September 2025's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Glorious People by Sasha Salzmann (tr. Imogen Taylor)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A remarkable story exploring the disintegration of the Soviet Union, told through mothers & daughters and stretching from the 1970s to the near present

Loaded with “vibrancy and humour”, Glorious People is a vivid depiction of how the collapse of the Soviet Union reverberated through the lives of ordinary people taking place across several generations of two families (TLS).

As a child, Lena longs to pick hazelnuts in the woods with her grandmother. Instead, she is raised to be a good socialist: sent to Pioneer summer camps where she's taught to worship Lenin and sing songs in praise of the glorious Soviet Union. But perestroika is coming. Lena's corner of the USSR is now Ukraine, and corruption and patronage are the only ways to get by—to secure a place at university, an apartment, treatment for a sick baby.

For Tatjana, the shock of the new means the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union and certified foreign whisky, but no food in the shops; it means terrible choices about how to love. Eventually both women must decide whether to stay or to emigrate, but the trauma they carry is handed down to their daughters, who struggle to make sense of their own identities.

Engrossing, rich in detail and unforgettable characters, this is a captivating love letter to mothers and daughters from one of Europe’s most powerful voices in political fiction.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I liked it fine. It seems to have ruffled some feathers that present themselves as Ukrainian, though for the life of me I can not see why. It makes more sense to me that the upset Cyrillic-users were Russians out to discredit this personal-level tale of political upheaval's emotional costs to emigrants.

Lena and Tatjana the emigrants, and their German-immigrant daughters Edita and Nina, are wrapped in the titanic, existential upheavals of Soviet imperial dissolution. The text is not focused enough for me to more than broadly sympathize with any one of them, though the topic, and its effects, is well-delineated. A book I admired more than enjoyed.

Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks for $13.99 for an ebook. Maybe borrow one.

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The Mystery of the Crooked Man by Tom Spencer

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A distinctive murder mystery with an unforgettably spiky protagonist, for fans of The Twyford Code, Magpie Murders and Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Meet Agatha Dorn, cantankerous archivist, grammar pedant, gin aficionado and murder mystery addict. When she discovers a lost manuscript by Gladden Green, the Empress of Golden Age detective fiction, Agatha's life takes an unexpected twist. She becomes an overnight sensation, basking in the limelight of literary stardom.

But Agatha's newfound fame takes a nosedive when the 'rediscovered' novel is exposed as a hoax. And when her ex-lover turns up dead, with a scrap of the manuscript by her side, Agatha suspects foul play.

Cancelled, ostracised and severely ticked off, Agatha turns detective to uncover the sinister truth that connects the murder and the fraudulent manuscript. But can she stay sober long enough to catch the murderer, or will Agatha become a whodunit herself?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Agatha...get it?...is a solidly drawn amateur sleuth, investigating an entertaining bibliomystery motivated by sheer cussèdness and rancor against dishonesty. My kinda gal! I relate to her bluntness and grouchy affect against people she's got reason to believe aren't doing the right thing.

There are easter-eggs for Dame Agatha mystery lovers to spot, if they're in the mood. No knowledge of the œuvre in question? Nothing will make no sense without that specialist knowledge. A very pleasant afternoon spent chuckling and smiling through the twisty bits.

Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) would like $11.99 for an ebook, and cheap at the price.

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Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The search for a kidnapped singer in Prohibition-era New York leads an intrepid reporter from Harlem speakeasies to the dazzling world of the theater, all while grappling with her warring passions.

Ambitious advice columnist Ginny Dugan knows she’s capable of more than solving other people’s beauty problems, but her boss at Photoplay magazine thinks she's only fit for fluff pieces. When she witnesses the kidnapping of a famous singer at Harlem’s hottest speakeasy, nobody takes her seriously, but Ginny knows what she saw—and what she saw haunts her.

Guilt-ridden over her failure to stop the kidnappers and hard-pressed for cash to finally move out of her uptight showgirl sister’s apartment, Ginny resolves to chase down the truth that will clear her conscience and maybe win her a promotion in the process. When private detective Jack Crawford starts interfering with her case, Ginny ropes him into a reluctant partnership but soon finds herself drawn to the kind heart she glimpses beneath his brooding exterior. Equally as alluring is Gloria Gardner, the star dancer of the Ziegfeld Follies who treats life like one unending party. Yet as Ginny delves deeper into the criminal underworld, the sinister plot she uncovers seems to lead right back to the theater.

Then a brutal murder strikes someone close to her, and Ginny realizes the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. This glamorous world has a deadly edge, and Ginny must shatter her every illusion to catch the shadowy killer before they strike again.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The speakeasies, the sex, the showgirls, the secrets! Harlem during Prohibition never looked more glam. If you can see it through the proliferation of subplots, minor characters foregrounded, and lush overdone descriptions.

Enjoyable for all that, and sure to please my fellow series mystery lovers. (If this ain't a book one, never saw one more wasted.)

Mysterious Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires you to surrender $17.95 (any edition) before legal possession is transferred to you.

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Roundabout of Death by Faysal Khartash (tr. Max Weiss)

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: "Potent ... intimate, humorous and compelling ... One of the best Syrian novelists of his generation and one of the most exciting writers to emerge from the region since the Arab Spring."— The Times Literary Supplement

Set in Aleppo in 2012, when everyday life was metronomically punctuated by bombing, Roundabout of Death offers powerful witness to the violence that obliterated the ancient city's rich layers of history, its neighborhoods, and medieval and Ottoman landmarks. The novel is told from the perspective of an ordinary man, a schoolteacher of Arabic for whom even daily errands become life-threatening tasks.

He experiences the wide-scale destruction wrought upon the monumental Syrian metropolis as it became the stage for a vicious struggle between warring powers. Death hovers ever closer while the teacher roams Aleppo’s streets and byways, minutely observing the perils of urban life in an uncanny twist on Baudelaire's flâneur.

The novel, a literary edifice erected as an unflinching response to the erasure of a once great city, speaks eloquently of the fragmentation of human existence and the calamities of war.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Like life—as we are told in multiple stories both fiction and nonfiction—lived in war zones, this is a collection of vignettes and impressions that impress themselves on the narrator. He is a Syrian teacher of Arabic, the man on the Clapham omnibus, and at the mercy of the violence then ravaging now-destroyed Aleppo in 2012. Simple daily acts carry huge time penalties and require significant personal risk of harm, let alone crossing the many internal control points to find his kidnapped brother.

A moving story, sure to appeal to vibes-reading souls who urgently desire peace; for all that I think this 2017 book might be "of its time" not necessarily ours.

New Vessel Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) exacts $16.95 from you for reading privileges.

