December 2022's Burgoine Reviews & 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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A New World by Steven Popkes

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: On his first voyage seeking the Far East, Columbus finds a new world occupied by intelligent dinosaurs.

The expedition does not go as planned.

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Steven Popkes lives in Massachusetts on two acres where he and his wife raise bananas, persimmons and turtles.

He works in aerospace making sure rockets continue to go where they are pointed. He insists he is not a rocket scientist.

He is a rocket engineer.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: A shortish read, novella length, about the very best possible outcome of Almirante Cristóbal Colón's disastrous voyage to the New World: An enemy worthy and capable of resisting the scumdog religious nuts instead of normal people susceptible to diseases the evil bastards miasmically transmitted to them.

It's a lovely thought.

Told from several points of view in its fewer-than-100 pages, it doesn't linger on details or travel down intriguing side paths. That's understandable but regrettable. The presence of a Marrano on the voyage is, I think, allohistorical...but I can't prove that. I enjoyed the different outcome of first contact...not everything going the Spaniards' way...and relished very deeply the hints of complexity in the New World's radically new social structure. I think this is plausible since the asteroid hit the Yucatán in our own timeline by accident; as little as ten minutes earlier or later, the entire history of the planet would certainly have been different.

Would dinosaurs have survived? Would humans have evolved if they had? Sure, why not, this is a story! And a fun one, perfect for #Booksgiving. To yourself, or to others.

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Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People by Danny Katch

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The election of Donald Trump has sent U.S. and the world into uncharted waters, with a bigoted, petty man-child at the head of the planet’s most powerful empire. Danny Katch indicts the hollowness of U.S. political system which led to Trump’s rise and puts forward a vision for a real alternative, a democracy that works for the people.

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

My Review: I'm decidedly a leftist in my political stances. I would never, ever, ever vote for 45...not even for his execution.

I'm in sympathy with this book, then. Why would I only give it three-and-a-half stars? Because it's a humorous look at how the oligarchy got to control the political landscape...Obama would've been a Rockefeller Republican in the rational politics of my youth...that's short on ideas for what to do to replace the consensus.

Taking shit away from people is satisfying on a personal, vengeful level..."look! LOOK what your gullibility and stupidity have cost actual, real human beings!"...but look to the Soviet revolution for what happens when all you do is take away things with no plan for what to replace them with. Stalin. Putin. All the awful abusive cruelties and murderous outrages those men got away with by stepping into a void and saying, "obey me and I will protect you."

We got 45. And deserved him. The issue I take with this book isn't that it's wrong, it's that it's naïve and almost willfully unrealistic about what it will take to change the course of modern politics.

Explaining the problem ain't anything like enough anymore. The entrenched scream machine bellowing idiotic ideas into otherwise thoughtless heads isn't going to crank down on its own. It needs to be made unprofitable. And it needs to have a palatable-to-decent-people alternative to shove Them towards or it will fail and that catastrophe is what we're living through.

Real change for the better, please. No more cleverly insulting analyses, please.

A Kindle copy will only set you back $1.99 if you need a laugh at the yokels. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Conscience Economy: How a Mass Movement for Good Is Great for Business by Steven Overman

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A generation of people around the world, from Boston to Bangkok, from New York to New Delhi, are making everyday choices in ways that defy traditional logic. They are judging where and how their clothes were made, not just how they fit. They are thinking global but buying local. They are spending their money and their time, forming loyalties, casting votes and even enjoying entertainment based increasingly upon their desire to make a positive impact on others and the world around them. This new generation believes they can and must make the world better, and they expect business and government to get with the program.

The implications of the Conscience Economy are not “soft.” Ignore it, and your consumer or voter base will rebel, using a host of free tools and cheap connectivity to spread their rejection to peers around the world in real time. Leverage it, and Conscience Culture is a wellspring of financial upside.

The Conscience Economy is the must-read guide to this unprecedented shift in human motivation and behavior. Author Steven Overman, Chief Marketing Officer for Kodak, provides context, inspiration and some basic tools to help readers reframe how they evolve and grow whatever it is they lead—whether it’s a community, a business, a product, or a marketing campaign. From the boardroom to the startup loft, from the State Department to the pulsing marketplaces of the developing world, The Conscience Economy will help international leaders, influencers, investors and decision-makers to manage, innovate and thrive in a new world where “doing good” matters as much as “doing well.”

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

My Review: Exactly what it says on the tin. A corporate exec is talking to his fellows in front of us, making the point that there's lotsa money out there chasing Doing Good projects and products. This is news we don't hear that much...like the very real progress made on slowing down climate change in under a decade...that we could *just*maybe* not lose everything as Earth shrugs her shoulders to dislodge the fleas and ticks that we resemble.

