April 1775. Unrest grows in the colonial capital of Williamsburg, VA. Opinions turn ugly when the city’s armory is seized in the middle of the night by the British. Faith prepares to be a bystander as her father-in-law Ezra takes lead in responding to the governor. Events take a personal turn when Ezra collapses and begs her to find who poisoned him. Faith tackles the job, aided by Patriot spy Jeremy Butler, but the suspects are many, from Royal Governor Dunmore to members of Ezra’s own family who hunger for his wealth. Suspicion falls on Eugenia Moore, his opinionated wife, who is hauled off to the gaol after arsenic is found in her room.
Nothing makes sense to either Faith or Jeremy as they struggle to find answers amidst the increasing chaos. Ezra’s death brings family animosities to a boil, unleashing anger and accusations as the number of those afflicted increases. As Jeremy follows leads among Ezra’s rivals and opponents, Faith looks at the family, trying to decide who would benefit from administering a taste of betrayal.
Review by Coffee&Ink
This is the second in a series of three so far. I really enjoyed the first book and reviewed it back in January of this year. Very happy to read the second book of Faith Clarke’s (reluctant) investigations in revolutionary Williamsburg, Virginia.
Trouble seems to seek out Faith’s company everywhere she turns. When her former father-in-law grows deathly ill the doctors call it cholera, but how can that be when no one else in the household, never mind the town, is ill? But one by one, from Ezra’s valet to Faith’s love interest Will, they begin to succumb to this strange malady everyone knows is not cholera. Meanwhile, the politics in town is heating up between the loyalists and the revolutionaries, with spies and soldiers gathering in Williamsburg and in Faith’s tavern.
What I love about this author’s writing is the everydayness of colonial Williamsburg, emphasizing the kitchen and the tavern, Faith’s business. Even this is in jeopardy, as various parties want to use her for their own purposes. Faith gets overwhelmed at times by the actions of others around her, but she digs in her heels, puts her head down, and plows through to find the answers to the questions this spate of deaths has raised.
Highly recommended for lovers of Colonial American historical fiction and historical mystery fiction.
Thank you, BookSirens, for a copy of this book to read and review.
“Behind You Is the Sea fearlessly confronts stereotypes about Palestinian culture, weaving a remarkable portrait of life’s intricate moments, from joyous weddings to heart-wrenching funerals, from shattered hearts to hidden truths—I wept and grew alongside this family. This is a story that challenges perceptions, offering a heartfelt glimpse into the interior lives of those who call this community home. A must read novel with unforgettable characters and an unwavering, fresh voice—I couldn’t put it down until the very last page! Darraj delivers an instant, necessary, and authentic classic to the cannon of Arab-American literature.”—Etaf Rum, author of Evil Eye and A Woman Is No Man
An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion.
Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.
Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his father in an effort to protect his younger sister for “dishonoring” their name. Only a trip to Palestine, where Marcus experiences an unexpected and dramatic transformation, can bridge this seemingly unbridgeable divide between the two generations.
Behind You Is the Sea faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on and, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets.
Review by Coffee&Ink
These inter-related short stories about the Palestinian immigrant experience in Baltimore are fantastic. Completely absorbing writing and characters, and the stories are set in one of my favorite cities. I was on a plane to Baltimore while I was reading 😊.
What I loved about this collection of short stories is manifold. The characters are linked and some reoccur over the course of the collection. They all know each other, or are related, for the most part. The first story is about a pregnant teenager named Amal (Child of Air) who has made the difficult choice to keep her child, but is unsure if she wants the father in her life. Her brother Marcus is in the next story. He’s a cop trying to balance an overburdened life caring for the family and the community. Mr. Ammar is an older man who disapproves of everything, starting with his son’s wedding, a story that ends on a far gentler note than it began. The story titled The Hashtag is devastating and introduces the family advocate Samira, who has her own story later. The violence in this story spreads a long way in the collection, linking to the last story. Although there is much pride in culture and where the families came from and in protecting their culture—there’s a lot of food and parties and the deaths of parents where rituals and last wishes must be granted—there is a terrible misogyny lurking here.
There is a lot to discover in this literary collection. I have a hard time picking a favorite. The writing is excellent, the storytelling supreme. I highly recommend this #ownvoices multicultural collection.
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review.
