The Doll by Taylor Stevens (Book 3 in the Vanessa Michael Monroe series)

I spend quite a bit of time on the Amazon Kindle forums helping people out with their issues and often that means looking at a book’s product page to see if there are compatibility issues, page numbers, etc. Nine times out of ten, I end up looking at really random books that I would never read and make me laugh. (Sometimes the titles give way more info than the poor Kindle user wants to, I’m sure)  Early last year, someone had a problem with borrowing the second book  book in this series, The Innocent, from the library. The synopsis grabbed me, so I grabbed the first book and never looked back.

Vanessa Michael Monroe, AKA Michael, is damaged and yet her strength and ability to carve a life out of her unique skills makes her a really strong female protagonist. She’s multi-lingual, an intimidating fighter and never fails to get the job done, no matter what the obstacle. She is the person you call when all normal channels are useless. She finds the information or the person gone missing in conditions that are unimaginable to us mere mortals. Yet, her past haunts her so much that you can see her fragility and desire for normal things that most of us take for granted. The juxtaposition is what draws me to the books again and again.

The Doll made my skin crawl a bit. The bad guy isn’t your everyday flesh peddler, he makes his captives to order…into living dolls which seemed so much more grotesque in my mind than a normal kidnapping. The Doll Maker may have bitten off more than he could chew when his henchmen grabbed Michael.

Even faster paced than the first two in the series, The Doll kept me at the edge of my seat with the twists and turns. It was one of those “Just let me finish this chapter and I’ll go do the dishes” books. Problem was…I couldn’t hold myself to just one more chapter.

Taylor Stevens herself has one of the most interesting backstory, check it out at Taylor Stevens Books.

The Doll by Taylor Stevens

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Crown; First Edition edition (June 4, 2013)
• ISBN-10: 0307888789
• ISBN-13: 978-0307888785

This book was given to me by the great folks at Read it Forward.

• Feeling a bit Gothic?
• Does fantastic artwork make you swoon?
• Does Mythology get you out of bed in the morning?
• Do you find yourself wondering what makes the fascinating creatures of your nightmares move?
• Does a tale of genius gone bonkers keep you warm on a cold night?

If you answered Yes to any of the above questions, get yourself a copy of The Resurrectionist.

I am a fan of beautiful books. When I say beautiful, I don’t mean just the covers; I mean wonderful packages of words and creativity that make you see and think about those old dusty tomes in a new way. They can spark wonder, conversation, awe, and yes, even horror. This is one beautiful book for those with a slightly dark bent.

Dr. Spencer Black, rising from his resurrectionist (AKA Body Snatcher) father, showed an amazing amount of potential. In an age where deformities were fodder for traveling side shows, he wanted to go deeper to find their cause and possibly “cure” them. His studies led him to a dark conclusion however. What if what we call deformities were not something gone wrong, but more a sign of what we used to be, should me, and (shudder) were meant to be?

The first 65 pages tell the story of Dr. Spencer Black and his descent into either madness or genius, you’ll have to decide on your own. The rest of the 191 pages is his opus, thought lost, The Codex Extinct Animalia.    Billed as a Study of the Lesser Known Species of the Animal Kingdom, the sort-of Gray’s anatomy look at the creatures of legend and often, our nightmares and superstitions. Here you will find the muscular structure of the Minotaur, the bone structure of Ganesha, and just how the Cereberus was able to support it’s three heads.

E.B. Hudspeth’s talent lay in these masterpieces.  Drawing the fearsome mythological creatures is a talent, but being able to look beneath the skin and create their inner structures is, well, a sphinx of another color. They are gorgeous.

The tale of Dr. Spencer Black is dark, very dark and may be hard to read for dog lovers, consider that a big warning, but the sheer wonder of Hudspeth’s plates has earned The Resurrectionist a place on my coffee table for it’s ability to spark conversation, horror, and even reverence at the artist’s skill.