Lower rating for using the corpocratic speechifyin' tone mixed with self-aggrandizement, but not the citations and suchlike gubbins one would expect to back it up.

Rentable for three weeks for $8.26, which ain't no bargain but beats $31.95 to buy it. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics by David Faris

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: It's time for Democrats to strike while the iron is hot...

The American electoral system is clearly falling apart--more than one recent presidential race has resulted in the clear winner of the popular vote losing the electoral college vote, and Trump's refusal to concede in 2020 broke with all precedents...at least for now. Practical solutions need to be implemented as soon as possible. And so in It's Time to Fight Dirty, political scientist David Faris outlines accessible, actionable strategies for American institutional reform which don't require a constitutional amendment, and would have a lasting impact on our future.

With equal amounts of playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, Faris describes how the Constitution's deep democratic flaws constantly put progressives at a disadvantage, and lays out strategies for "fighting dirty" though obstructionism and procedural warfare: establishing statehood for DC and Puerto Rico; breaking California into several states; creating a larger House of Representatives; passing a new voting rights act; and expanding the Supreme Court.

The Constitution may be the world's most difficult document to amend, but Faris argues that many of America's democratic failures can be fixed within its rigid confines—and, at a time when the stakes have never been higher, he outlines a path for long-term, progressive change in the United States so that the electoral gains of 2020 aren't lost again.

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

My Review: Too late. Even with the clear and ringing message of 2022's midterms in their ears, the Democrats...comme d'habitude...aren't taking action to protect, and extend, voting-rights legislation or moving to curb the lunatic right-wing majority on the Supreme Court's power.

So Faris's arguments are hot air blowing in the wind. He's correct. His prescriptions would work. But laddies and gentlewomen, there's no political will to do the sensible, morally correct thing among the oinking grafthogs battening on the dark-money dollars of contemptible scum.

A Kindlebook costs $9.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Téuta's Child by S. G. Ullman

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Once upon a time in the Téuta, the ground shook. The cliff fell, and boulders came tumbling down, crushing everything and everyone in their path. The surviving villagers blamed Welo, the nightmare giant, for the disaster.

When little blind Kaikos notices mysterious spiritual activity on the ground, she must keep it a secret. The villagers will not hesitate to sacrifice Welo's cursed granddaughter if it stops the earth from shaking again.

With the fragile line between love and hate erased by fear, Kaikos must brave growing darkness to survive.

The Téuta's Child is a gripping tale of loss and redemption, set in neolithic times.

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

My Review: I think you need to be in the proper mood for this story to work its magic on you. This week of all weeks of the year, it's the time to read about the fates of those Different and what simply living their lives can demand of them.

It's not like there's a lack of evidence that we're responding the same ways now as we did then.

Author Ullman tells his tale at a deliberate pace. There's not a single moment that he shorts its proper attention. And that is, in this story, a strength. He's making a world for us that isn't like the one outside. The people, now...they're always just people. But in response to stresses and pressures that we don't really experience the same way in the modern world, they use the same tools out of the same toolbox that we do.

This isn't a knock on the author's choices, it's a compliment...I'm noting for you the best thing a read can do: Make the Other into a familiar figure by taking us, the readers, outside our little compartments of mind. Among the pleasures of fiction is this one, this shock of the novel tempered into explorations of the nature of novelty. I recommend this for a long, comfortable reading in the Solstice's cold days.

At $5.99, a Kindle edition won't break the bank (non-affiliate Amazon link).

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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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All Are Welcome by Liz Parker

PEARL RULED: 18%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A darkly funny novel from a fresh new voice in fiction about brides, lovers, friends, and family, and all the secrets that come with them.

Tiny McAllister never thought she’d get married. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t think girls from Connecticut married other girls. Yet here she is with Caroline, the love of her life, at their destination wedding on the Bermuda coast. In attendance—their respective families and a few choice friends. The conflict-phobic Tiny hopes for a beautiful weekend with her bride-to-be. But as the weekend unfolds, it starts to feel like there’s a skeleton in every closet of the resort.

From Tiny’s family members, who find the world is changing at an uncomfortable speed, to Caroline’s parents, who are engaged in conspiratorial whispers, to their friends, who packed secrets of their own—nobody seems entirely forthcoming. Not to mention the conspicuous no-show and a tempting visit from the past. What the celebration really needs now is a monsoon to help stir up all the long-held secrets, simmering discontent, and hidden agendas.

