Stacy Alesi

FIRE by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg

February 22, 2014

THE ENGELSFORS TRILOGY BOOK II

This follow-up to The Circle begins with the start of eleventh grade and the remaining Chosen Ones who survived the previous year. Their showdown with the last demon blessed enemy was only the beginning of their fight to save the world and this time they have an additional enemy in the notorious Council.

The governing body amongst witches previously let Adriana serve as their representative but now they’ve arrived to take on the task of investigating and prosecuting Anna-Karin’s unauthorized use of magic from the year before. But the rest of the girls aren’t going to stand by and let it go down without a fight; their strength lies together and even Ida grudgingly comes to her fellow Chosen One’s defense.

Barred from developing their skills further and under the watchful eye of the Council, the Chosen Ones are limited in their ability to fight off yet another coming evil. Meanwhile, Engelsfors is getting a healthy dose of positive energy thanks to Elias Malmgren’s mother and her Positive Engelsfors movement. But this happy revolution soon turns sour as its detractors find themselves under fire.

Fire loses none of the energy set forth by its predecessor. The second installment of the Engelsfors trilogy not only moves the plot as a whole along but also holds its own as a worthy follow-up to The Circle.

As before the story switches between each of the characters’ viewpoints but this time even Ida gets a say. And not only do we get to finally see Ida’s POV, scary as that is in the beginning, we also get to learn more of Nicolaus’s background as well as Matilda’s story.

Of course the other big inclusion in this second installment is the introduction of the Council. There are a few new characters that come along with this and more revelations about the prophecy of the Chosen Ones.

The Engelsfors trilogy is really exceptional. I highly recommend both The Circle and Fire and can’t wait to get my hands on the final book, The Key. I’m also incredibly excited to hear that there’s a movie in development in Sweden with shooting set to begin in the coming months.

2/14 Becky Lejeune

FIRE by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg. Overlook Juvenile (January 30, 2014). ISBN 978-1468306729. 704p.

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THE CIRCLE by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg

February 21, 2014

THE ENGELSFORS TRILOGY BOOK I

High school is tough on everyone but for Minoo, Linnéa, Rebecka, Vanessa, Ida, and Anna-Karin it’s about to get downright dangerous. Tenth grade begins under an ominous cloud when a fellow classmate is found dead on school grounds. Elias Malmgren was bullied and picked on most of his life. Given that and the circumstances of his death everyone is ready to believe it is suicide, but his best friend Linnéa isn’t convinced. And she’s right. Under a blood red moon Linnéa and five of her classmates come together to discover that they are the Chosen Ones—six girls tasked to fight an evil that has been lying in wait for centuries. Elias’s death is just the beginning.

The Circle kicks off Elfgren and Strandberg’s Engelsfors trilogy. Already a hit in Sweden, the teen paranormal series debuted in the States just last year.

In the series there are witches, magic, and a prophecy as well as a mythology behind the witchcraft that’s quite fascinating. In addition to the paranormal aspects, however, Elfgren and Strandberg bring a realism to this series debut that’s often missing from teen fiction: each of the characters gets almost equal face time and a good amount of development throughout the story. Their problems range from regular high school issues —grades and concerns about what comes after school— to bullying, relationship issues, and family problems. They are average teens with average issues on top of being told they have to save the world.

The Circle is the kind of book that gets under your skin and leaves you wanting more.

2/14 Becky Lejeune

THE CIRCLE by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg. Overlook Juvenile; Reprint edition (May 2, 2013). ISBN 978-1468306583. 608p.

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INFLUX by Daniel Suarez

February 20, 2014

A theme last seen in science fiction’s pulp era was that of “suppressed inventions”, i.e.; cars getting 1000 miles from a pint of alcohol, anti-gravity travel, pills and plants curing most major diseases for little or no cost. These discoveries were suppressed by people not wanting to lose high revenues from current methods and having the inventions take over the situation.

Suarez creates a U.S. government agency titled The Bureau of Technology Control. They are charged with ascertaining orderly progress in society by withholding or suppression of advanced findings in order to maintain social structure that does not rocket past what should be the ordinary rate of progress. The BTC has thrown off all U.S. government control and holds in secret technology that puts them at least 50 years beyond the rest of the world.

Jon Grady, a particle scientist, and his team come up with perfecting a device that will reflect gravity. This should bring him worldwide acclaim, but instead causes him to be swept up into the path of the Bureau of Technology Control that offers him a chance to work on his invention under their supervision and control. Jon refuses and is thrown into a high tech prison maintained by the BTC.

