Fiction | Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

DIE AGAIN TOMORROW by Kira Peikoff

October 2, 2015

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Isabel Leon is beautiful triathlete who lands the dream job – star of a reality series called Wild Woman. She’s survived the Brazilian Amazon jungle, the shark-infested waters of Australia and the Saharan desert, only to face the biggest crisis of her life – her mom’s quickly advancing cancer.

There is an experimental drug available that could pretty much cure her, but the price is high, more than a quarter of a million dollars. So Isabel does the unthinkable and makes a deal with the devil, and as usually happens with such deals, it backfires on her and she is murdered. Except a small group called The Network has hold of her body, and they have the drugs to bring her back to life.

Big pharma and the life insurance industry take it on the chin in this twisty thriller that bounces all over the place, sometimes making it hard to keep track of who is who and what is happening. But the story and the characters are so well drawn it doesn’t matter, and the pages fly by.

Readers who like strong female protagonists like the Caitlin Strong books by Jon Land or the Rizzoli & Iles books by Tess Gerritsen should be happy to meet Isabel.

10/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

DIE AGAIN TOMORROW by Kira Peikoff. Pinnacle (September 29, 2015). ISBN 978-0786034918. 320p.

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A WINDOW OPENS by Elisabeth Egan

September 30, 2015

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If you love charming, quirky novels, you have come to the right place! This book is being compared with Where’d You Go, Bernadette and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, two of my favorites, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m happy to say it ranks right up there with them.

Alice Pearse is happily married with three young children. She is the part time books editor at the fictional woman’s magazine, You. She is an avid reader and a true book lover, which I could totally relate to.

Alice’s husband Nicholas is a lawyer who comes home one day and tells her he’s not making partner, had a hissy fit at work and is opening his own office. And by the way, would she mind getting a full time job until he gets his business going?

Alice finds what she thinks will be the perfect job as “arbiter of taste” for a new start up, a book/reading salon that sounds too good to be true – and of course it is. While she struggles to get with the technology and fit in with all the nerds at work, she also has to deal with her father, who suffers a serious setback in his fight against throat cancer.

Nicholas steps up to do more with the kids, the cooking and the housework. Babysitter Jessie puts in more hours but Alice’s best friend owns a traditional, small bookstore and considers Alice as having made a deal with the devil, straining their friendship.

Alice soldiers on as best as she can, and we can’t help rooting for her in this delightful debut novel. The techie nightmare she finds herself in is uncannily like the recent NY Times story about what it’s like to work at Amazon.com (while this book was written more than a year before that article appeared along with its subsequent publicity.) The characters are wonderfully drawn and we can’t help but care about them. It is a fast read and frankly, I couldn’t put it down. Book clubs will love it as much as I did.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

A WINDOW OPENS by Elisabeth Egan. Simon & Schuster (August 25, 2015). ISBN 978-1501105432. 384p.

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AFTER YOU by JoJo Moyes

September 29, 2015

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The sequel to the hugely popular Me Before You

Like millions of other readers, I loved Me Before You, so I was excited to hear there was a sequel. If you want the thirty second review, I liked it but not nearly as much as its predecessor.

The author has asked that reviewers not give away anything in reviewing the second book, so the major plot point is kept secret. I have wrestled with how to do that as I would like to honor that request. So I’m not going to give a synopsis.

Instead I will tell you that the story is about Louise Clark, the protagonist of MBY. This is her story, and the people that are in her life and those that come into her life. It starts out one way, which I thought was going to be a sentimental ripoff, but instead veers in an unexpected direction which I much preferred. Love is the predominating factor, but it is more a story about family than romantic love, but no fear, there is still romance here.

I did enjoy the book; the characters were engaging and I cared about what happened to them. If you like dysfunctional family stories, there is much to like here. If you are looking for a great romance and all that implies, keep looking.

That’s the best I can do under these restraints.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

AFTER YOU by Jojo Moyes. Pamela Dorman Books (September 29, 2015). ISBN 978-0525426592. 368p.

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE, HARRIET CHANCE! by Jonathan Evison

September 25, 2015

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This book was recommended to me by the same person who recommended one of my favorite books of 2014, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. I was told it was a charming, quirky book, which are hard to find and something really I love. Like Fikry. Or The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Or Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

I didn’t love this one so much. It was quirky for sure, but really could have used a bit more charm, which I found lacking.

The story revolves around the eponymous Harriet Chance, a 79 year-old widow. Her husband has died but still visits her on occasion, to the displeasure of the angels and her children and pastor, who thinks she’s losing it. She finds out that her husband has won a cruise to Alaska and she takes it as a sign that she should go. She invites her best friend, who cancels at the last minute and eventually her estranged daughter shows up on board. And slowly, Harriet finds out that much of her life and the people around her have been full of secrets and lies.

