garret, who has been trained by a member of an order which destroys vampires. To make it really interesting, there are tow kinds of vampire,s and this come right out of Vampire Academy. I liked the first couple of novels, and I loved the movie, but I went off the series pretty quickly because Le Stupide was strong with that one. So Elly is really Rose, but there is no Lissa.

There are strigoi and moroi here, but the bad guys are called 'jackals' or 'creeps' - and at least they have some motivation for their behavior here, although how the two groups a differentiated into each class of vampire is a mystery. They are, and we're expected to accept it on faith. One group is suave, sophisticated and trope vampire, the other is stinky, primitive, savage, and low-life. It's really just class warfare, royalty v. peons. Differentiation between good and bad vampires is nonsensical to me, and represents nothing more than a ridiculous modern trope added to vampire lore for the benefit of undiscriminating teen readers.

Trope runs rife through this story: vampires live in hives and are allergic to holy water, can't cross hallowed ground, can't come out in daylight, are allergic to silver, allergic to holy water, and can be killed with a wooden stake - but it has to be Rowan wood! Why, I have no idea. None of this lore makes any sense to me (and isn't explained here) so any attempts to put vampires on a pseudo-scientific basis by talking of virally-transmitted disease and what-not, is bullshit. Vampires are cold (yet move superfast?!), they have no heartbeat, no blood circulation, so how does their body receive nutrition from the blood they drink? By magic! That's the only "explanation" so as far as I'm concerned, paranormal writers can shove their bullshit science! It makes no sense, so don't insult me by trying to make it make sense. Just tell the freaking story!

This author does bring in one or two new items (at least new to me, maybe these are ripped off from elsewhere, too. I can't say), such as a magical element, whereby "runes" are used as wards against vampire incursion, but they're pretty useless since they really don't hold the vampires back. The driver in this story is that there's a magical book which the bad vamps want, and which has fallen into the possession of the good guys. Why this book is not immediately destroyed is the biggest plot hole in the entire novel. It is of no value in fighting the vamps, so there's absolutely no reason whatsoever for keeping it around, Burn the book and everything that follows, including death and destruction, will never happen. Obviously this is why the book isn't burned (there would have been no novel otherwise!), but it made no sense and was a huge disbelief inducement! If you're going to do this, please find a reason why it cannot be destroyed, don't just let this hang out unquestioned, and unexplained!

That said, I liked many of the characters in the novel, especially Val and Elly, who I thought might become an item, but who did not. I liked that the story moved fast and there wasn't any vampire worship going on. I liked that Val wasn't a thousand years old and absurdly falling for some teen-aged guy. She wasn't and she didn't. There was no dumb-ass romance here, for which I was ludicrously grateful. I liked the two succubi (yeah, it's that kind of kitchen sink story). A novel about them might be worth reading, but this is about this novel, and was it worthy of my time? Overall, and despite the issues, yes to me it was and on that basis I recommend it.

Escape From Witchwood Hollow by Jordan Elizabeth

Rating: WORTHY!

Errata:
"He'd said he if was going to have a sweat suit, he might as well make it lime green." The 'if' and the 'he' at the start are the wrong way around!
"She could have attempted to look more interested, as lease for her boyfriend's sake." At least for her boyfriend's sake, not 'as lease'!
“We are yonder!” - This is like saying, "We are over there" - it doesn't make any sense!
"Drudging memories and heartaches never helped anyone." I think this should be 'dredging' not drudging, which would mean doing menial work.

This was a strange novel, and one which included multiple flashbacks, of which I am not a fan. I confess though, that it grew on me as I read on, and in the end I came to like it and consider it a worthy read despite an issue or two here and there. It reads very much like a first novel, but that's not a bad thing. I found a few errata which are listed on my website.

The story begins in 2001, a month or two after the World Trade Center came down in New York City. Having lost her parents in the disaster, the rather exotically named Honoria has moved from the city to stay with relatives, so she's the trope orphan starting a new school, but refreshingly, the novel doesn't focus on that. Instead, it focuses on Witchwood Hollow, a mysterious area of woodland close to Honoria's new home, where a witch is said to hold sway, trapping people inescapably amongst the trees.

Just as I was really getting into Honoria's story, I was ripped away from it twice, once back to the late nineteenth century, and then again back to the late seventeenth. This annoyed me to begin with, because I wanted to follow Honoria, but eventually the story came back to her. I still hold doubts that this was the best way to tell this story. It was somewhat confusing, switching back and forth, and the past was nowhere near as interesting as the present in this story, but I learned to live with it, and the twisted ending was unexpected and better than the usual ending you might find in a story like this.

The story follows Honoria's increasing interest in Witchwood Hollow and her confusion as to whether the witch legend is real or simply some sort of country-bumpkin ignorance. Honoria was an intriguing character with a little bit too much of an interest in Leon for my taste. I find it sad that young females seem to be doomed to get attached to a guy in these stories. I find it especially irritating when the romance takes over the story!

In this case the romance - while lacking credibility - occupied such a small part of the story that it wasn't a deal breaker for me. I would find it refreshing to read a story where they're just good friends for a change. Not every girl in every story needs to be validated by a man, believe it or not! In Honoria's case, I was willing to Grant this a bye because she did have enough of a load to bear, and it seemed possibly reasonable that she would seek attachments to people, given that she had just suffered her parents dying horribly.

Honoria isn't the smartest person in the world, but she isn't the dumbest either, so this was nice. I did find myself cringing at one or two of her ideas though, such as when she saw a part of a coin from yesteryear stuck in the dirt, her thought was: "Someone had worked hard for that sliver; it might have kept them from starving one day." It's hardly likely it kept anyone from starving given that it was evidently never spent, and got lost in the dirt instead! At another juncture, she thought "he might catch pneumonia in the cold water" but no one ever caught pneumonia from cold water. Pneumonia is caught from an assortment of sources, none of which are H₂O. However, people do talk like that in real life, so I can't hold these things against her.

I thought Leon's girlfriend's reaction to Honoria at one point to be far too extreme. There had been nothing in the story to this point to merit her outburst or indicate she had been leading up to it. When she yelled, "You whore! You think it's funny trying to kill Leon?" it took me out of the story because it was so out of place. As I read on through the story I saw no point to that antagonism. I think it should have been skipped. Not every teen story needs to have a bitch!

Other than these relatively trivial complaints, the writing was well done, easy to read, and it was interesting. I enjoyed this story very much and I'd recommend it.

Magical Beasts Jigsaw Book: Four Jigsaws From the Land of Magick

Rating: WORTHY!

There's no author listed for this book. It's a big, heavy, fat, sturdy book which has only four leaves, each of which is very thick and which contains a jigsaw which you can pop out and take your time rebuilding. The puzzles are quite simple, with few (~20 or so), quite large pieces so young children (not too young, mind, the pieces are undoubtedly very tasty!) can have a blast. I would have loved a book like this when I was a kid.