How he escapes and gets into contact with other prisoners that have refused to follow BTC dictates places the reader into one of the most imaginative and fascinating plots in science fiction to date. What happens to an agency set up to maintain orderly progression in society that places itself outside of the control of any other ordinary organization is certainly a study in Machiavellian cause and effect. Well done novel by Suarez, who has done several other books involving high technology and its consequences while not under control.

2/14 Paul Lane

INFLUX by Daniel Suarez. Dutton Adult (February 20, 2014). ISBN 978-0525953180. 416p

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FROM SCRATCH: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin

February 19, 2014

As a long time Food Network fan, I couldn’t resist picking up this book. Unfortunately, the first two hundred pages had me putting it down repeatedly. It was just the facts, all the facts in all their statistical glory but I wanted more. I finally got more in the second half of the book.

To be fair, the book wouldn’t have worked if Salkin hadn’t included all the money and machinations that went into creating the Food Network. The parade of presidents, the turnover of corporate suits, and the complete lack of interest in food beyond what sort of profits it could bring in was the story of the first several years of the company. Eventually, the Scripps network came on board, coughed up some real money and things started to change. And so did the book.

The second half was way more interesting and entertaining. Here is where we learned how Bobby Flay, streetwise and smart, worked his way into the corporate culture and why Mario Batali finally left. The Paula Deen story, including the mess she made in 2013, was included, and I would guess the paperback release will include her inevitable comeback. Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri, Robert Irvine, Anne Burrell and the rest have their moments in the sun.

Salkin is a freelance food journalist who has written for the New York Times among other publications, and he didn’t set out to write a sensationalistic type book, but rather a corporate overview of one of cable’s behemoths. He succeeded, and ultimately, I was glad I stayed with it.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

FROM SCRATCH: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin. Putnam Adult (October 1, 2013). ISBN 978-0399159329. 448p.

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HALF WORLD by Scott O’Connor

February 18, 2014

From about 1953 until 1973, the CIA clandestinely conducted methods of mind control on both U.S. and Canadian citizens without their consent. It wasn’t until project MKUltra, as it was termed, became public knowledge due to national headlines based on the release of thousands of declassified documents in 2001, that the public became aware of these activities.

Scott O’Connor has written a compelling book about characters caught up in the illegal operations and destroyed by the knowledge of what they were doing to the people that unwittingly became subjects of the experiments. Henry March is the first individual to head up a project in San Francisco selecting people and then drugging them in order to warp their minds.

Two generations later Dickie Ashby, a young CIA agent, is sent to Los Angeles to try and infiltrate a group of bank robbers that claim they have all been abused in a government brainwashing operaton. O’Connor is excellent in setting the mood of the events, and describing the damage done to the individuals that are put in charge of the experiments. First Henry March is shown trying to come to grips with the horror of what he is forced to do and unable to do so and then Ashby facing the results of the experiments two decades later both with the subjects as well as with the families of the planners and their lives.

This is compelling reading and an indictment of a government agency going beyond the pale to prove a point. O’Connor is very good at creating the moods and atmosphere of the events depicted in addition to outlining what are most likely to be the facts of the occurrences during the experiments. Knowing that these experiments were actually carried out makes the book a more fascinating read.

2/14 Paul Lane

HALF WORLD by Scott O’Connor. Simon & Schuster (February 18, 2014). ISBN 978-1476716596. 432p

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Posted by Stacy Alesi

BAPTISM by Max Kinnings

February 17, 2014

The only thing that may be more terrifying than a subway train taken over by terrorists is a subway train taken over by religious zealots, especially when they want to die and take everyone with them, and that is the premise here.

Tommy and his sister have big plans to kill everyone on board the train by flooding the tunnel, the titular “baptism.” Ed is the lead negotiator with a unique skill set; he is blind, and can hear more in the timbre of voice than most people, and what he hears is truly frightening.

Tommy claims the train is wired with explosives, and he kills anyone entering the tunnel, causing the body count to soar and MI5 to pull back. Ed is convinced that Tommy’s religious beliefs are stronger than anything he has to offer, so he grasps at straws, contacting an engineer and a criminal to try to save the trainload of passengers when MI5 can’t.

Lots of violence and a high body count lead up to an exciting ending in this fast paced adrenaline read. James Patterson fans will find a lot to like here.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

BAPTISM by Max Kinnings. Quercus; First Edition (February 4, 2014). ISBN 978-1623651022. 448p.