The darkest days of Paris, 1790s. Riots ignite the street, classes struggle for power, and death rests at the foot of the guillotine. For Ani, the French Revolution is a catalyst for bringing down the corrupt aristocracy and avenging her fallen family, until she unwittingly befriends a high-ranking military nobleman who exposes the dark conspiracies of her own father’ s past. Suspenseful twists, action-packed battles, narrow escapes, and daring feats of espionage find Ani walking a thin line between both sides of an epic clash brought to life in rich, gritty detail and sensory terror. When Ani becomes a pawn of rival political factions in this hostile, rapidly changing environment where naming suspects and pointing fingers is the only way to survive, eventually someone must get betrayed— either those she’ s always trusted or those who have newly shown that trust itself might be a lie.
Review by Coffee&Ink
This is the second novel from the incredible historical fiction author Leah Angstman. I don’t know how she found her way through the labyrinthine politics of the French Revolution and the Terror and made them understandable—extremely impressive and enviable.
Ani and her friends, her family, are victims of the excesses of local French nobility, forced to work in a coal mine as children for no wages. She watched her father lose his head to the guillotine, and her mother died in prison. Ani becomes a spy and swears revenge on the duke who is responsible for her mother’s death. She meets Aubrey in an attempt to breach the duke’s palace because she ends up in the wrong place. While her spying and keeping her friends alive amid the growing violence in Paris intensifies, so do her feelings for Aubrey.
I absolutely could not put this book down—I had to know what was going to happen next. The writing is vivid and realistic, and immerses the reader totally into this complicated and brutal world. Ani is a heroine to root for, multifaceted and determined, and Aubrey, doomed to do his duty, makes a good match.
Highly recommended for readers who love detailed, gritty historical fiction. I loved it!!
Ten stars.
Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review.
BIOGRAPHY:
Before I’d even entered elementary school, I was already planning on being a cop, an astronaut, a cowboy, a French general, a fighter-jet pilot, an acid-rain tester, the president, Bruce Springsteen’s roadie, Bruce Springsteen’s wife, and Billy Idol’s mistress. Much to the distress of my parents, however, the artsy side came through early on, and by my pre-teens, I was sneaking Dad’s war biographies to read in the fort I’d built in my bedroom closet, singing every word to Les Misérables, painting portraits with acrylics, and creating cut-n-paste zines that traveled all around the world. At 13, I started a publishing company for political zines and poetry chapbooks, but by high school, I’d decided to be a Broadway star and went to Lansing College for Musical Theater. It was the Colonial History minor, however, that would eventually plant roots on my feet.
Raised on an 1800s mid-Michigan farmstead and in the backwoods of a Great Depression-era log cabin in the middle of a northern-Michigan national forest, I was surrounded by French-American history and enamored of local lore, covering everything from Paul Bunyan to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to the hero-worship of Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie. As I pinballed across the country, from Detroit to Seattle to Boston to Palo Alto, I dressed up in Colonial outfits, participated in Civil War reenactments, and gave underground ghost tours, Victorian brothel tours, and guided tours of the Freedom Trail. I’d walk to Paul Revere’s house, just to sit on the bench in front of it. I’d go to the Old State House for free-admission Sundays, just to look at John Hancock’s velvet coat and the looseleaf tea captured from the bootcuffs of Boston Tea Party participants, and I’d gaze out the balcony over the site of the Boston Massacre and imagine—no, rewrite—this country before it was a country. My motto became not “write what you know,” but “write what you want to know,” then dig, dig, and find it.
In the history realm, I am an appointed government advisory Vice Chair of a Colorado historical commission, an appointed liaison to a Colorado historic preservation commission, and a member of the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, Ohio History Connection, and Louisville (Colorado) History Foundation. I volunteer regularly at my local history museum, digitize old Colorado online newspaper archives, edit Wikipedia for fun, and am a Founding Quartermaster member of the American Battlefield Trust. I write an ongoing history travelogue about my research and site visitations, Travelurgy, and I’m the founding editor of the annual Footnote: A Literary Journal of History.
In the writing realm, I am the recent winner of the Loudoun Library Foundation Poetry Award and Nantucket Directory Poetry Award, and am a two-time Top 10 Finalist for the Saluda River Prize for Poetry, judged once by South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Heath Wentworth and once by poet Ray McManus. My writing has been a recent placed finalist in the Cowles Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press, Able Muse Book Award judged by author Charles Martin, Bevel Summers Prize for Short Fiction from Washington & Lee University, Pen 2 Paper Writing Competition in both poetry and fiction categories, Blue Bonnet Review Poetry Contest, Baltimore Science Fiction Society Poetry Contest, and West Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition. I have earned four Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. I serve as editor-in-chief for that same ongoing press that I started when I was 13—Alternating Current—and The Coil online magazine; a fiction and nonfiction reviewer for Publishers Weekly; and a contributing editor, culture writer, and proofreader for Pacific Standard magazine. My work has appeared in numerous journals, including Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, Electric Literature, Midwestern Gothic, The Nashville Review, Slice Magazine, Pacific Standard, The Maine Review, and Shenandoah.