The book is a series of short chapters that jump around to various specific days in Harriet’s life showing her at different ages. The chapters do not move chronologically but are nonetheless easy to follow. Harriet is an odd duck at best, as are her husband, family and friends, which adds to the quirkiness of the story. But I just couldn’t get attached to her, and without that, the story just meanders pointlessly. It was a fast read, and I’m not sorry I read it but it was a bit of a letdown.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

THIS IS YOUR LIFE, HARRIET CHANCE! by Jonathan Evison. Algonquin Books (September 8, 2015). ISBN 978-1616202613. 304p.

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CATACOMB by Madeleine Roux

September 24, 2015

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Asylum (Book 3)

Dan, Abby, and Jordan have survived Brookline Asylum and Warden Crawford and his henchmen twice now and are due some downtime. Plus, they’ll all be headed off to college soon – or at least Dan and Jordan will, Abby is still undecided. So when Jordan packs up to move to New Orleans where he’ll be living with his more accepting uncle, the three decide it’s a great opportunity for a road trip. What they don’t know and can’t even begin to suspect, is that they are still yet to be free of the shadow of Brookline Asylum.

This third title in the series finally answers some of the questions Dan and the readers have had about his parentage. And what better place to set that tale than one of the most mysterious cities in the United States?

I loved the fact that the book brought the trio to New Orleans, but I honestly expected something of a different story. We already knew that there was a character in Sanctum connected to Louisiana and that character does ultimately play a hefty role in this third story just not in the way I’d expected (meaning I kind of expected some of the plantation stuff hinted at in Sactum). That aside, it was definitely a welcome return to Dan and his friends.

The story does loosely connect to Brookline Asylum, but is less asylum and experiments and more voodoo and conjuring (appropriate for the setting). And of course we do have more of my favorite aspect of the series – the weird photos to set the tone of the story. While this third installment didn’t take the exact route I thought it would, it was a nice surprise in terms of the change of direction in keeping the series going.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

CATACOMB by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-0062364050. 336p.

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2 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Horror | Tagged: Magical Realism | Permalink
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SANCTUM by Madeleine Roux

September 23, 2015

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Asylum (Book 2)

After surviving the horrors of their summer at New Hampshire College, Dan and his friends are looking forward to a bit of normalcy. But someone has other plans for the trio. Dan agrees to visit their old classmate – the one locked up for killing a fellow student – and is given a message that forces him to return to New Hampshire College. His hope is that he can finally bring the whole nightmare to a close, but when he reveals his plan to Abby and Jordan he finds that they too have received messages.

Now all three have returned, under the guise of a student campus visit, to once again face the horrors of Brookline Asylum.

This follow up to Asylum picks up just a few months after Dan, Abby, and Jordan narrowly escaped the summer college prep program at New Hampshire College. All three have returned home to their own high schools, but Dan has a hard time letting go. Part of this is of course thanks to the revelations about his own shocking connection to Brookline Asylum.

This time around, Dan and his friends are sent on a bizarre scavenger hunt throughout the town of Brookline, all the while trying to evade their student hosts and a weird secret society while Dan also tries to muddle through the meaning of a series of visions he’s been having about Warden Crawford.

As with Asylum Roux again uses creepy and gritty imagery to ratchet up the chill factor of Sanctum. It was great to return to Brookline – a town I’d definitely NEVER want to live in – and get more of the Warden and the asylum’s story, though there were still a few loose ends left by the end. Overall it’s a great mix of horror and suspense, the perfect kind for a one-sitting read on a dark and stormy night.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

SANCTUM by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins; Reprint edition (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-0062221001. 368p.

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ASYLUM by Madeleine Roux

September 22, 2015

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Dan Crawford couldn’t be more excited to have been accepted to the New Hampshire College College Prep Program. Not only does this mean his first taste of college and the real world, it means a summer away from his parents. Freedom.

Dan arrives on campus to find that his dorm is actually an old asylum, something that at first intrigues. But that’s before the strange things start to happen. A student is killed and Dan begins having bouts of missing time and that’s only the start. As the tension increases on campus, Dan and his friends explore more of the old Brookline Asylum in an attempt to unravel the mystery. What they find is truly terrifying and could mean certain danger for each and every student in the program.

Using “vintage” images in the style of Ransom Riggs’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Roux builds a chilling and intriguing tale filled with ominous locked rooms, hints of strange experiments and dark insane asylum history, and an uber creepy serial killer who may just have returned from the past to hunt down and murder teens.

In other words, Asylum is super fun.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

ASYLUM by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins; Reprint edition (August 26, 2014). ISBN 978-0062220974. 336p.

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2 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Horror | Tagged: Young Adult | Permalink
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THE ART OF CRASH LANDING by Melissa DeCarlo

September 19, 2015

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If you’re looking for your next book discussion selection, look no further. Melissa DeCarlo’s debut novel about a dysfunctional family set in a small town full of secrets is bound to fit the bill.