All Tiny wanted was to get married, but if she can make it through this squall of a wedding, she might just leave with more than a wife.

I CHECKED A COPY OUT FROM PRIME LENDING LIBRARY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Ineffectual Dick musing, "If Robbie didn't come home, it meant Dick couldn't disappoint him," drove the final nail in the coffin of my increasingly decaying readerly corpse. I was ready for this to be dark, and funny; instead it was sad, and sarcastic.

This had the ideas of an episode of Schitt's Creek, which was blessed with an amazing alchemical miracle of writers and actors and producers and directors. This is the story that didn't make the cut, got flensed in the writer's room and worked over by the showrunner, and now washes up here in front of me, homophobia and clueless rich privileged assholes *galore* sitting in the same seats.

If I'd paid for it, I'd be spittin' mad. As it is, I won't get those eyeblinks back but it was at the very least a cashless transaction. I don't recommend it to you.

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End of the Roadie (A Mystery for D.I. Costello #3) by Elizabeth Flynn

PEARL RULED: 30%

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Brendan Phelan, rock star, is playing in a stage show that includes guns and whips. As it reaches its climax, a shot rings out—but it's not part of the show. The body of Oliver Joplin, one of the road crew, lies lifeless outside the stage door. Detective Inspector Angela Costello and her team investigate, but they quickly discover that several stage hands, and Phelan himself, are adept with firearms—and that Joplin was widely disliked and distrusted. So why had Phelan kept him on, despite the reservations of his crew? Joplin's emails reveal the presence of a shadowy figure stalking the dead man. Who might profit from Joplin's death?

Little by little, Costello unpicks the web of lies. But unless one key person opens up, she can't crack the case. And that is not going to happen.

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

My Review: When the production manager of the rock star's road show takes six lines to say "the star added the dead guy to the staff, not me, I hated the bastard," I realized I wasn't going to finish this story.

Gay is hilarious, you see, thinking a famous rock star might be gay can cause a room full of his sycophants to clutch their sides in laughter, and the fact that he's accused of having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl elicits a flurry of justifications like "plenty of girls that age are sexually active" (with middle-aged men? that's a problem, folks) and "how was he to know?" (maybe keep it zipped while on the road? just spitballin' some thoughts here).

The sleuth and her team follow procedures, I suppose, but I couldn't tell you what those were. I'm spoiled by Ann Cleeves and her ilk in this regard: The say what the procedures are. Anyway. It comes down to "I do not like this book or the characters in it so I am exercising my readerly right to bugger off now."

I do not recommend this read to you.

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The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis

PEARL RULED: 51%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: One of the earliest examples of steampunk literature, this 1868 tale was also among the first American science-fiction novels and the very first literary instance of a mechanical man.

Extremely popular and much imitated in its day, the story concerns a teenage inventor who constructs an automaton to help him explore the American prairie.

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

My Review: "...and with not a single Indian in sight!" reads the cliff-hanger to chapter 11 of this early science fiction story. It was then that my last nerve, frayed by racism and the passage of 150-plus years, snapped.

I can't do it. I can overlook and explain away with the best of 'em if I'm gettin' somethin' for it. I was not only not gettin' nothin' for it, I was puttin' in a damn sight more effort than I care to put in for a pleasure this attenuated. I tried three separate times, before and during the pandemic, and now ~after(?) it. I think that's more than fair, and I've never made it past this point.

November 2022's Burgoine Reviews & 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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Winter Haven by Athol Dickson

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Thirteen years after Vera Gamble's little brother ran away from their Texas home, his body washes ashore on the remote island of Winter Haven, Maine. Vera goes to claim the corpse and discovers the impossible: her brother hasn't aged a day since last she saw him. Determined to uncover what happened, she is confronted by unearthly fog, disturbing locals, and stories of lost colonies and a vengeful witch.

Beyond the forest where no creature dares to live, her only hope is the mysterious owner of a dilapidated mansion on a rocky cliff. But will this solitary man assist her, or is Vera Gamble doomed to disappear forever into yet another Winter Haven legend?

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: In my ongoing, possibly misguided, quest not to die above the neck before I do below it, I asked Bethany House for an ARC of this author's latest (in 2008) christian-themed mystery. I don't know why they said yes, but they did, and then I never reviewed it. Sinful wicked shame on me!

There was a time in the early Aughts that I made a concerted effort to believe in the whole christian malarkey-fest. (I was pursuing a most callipygian, but Jesusy, guy.) It was a complete and abject failure on every level, since he didn't give up the goodies despite my going to church with him! The nerve! But I found some very interesting books....