The pieces are brightly colored, and each jigsaw is cut exactly the same way, so that you could even mix up all the pieces and make some wonderfully psychedelic art work. On the back of each jigsaw puzzle page is a bit of a story about magical adventures, so there's reading to be had, too. The new book is rather expensive however, so I'd recommend finding this used somewhere. I recommend it for fun, and let's face it, that's all you really need!

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith aka Joanne Rowling

Rating: WARTY!

I had no interest in reading JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, but when I learned that she was writing private dick stories under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith which happens to be my real name (no, I'm kidding), I decided to see what she was up to. I was a big fan of the Harry Potter series, which were full of plot holes, but very entertaining reading, and while I realized that this novel would be nothing whatsoever like that, I was curious to see how she would tackle a non-fantasy work for grown-ups. All my reading has suggested she has no intention whatsoever of going back into fantasy, so if you want to continue to read Rowling, you have to take this stuff, or go without!. Having attempted to read (or more accurately, listen to) the first of the series, I have decided I'd rather go without. I made it about twenty-five percent in an abandoned it as a lost cause.

This audio book was read badly by Robert Glenister, which didn't help. The main character, saddled with the absurd name of Cormoran Strike, is supposed to be from Cornwall, but Glenister's impersonation of him was literally all over the map, and very little of that meander was in Cornwall. His voicing of the other characters left much to be desired, too. Even looking past this, to the actual writing however, you can see that it's not ready for prime time in the adult world. Rowling's overblown prose, which worked so well in Harry Potter and was charming and amusing to read, is out of place here and bogs the story down. This needed to be a lot tighter and more dynamic.

The author has brought not a thing to the genre that's new. Down at heel investigator? Check. Too-perfect super-efficient assistant? Check. Suicide that's really a murder? Check. This dick is the last option for the grieving relatives? Check. Why would I want to read this un-inventive boilerplate story? It's all been done before.

On top of this, Rowling seems to have a poor opinion of the British police forces. They're a bunch of clueless losers and screw-ups, it would seem. A celebrity falls to her death from her apartment (aka flat in Britain), a man is seen on the street, running from the scene. A neighbor sees a man fleeing the building after an argument, and yet the police rule it a suicide without a second thought? I call a huge steaming pile of bullshit on that one!

I feel bad for Rowling for being in the position of trying to write other stuff after the run-away success she had with Potter. It's an unenviable position to be in, so kudos to her for trying, but what's with the pseudonym? Everyone knows its her, so there's no secret here. I could have seen the benefit of choosing a pseudonym if she moved from children's fantasy to adult-oriented fiction and wanted to segregate her first foray from what went before, but since she already put out very adult-oriented fiction under her own name before this series began, why suddenly take a pseudonym? It made no sense to me. I hereby vow that I, Robert Galbraith, will never adopt a pseudonym. I'm kidding again. I'm not really Robert Galbraith. Really.

Seriously, I can't recommend this novel based on what I heard of it.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Rating: WARTY!

Note to authors - Dark Matter is a title which is way-the-hell over-used. You might want to find something new and original for your own novel rather than jump on this over-laden band wagon.

I became interested in reading something by Blake Crouch after watching the TV show, Wayward Pines. When I saw this one pop up on Net Galley I jumped at the chance of an advance review copy because it gave me just that opportunity. Not that this is connected with Wayward Pines, but it was a golden chance to read something by this author. The problem was that this novel started out at such an achingly slow pace that I simply could not get into it. I became bored waiting for something interesting and new to happen. This story needed to get up and running fast, but it stumbled and dragged, weighed down by too much exposition.

A guy leaves his wife and son one evening to stop briefly at a bar where a friend of his is celebrating, and despite the fact that the guy takes a different route home from his usual one, he is nevertheless stalked and kidnapped by a man with a gun. When he wakes up later, several months of his life are missing. Sounds interesting, right? It wasn't. Maybe it had the opportunity to be interesting, but it moved at such a glacial pace that I ceased caring what had happened to this guy and gave up on finding out. Every time I thought something was going to break loose, out came more exposition, and meandering, and self-examination, and on and on. Really, I cannot honestly recommend this novel.

Infinitas by David N Sebastian

Rating: WARTY!

This advance review copy novel was a DNF for me. It started out promisingly, a fantasy romp and a quest, but there was a truly oddball mixture of modern English and medieval which kept tripping me up, and taking me out of suspension of disbelief. I'm not a fan of stories where the author tries to write them in Chaucerian English, so I don't mind a bit of modern idiom here and there, but when it's a mix of both ancient and too modern, it's really a jolt.

One minute they would be saying, 'tis (but without the apostrophe) and the next they would be saying 'butthole' which made me feel like I was reading a juvenile toilet-humor story for which I have no time. In short order I was reading terms like "All righty then" and "Crack of dawn" along with words like 'Busboy' (in a tavern!). It didn't work. I think the biggest problem was the level at which it was written - it felt to me like middle-grade whereas the characters felt like young adults, so it was mismatched there, too.

When the wood sprites showed up, my interest perked up a bit because I thought the story might be improving, but their humor began to grate, and they were gone pretty quickly. I didn't know whether to feel relieved that none of them joined the quest, so I didn't have to deal with their inane pranks anymore, or saddened because they had brought a spark to a story which badly needed one. It had already begun to set like drying clay.

There were moments of unintended humor like when one character says to another, "You're a Druid Harry" which made me feel like I was reading Harry Potter again, and not in a good way. This was a fantasy, yet there was a heavy coating of Christianity overlaid on it, which struck me as out of place for this particular story, as did a thumbscrew which "goes crackle snap pop." Seriously?

One of the characters but "Coal on her eyes" I doubt it. Kohl maybe, but coal? I had to quit reading this because it just wasn't working. I can't take a story seriously which doesn't even take itself seriously, and I can't recommend this one.

Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Rating: WARTY!

This novel is aimed at middle-grade readers. I requested an advance review copy because it looked interesting and invited me in with this: "As the fifteenth anniversary of September 11th nears, Towers Falling explores the thought-provoking question of how kids born after 2001 can find meaning in events they have no personal memory of, but which still have a monumental impact on their families, educators, and communities." The problem was that by the time I got to fifty percent through this story, the twin towers had been mentioned a sum total of pretty much one time. The rest of the story was about Deja settling in as a new student at school. There was nothing new here, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the twin towers. I failed to see the point of another 'new kid on the block' story which has nothing new to bring to the table.

While technically this was well-written, from the point of view of telling the story it claimed to be telling, it went nowhere - not in the first half of the novel, and by that time I had lost all interest in reading any more about a rather self-centered main character who had nothing new or interesting to say. I can't recommend this novel base don what I read.