1 Comment | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Booklist, Thriller | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE OTHER TYPIST by Suzanne Rindell

February 16, 2014

I stumbled across this first novel and decided to give it a read because it’s published by Amy Einhorn, Putnam Books. Einhorn has published some of my favorite reads including The Help by Stockton, The Weird Sisters by Brown, The Postmistress by Blake, and Liane Moriarity’s The Husband’s Secret and What Alice Forgot. Needless to say, I was expecting a lot from this one. Sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Rose Baker is a typist for the police department in the early 1920s in New York City. She hears confessions ranging from bootlegging to murder and everything in between, but when she’s not typing she still considered the weaker sex, good for making coffee and filing. Prohibition has increased the workload, so a new typist, Odalie Lazarre, is hired.

Rose grew up in an orphanage raised by nuns, and is completely enchanted with the beautiful, flirtatious Odalie. They become “bosom friends,” and eventually Rose moves out of her shared room into Odalie’s apartment. Odalie has quite the past, but Rose looks the other way, her Puritan upbringing being pushed to the limit as Odalie takes her to speakeasies and summer parties.

Rose is the most unreliable of narrators, so it’s hard to know exactly what is going on but it seems like all parties and fun until it’s not and someone is accused of murder. Fans of Gatsby-esque settings and psychological mysteries like those of Patricia Highsmith will love this.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE OTHER TYPIST by Suzanne Rindell. Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (May 7, 2013). ISBN 978-0399161469. 368p.

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THE GODS OF HEAVENLY PUNISHMENT by Jennifer Cody Epstein

February 15, 2014

On March 9-10 of 1945, the US military firebombed the city of Tokyo in what is said to be one of the most deadly air raids in history. For the people involved and the people affected, this event is understandably recalled in vastly differing ways. In her latest, Jennifer Cody Epstein illustrates this night in history, as well as the years leading up to and following the event, from the viewpoints of a handful of very different characters.

Yoshi Kobayashi has been raised loyal to her family and her country. Her father, the top builder at a firm owned by an American, is later involved in the establishment of a Manchurian colony, a site that will see more death than any imagined. Anton Reynolds was impressed by Tokyo so much so that after apprenticing under Frank Lloyd Wright on the building of the Imperial Hotel, he started his own firm in Tokyo. He and his family would remain in the city until war forced them out. Sadly Reynolds’s love for the city he once called home will fuel a weapon to be used against the Japanese while Kenji’s loyalty to his country will place his family in the crosshairs of this deadly campaign. Meanwhile, new pilot Cameron Richards dreams of a life with his new wife and child, a life that relies on his survival in an important mission.

While The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is overall a story of the firebombing of Japan, Epstein tells it in such a way that it almost reads as a collection of individual pieces connected by a common focus. Each section does tie nicely into the next, with each of the characters ultimately proving to be connected to one another in some way.

All in all, it’s a harrowing look at war from as many sides as you can imagine—those involved directly and indirectly, those who were at the center of the event, and those who were on the other side of the world waiting to hear the outcome. It’s a book filled with loss and horror but one also filled with hope.

2/14 Becky Lejeune

THE GODS OF HEAVENLY PUNISHMENT by Jennifer Cody Epstein. W. W. Norton & Company (January 13, 2014). ISBN 978-0393347883. 400p.

1 Comment | Book Reviews, Fiction | Tagged: Historical | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2014

Dan Rhodes is my guest blogger today to help celebrate Valentine’s Day. His book, Marry Me, just out in paperback, is a riotously funny and devilishly subversive take on love, romance, and marriage, filled with (very) short stories that are sure to appeal to the most discerning – and the most casual – readers.

Hilary Mantel has raved, “Dan Rhodes is a true original, with a fresh, funny, quirky style that seems to owe nothing to other writers and everything to his own powers of invention.” And The Times says Marry Me is “strangely funny, startlingly original.”

If you’re not familiar with flash fiction, here’s a story from this collection —

Fear

My fiancée suggested we get married while strapped together and falling ten thousand feet from an aeroplane. I wasn’t nearly as interested as she was in that kind of thing, and suggested we have a more conventional ceremony. She dismissed my misgivings. ‘Feel the fear,’ she said, ‘and do it anyway. That’s my motto.’ Not wishing to appear unmanly, I went along with her plan, and I have to admit that in the event it was a lot of fun exchanging vows in mid-air while a vicar plummeted alongside us.