The Resurrectionst:The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E.B. Hudspeth

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books (May 21, 2013)
• ISBN-10: 1594746168
• ISBN-13: 978-1594746161

Note: This is also available as an ebook, but for the best results, it really needs to be seen in hardcover.

2nd Note: I thank Quirk Books for my copy and for continuing to challenge our idea of what a “book” really is.

This is the second book in the wonderfully fun trilogy so be sure to check out my review for A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor.

Time travel is messy when you really start to ponder it. You can’t change the past so much that you end up not being born because then you wouldn’t be there to travel back and make that change. Then there is the scary possibility that you change something bad and end up creating a whole new (and bigger) problem.

Time travel is also incredibly hard to write. The author has to explain those possible paradoxes and pitfalls without confusing the reader and getting so muddled that the prose ends up like a dog chasing his tail.

Big Note Here: You really must read the first book, The Visitor, before reading this one or you will be dazed and confused. Some books in a series stand alone, not this alternate history/sci-fi baby.

The Translator- When we last left, our somewhat fearless time traveler, Edwin Blair, had managed to bring Lee and Lincoln together to capture the Pests instead of fighting the battle at Gettysburg that we all know. Problem is Blair doesn’t know what to do from here.  He knows that some of the nasty Pests have to be left alive, but how? And just how are he and Lincoln supposed to calm the outrage, fear, and newly invigorated rebellion of the South? Blair is also dealing with a fading memory because of all of the changes he has caused and the headaches are nightmares.

Pielke does a great job of steering both his characters and the reader through the perils of time travel and once again leaves me dying to read the next book.

If you love the Civil War, enjoy alternate history, and are open to a quirky dash of time travel, The New Birth of Freedom is definitely  worth checking out.

A New Birth of Freedom: The Translator by Robert G. Pielke

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press (2012)
• ISBN-10: 1611605423
• ISBN-13: 978-1611605426

I was thrilled to get this book by being part of the Tribute Books Tour.

Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading Midnight in Peking by Paul French. It was non-fiction and great, but what really stuck with me was the whole cosmopolitan-ness of Peking and other cities in China in the 30’s.  There was this intriguing sometimes blend and other times, complete separateness of Chinese and European culture. It left me wanting to explore more.

Enter TLC Book Tours and Skeleton Women. Here is a bit of the blub that made me say YES!

Once upon a time in China, the most beautiful and gifted women were known as “skeleton women”—the ultimate femme fatales who could bring a man to his knees, or to his doom…
When Camilla, a young orphan girl in Shanghai, is adopted and brought to live in luxury, it seems like a stroke of luck. But as Camilla grows to womanhood, she realizes that her “rescue” was part of gang leader Big Brother Wang’s scheme. Camilla is trained in singing, dancing, knife-throwing and contortion—all to attract the attention of Wang’s enemy, the ruthless Master Lung.

Skeleton Women is a fictional look at that darker side of China in the 1930’s that filled my head with wonder in Midnight in Peking, that separate side and it was a compelling  introduction to the author, Mingmei Yip.

China, in general, baffles me and I have always struggled with reading any fiction set there, even the so-called greats like The Good Earth. The problem isn’t the historical setting in time, so much as my inability to understand the culture and therefore what makes the characters tick.

Skeleton Women’s main character, Camilla, is different though. While still steeped in the period and traditions on China, Yip has written about her in a way that highlights the struggles from a viewpoint that we all share, the slant of what I guess I would call the fundamental questions being human.  What am I here for? Do I have to do what the people that raised me told me to do? What do I owe them? And perhaps most importantly, am I “good enough” to deserve another’s love?

Camilla feels trapped in her situation, She was saved from the orphanage, groomed not to have everyday emotions, and trained to become a spy that would catch a rival gangs leader’s  eye in the hope of finding his stash and killing him. Not only does she have to deal with other skeleton women trying to do, what she assumes, the same thing, but she must deal with emotions that she was taught not to feel and desiring things that she never thought to want.