Lost in the Garden by Kerry McQuaide

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the second of two Kerry McQuaide young children's books I've read very recently. They were both charming and gorgeously illustrated. I particularly liked the photo-montage in this one, showing how the duo looked from the day they met in the neonatal ward, to their friendship as Midge started walking. They're part of a Midge and Moo series and in this one, the two of them get lost in the garden - duhh! Toddler Midge and her plush toy Moo (refreshingly a cow rather than a teddy bear) are out and about getting some fresh air, but where is Moo? Ulp! As Scully and Mulder (yes, there's a fox in this story!) might say, "The Moo is out there somewhere," and Midge is going to find her or diaper trying.....

The search is on. Is that Moo behind the garden gate, or is it a sneaky nod to Alice in Wonderland? Told in poetry, this book is fun, and you can doubtlessly have more fun with your kid searching for their own toy. I think it's appropriate for Valentine's day that you need tulips to seal the deal! I recommend this as an entertaining book for young children.

Stand Up and Whistle by Phyllis Perry

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a very short (less than 90 pages!), well-written and educational story about two young girls who embark upon a quest to save some local wildlife. I had some issues with the story, but overall, I consider it a worthy read for the age group, which is middle grade.

Out to photograph prairie dogs for a school research paper, Jeannie and Mary Joe discover that the place they are photographing is going to be leveled and the prairie dogs (which are of course not dogs, but a form of burrowing ground squirrel related to squirrels and ground hogs) are scheduled to be exterminated. They decide to do something about it. I liked that the author evidently knows what she's talking about when she describes the prairie dogs, so it's very educational in that regard, and also in how to make a an official and grown-up protest about a problem.

This story was realistic in many ways. I would have expected no less given that the author is a resident of Colorado and there was a scandalous business from which this novel is no doubt taken, regarding the wanton slaughtering of prairie dogs, and the building of malls and the shameless, but predictable behavior of degenerate local government officials.

The evidently Nazi-trained City officials of Castle Rock in Colorado aided and abetted the extermination of a large prairie dog colony with poison gas pellets, but it's not only prairie dogs which suffer from this chemical warfare. The annihilation was done in spite of offers to relocate the animals and the city officials lied about it, as though they could not wait to see the animals bleed out.

This story seems to be heavily-based on that real life massacre, but it has a happier ending - although it's not always roses, and so is more realistic than pure fiction in how it plays out. There is also a side story about confidence building in Jeannie's best friend Mary Jo. That came with some baggage as I shall discuss, but I liked that the story showed the girls, particularly Jeannie, the main protagonist, to be thoughtful, smart, capable, and willing to work and research. Jeannie was brave in facing the "bad guys" - the property developers. She was a commendable protagonist.

I think this will be enjoyable for age-appropriate readers, but I have to add as an adult that there were some problems with the story which some kids might pick up on. I know my kids would have. The first is the rather hypocritical stance of the girls, who are not vegetarians (as judged by their consuming sloppy joes!), yet here are fussing and cooing over these cute prairie dogs. it's not just cute mammals which are threatened by humans. I felt the girls were hypocritical in that they give not a thought to the daily and routine slaughter of the cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens and fish that they themselves eat! I'm not going to fuss over this because the story has other virtues, but this kind of thing is worth keeping in mind from a writer's point of view.

Another thing which bothered me was when Jeannie went to protest the poisoning along with some other people, her parents did not accompany her! I felt that was wrong, and implausible. Either that, or it portrayed her parents as callously hands-off. Maybe kids will not notice this, and I know on the one hand it showed that Jeannie was strong and willing to go it alone, which was commendable, but it made her parents look really bad and uncaring, to me. If they'd had some important function they had to attend and could not get away from, then it would have been more realistic than just simply abandoning their daughter to her fate!

One last thing is nothing to do with the author, and everything to do with Big Publishing's longstanding cluelessness when it comes to book covers and illustrations. It's long been my theory that very nearly all book cover designers have no clue what's in the book they are photographing or illustrating for, and this one was a prime example. In the story, it's made quite clear that Mary Jo is overweight, and she's outright described as "fat" at one point. This is commendable, not that she's overweight, but that we're not being fed a trope diet of runway models for characters in a story! So far so good.

There is the trope 'let's ditch the eyeglasses and give you a quick makeover, and you'll be beautiful and popular', which I didn't like at all. I think it's the wrong message to send to young people, and especially to send to young girls, who are already bombarded with those shameless messages from the cosmetic industry. The right message to send is that if you're eating healthily and exercising some, then you're just fine as you are. We should not be sending messages saying you need to be pretty to be worth anything. On this occasion, I was willing to overlook that because it was a minor portion of a story which had other important messages in abundance.

That said, neither the cover nor any of the books interior illustrations gave any indication whatsoever that Mary Jo was even mildly overweight, which was disgraceful. I don't hold this against the author. She had done her job in this story. It was the artists and illustrators who sold out to popular norms. This is why I will never let anyone other than myself publish anything I write!

But that's a personal peeve. Aside from the illustrations, and with a nod to the issues I raised, I think this novel is a worthy read for the readership it's aimed at, and I recommend it.

Grayling's Song by Karen Cushman

Rating: WARTY!

This is a story of young Grayling, daughter of a hedge witch who is called back to the house from her outdoor chores one morning to discover that her home is burning down and her mother is in process of turning into a tree! She has to launch her unwilling self upon a quest to discover the evil being who did this.

Grayling is not a hero and does not want this quest. She has no magical powers as far as she knows, but perhaps the title will give you a clue as to what she can do. Accompanied by people she picks up along the way, mostly cantankerous or weird, and a shape-shifting mouse, Grayling sets off on her quest.

This is a very short novel, hardly more than a hundred pages, but although I started it in good humor enjoying the writing, about halfway through, it began to fall into a boring rut, and though I read on some more, I reached a point where I really could not drum up any more enthusiasm for reading further. One more "belike" or "mayhap" would have put me over the edge! I know we strive for realism in historical fiction, but there is such a thing as too much realism!

So the story, which had been originally quite inventive (the mouse was fun, and somewhat reminiscent of Taggle the cat in Erin Bow's novel Plain Kate which I reviewed on my blog back in June 2014), became bogged down in asides which were uninteresting to me, and which I felt failed to move the story along. Despite the bright beginning, when what I read is considered overall, I cannot recommend this as a worthy read, but I think this author bears watching for future stories.

A Day With Moo by Kerry McQuaide

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the first volume I've read of The Adventures of Midge and Moo series. It's very short, but it's very sweet. Midge is adorable (and so is Moo), and it's nice to see a kid hang out with a toy that isn't a teddy bear, for a change. Moo is a plush cow, and is quite obviously Midge's best friend.