Unfortunately, our parachute has failed to open, and our marriage is looking likely to prove shortlived. She’s screaming in terror, and I’m wondering whether this would be a good moment to remind her that it had been her idea.

I loved this story, it made me laugh but it also made me wonder about Dan and how he would be celebrating the holiday. So I asked…

SA: What is your idea of the perfect Valentine’s Day?

DR: To be honest, my perfect Valentine’s Day is one that wouldn’t happen at all. It’s a really cruel ordeal for anybody who doesn’t have romance in their life, and if you are happily coupled that should be reward enough – you shouldn’t be handed a special day. It’s like when already-spoiled movie stars get given luxury goodie bags at the Oscars. I would be in favour of a global referendum on its abolition – I think it would be overwhelmingly voted off the calendar.

SA: What are you actually doing this Friday?

DR: Every year my wife and I agree that we aren’t going to observe Valentine’s day, but as it approaches I get a creeping sense that I’ll somehow find myself in trouble if I don’t mark it in some way. If nothing else it’ll serve as an excuse to get Chinese food.

If you’d like to read another Valentine’s Day tale, Dan posted “Seven Seas” on his blog.

Dan Rhodes is the author of six other books: Anthropology and A Hundred Other Stories, Don’t Tell Me the Truth About Love, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Gold, Little Hands Clapping, and (writing as Danuta de Rhodes) The Little White Car. Rhodes was named one of Granta magazine’s Twenty Best of Young Adult British Writers in 2003 and one of the Daily Telegraph’s Best British Novelists Under 40 in 2010. He is the winner of several awards, including the Author’s Club First Novel Award and the E.M. Forster Award. He lives in Derbyshire, England.

MARRY ME by Dan Rhodes. Europa Editions (January 7, 2014). ISBN: 978-1609451813. 160p.

1 Comment | Guest Bloggers | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

AFTER I’M GONE by Laura Lippman

February 13, 2014

Lippman returns with a brilliant standalone novel that includes a nod to her series heroine, Tess Monahan, and is set in her hometown of Baltimore. She grabbed me on page one with a quote from the classic Herman Wouk book, Marjorie Morningstar, which sort of set the mood for me. (If you’re not familiar with the 1955 bestseller, Slate did a great piece on it for the 50th anniversary: Marjorie Morningstar: The conservative novel that liberal feminists love.)

Felix Brewer is a charmer with an eye for beautiful women, and Bambi Gottschalk is a stunner. Their chemistry is instanteous and explosive, and long-lasting – until Felix disappears after many years of marriage and three children.

Felix does very well, keeping the family in the lap of luxury. He owns a strip club among other businesses, mostly not legal, but when he’s arrested and facing ten years in prison, he takes off, hiding his assets and leaving the family penniless. Bambi, who was barely graduated from high school when they married, has never worked and has no job skills. She relies on her husband’s lawyer and his wife, her best friend, and they help as much as they can.

The only one who may know where the money has gone is Julie, Felix’s girlfriend, and she’s not talking. Surprisingly, no one ever looks for Felix and his disappearance is just accepted as fact by everyone except his wife and mistress. Bambi refuses to have him declared dead so never collects insurance, and in her heart believes that someday he will come home. Julie is convinced that Felix will send for her, which becomes her undoing.

Ten years after Felix disappears, Julie disappears too, and it is believed that she is finally with Felix. Except that many years after that, her body is found in a deserted area of a park, and her murder is at the heart of this mystery.

Sandy is a retired Baltimore homicide police who is working on cold cases as a consultant to the police department. He starts looking into Julie’s murder, and while it is central to the story, this is much more than a mystery. We also get a look at what happens to the five women left behind when Felix disappears – his wife, his three daughters, and his mistress. The story spans more than thirty years, moving back and forth from the early days of the marriage, the years when Felix disappeared, the three girls growing up, and the 2012 murder investigation.

This is a fast moving story with believable characters that you can’t help caring about and rooting for. In fact, the characters propel the story along as much, if not more, than the mystery.

Laura Lippman is one those authors that I drop everything to read; she is one of the best crime fiction writers working today. If you haven’t read her yet, do yourself a favor and pick up any of her books. I fell in love with her very first novel, Baltimore Blues, and haven’t looked back since.

This is a genre bending novel; mystery for sure, but women’s fiction readers will love it too, as will book groups. After I’m Gone is a truly wonderful read and I was very sorry to have to turn the last page.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

AFTER I’M GONE by Laura Lippman. William Morrow (February 11, 2014). ISBN 978-0062083395. 352p.

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