While I am sure that most of us can’t relate to being raised as a sexy spy bent on destroying a rival gang leader, we can relate to grappling new emotions and having qualms about  choosing our own path as opposed to what others want us to do.

I really enjoyed this book on many levels, obviously. While I can’t speak to it’s historical accuracy, I can say that it sucked me into caring about something and someone that I would have bet you I couldn’t before. Yip’s writing was the perfect follow-up to Midnight in Peking and where other books that I have read set in China make me see nothing but how different we are, highlighted how alike we all are and just have different ways of finding our answers to those fundamental questions.

Skeleton Women by MingMei Yip

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (May 29, 2012)
• ISBN-10: 0758273533
• ISBN-13: 978-0758273536

Author’s Website: http://www.mingmeiyip.com/

Thanks goes to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

Last year, I really enjoyed Pötzsch’s first book in this series, The Hangman’s Daughter. The setting was interesting, Germany in 1660. The characters were different; how many Hangmen have you ever read about? The mystery of the missing children, while a teeny tiny bit formulaic, was full of twists and turns. The whole package left me eager to read the upcoming sequel.

Enter The Dark Monk.

The hangman, Jakob Kuisl, takes a backseat for a majority of this book and lets his daughter, Magdalena and the town doctor Simon take most of the limelight and risk. A priest is found dead;  Simon and Kuisl don’t think that it was natural causes and then they stumble into an ancient crypt under the church. Simon soon thinks he is hot on the trail of the lost treasure of the Templars, Magdalena gets a marriage proposal from a big city hangman before she gets kidnapped, and Jakob has his hands full with Johann Lechner, the town clerk, and a whole mess of bandits.

I don’t think that I would be giving away too much if I mentioned that there is one seriously bad and messed up monk involved. Also, the dead priest has a beautiful wealthy sister that is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and manages to make Magdalena jealous.

Much like the first book, the time period and characters were interesting, however, the plot was reminiscent of the puzzling quests of Dan Brown. I liked it, but (Yes there is the big BUT) it read really, really slow for me. This baby is 512 pages long and I felt each and every page. It took a good long time to even get the story moving and then the characters seemed a wee bit slow on the uptake.

Did The Dark Monk suffer from the Sophomore curse? I think it did, but it was still nice to see the characters develop and I already have the next book in the series, The Beggar King, on my wishlist. (slated for January 2013)

 The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (June 12, 2012)
• ISBN-10: 0547807686
• ISBN-13: 978-0547807683

Back for round two in reviewing short books, stories, and even kid’s reads on the weekends.

You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins

Goins is a pretty good cheerleader in this. The 77 page book is less about writing and more about changing your mindset.

Common sense, yet something that we all need to be reminded of often. The section on building your ‘brand’ was really well done and, thankfully, wasn’t just a series of “you must do’s”.

Writing is all about making a connection and Goins gets that.

Swim by Jennifer Weiner

Confession time. This was the first Weiner book for me.

Double secret confession time.  Nothing in this made me want to run out and read the rest of her work.

This is a prequel of sorts for The Next Best Thing and the version that I read had a the first few chapters of that one included.

Maybe I am too used to action or nonfiction; but I was so meh that I didn’t even read the sampler chapters.

Since getting a Kindle, I have gotten in the habit of reading short stories, novellas, and a fair amount of books for kids to sort of cleanse my palate in between larger books. Most of them are pretty good, but I can’t see writing a full post review of a short story.

So, here is the idea. I will do mini reviews on Saturday of the Shorts. Will I keep it up? History says no, but have to start somewhere.

For Kids-

Gnit-Wit Gnipper and the Perilous Plague by T.J. Lantz

The little Gnome, Gnipper Tallhat, just can’t seem to catch a break. Every experiment she tries ends up in a disaster and all she really just wants to show people how smart she can be.

Cute story. Great moral. Short read at 42 pages.