The two of them do everything together, but I have to say that Moo does seem to carry more than her fair share of the blame when things go wrong! In other words, Midge milks this cow for all she's worth! Midge isn't all take and no give however, so when they snuggle under the covers at night, everything is peas and quiet...!

I recommend this as a worthy read, especially at this time of year when you want to settle down and cuddle with a fun read and sleepy kid(s).

Seven Dials by Anne Perry

Rating: WARTY!

Not to be confused with Agatha Christie's The Seven Dials Mystery, this novel is named after a location in Covent Garden, London, where seven streets converge. It's the twenty-third in the Pitt detective series by Anne Perry, aka Juliet Marion Hulme, who served five years starting in 1954, when when she was fifteen, for helping her friend Pauline Parker brutally murder Parker's mother. A Murder mystery written by someone who has actually murdered! I didn't realize this when I started reading (or actually, listening to) this novel. I mistakenly thought that this author was the one who wrote The Accidental Tourist, but of course that was Anne Tyler! Oops!

As it happened, the novel really wasn't very good. I only made it to the half way point, and that was by skimming and skipping about sixty percent of the first half. I started listening with interest. I thought the crime was a good one to investigate, but this novel took so many digressions and rambling asides into pointless drivel that I tired of it very quickly. It didn't help that reader Michael Page, while doing fine with male voices, sounded like a Monty Python sketch when he tried impersonating cantankerous dowager aunts.

One of the worst failures is that an obvious possibility for a murder motive was completely ignored. Obviously I don't know if that turned out to be the actual motive, but it seemed to me that there were two options here, and neither was voiced, not in the portion to which I listened anyway. The first of these is that the victim was lured there deliberately by a third (or actually, a fourth in this case!) party for the express purpose of murdering him. The second possibility was that the victim was actually 'collateral damage' from an attempt by the fourth party to murder the third. The fact that this detective never even considered these possibilities made him look inept at best, and like a moron at worst.

Almost as off-putting: the detective's boss was a complete caricature, and all of his scenes with the main character were nauseatingly bad. The reader's tone may have contributed to how bad these were, I have to add. That's one of several problems with audio books - you get their take on it, not your own! And what's with the whiny violin music at the start of these disks? When you opened the original print novel, did violins spew forth? I seriously doubt it, so where are the heads of these audio book morons at, that they feel compelled to add music? Get a life you guys!

This novel takes place - as far as I can gather, during or after 1883, by which time the use of fingerprints had already appeared in an 1883 novel (by Mark Twain), yet never once is the consideration of using fingerprinting raised in order to see who had handled the gun used in the murder. So, along with other problems I had with it, this novel was sad and I am not interested in reading any more by this author. I cannot recommend this one.

Webster's Manners by Hannah Whaley

Rating: WORTHY!

I've had a lot of fun with the Webster series of young children's books which started out by teaching web etiquette and safety, and have now migrated in this volume to things electronic. In a series of rhymes, Webster gets to learn what to do with anything noisy that flashes or beeps.

Illustrated with amusing pictures of the Webster spider family (which curiously has canines and only two eyes while retaining eight limbs!) and told in neat little rhymes, this story will hopefully educate your kids as to when electronics need to be subsonic. There's a lot to learn though, so you may have to read this to your child many times before they (hopefully!) absorb it all. You could turn this into a memory contest. I recommend this one.

Kris Longknife: Defiant by Mike Shepherd aka Mike Moscoe

Rating: WORTHY!

It's at this point - volume three - where you fully realize how formulaic this series is, and you have to decide decide whether to keep going. I obviously kept going, but please be warned that there are several stock elements in this series which, if you don't like them, or worse, start to hate them, will drive you nuts, and they're all overdone here, having only been half-baked in volume one.

The first is Kris's non-existent relationship with Jack, her bodyguard. He continues to snipe at Kris's disregard for safety and she continues to ignore him. This goes on in every volume. It's boring. Largely absent and not really missed in this volume is Abby, Kris's ridiculously home-spun and sassy 'body maid' who showed up in volume two. There's nothing for her to do besides be a repository for weapons and armor, and she's not needed at all in this volume which - be warned - is almost entirely concerned with the overly long preparation for - and then the speedy execution of - a one-sided space battle. In that regard, it's different from most of the other volumes in the series.

Penny and Tom get married, and then it's all up to space to defend Wardhaven against six anonymous battleships which have entered Wardhaven space, are headed directly for the planet, and are refusing to identify themselves. Despite them being identified early on as representatives of the Peterwald business enemies of the Longknifes, the Longknifes - supposedly the essence of bravado - are too chickenshit to call out Peterwald on it, and worse than this, they fail to take any precautions, thereby putting Kris into deep jeopardy again in the succeeding volume. The Longknifes are morons, let's face it!

One final problem: any modern planet with the apparently endless resources available to the Longknifes, would have an array of space drones which would take out any line-of-battle ship on short order. That's why we no longer have battleships in the real navy. The last one was built over seventy years ago. Evidently authors like Mike Shepherd and David Weber simply don't get it. Neither do film makers like George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry!

So after a condescending sojourn on a planet modeled after Hawaii (seriously? 200-some nations on Earth, six hundred planets in space in this novel, and yet every single one of them is influenced and informed solely by by the US culture?), Kris returns to Wardhaven just in time to be the only one who can save the day! As per usual. She takes command - not as a naval officer, but as a princess! - and cobbles together an assortment of space yachts and LACs, and repels the battleships miraculously and pretty much effortlessly. Yet despite this tour de farce no one ever learns from it, ditches the navy, and starts building thousands of cheap, human-free drones for defense. Go figure!

That said, this was an entertaining romp if you check you brain at the cover and don't put it back on until the last page is done. On that basis and that one alone, I recommend this as part of a complete series that's light, fun, mostly fast-moving, and a worthy read. Think of it as a TV series like Charlie's Angels rather than a series of novels, and you'll be able to better judge whether you can stand to read it or not.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Rating: WARTY!

I'm sorely tempted to say that you can't beat a novel with a title which suggests that the author is the villain (Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson), but my ongoing quest to find a readable classic continues to be frustrated! I recall reading at least part of this young adult novel when I was a lot younger, but since the only thing I remember about that is a couple of Scots dashing around in the heather, I don't think it made an impression on me. I found it looking forlorn on the library audio bookshelf, and decided to revisit it. If mony a mickle maks a muckle, then maybe another little read will have a big impact? Sadly, no!

I started out quite bemused by the novel, both for its antiquated language (of course it wasn't antiquated when it was first published in 1886 in installments no less!), and for the quirky narration by Jim Weiss, who is not even Scots for goodness sakes, has no idea how to emulate a Scots accent, and who seems to have only two voices, sassy and sissy. In the voice avoiding to Tim, all Scots except for Davy Balfour are in the first category. Even without the voices, though, I would have found this novel a thoroughly unworthy read.