Supernatural shenanigans? Teased; not delivered. Much depends on the voice the author creates when reading a first-person narrative. Vera Gamble is a ninny, the spit-and-image of a Mary Sue. Hanging the story on her was not satisfying. The death of her brother seems to me to be a weirdly xianized form of fridging. The entire story resolves into an address to the Problem of Evil. It is, as I am sure you've already twigged by now, utterly unconvincing as such. (I've never read anything, even straight-out apologetics, that resolve the Problem of Evil.)

There is a great deal of cartoonishly overstated Wickedness imputed to the townspeople of Winter Haven. It is, peculiarly enough, this over-egging of the pudding that gave me the "in" to this book's successful level: Gothic fiction is heightened, exaggerated, and therein its charm. It's a feature, not a bug, of the Gothic tropes that they're over every kind and sort of top. Without that the story would collapse under the weight of its silliness. Once I got that spark to light the brain-fuse I began to enjoy myself. I read the christianizing bits as irony, though they were decidedly not meant that way. It gave me a way to derive enjoyment from what was otherwise a truly dreary slog.

A Kindle edition is $3.99 if you follow this non-affiliate AmazonSmile link.

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The Golden Hour by T. Greenwood

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: On a spring afternoon long ago, thirteen-year-old Wyn Davies took a shortcut through the woods in her New Hampshire hometown and became a cautionary tale. Now, twenty years later, she lives in New York, on the opposite side of a duplex from her ex, with their four-year-old daughter shuttling between them. Wyn makes her living painting commissioned canvases of birch trees to match her clients’ furnishings. But the nagging sense that she has sold her artistic soul is soon eclipsed by a greater fear. Robby Rousseau, who has spent the past two decades in prison for a terrible crime against her, may be released based on new DNA evidence—unless Wyn breaks her silence about that afternoon.

To clear her head, refocus her painting, and escape an even more present threat, Wyn agrees to be temporary caretaker for a friend’s new property on a remote Maine island. The house has been empty for years, and in the basement Wyn discovers a box of film canisters labeled “Epitaphs and Prophecies.” Like time capsules, the photographs help her piece together the life of the house’s former owner, an artistic young mother, much like Wyn. But there is a mystery behind the images too, and unraveling it will force Wyn to finally confront what happened in those woods—and perhaps escape them at last.

A compelling and evocative novel with an unsettling question at its heart, T. Greenwood’s The Golden Hour explores the power of art to connect, to heal, and to reveal our most painful and necessary truths.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: I am sad to say that this pretty well-written story is the one that tipped my dislike of the woman as obligatory victim trope into a hard and fast opposition to it. Wyn's long-ago rape and violent assault was the reason this story existed. (Perpetrated by a man, of course, and a lying sack of shit without a moral in his entire body.) Her logical way to cope is to run away and bury its trauma. Well, okay. I get it. But...really, is there anything less appealing than spending a few hours with a character whose first response is to run away? It's a common response but reads like this character is, now and always, leaning in to her victim status by allowing it to overtake every other thing in her life.

There's a lot of occupational therapy in here. Wyn is an artist. At her new hidey-hole, there are canisters of undeveloped film. The author goes bonkers focusing on these images, on the art Wyn (isn't) creating, her artist ex-husband's...oh look, let me just say it plainly: In a thriller or a mystery, the *issue* should take the focus (!) of the storytelling. Wyn's attacker's retrial? Run away! The perpetrator of the attack from long ago? Offscreen always. The revelations that do come along the way, the identity of the perpetrator, the way in which the character opts to cope with all the changes required by the revelations (spoiler: not), all conspire to leave me with a terrible taste in my mouth. Author Greenwood joins a select company of mysterians named Greenwood whose books just do not work for me. That pernicious, disempowering victimization of women/girls trope in both the Greenwood writers' ouevre just does not work for me.

It's $6.99 on Kindle at that non-affiliate AmazonSmile link.

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The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.

Ronan Szepessy promised himself he’d never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge.

Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom’s wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become—overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable.

Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real estate developers aren’t the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan’s hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.

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

My Review: Whale ghosts.

Seriously. Whale ghosts! Go get the book already! What's that about the plot? Oh, okay: Ronan, our out and queer protagonist, comes home to Hudson, New York. He was roundly hated for being his gayboy self, but Things Have Changed and, well, I myownself call someplace homophobically stuffed turning into Boystown-meets-the-Tenderloin a Martha-Stewart level Good Thing. The whale ghosts, um...they are...weird, as expected. That was okay with me, too, since I like the cli-fi elements of the read.

