A Woman of Influence by Rebecca Ann Collins

A Woman of Influence by Rebecca Ann Collins Trade Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark First Released: 2010

Source: Advanced Readers Copy from the publisher.

Back Cover Description:
After supporting her husband's many causes but failing in his eyes when their daughter died, Becky Tate's husband moved to America and left her behind in England. Now that he's dead, Becky must find her own identity and, perhaps, the married love she's never had.

When an old love interest sends Becky his condolences, she invites him to renew their acquaintance, but she's not sure she actually loves him. Then she discovers a woman on the run who is living in one of her unused barns. The woman claims that her husband was falsely accused and that the police would hand her over to the man who did this to them. Becky decides to discover the truth and, along the way, she meets man who can help the woman and whom Becky admires. Can she help the woman find justice and be reunited with her husband? And will she ever trust her judgment of men when her first marriage turned out to be so unsatisfying?


Review:
A Woman of Influence is a historical mystery that turns into a romance. The mystery wasn't a who-done-it, but it did have a nice level of suspense to it since Becky had to discover the truth without alerting the "in charge" people (who knew the truth) to the whereabouts of the woman she's helping. The romance was a sweet romance, with only the couple's own doubts holding them apart.

The novel was set in England in 1868, and it's the ninth book in this Pride and Prejudice sequel series. You can easily follow what's going on and who was related to whom without having read the previous books. (There's also a character list in the back listing who the characters are.)

The original Pride and Prejudice characters played very, very little part in this novel; it was primarily about their adult children. Because of this, I'd call this a historical novel rather than a Pride and Prejudice "sequel." The author even had her characters refer to Austen and her novels.

The novel was in a writing style very similar to Austen's in word choice and phrasing. It also had the slightly slower pacing of those novels. The characters were interesting, and I cared about what happened to them. The world-building was excellent, with a focus on describing the locations and social conventions of the day. This brought the world alive in my imagination.

There was a very minor amount of swearing. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this novel as enjoyable, clean reading.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt from the Prologue
Becky Collins was back at Hunsford, not at the parsonage, where she had spent much of her childhood, endeavouring to fulfill the expectations of her zealous father, Reverend Collins, and avoid the censure of his indomitable patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but at Edgewater—the property in the county of Kent, where she now lived.

She was, of course, no longer Miss Collins; having been married before she was twenty years of age to Mr Anthony Tate, a publisher of some power and influence in the community, she had been considered to be a woman of some rank and substance.

Thanks to the generosity of her husband, who, having separated from his wife, had elected to live out the rest of his days in America, where he had recently died, she was now a reasonably wealthy woman. Having sold their house in London, Becky had acquired Edgewater, an investment that had the universal approval of most if not all of her friends and relations.

Standing at the window of what was to be her private study and work room, Becky looked out across the grounds of her new home and smiled as her eyes took in the lovely aspect across the lake from which the property took its name. There was a singular sense of satisfaction in knowing that everything in this place would be as she had planned it; she no longer took directions from nor waited upon the approval of anyone. Neither was she obliged to submit her accounts to her husband’s clerk for payment.

Becky Tate was at last her own woman and she enjoyed that above anything. For the very first time in her life, Becky had chosen where she was going to spend her time, just as she was now free to decide how that time was to be spent. It was for her an especially thrilling sensation, the likes of which she had not known in many years. Looking at the work she had begun at Edgewater, she could not resist a frisson of excitement as she contemplated the future that lay before her, a future to be determined entirely by her own wishes and limited only by her resources.

Becky was glad to have left Derbyshire. Her son Walter and his family now occupied the Tate residence at Matlock. She had been at Edgewater throughout the Winter, save for a visit to Pemberley at Christmas.

It was February and Winter had not as yet released its hold upon the countryside, though here in Kent it was decidedly warmer than it had been in Derbyshire. While many trees were still bare, but for the merest hint of tender green buds upon their boughs, the ground beneath them was broken by impatient clumps of bulbs pushing up out of the soil—snowdrops and crocuses, amidst drifts of scilla and bright wood anemones that covered the ground under the poplars in the spinney.

Becky loved the haphazard nature of the gardens at Edgewater, where large trees and evergreen shrubs, untamed by the fashionable art of topiary, held sway, while under them and along the edge of the lake, myriad wildflowers bloomed freely, unrestrained by the discipline of a formal garden.

Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson

Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson Hardback: 320 pages Publisher: Viking First Released: 2010

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, my take:
Things are changing in Durant, Wyoming. The owner of a multi-million dollar development of ranchettes wants to get rid of the adjacent junkyard and landfill, but the owner of the junkyard would rather die than move. But not all the members of their families are on hostile terms.