Davy was quite simply a chronic whiner, and his story was tedious in most places, describing far too much detail and far too little action. His entire life in this novel, it seems, consists of him repeatedly losing his money or making bad bargains with it, and wandering the Scots "desert" trying to get back to his evil uncle and reclaim his inheritance, threadbare as it is. He would have actually been better off had he made it to the tobacco plantations. He might have become rich there.

I know this novel is not written for modern audiences, but I reserve the right to judge classics the same as any modern novel, and by this judgment it failed to entertain me!

Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler

Rating: WORTHY!

This story grabbed me from the start and wouldn't let go. It's an amazing fairy tale about a young girl, Bee, who runs away from her obnoxious foster parents and heads for the big city. On her journey, she finds a new father, meets a princess, sails with pirates, and discovers two of the most interesting islands ever to appear above sea level. This story read like it was written for middle-grade, although the main characters were all in their mid-eens. That said, however, this is really a story for all ages, in the classic mold of fairy tale telling.

All this in a land where trees won't grow, a mage rules in place of a king, and something Bee does seems to put magic into everything she bakes. Not that that's always a good thing, but there is a recipe at the back for one good thing: the famous Bouts buns! I enjoyed this, and as important, I felt that the writer had a great time writing it, which all-too-often doesn't come out, even in stories I've enjoyed. In this novel though, the fun she had in the writing came through just as powerfully as anything which Bee baked into her breads and pastries.

As if the story so far wasn't quite wonderful enough, Bee is asked to deliver some of her pastries to the castle, wherein lives the reclusive mage, and a princess who hasn't been seen in years. What's going on here? Why is the princess an orphan just like Bee? Why is the only tree in the land sitting in the palace garden? And what's with the hedgehog?

The novel is set in a fantasy version of The Netherlands, which caused a couple of hiccups for me, since it was written from a very American point of view. At one point, johnnycakes put in an appearance, but they're known only in North America, not in Europe - at least not in medieval times. The same goes for pecans.

There were a couple of missteps like that, but nothing your typical American reader would notice. The primary focus of my blog isn't about books per se, but about writing books, so it would be remiss of me to pass over what I found to be a delightful trip into English - not England, English - and Dutch! Naturally since this is a well-baked story, there is mention of cookies, but this, again, is a North American term. Like soccer versus football, the rest of the world calls them biscuits, which is also the Dutch word for them (although they have more than one word). However, the Dutch also have a word for cake, which is koek, so it's not so bad to be caught in possession of koek in Holland! LOL! The diminutive of koek is koekie, from which we get cookie, so it's not such a leap as it seems. Note that it's pronounced more like cook than coke, so you can discount my cookie joke. Confused yet?! I know I am.

I really liked this story, and despite it being rather lengthy, I blitzed through it in short order. It's very, very readable, and I recommend it. In fact, I'm prepared to guarantee that it won't burn your biscuits...!

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Rating: WARTY!

I just began watching the TV version of this novel and I really enjoy it, so I checked with the local library and they had the audio book! Yeay! Bless that library! I began listening to that as soon as the library got it in, but unfortunately, the thrill of having the chance to hear this book was quickly replaced by deadening boredom. Mark Bramhall's dull delivery left a lot to be desired, but even had the reader been enthralling, I would still have found this novel tedious in the extreme. It was awful. This was a book about magic, and somehow Lev Grossman had contrived to remove all magic from it, and render it into one of the most pretentiously monotonous books that has ever crossed my eyesight.

I was hoping the book would be just as good as, if not better than the TV show, and perhaps with a little more substance, but there was no substance. There was no magic even when magic was being performed because the descriptions of the magic were written to tediously that all immediacy and thrill was banished. Lev Grossman seems to be the type of writer who thinks, "Why use one word where I can use a dozen?" He evidently asks himself, "Why be pithy, to the point, and gripping, when I can be rambling, dissipated, and tiresome?" It was not a pleasant experience for me.

The novel is very broadly the same as the TV show of course, but there are some significant differences which became obvious from the rambling, self-important first chapter. Indeed the first couple of chapters could have been completely dispensed with and would have actually improved this novel. I had hoped that it would improve once I got to the Breakbills magic school, but it was just as boring there as it had been in the seemingly endless run-up to that point. The TV show did a much better job of starting the story, and it made the main character, Quentin, much more appealing. Here, he was boring and I had no interest in reading about him. Even the visit from the evil wizard was uninteresting. How someone can take an event which on TV was gripping and dramatic, and make it leaden and unappealing is a mystery, but Lev Grossman managed it.

So this was a big fat DBF, but to be fair, I do owe the author for two things. One: he's convinced me that I never need to read another book by Lev Grossman, and two, he's convinced me I never need to read even one book by George RR Martin! How did that happen? Well this publisher somehow inveigled Martin to write a 'sound bite' for the cover, which ran along the lines of "The Magicians is to Harry Potter what a shot of Irish whisky is to weak tea." This phrase convinced me of two things: George Martin is utterly clueless, and so is Big Publishing™.

I think even people who hate Harry Potter would have to agree that this novel and that series have nothing on common. They are aimed at different audiences and different age ranges, so why Martin thought there was some point to comparing them is a mystery. Clearly the publisher was hoping to suck deeply on the teat of Harry Potter and draw his fans into this novel, but they have been thoroughly dishonest in comparing the two. Harry Potter had magic, to which his legions of fans and the run-away success of the movies clearly attest. The Potter books were juvenile, but they were readable, inventive, and widely appealing. This story is none of the above. Harry Potter was wordy at times, and lacked much weighty substance, but it was not leaden, and it cut to the chase on a regular basis. By contrast, there is no chase to cut to in this story. I'd say it plods, but that would imply that it was going somewhere when it was not.

I can't recommend something as stodgy and badly written as this is. Watch the TV show instead.

VALIS by Philip K Dick

Rating: WARTY!

I guess I'm done reading Philip Dick novels at this point. I've enjoyed movies and TV shows based on his works, but I can't seem to find much in his novels that I like, except for a graphic version of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Even when I've liked the movie or TV show, I tend to find the novel uninteresting. VALIS (an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System) was volume one in a planned trilogy which was never completed due to the author not being smart enough to go to the ER when his doctor advised him to do so.

I could not stand this novel. It began promisingly enough, but then became bogged down under Dick's juvenile rants about religion and philosophy and there was no story being told. I quit about twenty percent in, and I cannot recommend this dreary and pretentious book of boredom based on the portion I endured. Tom Weiner's droll voice didn't help with the narration, either.

Just like Me by Nancy J Cavanaugh

Rating: WORTHY!