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A Killer Wedding by Joan O'Leary

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Wildly witty and wickedly fun, A Killer Wedding is a juicy debut whodunit about toxic family dynamics hidden beneath the surface of billionaire-level wealth that reads like The Devil Wears Prada protagonist played a game of Clue at a White Lotus Hotel.

Christine can’t believe her luck. The iconic Gloria Beaufort, founder of the billion-dollar beauty empire Glo, has personally chosen her to cover her grandson’s wedding for Bespoke, the cult fashion magazine that every A-list bride dreams of being featured in. A career-making scoop and a free trip to a castle turned five-star hotel on the Emerald Isle? It feels too good to be true…

Because it is.

Gloria is found dead on the very first morning of the celebratory weekend, and her entire family wants to keep her death a secret and for the wedding to march on. When Gloria’s heirs issue a chilling warning to Christine to keep things quiet, she can’t help but wonder if one of them is guilty. There’s the son who’s hiding a damaging lawsuit; the resentful daughter-in-law; the grandson who’s had a few too many run-ins with the law; the ambitious granddaughter who’s hiding more than one secret; and Gloria’s favorite grandchild, the too-good-to-be-true groom. As Christine navigates a world where glamour masks grimy secrets and everyone she meets is a suspect, she realizes that among this glitzy elite, nothing is as it seems.

Set against the dazzling backdrop of ultimate luxury and an endless reveal of surprises, A Killer Wedding is a fast-paced, humorous mystery that proves you’ll never forget your wedding day…especially if it starts with a murder.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I know we're supposed to love stories about how ghastly the superrich are, while still covetously drooling over their overpriced tat. I'm over it. A debut novel that spends about 40% of the page count modishly snarking while obsequiously documenting a culture I only want to know about if there's naked guys parading for my pervy pleasure.

Plenty of humor I wasn't that impressed by, lots of stylish...stuff...lovingly described, and who the hell care if that harridan was murdered because the wonder is it took so long.

William Morrow (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) would like $14.99, please, but you must supply the Hermès Kindle cover.

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The Sisterhood (A Lady Emily Mystery #19) by Tasha Alexander

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Lady Emily investigates the murder of a glamorous debutante in the latest irresistible mystery of Tasha Alexander’s New York Times bestselling series.

London, 1907: When the Season's most accomplished and elegant debutante, Victoria Goldsborough, collapses and dies at her engagement ball, the great and good of London Society prepare to mourn the tragic loss of an upstanding young woman. But all is not what it seems, and after a toxic beverage is revealed to be the cause of death, the king himself instructs Lady Emily and her husband Colin Hargreaves to unearth the truth.

Who would want to harm one of the most popular women of the year? Is it her fiancé with whom she had an unusually brief courtship; a rival for his affections bitter at being cast aside; her best friend who is almost certainly hiding a secret from Colin and Emily; a disappointed suitor with a hidden gambling habit; or a notorious jewel thief who has taken a priceless tiara from the Goldsborough home? When a second debutante succumbs to poison, the race is on to find a ruthless killer.

Emily and Colin’s investigation leads to a centuries old tomb in the center of London with a mysterious link to another death dating back to Roman times and the violent reign of Boudica, ancient Britain's fearsome warrior queen. As the stakes rise and the clock ticks down, Emily must find the killer before they strike again.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Boudicca's reign and Edward VII's intersect in this truly unexpected story of a society murder set alongside the murder of a society. Not in the least what I was expecting. Enjoyable but pretty slight in its conceit. These timelines do not seamlessly converge nor can I picture a way to make that happen.

Jaded, seen-it-all historical mystery readers should pick up Author Alexander's gauntlet. I might e missing a big...something.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) craves the boon of $14.99 from you for a night in its company.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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What We Can Know (28%) by Ian McEwan

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: 2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.

2119: The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost.

Tom Metcalfe, an academic at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain’s remaining island archipelagos, pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Cli-fi and poetry and postapocalyptic archipelagos where England was and Ian McEwan, taken all together, were simply too many things I don't much like for me to get over my indifference. I got to, "Even if Vivien never read her birthday present, never even untied the scroll, everything I've learned about her suggests that she did not destroy the poem."

That's me done here. More of this guy's maunderings and I might scream louder than I already have. YMMV.

Alfred A. Knopf (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. You do you.

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To the Moon and Back (58%) by Eliana Ramage

Rating: 2.75* of five

The Publisher Says: One young woman’s relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the people she loves most in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging, and family.

My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.

Steph Harper is on the run. When she was six, her mother, Hannah, fled an abusive husband—with Steph and her younger sister, Kayla, in tow—to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: To say I abandoned this read is to do the read a disservice. It was a decent lesbian coming-of-age novel by the time I quit at the beginning of chapter sixteen. I got no frisson from it.

I really wanted to love it, but did not. You might resonate to it where I did not.

Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires a payment of $14.99 for the ebook. Others will like it more than I did.

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The Story That Wouldn't Die (Jolene Garcia Mysteries #2) {15%} by Christina Estes

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Emmy Award-winning reporter Christina Estes uses her twenty-year career for inspiration for her mysteries. In The Story That Wouldn’t Die, Jolene Garcia refuses to stop investigating, but someone is determined to kill the story—and maybe her—for good.

Phoenix, Arizona, TV reporter Jolene Garcia is fresh off winning her first Emmy and committed to covering stories that matter to her community. But Jolene’s managers want stories that grab immediate attention and generate clicks, not ones that take time to develop.

When a beloved small business owner dies in a car crash, Jolene isn’t convinced it was an accident. He’d been raising questions about who keeps getting lucrative deals at city hall—questions that powerful people don’t want answered. The deeper Jolene digs, the more suspicious things she uncovers.

Exposing greed, ambition, and deception could become the biggest story of Jolene’s career. Her bosses tell her to drop it. But there’s a story here, and Jolene’s going to find it.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I started reading this DRC in April. I gave up last night when I realized I read this sentence: "It will be interesting to hear what Kris Kruger has to say about the guy who quit working for him, started his own business, and then complained about Kris getting lucrative city contracts," a second time...I restarted the read...and was utterly convinced that no, it very much would not.

I rated her first novel, Off the Air, 3.5* and noted I was not invested in the victim's death because he needed killin'...and lo, here we are again.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $14.99 to relinquish their monopoly on the file. Libraries are free to use.

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The Art of a Lie (52%) by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Rating: 3* of five, because it's me not the book

The Publisher Says: In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. Her confectionary shop on Piccadilly is barely turning a profit, her suppliers conspiring to put her out of business because they don’t like women in trade. Henry Fielding, the famous author-turned-magistrate, is threatening to confiscate the money in her husband’s bank account because he believes it might have been illicitly acquired. And even those who claim to be Hannah’s friends have darker intent.