When the modern-day range war turns deadly, Sheriff Walt Longmire discovers that the case and the connections between the families are much more complex than it first appears. He has to solve the case while working through the pain of recent injuries and trying to fix an officer who's now bullet-shy and threatening to quit. And it doesn't help that the wolf-dogs at the junkyard don't seem to like him very much...


Review:
Junkyard Dogs is a humorous mystery novel. The first third of the novel was set-up and had more of a general fiction flavor. After the first murder, though, it turned into a fast-paced mystery. The characters were interesting and quirky. The world-building was good. The author avoided my even considering to question "would police really do that?" by having his Sheriff play fast and loose with the rules (much to the dismay of the other characters).

While this was a who-done-it type mystery, the crime and criminal initially seemed obvious, so the Sheriff's method of solving the crime was to follow the most obvious lead as fast as possible and see what happened. As in, there wasn't a lot of stopping to think out who had an opportunity, to study the evidence, etc...though things happened so fast there wasn't much time for that. His method of handling things had some funny results.

My only problem with the novel was that the transitions between some scenes weren't very smooth. We'd have two people at a certain place, then in the next scene one of those people was walking in on the other at another place. The explanation of what happened in the time lapse would come, but this sequence (with no transition between the scenes) threw me out of the story.

There was no sex. There was a minor amount of swearing and a fair amount of cussing. (It averaged about 1 bad word every 2.5 pages, though usually the bad language was all together with long stretches in between.) Overall, I'd recommend the novel as enjoyable, somewhat clean reading.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt from Chapter One
I tried to get a straight answer from his grandson and granddaughter-in-law as to why their grandfather had been tied with a hundred feet of nylon rope to the rear bumper of the 1968 Oldsmoile Toronado.

I stared at the horn pad and rested my forehead on the rim of my steering wheel.

The old man was all right and being tended to in the EMT van behind us, but that hadn't prevented me from lowering my face in a dramatic display of bewilderment and despair. I was tired, and I wasn't sure if it was because of the young couple or the season.

"So, when you hit the brakes at the stop sign he slammed into the back of the car?"

It had been the kind of winter that tested the souls of even the hardiest; since October, we'd had nothing but blizzards, sifting snowstorms, freezing fogs, and cold snaps that had held the temperature a prisoner at ten below. We'd had relief in only one Chinook that had lasted just long enough to turn everything into a sloppy mess that then encased the county in about six inches of ice with the next freeze.

It was the kind of winter where if the cattle lay down, they weren't likely to get back up: frozen in and starved out.

I lifted my head and stared at Duane and Gina.

"Yeah, when I hit the brakes I heard this loud thump." She shrank into her stained parka with the matted, acrylic fur of the hood surrounding her face and tried not to light what I assumed was her last Kool Menthol.

We all sat in the cab of my truck with the light bar revolving to warn passing motorists of the icy roads. The roads, or more specifically the thick coating of ice on the roads, was what probably had saved Geo Stewart and, if it hadn't been for the numerous 911 calls that my dispatcher, Ruby, had fielded from passing motorists and the stop sign on state route 16, the seventy-two-year-old man would have made the most impromptu arrival into the town of Durant, Wyoming, in its history.

"I guess he slid into the back." Gina Stewart nodded the same way she had when she'd told me she'd been after cigarettes, Diet Coke, and a box of tampons from the Kum & Go, where she worked part-time.

I looked at the bubblegum-pink lipstick that stained her lone smoke. I'd warned her three times not to light up in my truck and tried to ignore the vague scent of marijuana that wafted off the pair. If she was down to her last cigarette, it smelled like they still had plenty of something else.

"He's a tough ol' fucker. That isn't the first time he's come off the roof."

And the winner is...

It's time to pick the two winners for a copy of My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira. Using a random number generator and numbering the entrants in the order I received them, the winners are:

Diane

and

Cindy W.

Congratulations! I'll be contacting you for your address.

For those who didn't win, you can always join in the fun by buying this book at your favorite bookstore!

Code Blue by Richard L. Mabry, M.D.

Code Blue by Richard L. Mabry, M.D. Trade Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Abingdon Press First Released: 2010 Author Website

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, My Take:
Dr. Cathy Sewell has had a series of untrustworthy boyfriends. In order to avoid her ex-fiancee, she moves back to her home town, gets a loan, and sets up her family practice. But someone's determined she won't succeed there as a doctor. Rumors circulate that Cathy is a failure as a doctor, someone is holding up her privileges at the hospital, and now someone in a black SUV is trying to kill her.