For Non-Fiction and Erik Larson Lovers-

Psychopath by Katherine Ramsland

Was H. H. Holmes a psychopath? At the time of his dirty deeds, science was still looking for malformations in the brain to find the root of psychopathology. Holmes foiled the plot to let his brain be examined after his execution. Luckily, we don’t need to look at the brain to answer that question anymore.

69 pages. Interesting for armchair Psychologists. Nice way to kill time while waiting for the Devil in the White City to be released.

(If you have a Kindle or Kindle app and would like to borrow either of these, shoot me an note or comment. They are both lendable)

Keeping it short and sweet today while trying this out.

The Only Living Man With A Hole in His Head by Todd Pliss

Phineas Gage changed the world in 1848. Unfortunately, it did take the world a while to notice. Don’t know who Phineas Gage was? You may remember him from that Psychology course you took way back when. While  blasting rock for the railroad in September of ‘48, he blew a tamping iron clean through his head, destroying most of his frontal lobe. Now workplace accidents happen, but what was amazing about this one is that Phineas survived. He lost an eye and he wasn’t quite the same man anymore, everyone said so. Still, he was alive, walking around with part of his brain gone.

His doctor, Dr. John Martyn Harlow, spent years trying to get the medical establishment to even believe that Gage had been injured as badly as he was. He spent years trying to get everyone to understand just how little we actually knew about the brain and its functions. Gage’s accident changed his life as well.  This book is just as much his story, maybe even more so than it is Gage’s.

Todd Pliss has made both men’s jump out of the pages in his book. Reading about Gage in textbooks, you were never able to get a bead on the man. Sure, they give you the basics, but by taking the facts and wrapping it up with some nice historical fiction wrapping, both men become human. So deftly done, there were times that I totally lost myself and needed a reminder that the book was indeed historical fiction.

As part of the tour, I asked Todd Pliss a question or two.

1. What was it, besides the obvious, that drew you to Phineas Gage?

I have always been a history buff and possess my teaching credentials in the social
sciences. My mom sent me a newspaper – printed up like an old-time paper from
the 19th Century, with stories included from that time. One of the stories was about
Phineas Gage and the doctor who had treated him, Dr. John Harlow, who had
been ridiculed by his colleagues for his published findings on the case. Like most
people, I was vaguely aware of the case, having learned about it in science class,
but didn’t really know the whole story and the aftermath of the accident. The more
I researched it, the more I was convinced it would make a gripping “based-on-a-
true-story” novel.

2. So much of a historical event isn’t just about the event itself,
but how it changes the outcomes of the participant’s lives. I think
that is what I appreciated about your book, that it was also about Dr.
Harlow and how Phineas changed him. Was highlighting his dealings with
Phineas and how his life turned out in your original plan/outline or did
it grow organically?

Going into detail about Dr. Harlow’s experiences and how having Phineas as a
patient changed him was always part of the plan and what originally helped draw
me to the project. The story was not only about Phineas, who died in 1860, but
how in the aftermath of Phineas’s death, John Harlow was able to find redemption.

There are so many times that we learn the basics of a story, but don’t get to know the people involved. The Only Living Man With A Hole in His Head brings you out of the text book and allows you a pretty good look directly into Gage’s good eye. (couldn’t resist the pun)

Somewhat OT, but this book reminded me of The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin . Both books bring the human factor into their subjects so strongly that you run to see if there are any other books about them.

The Only Living Man With A Hole in His Head by Todd Pliss

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: S.B. Addison Books (February 21, 2012)
• ISBN-13: 978-0983868170

Don’t know if you have heard the rumor that the Mayans are spreading around. You know, that the world is coming to an end and all that hogwash?

Seriously, who believes the Mayans? And while we are talking about the Mayans, have you ever played basketball with them? Talk about talking the game seriously.  That Mesoamerican Ball will teach you the real meaning of sacrifice.

When it comes to predicting the future, you need to go to more modern technology. No, not the talking toddler in the E*Trade commercials, I mean tarot cards. If you can’t trust the cards, you might want to just go ahead and throw in the towel with the Mayans.