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I feel caddish abandoning this read. The Punchbowl and Pineapple deserves better from me than abandonment at 52%; yet I had to face facts: I like the idea of the read but am unenthusiastic about the execution. At the beginning of Part III, I faced up to the fact I was slogging along hoping I could finish.

My Goodreads friend who convinced me by example to keep going will most likely unfriend me now. She *loooved* the story. I, sadly, did not.

Atria Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requests and requires $14.99 for your access to the file.

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UNVEILED: Inside Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt (41%) by JONATHAN HAROUNOFF

Rating: 3* of five, because it's my mood as much as the book

The Publisher Says: In September 2022, twenty-two-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini is killed by Iran's morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely. Outrage triggers nationwide protests. Women rip off their headscarves, setting them afire. Others cut their hair in open defiance. Key industries are brought to a standstill, and once-revered banners of the country's Supreme Leader are incinerated. It's the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic of Iran in its forty-six-year history-not coming from a foreign adversary but from their own freedom-seeking women. Women and girls, perhaps for the first time in the history of the modern Middle East, take center stage in a nationwide uprising, clamoring for a freer Iran and chanting the now-viral battle cry of: "Woman, Life, Freedom."

Award-winning British-Iranian journalist Jonathan Harounoff, now serving as Israel's international spokesperson to the United Nations, demystifies the context leading up to these historic protests inside Iran and abroad and examines the potential future ramifications. With much of the global spotlight focused on the Islamic Republic's dangerous foreign policy agenda, Unveiled: Inside Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt pays tribute to the people of Iran who have paid the ultimate price for freedom.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Important reminder that progress does not contain guarantees of permanence. It is journalistic prose, neither bad nor good, but serviceable. I gave up when we went back to cell phone footage being dismissed by the regime as fake. I'm not saying anything is untrue, I'm just not enjoying the read stylistically so it feels like I'm taking a beating for no reward.

Leftists scared by modern trends, who believe women are adults with actual rights to bodily autonomy, should look into it.

Black Rose Writing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires $18.95 for a paperback.

July 2025's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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The Blue Horse (Porter Beck #3) by Bruce Borgos

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A controversial wild horse round-up in the high desert of Nevada results in two murders and too many suspects for Sheriff Porter Beck to deal with.

A helicopter driving a controversial round-up of wild horses suddenly crashes and the pilot is found to have been shot. Then the person coordinating the round-up for the Bureau of Land Management is savagely murdered, buried up to her neck and then trampled to death by the very same wild horses. And there's no lack of suspects—with the wild horse advocacy group having sworn to protect the horse At Any Cost! Now the state and federal agencies are showing up looking for answers or at least a scapegoat.

Sheriff Porter Beck has had better days.

Porter Beck's new girlfriend, Detective Charlie Blue Horse, arrives to help with the investigation, which leads them to Canadian Lithium mining operation near the round-up area that sets off Beck's mental alarm bells. Brinley, Beck's sister, is leading a group of troubled kids in a wilderness program, when one of them, Rafa, bolts one night. When Brinley catches up to him, they're just outside the mine—in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

With his personal life in turmoil, too many suspects and too many secrets, the feds pushing for a quick resolution, and his impetuous (if skilled) sister in the mix, one wrong step could be deadly for Porter Beck.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Third in a series means the author's doing something right. In this entry, he's got the right combustible mix of environmentalism, corporate shenanigans, personal tsurres, and the usual pressures of fielding the high-profile cases of his department. Oh, and girlfriend stuff, too.

Tense, well-plotted, and solidly satisfying read. Not one that transcends genre, but definitely a top-tier example of it.

Minotaur Books , (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $29 if you expect to read a hardcover. I'd spend it.

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A Lark's Regret: A Regency Cozy (Verity Lark Mysteries #5) by Lynn Messina

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: If there is one thing Verity Lark finds more unsettling than having to give a shooting lesson to the woman whom she has ridiculed in print for months, it is having to give the lesson on the very same morning her alter ego Mr. Twaddle-Thum publishes an apology for erroneously reporting a key detail of one of her favorite subject’s early murder investigations.

The mortifying mistake is made intolerable by the fact that it was uncovered by a rival gossip for another newspaper. Identifying herself as Mrs. Flimmer-Flam, she vows to correct a whole host of other misapprehensions about the Duchess of Kesgrave, whom she calls the murder duchess for obvious reasons.

Oh, but, no, her reasons are not obvious at all, for this new scandal merchant believes the public has been greatly misled in regard to her grace’s talents. She is not just solving murders; she is also committing them.

It is preposterous nonsense—and that is to say nothing of her portrayal of Twaddle as a credulous dupe gulled into mythologizing a killer—and Verity vows to discover who is spreading the virulent lies, a task that grows immeasurably harder after she finds the gossip’s throat slashed.

Someone is willing to kill to hide the truth, and Verity has no idea who might be next.

Welcome to the fifth installment of the Verity Lark Mysteries, where secrets run deep and every move could be her last.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: When an author blends two long-running series, as is done here, there's a lore problem. To be sure everyone's up to speed there must be some exposition, and that runs into the dread problem of the infodump. It's inevitable. It slows stuff down, from action to scene-setting, and increases the word-count a good deal.

Because I'd never read a Verity Lark story I was glad for it, but honestly it seemed sort of wasted time and effort because Bea really doesn't do or add much to Verity's actions.

Potatoworks Press (non-affiliate Amazon link; not available on Bookshop.org) charges $6.99 for a Kindle edition. Not because I told you to!

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The Wharton Plot by Mariah Fredericks

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mariah Fredericks' mesmerizing novel, The Wharton Plot, follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.

New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.

And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith's life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I have no way to know if Edith Wharton was this prissy, self-centered, snobbish person in real life. Reading her fiction does nothing to dissuade me from believing it. From the moment she meets, and loathes, the murder victim, I was pretty much turned off.

Well-plotted and expertly written, this is an historical mystery lover's dream, with late Gilded-Age Manhattan evoked with panache and verve. I just don't like anyone in it.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) only wants $11.99 for an ebook. Depending on how you feel about nasty people, it could be a bargain.

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The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Family is everything, even when it falls apart.

After the sudden death of a renowned artist, his four adult children travel to Italy to sort out his affairs with his much-younger wife, in this moving novel from the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

World-famous artist Vic Kemp has relied on his four children ever since their mother died when they were young. Netta, the oldest, is a litigator who often serves as co-parent to her siblings; Susan, a housewife who cooks and cleans for both her husband and her father; Goose's own thwarted artistic ambitions have left him resigned to a job in Vic's studio; and Iris, the baby, drops everything the moment her father calls.