This is an advance review copy that I got from Net Galley and for which I am very grateful to NG, the author, and the publisher for a chance to read. This was a great novel. There were some issues (when aren't there?!), but those were relatively minor and overall I consider this a very worthy read, and I enjoyed it immensely even though it certainly wasn't written for my age range!

The middle-grade novel is - refreshingly - not about your usual privileged white girl. It's about a Chinese girl who has been adopted into an American family. She has two acquaintances who are in the same shoes as she: adopted from China and living with American families. Whereas Julia seeks to embrace her new life, her two acquaintances, Avery and Becca also want to embrace their Chinese heritage.

This was where the first false note was struck for me. There was a huge dissonance between this theme of embracing one's heritage on the one hand, and the fact that all three girls, despite being born in China, did not have Chinese names. Avery, Becca, and Julia? Really?! There was no respect for their heritage there. Even if we assume that their American adoptees chose new names for them, could not those names have been Chinese? Just as badly, this was a slightly (yet not overbearingly) religiously-themed story. The camp was a Bible camp, but thankfully, the religious portion of it was very subdued. The problem I had with this was that most people in China are not Christian, yet this was the religion being imposed upon all three of these girls. Where was the respect for their heritage there? So those were two issues I had, but as I said, they were not deal-breakers for me, just issues which I felt could have been handled a lot better to avoid a suggestion of hypocrisy with regard to the theme of the story. There's far more to cultural heritage than adopting hobbies and affectations, and learning a language!

That said, I enjoyed the story because it felt authentic. It;ls base don the author's own experiences at camp, as the camp's music choices might suggest! The story was fun, amusing, entertaining, and moved at a good pace without feeling hurried. I enjoyed Julia's narration, even though I am not a fan of first person PoV stories. Her PoV felt realistic, and the argumentative nature of these girls, Julia and her Chinese "sisters" being crammed into a cabin at camp with three other girls, two of whom were rather snotty and elitist, was highly amusing, if a little disturbing now and then. Madeleine and Vanessa were over-achievers
who saw the win as all-important. Their foster-care 'cousin' Gina, who for me was the absolute favorite character, was a much more relaxed person who wanted to have fun at camp and didn't care if she was a winner or not.

Because of this tension, the girls start out the camp contests with a negative score! The tension continues to build until the girls are put on camp punishment and made to wash dishes after dinner. What happened then was hilarious and a real tension breaker, and you could truly feel the interpersonal relationships starting to turn around at that point, but they're still not out of the woods - so to speak. The story has delightful ups and downs and felt quite realistic.

That said, I've never been to one of these camps, and I have to say that I'm glad of it, if camps are like this. This was supposed to be a Christian camp, but it came off more like a prison camp. There was very little forgiveness and turning of the other cheek going on here, neither from the camp attendees, nor from those who ran the camp, which seemed rather hypocritical to me. Neither was there any attempt at all by the camp staff to teach these children anything about making friends, getting along, or amicably resolving disputes. It was all crime and punishment, and an endless run of competitive sports, like that's all there is in the world. I was saddened to think there may be camps like that, but it did make for an amusing atmosphere of us against them oppression, like some World War two stalag or a Soviet era gulag story! The punishments were punishing and seemed very un-christian-like to me. They did serve a purpose, however in the story.

So I had some issues, but overall, this story was great and I whole-heartedly recommend it for the appropriate age range (and a bit beyond!).

Point of Control by LJ Sellers

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a great novel which I really enjoyed. The first delight was to find a novel with an older female main character. It's nice to know that not all authors think that women who are beyond their twenties are uninteresting and not worth writing about! The second delight was in that this character was a sociopath (not to be confused with a psychopath!) who worked for the FBI, and had to be constantly on the alert not to expose her anti-social tendencies. Indeed, those tendencies were the very reason she made her way into the FBI. The structure of a law-enforcement agency was what helped her to conform to societal norms and fit in, and she was good at what she did.

The novel was well-written, and moved at a good pace without rushing. I felt that maybe it could have been tightened a little bit, and the romantic (if that can be applied where a sociopath is concerned!) dalliance wasn't necessary (not every woman needs to be paired with a man - and vice-versa - to make a story readable and enjoyable), but it wasn't obnoxious, either, so it didn't spoil the story for me.

The plot revolves around an odd assortment of people dying or disappearing, and investigation reveals that they all seem to be connected with rare earths, which are employed in hi-tech devices. The novel is up to date, too, since rare earths are pretty much cornered by China, and if it so chose, it could cripple the west's ability to build things like computers, tablets and phones. Not that we in the west build very many of those these days. They're all imported, which is another security weakness.

The FBI is investigating these events, and the agent starts running afoul of a dedicatedly evil man who is willing to stop at nothing to achieve the success he craves and believes he deserves. But someone is helping him, and that someone might well be in the FBI.

I enjoyed this story, and read it avidly. It felt a bit long to me, but it was enjoyable nonetheless, and I fully recommend it as a worthy read.

Nick and Tesla's Solar-Powered Showdown by Bob Pflugfelder, Steve Hockensmith

Rating: WARTY!

I enjoyed the first volume that I read in this series which I reviewed back in March 2015, but this one fell flat for me. there were multiple problems with it. One which I am not counting against it is the poor presentation in Kindle's app for Android phones. Kindle has the suckiest app imaginable. Not every novel suffers from its depredations, but disturbingly many do, and this was one of them. The formatting was horrible, with text randomly exhibiting large font in the middle of nowhere, or small font likewise, or random caps in titles, and oddball numbers appearing in the middle of the text, which seemed to be page numbers. The fact that there was an annoying number of frivolous footnotes didn't help, either. Please note that this was an advance review copy, so perhaps the formatting problems will be resolved before the final version emerges. Here's an example of how it appeared:

Uncle Newt’s hairless cat Eureka jumped onto75

76

the dining room table,

Here's an example of the page numbers being mixed up with the footnotes, making a complete mess:

“In the past month, we’ve rescued77 a little girl from kidnappers, 5 defeated an army of robot robbers, 6 captured a ring of spies, 7 and thwarted the sabotage of both a major museum 8 and a big Hollywood movie. 9

The Kindle app on the iPad was just as bad. The Bluefire reader version on the iPad was fine.

That stuff was annoying, but the real problem here was not the formatting; it was the content. The story really wasn't very good, and it had a depressing amount of dumb to it. Parts of it were quite amusing, I grant, but nowhere near enough to carry this. Perhaps children with low expectations might find this entertaining, but I know that my kids would not find it appealing and they are only just outside of the middle grade age-range at which this is evidently aimed. To me it felt far too simplistic for modern sophisticated audiences, even young audiences, and there's not enough going on to keep them occupied. The gadgets the kids can build, which I felt was one of the strong points of this series in the other volume I read, were rather limp here. Two of them for example, consisted of a solar hot dog cooker which to me seemed a bit dubious (it's not wise to risk eating under-cooked meat, for example), and a balloon-powered ping-pong ball "cannon" which might be fun to play with, but which has nothing to do with solar power.