We parted company when Ronan gets involved with his married ex-lover. I've been in that car crash and I do not like that trope.

No matter, it's a well-written book, a delightfully weird story, and is available for $12.46 in hardcover. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.

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

My Review: Romance? Really? This is what you're telling young women Romance is all about? I don't know, but to me this sounds like a Bad Thing.

Lots of damsel-being-rescued stuff, seriously squicky "I'm so dumb" self-talk, The Beast is mostly just a brat who needs a spanking, and in the end there's little or nothing in this fairy-tale retelling that adds a whit to the Disneyfied version of the story its based on.

I do not like it. I would not recommend it to parents concerned about their daughter's internalizing pervasive misogyny. The writing is deft, but that even takes on a sinister cast because the message is just yuck-ick-ptui from giddy-up to whoa.

If you must get it by special demand, the Kindle edition's only $6.65. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Blue Macaw (Detective Valarie Garibaldi #1) by Ricky Ginsburg

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Officer Valarie Garibaldi, cancer survivor and heir to her cop father’s legacy, seizes an opportunity to fulfill his dream and earn her gold detective’s badge. A vacancy in the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department’s Homicide Unit is the twenty-six-year-old’s chance to prove to herself that she’d made the right choice between college, the beach, and the police academy. Partnering with veteran Detective Deesay Becerra, their first case together starts with a dead macaw–stuffed with millions in diamonds, and a murdered hooker–filled with heroin balloons. The body count ratchets up with the killing of two Miami Dolphins players, leaving the detectives no choice but to use one of their suspects as bait.

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

My Review: I don't think men should write sex scenes from women's points of view. We do not know what it's like. This was very obvious to me, again, and not a great start to my experience of this story. Add in a dead-in-a-gross-way female sex worker, a macaw that's been taxidermied by an amateur, and stakes I simply could not be less interested in, and this would've been a Pearl-Rule for me had it not had some silly, snappy dialogue...just enough to convince me to keep on.

Barely enough. But enough.

The Kindle edition's $6.99 but I'd use my Kindle Unlimited on it if I had suchlike nonsense.

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Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends' abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adele grew up in the shadows—first watching from backstage at her mother's Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father's manor. When she's finally sent away to boarding school in London, she's happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele's new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adele save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

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

My Review: First, read this:

“Why do you think, when women tell the stories of their lives, they end with marriage? It is not a happily ever after, cherie, only the end of happiness?”

In its bitter essence, Jane Eyre is a terrible, horrifying account of a cruel and controlling man's determined efforts to get the twisted things he most desired from the women he surrounded himself with. They had little choice in the matter. He exerted a charm, I'm told, in his "masterful" handling of them. I don't see it, myownself...Bertha or Jane, makes little difference, he was an archetypal narcissist in pursuit of minions.

I honestly forgot Adèle's existence in the original. Not a single scintilla of memory creased my cranium about her...how typical...and thus, when I got this book, I was in essence introduced to her for the first time. Her story is very affecting. I think it's a great shame that Adèle came into my awareness as a victim. Yes, she uses her victimhood to achieve something good as the Villainess, righter of wrongs and leveler of abusers. But there's a passage where her treatment of a loving soul, and her response to a shocking and disgusting betrayal, that just...rang so hollow to me. Her drive was always mitigated by her fears, as whose is not?, but her behavior is hard for me to mentally count as redemptive.

The resolution of the story is condign. It didn't hit the wrong notes so much as it simply played them too fast, too loud, and failed thus to distract me from my edge of unbelief. It's a fine book to give to your feminist granddaughter or romantically challenged niece.

There's a raft of editions for this new release. If this idea excites you, pursue it without hesitation.

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Underdogs (Underdogs #1) by Geonn Cannon

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Ariadne Willow is a private investigator with a secret weapon. She’s a canidae, a person with the ability to transform into a wolf at will. Using her heightened senses to track and her shapeshifting to follow people without being seen, she’s made a decent business for herself and her associate Dale Frye.

When one of the richest women in Seattle wishes to hire her, Ari and Dale think their ship has finally come in. All Ari has to do is observe the client’s tabloid-friendly daughter, fresh out of rehab, and confirm that she’s truly clean. Ari thinks the case will be a piece of cake, but a moment of shocking violence changes everything. Soon Ari finds herself backed into a corner with no way out, forced to either run or risk losing everything she holds dear by fighting an enemy with unlimited power and resources. With Dale refusing to leave her side, Ari decides to make a stand to remind her enemies that there’s only one rule in betting...