When Vic summons the siblings with the promise of big news, they hope their father is about to tell them he has finished the mysterious masterpiece he claims will be the capstone to his career. Instead, he announces he’s getting remarried. Bella-Mae, his wife to be, is apparently beautiful, a fellow artist—and twenty-seven to his seventy-six years. When his children dare to express concern, Vic decamps with Bella-Mae to his summer home in Italy. Six weeks later, he is found dead. There is no sign of his will, or his promised final painting.

Netta, Susan, Goose, and Iris gather at the house on Lake Orta to piece together what happened and prepare to bring their father’s body home. They spend the summer in a waiting game, living under the same roof as Bella-Mae, and forced to confront Vic's legacy and the buried wounds they have incurred as his children. So who is Bella-Mae? Is she the woman their father believed her to be? Or is she the force that will destroy the family for good? How long can their old bonds hold?

With sparkling wit, compassion and tender insight, The Homemade God explores memory, identity, grief, healing, and the bonds of siblinghood—what happens when they splinter, and what it might take to find a new way forward.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: My very unloved father remarried (I liked my stepmother, big loud lady she was) shortly after my equally unloved mother left him. The central problem for these spoiled, neglected twits is they're afraid they won't get revenge on the old man by having all his worldly goods. The role of Cordelia in this remake of King Lear is played by Goose, the brother, denied the life he wanted for being not what his father demanded.

Big, noisy drama ensues, the young widow gets a real working-over by these bratty twits. I finished it because I love some sudsy silliness. I'm not sure I'll remember much about it tomorrow, but it did its job by distracting me from the world for six hours.

The Dial Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) will lighten your wallet by $13.99 for an ebook. Libraries are, for now, still free.

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Vaseline Buddha by Young-moon Jung (tr. Jung Yewon)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A tragicomic odyssey told through free association scrubs the depths of the human psyche to achieve a higher level of consciousness equal to Zen meditation.

The story opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations—real, unreal, surreal—to explore the very nature of reality.

Jung Young Moon, 2005 alum of Iowa's International Writing Program, is one of South Korea's most award-winning, eccentric, and handsome authors, often compared to Kafka and Beckett.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A Korean translation by a trainee of the Iowa Writers' Workshop's International division:

I think about forms of stories. But again, I feel, as I always have, resistance against a well-structured, complete story. Stories with an impeccable structure stifle me. A story with a clear plot, which inevitably becomes something about following someone's whereabouts, has become something that's nearly impossible for me to write, just as Paul Valéry could never write a novel because he could not use a sentence such as, "The marquise went out at 5 o'clock."

I'm not in love. I'm barely in like. It's pretty self-conscious and not a little pretentious; I'd've lapped it up fifteen years ago.

Deep Vellum Publishing wants $14.95 for a trade paper edition. Maybe cheaper used...?

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Marguerite by the Lake by Mary Dixie Carter

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: From Mary Dixie Carter comes an atmospheric, tense novel about the death of a wealthy garden designer, her lonely widower, and the scrappy young gardener who smoothly steps into her life.

Marguerite Gray is a lifestyle icon known for her garden parties, high-end business ventures, and being the muse behind the famous Serge Kuhnert painting, Marguerite by the Lake. Her presence is overpowering, her taste, legendary. For the last few years, Phoenix has been the gardener on the famed Rosecliff grounds, home of the Gray Marguerite and her husband Geoffrey. Phoenix came from humble beginnings, and now she works hard to craft the landscape that underpins Marguerite’s brand.

When a storm threatens the launch party for Marguerite’s latest book, it’s Phoenix who spots the danger to the guests and rushes to Geoffrey’s side to save him from a falling tree. Geoffrey is grateful—perhaps too grateful. Marguerite is . . . jealous. Phoenix senses the danger of being drawn deeper into their lives but can’t resist the attention, becoming embroiled in an affair that could destroy her career.

But soon after the affair begins Marguerite falls to her death, from the same high point at Rosecliff where she posed for Marguerite by the Lake. Now Phoenix has another secret, one that haunts her even as Geoffrey invites her to move into the manor with him. A secret that Detective Hanna and Marguerite’s daughter—her spitting image—are circling closer and closer to. Phoenix tries to put it all behind her and find her rightful place at Rosecliff. But as every gardener knows, nothing stays buried forever.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: If you come for the queen, best not miss. Martha Stewart in a fake nose and eyeglasses turns into du Maurier's Rebecca, with the second Mrs. deWinter played by a gamine called Phoenix...horripilation!...and Maxim by a yutz called Geoffrey. I recall nothing whatever about them. I longed for Dame Judth Anderson from Hitchcock's film to make her appearance. No such luck.

I finished it, Melpomene knows why, so I owe a review. Here it is.

Minotaur Books, the publisher, asks for $28.00 for a hardcover (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link), if that's your preferred reading medium.

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Spark by Naoki Matayoshi (tr. Alison Watts)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Tokunaga is a young comedian struggling to make a name for himself in Osaka, when he is taken under the wing of the more experienced, but no more famous, Kamiya. But as much as Kamiya's indestructible confidence inspires him, it also makes him doubt the limits of his own talent, and his own dedication to comedy.

Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, Spark is about art and friendship, about what it means to be committed to our own ambitions and to each other. A novel about comedy that's as moving and thoughtful as it is funny, it's already been a sensation in Japan.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Comedy doesn't cross cultural boundaries that well. I "got" maybe a third of the intended-to-be-jokes, and found even those unfunny. It's cultural not textual; the prose, the limning of the men's relationship, the details that lead to Tokunaga's internal crisis, all were spot-on and very evocative.
The Netflix show was...okay. I'm just really, really culture bound for comedy. Sad for me, not the prize-winning story told here.

Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $12.99 for an ebook. Check out Netflix before spending the money.

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Trouble Island : a novel by Sharon Gwyn Short

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A gripping new novel inspired by a real place and events from the author’s family, Trouble Island is the standalone suspense debut from historical mystery writer Sharon Short.

Many miles from anywhere in the middle of Lake Erie, Trouble Island serves as a stop-off for gangsters as they run between America and Canada. The remote isle is also the permanent home to two women: Aurelia Escalante, who serves as a maid to Rosita, lady of the mansion and wife to the notorious prohibition gangster, Eddie McGee. In the freezing winter of 1932, the women anticipate the arrival of Eddie and his strange coterie: his right-hand man, a doctor, a cousin, a famous actor, and a rival gangster who Rosita believes murdered their only son.