Some of the writing was not very smart, either. For example, consider this exchange:

It was bought for her by someone named Louis Quatorze.”
“Louis Squatorzi? What the heck kind of name is that?” Silas said.

Now we can see how Silas would have possibly mispronounced the name like he did if he had read it, as we are doing, but he didn't, he heard it. It would not have sounded like 'Louis Squatorzi' unless their uncle, who spoke those words, was a complete moron. Perhaps he was; he certinily behaved like it at times, but this felt far more like a case of a writer reading what they wrote instead of imagining it being spoken.

One thing which really bothered me was the lifestyle these children were leading, which seemed completely at odds with the environmental message which was supposedly being sent. The message was be kind to the environment, yet they were still tooling around in gas-guzzling and fume-emitting vehicles. There was no mention of electric or hybrid vehicles here, but the worst thing was these children's diet - they consumed a non-stop conveyor belt of junk food, which was frankly disgusting, and not the kind of thing I want my kids to be reading. If there had been some 'valid' reason for this - like they were captive and starving, and had no access to anything else, then I can see that sliding by, but this seemed to be their routine daily diet and it was highly inappropriate. It also detracted from the environmental message in that these kids evidently didn't know how to take care of themselves and eat healthily, so how on Earth could they take care of the planet? What kind of message does it send that this is supposedly a science-based story, and yet the sciences of biology, biochemistry, and health care are so abysmally neglected?

But based on the overall quality of the story, I honestly can't recommend this novel.

Eye of the Drone by Rebecca Merry Murdock

Rating: WARTY!

I've had mixed results with this author and this is the second of three novels with which I was not very impressed. I didn't like Rocco's Wings (note that this isn't a part of this series), which I reviewed in March of 2015. I did like the first volume in the Wild Cats series, which I also reviewed in March of 2015.

This is the second volume of the series, and is also an advance review copy for which I was grateful for the opportunity to take a look at, but which for me fell short of the glory of its predecessor. I applaud the idea behind this series, which is to educate young readers of the plight of wild cats, many of which are facing extinction, and I do appreciate that a good way to approach this is to tell an adventure story, in this case, one in which two young people get out and explore. For me though, this one took completely the wrong approach and let a serious and important topic devolve into complete fantasy. The wild cats which it was supposed to be about became pretty much an unimportant footnote or afterthought to the children's ever more implausible adventures, which included an encounter with a magical fairy who was disguised as a butterfly! It was too much for me and I think it sent this series along an unfortunately frivolous road from which it won't be able to return. The wild cats deserved better. I cannot in good faith recommend this volume.

The Body on the Beach By Simon Brett

Rating: WARTY!

This one I picked up from the library on spec. It's book one of "The Fethering Mysteries", Fethering being the quaint English village in which the mysteries are found, but given how tiny the village is, I find it had to believe a whole series can reasonable be conjured from it, and having listened to one disk of this, I decided I certainly had no interest in a series on the topic.

The novel was published in 2000, but it reads like it was written in the fifties. The main character was quite simply unlikeable. Whether she's in the entire series, I don't know, but she's not someone I'm interested in, although to the author's credit, she's an older woman and not some air-headed, cupcake-baking, superficial busy-body which topic seems to have become quite the trend of late. This audiobook was read by Geoffrey Howard, and it was a bit tedious to listen to. If you imagine the perky guy who used to read the old Pathé News films, but having a really tragic day, that's how this one was read.

The story is that this woman is out walking her dog and encounters a dead body on the beach apparently washed up by the tide. She returns to her house (evidently she has no cell phone) and instead of calling the police at once, she washes her dog, then cleans her kitchen, then calls the police, by which time the body has disappeared. Shortly after he skeptical police leave, a strange and possibly drug-abusing woman appears at her door with a gun, threatening her to say nothing more about the body, before fleeing the house when someone else knocks at the door. How this second woman even knew where to find the first is a mystery, but the first disk was as far as I wished to go, so maybe some of that mystery is unveiled later. This was not for me, and I certainly can't recommend it based on what I listened to .

The Spider on the Web by Lee Jordan

Rating: WORTHY!

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001)

I liked the way this was presented (and note the wording of the title - 'on' the web, not 'in' it) - a poetic warning to young children that the world wide web does indeed have spiders of the most monstrous kind - the people who crawl along the threads looking for easy prey.

Predatory behavior towards children on the Internet is a serious problem, and sharing this nicely illustrated and safely scary story takes children though some of the ways these people can get to know children sufficiently to perhaps tempt them to meet irl (in real life)rather than simply in the virtual world. It's told in rhyming lines, grouped with amusing illustrations in bright colors, which describe the tricks that are used and the people who try to safeguard internet users from these people. Even witches aren't safe.

This represents a fun way to approach teaching your child(ren) how to think smartly when using the web, and how to be careful, because people are not always who they say they are. I liked this and I recommend it as a worthy read.

Resources:
Internet Safety
Risk Factors for and Impact of Sexula Solicitaitons Online
Childhood Abuse, Avatar Choices, and Other Risk Factors Associated With Internet-Initiated Victimization of Adolescent Girls

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Rating: WARTY!

This is one of three novels by Agatha Christie that I intend to review this year, the other two being Murder on the Orient Express, and Cat Among the Pigeons. I enjoyed all three of these in the ITV television series starring David Suchet as the consummate Hercule Poirot, but my experience with the novels was not the same. This one I really did not care for. It was boring. Note that I already favorably reviewed Christie's The Unexpected Guest in July of 2013, and Thirteen at Dinner in November of 2014.

The murder doesn't take place until about half way through the story, so the entirety of the first half is prologue. I'm not a fan of prologue! Some of it plays into the story, but most of it seemed to be nothing more than Christie running off at the mouth painting character studies and contributing nothing to the plot at all. It was awful. The same could have been achieved with two or three short chapters.

This saddened me, because this particular audio book was read by David Suchet, and he did an excellent job. I had never heard his real voice until this novel! But the tedium, particularly of the interactions between the girls in the opening chapter, was deadening. I detested each and every one of those women and had no issues with any of them being bumped off!

The story was highly formulaic in quintessential Christie manner. She cannot write a travelogue story without having her stock characters. These consist of several Brits, including a young woman and an old crotchety woman, a couple of Brit guys, and then there are "the foreigners" which always consist of an American, an Italian, and at least one other foreigner, preferably French or German. In addition to this there is the trope Christie ending which improbably gathers all of the characters together at the end so he can lord it over them with his brilliance. This, for me, was the most irritating part of the TV series, and it was so unrealistic as to be ridiculous. Seriously, would all of these people put up with this every episode, including the murderer? Not on your nelly!