Mattie Wallace is a self proclaimed screw up. We meet her as she has packed all her belongings into several trash bags, stolen her boyfriend’s prize possession, and jumped into her old car heading off for a visit to her stepfather. There she learns that the grandmother she never knew has died and possibly left her something.

On an impulse, she jumps in her car and drives off to the small town in Oklahoma where her mother grew up and her grandmother died. Mattie lost her mother several years earlier but we don’t find out how or why until much later. The story moves and back and forth between Mattie’s childhood with her single, alcoholic mother and her present day circumstances. To complicate things further, Mattie is pregnant.

While staying in her grandmother’s house, Mattie learns more about her mother and her family than she expects, and even more about herself. At times poignant, funny and occasionally even inspirational, Mattie is a well drawn character that is simply unforgettable. Enjoy this warm, wonderful, witty read.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

THE ART OF CRASH LANDING by Melissa DeCarlo. Harper Paperbacks (September 8, 2015)). ISBN 978-0062390547. 432p.

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1 Comment | Book Reviews, Fiction, Women's Fiction | Permalink
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THE SPARROW SISTERS by Ellen Herrick

September 18, 2015

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Sorrel, Nettie, and Patience, the last of the Sparrow line, are quite well respected in their little town of Granite Point. Together the three run a nursery that supplies plants and arrangements for folks near and far, and Patience sells holistic and natural remedies made from the herbs and flowers of her medic garden.

For newcomer and doctor Henry Carlyle, Patience’s potions defy most everything he believes in. Sure plants are the basis for many medicines, but Patience has no formal training and, to his mind, can’t possibly be a reliable substitute for a licensed medical practitioner. Of course that’s before Henry meets Patience and gets to know her. The doctor soon falls head over heels for the healer and even begins to see the merit of her work.

But then Patience is blamed for the death of a young local boy. Suddenly, the townspeople who have relied on her help begin to turn against her and even as her most staunch supporters rally to her side, it may not be enough to help the Sparrows or Granite Point get through this tough time.

The Sparrow sisters are enchanting characters. Three sisters who were orphaned early on and ultimately never married – not that there isn’t time for that – they’ve relied on one another to get themselves through hard times in the past and are determined to do so once again. But this time they’re facing something that could ruin everything they’ve built in Granite Point.

The Sparrow history is so tightly woven into that of the town itself that it’s not just the nursery or the sisters’ reputations that are at risk. The town also suffers because of Patience’s fear and sorrow. And it’s not the first time in Granite Point or Sparrow family history that such a thing has happened.

Ellen Herrick’s debut is a mesmerizing and gorgeous read. With its lush and vibrant detail, strong sisterly bonds, romance, and just a hint of magical realism it brings to mind the works of Sarah Jio and Sarah Addison Allen, making The Sparrow Sisters the perfect read for fans of both authors. And while this tale stands on its own, there’s more than just a hint of possible additional Sparrow sisters’ tales – something I certainly hope we get to see in the very near future.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

THE SPARROW SISTERS by Ellen Herrick. William Morrow Paperbacks (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-0062386342. 384p.

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4 Comments | Book Reviews, Fiction, Women's Fiction | Tagged: Magical Realism | Permalink
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ENTRY ISLAND by Peter May

September 16, 2015

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Peter May gives us a two part fascinating story; one a tale involving murder, the other a love story spanning a hundred years. The two sections are woven together in the most mesmerizing fashion it has been my pleasure to read and enjoy in a long time.

Entry Island is a small piece of land, only 1 1/2 miles long and a 1 ¾ miles wide, situated in a group of small islets along the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Its population is just over 100 people who eke out a living from fishing.

The story begins with the murder of the most affluent man living there. The only suspect is his wife who was interviewed covered in blood and telling a tale of a masked man breaking into their house, attacking her also, but fleeing, leaving her dazed. Sime Mackenzie is a detective attached to the police department in Montreal under whose jurisdiction the murder falls. He is sent along to aid in the investigation as the only true English speaker in the group, which is due to residence in the French speaking Quebec province.

The investigation seems just a formality since the widow was covered in blood, and the masked intruder is seemingly something made up by her. Sime goes to question the widow and is astonished at the fact that he seems to know her from somewhere. This appears an impossibility, until his insomniac nights turn up dreams of a relationship from another time and another place. He places their relationship in Scotland in the past with both having roles to play.

A very important fact in the story is that the widow has never left Entry Island in her life, nor did her mother and grandmother. In spite of the great deal of evidence against her, Sime gets the overwhelming feeling that she is innocent. A mutual attraction develops between them with Sime doing what is his duty as a policeman but working to prove her innocent. Set in a locale that is not part of most of our experience, the novel adapts a somewhat surreal atmosphere which adds to the enjoyment felt by the reader at finding this book and an author such as Peter May.

9/15 Paul Lane

ENTRY ISLAND by Peter May. Quercus (September 15, 2015). ISBN: 978-1623656638. 544p.

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