Aurelia wants nothing more than to escape Trouble Island, but she is hiding a secret of her own. She is in fact not a maid, but a gangster’s wife in hiding, as she runs from the murder she committed five years ago. Her friend Rosita took her in under this guise, but it has become clear that Rosita wants to keep Aurelia right where she is.

Shortly after the group of criminals, celebrities, and scoundrels arrive, Rosita suddenly disappears. Aurelia plans her getaway, going to the shore to retrieve her box of hidden treasures, but instead finds Rosita’s body in the water. Someone has made sure Aurelia was the one to find her. An ice storm makes unexpected landfall, cutting Trouble Island off from both mainlands, and with more than one murderer among them.

Both a gripping locked room mystery, and a transporting, evocative portrait of a woman in crisis, Trouble Island marks the enthralling standalone suspense debut from Sharon Short, promising to be her breakout novel, inspired by a real island in Lake Erie, and true events from her own rich family history.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Stand-alone locked room mystery on an ice-storm isolated island during the US Prohibition era. I think she had a peek into my dreams!

Sadly, not executed in a way I could fall for...lots of telling, not a lot of rounded characters. Mystery was okay. Setting ended up not exciting me, because it was only seen in the eyes of people I wasn't interested in. So near and yet so far. I finished it so it wasn't bad just not great.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $14.99 for an ebook. Library is my recommendation.

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Hive (Madders of Time Book 1) by D. L. Orton

Rating: 2.75* of five

The Publisher Says: What if saving the future meant rewriting the past?

In a dying world overrun by microdrones, humanity's last survivors cling to life inside the Eden-17 biodome. Isabelle Sanborn knows her time is running out, but one desperate plan might give humanity a second chance. With the help of Madders, an enigmatic AI built from the memories of a brilliant physicist, Isabelle sends Diego Nadales—the love of her life—35 years into the past. His mission? To change the course of history and prevent their world's collapse.

When Diego arrives in the vibrant yet fragile Main Timeline, he's forced to confront ghosts of the past, including a younger, ambitious version of Isabelle. As he battles to shape a better future, Diego must navigate a delicate web of relationships and events without destroying the very fabric of time.

Brimming with suspense, heart-pounding action, and a poignant love story that transcends time, Madders of Time - Book One is a breathtaking science fiction adventure. Award-winning author DL Orton weaves a tale that explores sacrifice, resilience, and the timeless power of love.

Fans of The Time Traveler's Wife and Dark Matter will find themselves captivated by this unforgettable journey through parallel worlds and intertwining destinies.

The clock is ticking. Can love survive the collapse of time itself?

Prepare to lose yourself in the first installment of the Madders of Time series—a story that will keep you turning pages and leave you hungry for more.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Blandly competent. Uninspiring. I do not remember one thing about this by-the-numbers picture of dystopia (but I did finish it), which is antithetical to the purpose of the genre. The comps are WILDLY overselling the execution.

If your immediate need is distraction without challenge, here's you a book.

Rocky Mountain Press (non-affiliate Amazon link) demands $8.99 for a Kindlebook. I'd be frothing mad if I'd paid that for this.

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The Cosmos Keys by Glenn Cooper

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Buried secrets. Ancient technology. A race against time.

Deep beneath the ruins of Turkey’s underground city of Derinkuyu, archaeologist David Birch makes a discovery that defies history—a bronze device covered in Greek inscriptions, its mechanisms impossibly advanced for its time. The artifact shouldn’t exist. And yet, its intricate design suggests a terrifying someone in the distant past understood the future.

Desperate for answers, David seeks out Eleni Lillakis, a brilliant historian of ancient technology. As they decipher the artifact’s origins, they stumble upon an astonishing legend—the Michaní Peproménou, the Destiny Machine. A device so powerful it was hidden from the world, tied to the secrets of the gods, and capable of glimpsing what’s to come.

But they are not the only ones searching. A secretive cabal, willing to kill to keep the machine’s secrets buried, is closing in. From the shadowed ruins of Athens to the tunnels beneath Nottingham, from hidden crypts to modern-day power struggles, David and Eleni must unlock the truth before the machine falls into the wrong hands. Because if the legends are true, the artifact does more than reveal the future. It can change it.

A Must-Read for Fans of Archaeological Mysteries and Ancient Secrets, The Cosmos Keys is an electrifying archaeological thriller that blends real historical mysteries with pulse-pounding suspense. Fans of The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones, and Steve Berry will be swept away by this globe-spanning adventure, where mythology, science, and danger collide in a battle for humanity’s fate.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I really see the comps as good guidance in this case...I l ike Steve Berry and James Rollins as storytellers, so I'm down with this book as well. It delivers on the promises made above, and does so at a spanking pace.

I'm not ready to go to four stars because, even in the genre, this book's sexism is confrontational. I'm no fan of that. Most of y'all don't seem to care too much but for those who do, be warned.

Lascaux Media (non-affiliate Amazon link) asks $5.99 for a Kindlebook. Reasonable value for money.

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Don't Tell a Soul (5fingers #1) by Joshua Raven

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Rachel Race’s world shatters when she awakens in agony, mysteriously missing a finger. Fleeing her troubled home, she stumbles into a web of darkness and ancient evil lurking in the seaside city of Griffton.

As Rachel grapples with her trauma, she finds an unexpected ally in Lake Emerson, a charming skater and trainee journalist who becomes entwined in her harrowing journey.

Pursued by hooded figures and haunted by a vengeful spirit called Samyaza, Rachel is forced into a series of perilous assignments. Her quest for answers leads her to uncover dark secrets about Watchers, demons, and the Nephilim, all while navigating the dangerous underworld of Griffton.

With the enigmatic Caleb Noble, a mystical traveler, guiding her from afar, Rachel confronts terrifying challenges that test her courage and resolve. Amidst the chaos, she discovers a hidden strength and the flickers of first love.

Don’t Tell a Soul is a gripping tale of mystery, magic, and survival. Rachel must navigate a world where every secret carries a price, and every decision could be her last. As the stakes escalate, she learns that some destinies are forged in the darkest places.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I have a soft spot for stories involving Nephilim since discovering T. Frohock. I *looove* those gay-male centered stories! (Because I bought them with my very own United States dollars, I won't be reviewing them here per customary usage.) Turns out there's *some* halo(!) effect, but not that much. This is a very solid story with straight people being straight which is not where my interests lie.

So, decent, well executed, and not for me.

Red Ink Publishing Ltd (non-affiliate Amazon link) says "$5.99 please" at checkout. If you can stand to give Bezoselzebub more money, it's solid value.

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Off the Air (Jolene Garcia Mysteries #1) by Christina Estes

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Equal parts thought-provoking and entertaining, Emmy Award winning reporter Christina Estes introduces Jolene Garcia in her Tony Hillerman Prize winning debut, Off the Air.

Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments―anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo―and special projects. Stories that take more time to research and produce. Stories that Jolene wants to tell.

When word gets out about a death at a radio station, Jolene and other journalists swarm the scene, intent on reporting the facts first. The body is soon identified as Larry Lemmon, a controversial talk show host, who died under suspicious circumstances. Jolene conducted his final interview, giving her and her station an advantage. But not for long.

As the story heats up, so does the competition. Jolene is determined to solve this murder. It’s an investigation that could make or break her career―if it doesn't break her first.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Well-executed debut mystery. I thought Jolene was equal parts believably tenacious and amusingly self-aware about it. I found the credit-denying ways of journalism as infuriating as it's possible to get. I was entirely convinced that it's the author's lived experience.

I just can't get to four stars because the dead a-hole needed killin'...that's a problem, it undercuts Jolene's determination to resolve the murder when she should just file a "local celebrity dies, presumably by violence" squib and let it go. When you can't care if the victim's dead, you lose stem in the read...which I did several times.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires a transfer of $14.99 from you to them for your legal access to an ebook. I'd go to the library, but go I certainly would.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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SHADOW WARRIORS OF WORLD WAR II: The Daring Women of the OSS and SOE by GORDON THOMAS & GREG LEWIS (33%)

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: In a dramatically different tale of espionage and conspiracy in World War II, Shadow Warriors of World War II unveils the history of the courageous women who volunteered to work behind enemy lines. Sent into Nazi-occupied Europe by the United States’ Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), these women helped establish a web of resistance groups across the continent. Their heroism, initiative, and resourcefulness contributed to the Allied breakout of the Normandy beachheads and even infiltrated Nazi Germany at the height of the war, into the very heart of Hitler’s citadel—Berlin.

Young and daring, the female agents accepted that they could be captured, tortured, or killed, but others were always readied to take their place. Women of enormous cunning and strength of will, the Shadow Warriors’ stories have remained largely untold until now.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: When this book came out in 2017, it was groundbreaking. Now it's one of a lot of other historical treatments of the long-buried story of women's heroism in the face of known hazards in WWII. It's a very rich field.

These men are not the ones to plow it. There's a lot less about the women than about the men who ordered them around, and the historical times...the subject of thousands of hours of reading and watching material...get more space than they need. I'm sad to say it was not a success, and was an unfootnoted one at that.

Chicago Review Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $26.99 for a hardcover, but used copies are less. I do not recommend it, even for free.

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The Bible and the Tarot: A Personal Pilgrimage of Discovery (38%) by Gil W. Stafford

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: This book is a portal for those interested in the Bible and curious about the Tarot, for both those who might read the Bible daily as well as those who know very little about it but are not averse to it.

The first two chapters provide background that place the two mystical texts in conversation with each other. The vast and complex mythos of the Bible with its complex characters, actors, symbols, stories, and parables, are the backstory of the magnificent creatures of the Tarot's inner psychic world. A book for spiritual explorers, reading the Bible and the Tarot hand-in-hand can expand the imagination. It explores how to read the Tarot and the Bible to provoke the unconscious, the dream world, and expand the imagination. By the final chapter, readers are able to connect the mysteries of the Bible with the psychological magic of the Tarot.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I gave up on this adequately written book when the discussion meandered over to Bernini's sculpture of Saint Teresa:

...having that memorable orgasm. I just can't read anymore about religious people denying that's what it so very obviously is. "Union with the Divine" my lily-white one!

I browsed around the Tarot card explications that are bent into harmony with the book that calls witches and soothsayers abominations. It's me confronting my ever-hardening intolerance of that terrible, abusive religion and not overcoming my hatred. I'm not proud of this.

Monkfish Book Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $23.00 for a trade paper edition, which...well...I ain't the one to ask if it's worth it.

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The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight.

Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Right reader, wrong book? Right book, wrong time? Dunno. I'm surfeited on the buffet of bon-bons, the smorgasbord of sweetmeats, the pomander of perfumed paragraphs in this book.

Maybe having the Felonious Yam and his diktat-signing autopen back in power makes this feel more like irresponsible escapism than it would have had the recent election not gone the way it did.

Knopf (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $14.99 to send to their corporate masters in Germany. Passionate birders and Tan-stans are going to whatever I say.

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Manomin: Caring for Ecosystems and Each Other (22%) edited by Brittany Luby, Margaret Lehman, Andrea Bradford, Samantha Mehltretter, and Jane Mariotti

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Reclaiming crops and culture on Turtle Island

Manomin, more commonly known by its English misnomer “wild rice,” is the only cereal grain native to Turtle Island (North America). Long central to Indigenous societies and diets, this complex carbohydrate is seen by the Anishinaabeg as a gift from Creator, a “spirit berry” that has allowed the Nation to flourish for generations.

Caring for Ecosystems and Each Other offers a community-engaged analysis of the under-studied grain, weaving together the voices of scholars, chefs, harvesters, engineers, poets, and artists to share the plant’s many lessons about the living relationships between all forms of creation.

Grounded in Indigenous methodologies and rendered in full colour, Manomin reveals and examines our interconnectedness through a variety of disciplines—history, food studies, ethnobotany, ecology—and forms of expression, including recipes, stories, and photos.

A powerful contribution to conversations on Indigenous food security and food sovereignty, the collection explores historic uses of Manomin, contemporary challenges to Indigenous aquaculture, and future possibilities for restoring the sacred crop as a staple.

In our time of ecological crisis, Manomin teaches us how to live well in the world, sustaining our relations with each other, our food, and our waterways.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "The only cereal grain native to Turtle Island (North America)"? Heard of teosinte? Or is Mexico too far south for you?

I'm not the right reader for this, so two-and-a-half stars in case it's genius not just sloppy, and I'm too old-white-man to see it.

University of Manitoba Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $29.95 for any edition.

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June 2025's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Knife Skills (Shadows of Chicago mysteries #1) by Wendy Church

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: "Dizzying . . . Audiences who wished the TV series The Bear had made room for Russian mobsters are in for a treat" Kirkus Reviews Starred Review

Sagarine Pfister is a great cook but has been blacklisted by almost every restaurant in Chicago. She gets her chance at Louie's, a below-average restaurant, the only place that will give her a job.

Things change when she finds head chef Louie Ferrar dead in the walk-in freezer of his restaurant. But instead of closing the place down, the owner, Russian gang boss Anatoly Morzov, not only offers her Louie's job, but also the position as his personal chef. Sagarine agrees, and while she knows she's playing with fire, the chance to turn out extraordinary food at both the restaurant and for Morzov's extravagant private parties is just too tempting.