Poirot is actually in danger of being charged with impeding a police investigation, too, since he has knowledge which leads to the arrest of the perp, but which he inevitably conceals until the last minute, and the police inexplicably indulge him every time! In this case, there were no police, just Poirot and some high-up in the Brit consulate or something, I forget which from the TV show, and I didn't listen far enough to meet him in the audio book. The essential plot is that a woman introduces her fiancé to a Lady who isn't so much a Lady as a spoiled brat. She steals the man and marries him, and the jilted woman takes to stalking the happy couple including following them on their honeymoon to Egypt. No one thinks to ask how this impoverished woman could afford a vacation to Egypt and a cruise on the Nile. If they had, they might have rooted out the killer earlier.

The new bride is found shot, and witnesses are being bumped off left, right and center before Poirot figures it out. There are the usual Christie red herrings, of course. All in all it's a bit improbable, but not a bad story in the TV version. The written version not so much. I can't recommend it.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Rating: WORTHY!

This is one of three novels by Agatha Christie that I intend to review this year, the other two being Death on the Nile and Cat Among the Pigeons. I enjoyed all three of these in the ITV television series starring David Suchet as the consummate Hercule Poirot, but my experience with the novels was not the same. This one I really liked, though. Note that I already favorably reviewed Christie's The Unexpected Guest in July of 2013, and Thirteen at Dinner in November of 2014.

This one contains many of the tropes Christie routinely employed in her detective stories, including the usual array of foreigners: one Italian, one American, one French or German, and assorted Brits. It includes the young good looking guy, the young good looking girl, and the old crotchety woman. There is also the stock Christie signature ending whereby Poirot gathers all his suspects together at the end and slowly eliminates each until the murderer is identified. This to me is the weakest link, because none of these people would put up with this, and the police certainly would not. Fortunately for Poirot, the audience is already captive aboard the train, and there are no police here, only an official from the railroad. The role of official is usually played by a police officer, but there are other people who act as stand-ins, such as government officials. Here it's the railroad guy who lends Poirot authority as an agent of the railroad.

This story is so old that you very likely know the outline if not the filler, so I'm not going to launch into a detailed review here. The basis is that a truly bad man is traveling on the Orient express with a large assortment of other people. The express is full, which is unusual for the time of year. Poirot has encountered some of the passengers before he gets on the Orient Express, and meets many more aboard. The train hits a snowdrift and is stuck for several days. The night the snowdrift is encountered, the bad guy is bumped off, and Poirot naturally takes it upon himself to solve the crime. He has a harder time of it here than he usually does because of the nature of the death.

The victim was traveling under a false identity. He was stabbed twelve times, but the stab wounds offered no consistency: some were violent and deep, while others were shallow and weak. Some appear to have been delivered left-handed, whereas others were right-handed. There were some 'clues' which appeared to be false, whereas others appeared to be real, and the result of mistakes made by the perps(s).

The passengers are interviewed one by one, and Poirot slowly picks away at their stories until the rather unusual truth is revealed. I liked this story and the characters, and I recommend it.

Kris Longknife: Deserter by Mike Shepherd aka Mike Moscoe

Rating: WORTHY!

This author has a series of (as of this writing) fourteen novels with titles just like these - the main character's name, along with a single dramatic word which usually doesn't apply until late in the novel, and is never as bad as it seems. it's a series which, to read and enjoy, you need to turn off certain analytical parts of your brain, and take a very large grain of salt, and if you're willing to do that, you can enjoy some pretty good mindless entertainment from these.

In volume one Kris didn't become a mutineer until the last three dozen or so pages, and even then it was to prevent an illegal war being fomented by her captain. In this volume, she's on a week's leave, but is trapped on a planet by a quarantine and a communications blackout, so she isn't really deserting. She also gets an entourage and becomes a princess. How that works is a bit of a mystery. I guess the author didn't think an heroic naval lieutenant was quite special enough to write about.

Kristine Anne Longknife is the descendant of aged war heroes who are still alive because about four hundred years from now there will be longevity treatments (which probably explains why humanity has been forced to farm itself out to some six hundred planets, which are, of course, at odds with each other and forming shifting alliances). One of her 'grampas', named Ray, is promoted to king. I have no idea how that's supposed to work or why anyone in this society in this universe would do that, except of course to make Kris a princess and give her even more powers and privileges than she already has, being the trust-funded daughter of massive wealth.

It was in order to get out from under this yoke, so we're told, that she joined the navy, but nowhere did she ever eschew her money or family privilege, so her motives are rather suspect if not downright hypocritical. That said, however, the stories do make for a fast, fun read. I think the author set out to write movies in book form, evidently hoping that Hollywood would take notice, because that's how this series reads, and in this volume he even goes so far as to parody himself by having his characters remark, on more than one occasion, as to what would be happening if this were a movie. Chances are that you're either going to like this or hate it. I tend to pass over the annoying bits (such as the overly smart movie style wise-cracking in which the team indulges itself) without paying much attention, and slide right on by to the more entertaining pieces, which are common enough for me to be able to enjoy these volumes despite issues.

In this particular one, Kris gets a 'body servant' (named Abby) added to her entourage inexplicably by her mother! Please note that none of this seems intended to make any real sense. Prior to this, her only regular companion was her bodyguard, named predictably (and irritatingly) Jack, who is all but perfect. Fortunately, he does very little except pose and talk tough. He's not really there to guard her body, but for Kris to have someone to lust after secretly, and flirt with openly. While I flatly refuse to read any more novels which have name the lead character 'Jack', I do make occasional exceptions when there's a Jack who isn't the main character.

Abby has some sort of a secret agent background which is revealed later in the series, although it's obvious something oddball is going on pretty much as soon as she shows up. Jack doesn't follow Kris on her navy duties, but when she's off duty and at home. In this volume, her best friend Tommy, a weird amalgam of Chinese and Irish, who is actually neither in practice and who seems to be there solely in the role of maiden in distress, disappears and it's evident he's been kidnapped. It's also evident that this is a trap set up to get Kris, so naturally she goes anyway, and gets trapped when the planet is quarantined for Ebola(!) and the entire off-planet communications network breaks down so the planet is also isolated in that regard. The weird thing is that not a single spacecraft shows up to try and find out why this planet suddenly went dead! Despite how important Kris is, not a single person comes after her from her home planet, which is nonsensical.

Kris and her team rescue Tommy and hook up with Tommy's blossoming love interest, Penny. Kris gets to expose her bodily acreage (as she does in every volume) and blow things up, while fighting back against the bad guy and condescending the poor folks who live there. It's not great story-telling by any means, but it is entertaining if you don't take it seriously.