When one of her prescriptions is altered, one of her patients--the bank owner who approved her loan--nearly dies. Her high school boyfriend--now a lawyer--offers to defend her in the resulting malpractice suit. He also wants to get back together with Cathy, but does she dare trust again? And can she survive long enough to discover why someone hates her so much?


Review:
Code Blue is a fast-paced romantic suspense novel. It was, at it's core, about wrong perceptions of past events effecting how people viewed themselves and others in the present. The suspense was created by someone repeatedly trying to kill Cathy, various medical emergencies, and the tension in the various relationships.

The mystery was a who-done-it, but I was pretty certain who did it from the moment we met the character. However, I found it believable that Cathy didn't quickly figure it out and that she acted the way she did. She wasn't dumb. She was just more inclined to trust her perceptions than to carefully think things through.

The characters were interesting, likable, and dealt with realistic problems. The world-building was excellent, especially the details about the medical and legal aspects.

Cathy was angry at God because of her parents marital problems (due to a mental illness) and the crash that took their lives. As she realized her perceptions of these events were wrong, she also changed her perception of God. The novel dealt with these issues in a way that was for Christians and those with a Christian background. Non-Christians will probably find it preachy due to the prominent Christian content, but I didn't find it so. I really liked it.

There was no bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this book as exciting, well-written, clean reading.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt from Chapter One
The black SUV barrelled out of nowhere, its oversized tires straddling the centerline. Cathy jerked the steering wheel to the right and jammed the brake pedal to the floor. Her little Toyota rocked as though flicked by a giant hand before it spun off the narrow country road and hurtled toward the ditch and the peach orchard beyond it.

For a moment Cathy felt the fearful thrill of weightlessness. Then the world turned upside down, and everything went into freeze-frame slow motion.

The floating sensation ended with a jolt. The screech of ripping metal swallowed Cathy’s scream. The deploying airbag struck her face like a fist. The pressure of the shoulder harness took her breath away. The lap belt pressed into her abdomen, and she tasted bile and acid. As her head cleared, she found herself hanging head-down, swaying slightly as the car rocked to a standstill. In the silence that followed, her pulse hammered in her ears like distant, rhythmic thunder.

Cathy realized she was holding her breath. She let out a shuddering sigh, inhaled, and immediately choked on the dust that hung thick in the air. She released her death grip on the steering wheel and tried to lift her arms. It hurt—it hurt a lot—but they seemed to work. She tilted her head and felt something warm trickle down her face. She tried to wipe it away, but not before a red haze clouded her vision.

She felt a burning sensation, first in her nostrils, then in the back of her throat. Gasoline! Cathy recalled all the crash victims she’d seen in the emergency room—victims who’d survived a car accident only to be engulfed in flames afterward.

She had to get out of the car. Now. Her fingers probed for the seatbelt buckle. She found it and pressed the release button. Slowly. Be careful. Don’t fall out of the seat and make matters worse. Th e belt gave way, and she eased her weight onto her shoulders. She bit her lip from the pain, rolled onto her side, and looked around.

Read the rest of chapter one.

Broken by Travis Thrasher

Broken by Travis Thrasher Trade Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: FaithWords First Released: 2010

Source: ARC provided by the publisher.

My Description of the Book:
Laila came from a wealthy family, but after several traumas in her childhood and teen years, she just wanted to leave it all behind. Modeling was her ticket out of Texas, but later she earned money as a high-priced escort/prostitute in Chicago. When a "date" goes badly wrong, she shoots the man in self-defense. Leaving everything behind, she flees to a new city.

She's now a respectable bank teller who keeps all guys at a distance. But the man she killed still haunts her dreams...and, suddenly, her waking hours. Then the man's brother appears asking for money or he'll turn her into the police for murder. And now spirits are terrorizing her each night in her apartment. When the man gets rough, she flees to a city that she has happy memories of, but the past isn't about to let her go.


Review:
Broken was...surreal. Weird. Creepy. Depressing. Not to mention disjointed and confusing. It's a fast-paced suspense novel, but it was hard to be worried when I sometimes had no idea what was going on. I'd actually call Broken a horror novel. The author mixed nightmares, reality, and supernatural until I wasn't sure what was happening. Granted, the author was probably trying to make the reader feel what it was like inside Laila's head, but for much of the novel we're not really in her head but at a distance watching things unfold.