While the Chicago P.D. searches for Louie's killer, the FBI pressures Sagarine to inform on the gang. She has no choice, but things take another dangerous turn when she falls for one of Morzov's lieutenants. As Sagarine becomes more deeply involved with the gang and with her lover, the FBI's demands put her at increased risk of discovery. She has to make a decision about where her loyalties lie as she finds herself running for her life.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Don't read it hungry! The beautiful food descriptions will send you to the fridge, the store, or the computer, there to drop a lot of money. The plot's familiar, the mob boss is a foodie so obviously Sagarine and I are infatuated with him...she picks Ekaterina (the only woman on his team...why? the mystery tempts Sagarine), though, where I'd be all over Anatoly. The murder victim comes under my heading of "some folk just need killin'" so the police solving the crime wasn't interesting to me.

Time with the FBI, exerting pressure on Sagarine to betray Anatoly (and Ekaterina) has her in a swivet. Maude, her sassy BFF/roommate, listens like we do...and there's a resolution, but I'm not tellin'.

Severn House (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. That's steep to me, but the story is tempting...maybe the library....

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Next to Heaven by James Frey

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: New Bethlehem, Connecticut is a town of picture-perfect lawns, manicured hedges, and multi-million-dollar homes, but beneath the designer yoga gear and country club memberships lies a darker reality.

In this world of excess Devon and Belle have it all—beauty, money, status—but they want something more. Something dangerous. Something that makes them feel alive. Their solution? A party—a meticulously curated gathering of New Bethlehem’s elite, from a desperate ex-NFL quarterback to a hockey coach with a penchant for married women to a ruthless Wall Street “closer” who wields his wealth like a weapon. One night. Multiple betrayals. And a murder that will shatter New Bethlehem’s carefully constructed facade.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: "New Bethlehem"'s bible-coded name explains the heteronormativity. The sulphrous waftings of Sodom are replaced by the brimstone bouquet of Gomorrah as straight people lie like rugs, cheat on their spouses, and steal in white-collar ways. Updike would be proud. No tinge of Cheever's erotic questioning, nor any humor like Peter deVries.

Comparisons to Fitzgerald are lèse-majesté. While sharp enough, Frey lacks pole position over the century-old tale of Gatsby. Tale as old as time, lacking beauty while having too many beasts.

Authors Equity (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requests a $29 donation to receive a hardcover.

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The Reflecting Pool (Marko Zorn #1) by Otho Eskin

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Murder leads to the White House

Marko Zorn, a Washington, D.C. homicide detective with expensive tastes in art, classic cars, and women, must take on extra work—not always strictly legal, often unorthodox and usually dangerous—to supplement his income—work which requires his special combination of skill and steel nerves. Although he’s adept at navigating the corridors of law enforcement and the world of criminal gangs, he’d prefer to stay home and watch old movies, enjoy his art collection, and listen to cool jazz.

When Zorn discovers the body of a Secret Service agent—a supposed drowning victim—it leads him to a domestic terrorist group with tentacles in the White House—a White House that does not want this death investigated. As the demands of his professional life escalate, Zorn’s alternate career heats up, placing him in the middle of competing D.C. crime bosses feuding over a shipment of illegal arms—making Zorn the hunted and the hunter. He needs to avoid becoming the victim as he navigates the twin forces of evil closing in on him from his legitimate job—facing down political power—and his secret side job.

Perfect for Grisham and Patterson fans.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The publisher's comps are precisely correct: You like the thrillers that pit one man against a corrupt system? You'll like this iteration of it. I did. Marko Zorn is a character blessed with the familiarity of long establishment, while offering the solid pleasures of the genre he inhabits.

I'm wearing thin on political thrillers. They don't appall me, but I don't necessarily want to read about the world I feel I'm living in quite this on-the-nose much.

Oceanview Publishing offers a trade paper edition but it's on backorder; there are used copies available from Bookshop.org (non-affiliate link above).

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Head Shot (Marko Zorn #2) by Otho Eskin

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: The Most Elusive Assassin in the World Versus D.C. Homicide Detective Marko Zorn

Washington, D.C. homicide detective Marko Zorn is investigating the murder of an actress—an old love—when he is assigned to protect the visiting prime minister of Montenegro, the beautiful Nina Voychek.

Political enemies are planning her assassination—this, he knows—but now it’s apparent that he, too, is a target. As he foils the initial attempts on his life, he pulls out all stops—deploying his sometimes nefarious resources—to hunt whoever is targeting him and prevent an international tragedy on American soil.

Decoded messages, Supermax prisoner interviews, mafia lawyers, and an ancient Black Mountain curse swirl among the icons of D.C. Marko and his young partner, Lucy, face down what may be multiple assassins with diverging agendas. Or are they facing one assassin—the deadliest and most elusive on the international stage?

Perfect for fans of David Baldacci and Daniel Silva.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It tells you a lot that I read these back-to-back. I enjoyed more time with Marko Zorn that much; but as noted elsewhere, my thriller-reading time is steadily decreasing as my stress levels rise.

I quibble slightly with the comp to Daniel Silva's thrillers, as in my memory, those reads are closer to James Rollins technothrillers, and this story is light-years away from that.

Oceanview Publishing offers a trade paper edition but it's on backorder; there are used copies available from Bookshop.org (non-affiliate link above).

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Black Sun Rising (Marko Zorn #4) by Otho Eskin

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A long-buried Nazi weapon resurfaces. America stands on the brink of destruction. One man must stop history's darkest nightmare from happening again.

When Washington, DC, homicide detective Marko Zorn's partner is murdered, his search for justice leads him deep into Black Sun, a violent neo-Nazi movement built from the ruins of WWII's most sinister forces. Their goal: unleash a catastrophic attack that will plunge the nation into chaos.

To stop them, Marko must outwit a woman known as the Bride of the Apocalypse, navigate the treacherous ambitions of two of the world's richest-and most ruthless-men, and confront a conspiracy stretching from Washington's corridors of power to the shadows of the city's underworld.

Can Marko save the country from annihilation?

A pulse-pounding thriller in the tradition of Baldacci, Clancy, and Patterson, Black Sun Rising delivers relentless suspense, razor-sharp political intrigue, and a chillingly timely story of unchecked hatred—and the one man willing to risk everything to stop it.

Black Sun Rising is the fourth Marko Zorn novel.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Somehow, in the shift between publishers, I missed book three in the series. The publisher assures you this is fine, that all the books can stand alone; inadvertently testing the hypothesis, I report success.

I'm already on record about thrillers and me needing some time apart. Nothing in this decently-executed example of the genre convinced me otherwise. Topical to a fault, I was unable to dismiss the feeling that Author Eskin has actually predicted the future. This story *will* unfold, and this way. That should disgust you.