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

My Review: The fun part of taking advantage of NetGalley's "Read Now" collection is there is always some hidden pleasure or another to discover. A one-sitting canidae (werewolf to the tediously traditional readers like me) led urban fantasy chase story, this meets lots of my expectations. I was really amused and drawn to the very first pages' freshening-up of Little Red Riding Hood in particular...bringing to it that little something extra that comes from an eyewitness account of a crime as opposed to a polished and practiced witness-stand testimony via the Brothers Grimm. Much new information comes to light.

In general, I'm a lycanthropy fan. In this explicit case, I'm on a spiky fence because I question some of the judgment calls an author must always make...there seemed to me to be a peculiarly removed vibe to this fun take on a lesbian private eye-cum-werewolf urban fantasy. It's clearly an authorial choice, I must say, because it's in the structure of the sentences that're written in passive voice. It isn't, however, alienating to me as a reader. Honestly this surprised me because, under most every circumstance, I am hate-reading passive constructions in short order. So that was a surprise but was it a good one? I can't decide.

What made me finish the book in that one sitting mentioned above was the clarity of the conflict between Ari, our wolf sleuth, and her nemeses. If I can feel the pull of the story despite a narrative construct I'm not fond of, then there's something extra to this writer's storytelling chops. Kudos for that!

And let's face it...$2.99 on your Kindle ain't a lot to ask a reader to risk. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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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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Caspian's Fortune (Infinity's End #1) by Eric Warren

Pearl Ruled at 20%

Rating: 3-ish disappointed stars of five

The Publisher Says: He needs a payday. He’ll settle for payback.

Betrayed and left to rot on the edges of the galaxy, Caspian Robeaux is deep in debt and stuck flying courier missions in an old rustbucket he can barely keep afloat. His only friends are an annoying robot named Box and a bottle of booze.

It’s a far cry from his once-promising military career, but Cas stopped caring a long time ago.

Things start to look up, though, when a stranger arrives and offers a lucrative job that Cas can’t refuse, with a payday big enough to change his fortunes permanently. His luck gets even better when Cas learns that the job might offer him the one thing he wants more than his next drink: A chance to clear his name.

But nothing in his life is ever that simple, and for a man trying to buy his way out of debt, the price of redemption might be too steep.

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

My Review: There is a Serenity-shaped hole in my heart and I eagerly search for things to stuff into it. I loved the scruffy, "howinahell do we get outta this corner?!" vibe; I absolutely related to the search for the next payday just to keep the lights on and "keep flyin'" is a mantra I think most of us can relate to.

What turned me off was, in the end, I felt Cas was not particularly kind.

"I'm an engineer, I know how stuff works." He turned and made his way down the hallway, leaving her standing there. "But thanks for getting me out of my contract and for the repairs." He tickled the air with his fingers at her as he sauntered off in search of the nearest bar.

This woman tried to cheat him, and that merits a blow-off. But the whole vibe came across as unkind and that is something Mal never was. I stopped reading-reading at 20%, then, and skipped around to see what was going to happen. I checked out the Epilogue and, let's just say that I'm really, really glad I didn't read all the way through or I'd be incandescent and incoherent with outrage.

If you're okay with people abandoning their supposedly deeply-held principles, it's $3.99 on Kindle but...really? (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Camel Driver (Iron City #3) by Leonard Krishtalka

Rating: 3* of five

Pearl Ruled at 15%

The Publisher Says: Paleontologist turned private investigator, Harry Przewalski, excavates the dirty underbelly of people's lives, unearthing sexual betrayals, treachery, fraud and murder buried beneath the science of petrified shards, skin and bones. Ultimately, he must face a brutal killing in his own past, when he fled to a desert war and came back with a gun and a license to detect.

A famous, 140-year-old museum diorama is vandalized—it depicts the ferocious attack by two lions on a North African courier crossing the Sahara on a dromedary. The belly of the taxidermied camel has been sliced open and a bundle removed, shedding bits of flesh from a child. Harry is hired to investigate the macabre history of the exhibit. The taxidermist has a grisly past: a sexual affair, a lover's betrayal, a lurid trial, and graves in Botswana and Tunisia plundered for human dioramas. The camel driver's skull and skin are mounted under his clothing. In a Paris museum, a dead archaeologist, a bloodstained journal, and the theft of a Neanderthal child's skull and teeth lead Harry to the stolen bundle—a scientific bombshell worth killing for in a murderous race for fame.

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

My Review: First, read this:

I knew the end had begun. I knew she had conceived in the night, that hours after our uncontrollable pleasure the milky seed would plow its inexorable route, intent of consummating the act.