Tarot cards have been around since the mid-fifteenth century, but they have never looked this good. Whoever came up with the idea of mixing fortune telling with the undead was a seriously confused individual, also a very talented one.

The cards are beautiful and completely creepy at the same time. The colors are softened like vintage ephemera and made from sturdy card stock that can standup to any brain spill you throw at it.

If the Tarot is new to you, don’t fret. Included is a wonderful tiny manual with all of the directions. In no time at all you’ll be predicting who Susie is going to lose her brain, I mean heart,  and just when you and that star-crossed Zombie are going to meet.

okay putting semi-serious hat on now.

I have ZERO experience with tarot cards, but I do love great vintage inspired graphics and some of my best friends are zombies.  (that last part may not be true) I whipped these puppies out and well, let’s just say that either I need glasses or the future looks murky.

No matter, these are going to be great additions to the next party and if you’re not careful there will be brains on the menu.

The Zombie Tarot An Oracle of the Undead—with Deck and Instructions

by Paul Kepple and Stacey Graham

• Cards: 96 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books; Crds/Bklt edition (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594745692
• ISBN-13: 978-1594745690

Big thanks to Quirk Books for letting me take control of my future. 

Three men collide in the Yukon.
*A cowboy, still grieving the loss of his wife, searching for new frontiers now that the west has been won joins the Pinkerton Agency.
*An orphaned Navy deserter, hoping to do what his father couldn’t do, becomes an Indian in the process.
*The King of Con Men, looking for a town big enough for it to be worth his while, fleeces everyone and anyone on his way there.

There is a story in my family that no one still living has really ever bothered to investigate. Supposedly, my great-great-grandmother, a widow, drug my very young great-grandmother up to the Klondike to run a laundry during the gold rush. Part of me thinks, That’s so cool and the other part of me wonders…. did any women go to a gold rush town and remain, um, just a laundress? You tell me, if you heard this story about one of your grandmothers, would you want to do the research and possibly air some dirty laundry?

Never the less, I have always been curious about what it was like to be searching for gold in such a forbidding place, so I snatched this one up. I didn’t find any family members. What I did find was a compelling story of three vastly different men and how their vastly different lives intersected in Alaska.

Told in a narrative style, The Floor of Heaven kept me turning pages and staying up until the wee hours. The Klondike was filled with hopes, dreams, heartbreak, horrible winters, and unique characters.

Here’s part of the blurb that hooked me….

In a true-life tale that rivets from the first page, we meet Charlie Siringo, a top-hand sharp-shooting cowboy who, after futilely trying to settle down with his new bride, becomes one of the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s shrewdest; George Carmack, a California-born American Marine who’s adopted by an Indian tribe, raises a family with a Taglish squaw, makes the discovery that starts off the Yukon Gold Rush – and becomes fabulously rich; and Soapy Smith, a sly and inventive predator-conman who rules a vast criminal empire.

As we follow this trio’s lives, we’re led inexorably into a perplexing mystery. A fortune in gold bars has somehow been stolen from the fortress-like Treadwell Mine in Juneau, Alaska, with no clues as to how the thieves made off with such an immensely heavy cargo.  To many it appears that the crime will never be solved.  But the Pinkerton Agency has a reputation for finding the answers that elude others.  Charged with getting the job done is Charlie Siringo who discovers that, to run the thieves to ground, he must embark on a rugged cross-territory odyssey that will lead him across frigid waters and through a frozen wilderness.  Ultimately, he’ll have his quarry in his sights. But then an additional challenge will present itself.  He must face down Soapy Smith and his gang of 300 cutthroats.  Hanging in the balance: George Carmack’s fortune in gold.

If you are a fan of narrative non-fiction and want to learn a bit more about the Yukon Gold Rush, this just might be your book. The tension that Blum builds reminded me watching a train wreck; you know it’s coming, but you can’t take your eyes off of the spectacle. I promise, you won’t find any dirty laundry in this one.

The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (March 27, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307461734
• ISBN-13: 978-0307461735