Meridian Editions (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) offers a trade paper edition for $19.95.

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A Novel Murder: A Mystery by E.C. Nevin

Rating: 3.3* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome to the Killer Lines Crime Fiction Festival, the place for stars of the genre to meet their adoring fans . . . but be careful, this year the murders aren't just on the page.

Author Jane Hepburn is determined to make her time at the Killer Lines festival worthwhile. This is her chance to change her fortunes and make her fictional Detective Baker a household name. And if she has to resort to sneaking into the book tent after hours to rearrange some books so hers are front and center, so be it.

But when Jane encounters the dead body of renowned (and reviled) literary agent Carrie Marks, the festival takes on a decidedly different tone. Joined by Carrie's newest client, debut novelist Natasha Martez, and the agency's hapless intern, Daniel Thurston, Jane decides to put her fictional sleuthing skills to use in the real world—she's going to solve the murder. But the list of suspects is seemingly everyone at the festival has a motive to kill Carrie, and the more Jane and her new friends investigate, the closer they come to a dangerous truth—one that’s stranger than fiction.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Nice writing with a good balance of description and action. Fun, silly, cozy plot. Enough touches from the publishing world to make me feel a tiny wisp of nostalgic longing.

Slower pace than I prefer. Not really invested in the sleuth...she doesn't have "It" for me, whatever that "It" might be. Side characters just fine but pretty predictable.

Knopf (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks you to spend $14.99 for an ebook. Might be worth it if you really enjoy books about books and publishing.

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The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Sten

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Scream meets The Guest List in this wickedly compelling and compulsively page-turning thriller of friendship and murder from the author of The Lost Village, Camilla Sten.

On a remote island nestled off the coast of Sweden, four friends—Tilly, Anna, Linnea and Evelina—meet every year. Best friends since childhood, the idea is to drink beer, dance by the water, and shake off the weight of life's expectations. The location of the island is a secret to everyone but them. One night of reckless fun and secret-sharing, and then they return to their normal lives.

Ten Years Later. Ever since she was a teenager, Tessa Nilsson has been consumed by the story of four friends who disappeared. As her true crime fervor turned into a wildly popular podcast, Tessa covered Sweden’s most gruesome cases, but could never find the answers behind what happened to these women who disappeared. Now Tessa’s podcast has crashed and burned, any chance she had at uncovering the truth vanishing with it.

Anneliese is Tessa’s best friend, and before she walks down the aisle, she wants to have a bachelorette party. The destination: Baltic Vinyasa, a sleek, sophisticated yoga retreat on a small island off the coast—one with such similar characteristics to the tragedy years ago that it raises the hair on Tessa’s neck. The idea is to drink gallons of cava, do sunrise yoga, and get in their last chance to bond with the bride. Tessa will not pass this up. It’s her last chance to find out what happened to the four women, once and for all.

And it’s someone else’s last chance to get revenge.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I really liked the first two books I read by this Swedish phenom, most especially the sense of place they so fully evoked for me. Still true...just no longer novel; talk about a victim of her own success...! It's also the case that this plot, girl-group grows up hiding secrets worth killing for, does not compel me as much as it once did.

“Sometimes there’s no such thing as okay. Sometimes all there is, is good enough.” It's prophetic that this line is in this book.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $28.00 for a hardcover.

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Smile for the Cameras by Miranda Smith

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An actress desperate to reclaim her fame must survive the real-life plot of the horror movie that made her famous in this psychologically twisted locked-room thriller influenced by '90s slasher films.

Twenty years ago, Ella Winters was the it girl. She made a name for herself in Hollywood and throughout America as the final survivor in the cult-classic slasher Grad Night. But the real horror is what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling—something terrible that Ella and her co-stars agreed never to speak of again. Shortly after the movie's premiere, Ella disappeared from the acting scene under the pretense of caring for her ailing mother, hoping for a quiet life out of the spotlight to ease her guilty mind.

Now, after her mother’s passing, Ella has decided to return to the silver screen. And with the cast and crew of Grad Night in the process of filming a reunion documentary, Ella has the perfect ticket back into Hollywood's good graces. Weighed down by the secret she’s been keeping all these years, Ella apprehensively makes the trip to the original set—a cabin in rural Tennessee—to reunite with her castmates for the first time in over a decade. But when the actors begin to meet the exact gruesome fates of the characters they originally played, falling victim to someone dressed as the Grad Night villain, it's clear their secret is out.

Now, the question is: Can the final girl survive one last nightmare?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Really fun! In the Stephen Graham Jones territory of making slasher schlock interesting and enjoyable to those who didn't much like it back in the day, though this book is without the same panache. In fact, had I not read Author Stephen's work I would've passed this book by entirely.

The big downside for me was the unanswerable question, "what took you so long?" It dragged a four-star funfest down to a decent three-and-a-half I'm not sorry I read.

Bantam Books says "$13,99 please" for the ebook. I'd go to the library myownself.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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The German Girl: A Novel by Armando Lucas Correa (33%)

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A young girl flees Nazi-occupied Germany with her family and best friend, only to discover that the overseas refuge they had been promised is an illusion in this “engrossing and heartbreaking” (Library Journal, starred review) debut novel, perfect for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Berlin, 1939. Before everything changed, Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life. But now the streets of Berlin are draped in ominous flags; her family’s fine possessions are hauled away; and they are no longer welcome in the places they once considered home. A glimmer of hope appears in the shape of the St. Louis, a transatlantic ocean liner promising Jews safe passage to Cuba. At first, the liner feels like a luxury, but as they travel, the circumstances of war change, and the ship that was to be their salvation seems likely to become their doom.

New York, 2014. On her twelfth birthday, Anna Rosen receives a mysterious package from an unknown relative in Cuba, her great-aunt Hannah. Its contents inspire Anna and her mother to travel to Havana to learn the truth about their family’s mysterious and tragic past.

Weaving dual time frames, and based on a true story, The German Girl is a beautifully written and deeply poignant story about generations of exiles seeking a place to call home.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Between Grandma's Sèvres, Mama's perfume, and meditating on whether or not tulips grow in Cuba, I realized I am not the right reader for this book. I know it's a powerful story to some, a hymn to survival, a way of assuring themselves their identity politics are Right, but I'm really over...as in Over and Out, redundantly repeating myself for emphasis...with plucky Jewish girls escaping/surviving the the Holocaust. Most did not. Find something new to say about it or I'll ignore you henceforth.

Cue the religious nuts calling me either anti-semitic and/or misogynistic for good measure of my doneness with these stories.

Atria Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $12.99 for an ebook, if you're still looking for this kind of story. It's an okay iteration of it, not more.