I don't even care what comes after this. It can not justify my continued eyeblinks.

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The Finder of the Lucky Devil (Lucky Devil #1) by Megan Mackie

Pearl Ruled at 18%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Rune Leveau has a magical Talent for Finding things and a mountain of problems. Those problems get worse when she is approached by a charming, but dangerous cybernetically-altered corporate spy. When he says he wants her to help him find a wanted criminal called Anna Masterson, who went missing six years ago, it should be easy for a woman who's only special gift is finding things? The problem is Rune has a dangerous secret. She IS Anna Masterson, and the spy isn’t taking no for an answer.

St. Benedict has searched for the last six years for the Masterson Files, a computer program that is rumored to do the impossible, cast magic spells. Such a program would reshape the world. For his own reasons, he's determined to be the first to find it and the mysterious woman connected to it, Anna Masterson. Having exhausted his other options, he is left with a new hope that this Finder of the Lucky Devil can lead him to the prize he has sought for so long. But the Finder is proving difficult and he isn't going to take no for an answer.

Set in an alternate Chicago, where technology and magic are in competition with each other, this fast paced Cat-and-Mouse chase makes The Finder of the Lucky Devil a welcome addition to your urban fantasy/cyberpunk library.

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

My Review: Average-to-indifferent prose, stock characters, and absurdly overblown punctuation...seriously, never use double-exclams in a book ever...conspired to make this flimsily "altered" Chicago not worth the eyeblinks. In a publishing landscape where I can read Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines or absolutely anything by Ilona Andrews, there's nothing making this a good value proposition. Very disappointing to say, since more is better in urban-fantasy publishing only when it's good.

October 2022's Burgoine Reviews & 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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Eternal Sonata: A Thriller of the Near Future by Jamie Metzl

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A few dead bodies are a small price to pay in the quest for immortality.

In 2025 America, it’s hardly news when a renowned octogenarian scientist dying of cancer disappears from a local hospice, but when Kansas City Star reporter Rich Azadian begins to dig, he discovers that other elderly scientists around the world have also vanished recently—all terminally ill and receiving the same experimental treatment from a global health company. His investigation leads him to the reclusive Noam Heller, a brilliant researcher exploring new technologies to reverse-age cancer and other cells. Using revolutionary stem cell treatments and snippets of DNA from rare, immortal Arctic jellyfish, his breakthrough promises the genetic equivalent of the fountain of youth.

But when Heller is murdered and his lab destroyed, Rich and his girlfriend Antonia become targets themselves. With the local police and federal authorities failing to see the big picture, he realizes he must take matters into his own hands to survive and stop the killing. His only hope is to mobilize his network of brilliant misfits and infiltrate the vast and lethal race—among cutthroat corporations, national intelligence services, rogue scientists, and a mysterious international organization—to control the new technologies and perhaps the secret of life itself.

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

My Review: Plausible-enough technothriller set in 2025, only ten years after it was written. Events have, um, overtaken the planned shocking stuff...I've had multiple mRNA vaccines developed in a matter of months to help me fight off a lethal plague, so this posited accelerated medical-research stuff isn't as impressive as it would've been just a short time ago.

The thriller parts, featuring intrepid reporter Rich Azadian and his gal-pal Antonia Hewitt, are solidly paced. Alzheimer's research shading into immortality research worked well as a spine for the thrillery bits. Fast paced, Pattersonesque chapters plus dialogue and descriptions that are very focused and taut lead me to wonder why y'all haven't bought millions of 'em. The author's voice works, the plot speeds, and the stakes are convincing. Don't wait, thriller readers.

The Kindle edition is only $2.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link) and well worth the price.

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The Helpline by Katherine Collette

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An eccentric woman who is great with numbers—but not so great with people—realizes it’s up to her to pull a community together in this charming, big-hearted debut perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Rosie Project.

Germaine Johnson doesn’t need friends. She has her work and her Sudoku puzzles. Until, that is, an incident at her insurance company leaves her jobless—and it turns out that there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians with zero people skills.

Soon enough though, Germaine manages to secure a position at City Hall answering calls on the Senior Citizens Helpline. But it turns out that the mayor has something else in mind for Germaine: a secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens center and their feud with the neighboring golf club—which happens to be run by the dashing yet disgraced national Sudoku champion, Don Thomas, a celebrity of the highest order to Germaine.

Don and the mayor want the senior center closed down and at first, Germaine is dedicated to helping them out—it makes sense mathematically, after all. But when Germaine actually gets to know the group of elderly rebels at the senior center, they open her eyes to a life outside of boxes and numbers and for the first time ever, Germaine realizes she may have miscalculated.