In the personal realm, I now live in an old mining settlement outside of Boulder with my delightful guitar-playing, physics-professor husband who tells bad science jokes and screams Bash Brothers lyrics at the top of his lungs. I can sing you every Broadway song ever written, I’m still Bruce Springsteen’s roadie in my heart, and there are two furry children who occupy my intern chairs: Alice, a fat orange tabby cat, and my German Shepherd, Napoleon, the emperor of everything. I’m an obsessive francophile, a reciter of unnecessary facts, and I have an uncanny memory for remembering how historical people died: Thomas Jefferson from an infected carbuncle on his buttcheek, Simon the Zealot cut in half lengthwise, lawyer Clement Vallanndigham shooting himself dead in court while demonstrating how the victim of his client might have accidentally shot himself, Allan Pinkerton biting his own tongue to death, Napoleon Bonaparte’s severed parts ending up in a suitcase under a guy’s bed in New Jersey, and so on. I know, I know: shop talk. This is why I’m so fun at parties, folks.
As a collector of equally unnecessary things, my office is divided between collections of Canadian Mounties (largely from the 1930s Hollywood Hero era), antiques and 1800s cigar cards of the Marquis de Lafayette, magnets from every battlefield I’ve visited, hideous Wade figurines from boxes of Red Rose Tea, historical whiskey decanters, and hundreds of pressed pennies from every souvenir penny roller I’ve ever encountered in life.
My debut historical novel, set against the backdrop of the 1689 King William’s War in New England, Out Front the Following Sea, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in spring 2022. It’s 11 years in the making and has been fueled by so many cups of coffee and shots of bourbon that I’ve long since lost count. You can find me elsewhere at leahangstman.com and on social media as @leahangstman.
From the critically acclaimed author of Black Widows comes a thriller set in a remote rehab clinic on the Pacific Northwest coast, in which the death of a woman inside prompts her sister to enter the clinic as a patient in order to find the truth. Perfect for fans of Stacy Willingham and Tarryn Fisher!
Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control.
There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can’t believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself – to investigate what really happened from the inside.
Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family – and anyone who could help her.
Review by Coffee&Ink
A hard-driving contemporary thriller set in an isolated rehab center catering to the rich, famous, and notorious.
Haley Banks, famous country singer, is found dead in rehab. Her sister Meg uses her undercover cop skills to enter the clinic and find out the truth about her sister’s death. But Meg has a lot of secrets and pain too, and her oxycontin addiction no longer serves to hide her own truth from herself. Finding her sister’s killer is wrapped around finding the truth about their childhood, as the staff at the rehab center work to get to the roots of her addiction issues. The plot winds and twists like a labyrinth with a surprising ending. This is a hard to put down novel as Meg delves deeper and deeper into The Clinic’s secrets. There were a few times I felt some of the story a little unbelievable, but I might be tender about addiction due to a family member. It’s also a bit of an isolated manor story, as deep fog keeps outsiders from coming to The Clinic for a time, one of my favorite mystery tropes. Recommended for lovers of contemporary mystery and suspense.
Cotton Barnes, a Raleigh, NC, therapist, leveled by a client’s recent suicide, is struggling to resume her practice when she begins working with the Prescotts, a family fractured when the father comes out as transgender and begins transitioning. They relate their stories in their chosen voices, each family member’s narrative in a different format. Journals, social media, and other nontraditional narratives challenge Dr. Barnes’ therapeutic skills. While each member of the Prescotts dodge land mines behind the closed doors of her therapy office, the Raleigh, North Carolina area is rocked by a series of LGBTQ+ hate crimes. As Cotton finds herself stalking the family, worried that she might not be able to “save them,” her husband slips away, and Cotton is forced to make a decision that will determine whether she saves her own marriage or the Prescotts.
Review by Coffee&Ink
A therapist returns from a work hiatus after losing a patient to suicide and takes on the challenge of a family when the father reveals she is a woman. The therapist is determined not to lose any of them, as they are all in crisis, but it becomes clear who is truly at risk. Well-written, detailed, and suspenseful, frustrating at times as some of the dilemmas are out of control and appear to have no viable resolution for the characters except to work through it. I picked this novel to review with the memory of reading Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian quite a few years ago. With the Prescott’s we are the outsider looking in at this family slowly imploding. Well-written and hard to put down, I highly recommend this book to readers of contemporary psychological fiction.
My thanks to Nicole Pyles at Women On Writing for a copy of this book to read and review.