The author also introduced new characters without telling us how they related to other characters, where they were, or why they were acting in the mysterious way they were. Sometimes he gave full names but no connections, but other times he hid the character's identity, too. An author can get away with a little of this, but this happened so much that I felt confused most of the time. Ironically, though, I still did guess the "surprise twist" before it was revealed.

All that said, the characters dealt with realistic problems and were realistic enough. I only really liked one of the characters, though, and I'm angry at the author for what he did to this character.

Most of the novel had a "supernatural" theme rather than a Christian one since spooky supernatural events were the focus. Laila rejected God because she believed that He didn't care about her--if He even existed. And, if He did, then He wouldn't want anything to do with her anyway because of all the bad choices and sins in her past. A Christian message was worked into the last few chapters, though, as Laila thought over things she experienced and things she believed now but still struggled to accept.

The novel was written in third person, present tense ("Laila goes to the door") which read awkwardly. There was some swearing and cussing. There was no explicit sex or gore. Overall, this novel just didn't work for me.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt from Chapter One
If I believed, then I would have to come to this conclusion. God doesn't want me. How could He? People like me don't belong with people like you. If eternity does exist, I've sealed my fate and done it with my hands bathed in your blood.

She hears the fingernails on the door. Scratching to get out. Clawing and scraping at the wood. Then she hears the pounding of fists against the solid oak. Beating in vain.

The handle rattles and jerks, yet the door remains closed.

Behind it she can hear him.

Screaming her name.

"Don't. Don't come in here. Get out. Get out of here, Laila."

It's a desperate and scared voice. And everything she tries to do to open the door doesn't work.

She falls to the ground, her hands wrapped around the knob, the sound of her screaming finally waking her up.

Yet Laila doesn't find herself in her bed having another nightmare.

This time she finds herself standing at the door to her apartment, clasping the handle, trying to get out. The light she eventually turns on wakes her up, revealing a clock on the wall that tells her it's three in the morning.

Six months since New Year's Eve, and the nightmares still come. Almost a thousand miles away from Chicago, yet Laila still has horrific visions.


Read the prologue and more of chapter one.

Author Quirks: Candace Calvert

Next up is Candace Calvert, author of Disaster Status (and Critical Care). I asked her:


What's a quirky or little-known fact about yourself, your writing, and/or one of your novels?


Her answer:

Quirk is my middle name. Not literally of course (in which case it would be spelled with a C, as in Candace Cwirk Calvert), but quirkiness seems to remain a constant in my life.

One of those life “quirks” was a near-tragedy . . . turned incredible blessing. Strangely, it’s one that I share with my fabulous literary agent Natasha Kern:

We both suffered broken necks. And recovered without permanent disability.

My injury occurred in 1997 as the result of an equestrian accident that also left me with seven rib fractures, a bleeding lung, back fractures and spinal cord trauma. The inspirational story of my accident and recovery, “By Accident,” appeared in Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul—and was the official start of my writing career.

This “broken-neck bond” has only further cemented the much-valued relationship I have with my agent. Though we share other interests (and laughter whenever we can!), we truly understand the miracle of our recoveries and empathize with nearly 200,000 Americans struggling to cope with the devastating effects of spinal cord injury.

At Christmas time each year I make a donation in Natasha Kern’s honor to one of our favorite charities: The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, an organization dedicated to “Today’s Care. Tomorrow’s Cure” for victims of spinal cord injury.

It’s my way of showing appreciation to her; a reminder that we’ve both been blessed enormously and that the definition of “superman” has little to do with a red cape—it’s all about caring and sharing. We can all do that.

Thank you, Candace Calvert, for sharing this awesome story.

Giveaway: My Name Is Mary Sutter

I enjoyed My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira and agreed to host a giveaway for 2 copies of this novel. The giveaway prizes will be provided by the publisher. You can learn more about the novel by reading my review.

This contest is for USA residents only.

To enter the giveaway:

1) you can twitter me saying "Hi @genrereviewer. Enter me in the giveaway for the civil war historical novel by Robin Oliveira."

OR

2) You can leave a comment to this post asking to be entered. Please also leave some way for me to contact you--or follow this blog so you can see the winner announcement. I'd be fun if you also included why you're interested in reading this novel.


The winners will be randomly selected. I'll announce the winner at noon (Central Time) on May 27, 2010 on this blog.

If you entered using twitter, I'll send you a @ or DM telling you of your win and asking where to send the book. If you entered using the blog comments, you'll need to leave your e-mail address or check back to see if you won so you can e-mail me your mailing address. If the winner hasn't responded with a mailing address within four days, I reserve the right to pick a new winner.

I hope everyone has fun with this!