About the Author
Dawn Reno Langley writes extensively for newspapers and magazines, has published more than 30 books (nonfiction, children’s books, and novels such as The Mourning Parade (Amberjack, 2017)), dozens of award-winning short stories, essays, and poems in journals such as Missouri Review, Hunger Mountain and Superstition Review, as well as hundreds of articles, theater reviews, and blogs. A Fulbright scholar and TedX speaker with an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies (concentrations in gender studies and creativity) from The Union Institute and University, she lives on the North Carolina coast. She offers writing retreats for other women and teaches for Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA program. Her latest book, You Are Divine: A Search for the Goddess in All of Us (Llewellyn) was released nationally and internationally in January 2022.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a respite in the French countryside, are instead caught up in a case that turns both bewildering and intensely personal.
“Deftly interlacing present and past, King offers further fascinating insights into Holmes’s family while also delivering an intriguing mystery.”—The Washington Post
After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes’ son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat.
Holmes rushes after Damian while Russell, slowed down by a recent injury, stays behind to search the empty house. In Damian’s studio, she discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to Holmes’ granduncle, the artist Horace Vernet. It’s an odd mix of treasures and clutter, including a tarnished silver lamp with a rotating shade: an antique yet sophisticated form of zoetrope, fitted with strips of paper whose images dance with the lantern’s spin.
In the same crate is an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph, slowly realizing that each entry is built around an image—the first of which is a child, bundled into a carriage by an abductor, watching her mother recede from view.
Russell is troubled, then entranced, but each entry she decodes brings more questions. Who is the young Indian woman who created this elaborate puzzle? What does she have to do with Damian, or the Vernets—or the threat hovering over the house?
The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. And it seems increasingly urgent that Russell figure out how the journal and lantern are related to Damian—and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself.
Could there be things about his own history that even the master detective does not perceive?
Review by Coffee&Ink
Another winner by one of my top ten favorite authors and characters.
A visit to Sherlock Holmes’ newfound son and his family in the south of France finds Mary stuck in the house with a sprained ankle but not without a mystery to solve. Sherlock makes the family leave when they report a break in a few nights before the Holmes’ arrival, fearing the little family is in danger. The narrative splits into two points of view, with Mary delving into the past to help Sherlock untangle the mystery in the present.
All the elements I love in the author’s writing are here—atmospheric with quirky side characters and caretakers, interesting settings, and the inner workings of two of the greatest detectives of all time as they work to solve the mystery behind the mystery. Stunning and absorbing depth of detail and history.
Highly recommended historical mystery.
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review.
Have you “played” with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI’s impact on creative writing?
I won’t be having anything to do with AI. Writing Synopses are no harder than writing anything else. I feel sorry for teachers who deal with student writing done by AI—they finally found a way to fight plagiarism with online programs to run student papers through, and now this. It’s hard to imagine a world where AI takes over, but the people who use AI to write will probably group together to support AI writing and reading, and it will become bigger than we need it to be. Then perhaps it will die out because I believe this is a small group of readers and writers. It’s annoying to come across content created by AI just like it’s annoying to come across plagiarized material. Keep it in the business sector if you must, but it won’t last long in the art sector. I don’t believe it’s the death knell of creative human literary endeavor by any means.
“NO MATTER HOW CHAOTIC IT IS, WILDFLOWERS WILL STILL SPRING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.”
– SHERYL CROW
What was it like for a poor young Black woman growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s? What was it like for her to attend college in the Midwest and then travel to New York City for graduate school?
In this memoir, Margaret Edwards takes us on her journey. We meet her friends. We enter the world of a young naïve Black woman. And we experience the problems she encounters.
We see her grow and become a teacher and a talented musician. We see her yearn to perform for large audiences as a singer. actress and dancer.
Wildflowers is a continuation of the author’s first book, Slue Foot, a FAPA President’s Award Gold Medal Winner. In both books, Margaret will inspire you with her inner strength, determination, and innate talent.
Review by Coffee&Ink
I don’t usually read memoirs, but this one had a compelling title and theme: A Black woman’s journey takes root.
The strong writing pulled me right along into Margaret’s world from her undergraduate days until she gets on the plane without us to her next adventure. A midwestern girl from a small town, Margaret acute observations of the “city” students around her show her how to act, what’s expected of her, what not to do. She’s searching for her path, for herself, and I would say this is also a coming-of-age story. Course work and jobs appear to come easily to her, but finding a loving relationship amongst the maelstrom of academic life proves the hardest brass ring to catch. Margaret is intelligent, resilient, and energetic, and most of the time had me smiling through her adventures.
I highly recommend this inspiring #ownvoices memoir.
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review.
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