Filled with an eccentric, totally unique, and (occasionally) cranky cast of characters you can’t help but love, The Helpline is a feel-good page-turner that will make you reexamine what it means to lead a happy life—and is bound to capture your heart along the way.

I SNAGGED THIS FROM MY LOCAL LITTLE FREE LIBRARY! (then gave it back)

My Review: As a value proposition, this read was outstanding...Little Free Library finds don't get better than this. And the weekend I found it, I also found out it's got a follow-up coming out early in May 2023! The characters and the story were exactly, precisely delineated with my sense of humor in mind. The writing's got that wry, amused-that-you're-amused edge that I appreciate and approve of. If you need something to scratch Loretta Nyhan or Christopher Brookmyre itch, try this one on for size. Bonus: Australian setting, meaning the atmospherics are enough different from US stories to add another edge. (PS I disagree about the Oliphant book's comparability, since I found it unpleasant; Dear Mrs. Bird is much closer to the vibe you'll get, I think.)

The Kindle edition is $12.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link) should your library not have one.

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The Trouble with Tribbles: The Story Behind Star Trek's Most Popular Episode by David Gerrold

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: David Gerrold, the creator of "Tribbles," recalls how this popular episode of Star Trek was made, from conceptualizing the first draft to the final script, shooting on set, and explaining the techniques and disciplines of TV writing. Plus, receive 32 pages of photos, original illustrations by Tim Kirk, and much more!

My Review: Start with this excellent advice:

Taking something seriously means immersing yourself in it and treating it with respect and making it part of yourself.

–and–

Once you make a decision to do something or to be something, start preparing for it immediately.

The mix of advice and anecdote, of trivia and trivialities that absolutely make a fanboy's day, make this a perfect package of fan service with a redeeming dose of wisdom. It's a terrific gift for a young Trek fan, or someone seeking a blow-by-blow of television's peculiar ways with words.

It's only $4.99 on Kindle and frequently on sale for less. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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Out of the Cage by Fernanda García Lao (tr. Will Vanderhyden)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Out of the Cage opens in 1956, in Argentina, with the freakish death of Aurora Berro, and descends into a dark philosophical exploration of humanity and mortality. In the midst of her family’s celebration of a national holiday, an LP, careening through the air like a “demented boomerang,” severs her jugular. Her family—an agglomeration of perversions, deformities, and obsessions—seems at first not to notice, singing on. Aurora is left behind in a voyeuristic limbo as an omniscient first-person narrator, to observe the depravity of her family and reflect on the farce of her life and human existence.

Fernanda García Lao has been called “the strangest writer of Argentine literature,” and in Out of the Cage, she lives up to that distinction. The book is saturated in strangeness, a blend of formal experimentation, eroticism, grotesque theatricality, and dark humor that evokes the absurdist fictions of Witold Gombrowicz and the style of Silvina Ocampo. The result is a macabre and fantastic vaudeville, a tragicomedy, a kind of Dadaist opus against ideas of eternal beauty and fixed identity, against absolute concepts and universality.

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

My Review: Whatever you're thinking about this book from its cover and/or title, stop thinking it now. Aurora is our cicerone through a family of grotesques, a collection of tics and crotchets defined by their obsessive, angry sexual energy. They—Aurora's husband and conjoined-twin sons—are locked inside a bizarrely passionate, deeply damaged psychosexual cyst on Argentina's Body Politic...and that is the clue to what this book is on about. Noting the years in which this hideous agglomeration of sideshow freaks...brothers locked in sibling rivalry inside one body, a father who manufactures a glamourous Lana Turner sex doll to replace the wife he's simply forgotten has died...the next generation, son of a prostitute fathered by one of those men...all take place in 1956 (post-Perón), 1975 (Los Desaparecidos and the Dirty War), and 1989 (hyperinflation and Menem's economic crisis). Major turning points in the history of the country, all embodied in the person of Aurora of the truly peculiar death and even weirder substitution, Norma the pregnant prostitute with the paralyzed leg seeking one of the Berro men's support for her child, then finally Severino the child of Norma and ...?... left to make sense of the previous generations' mishegas and puerility.

It's $9.95 on Kindle, or $15.95 in trade paper form (non-affiliate Amazon link). I can't recommend it to the sexually prudish, or the easily distracted. It was ably, and intelligently, translated by Will Vanderhyden.

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A Tale of Two Omars: A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring by Omar Sharif Jr.

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The grandson of Hollywood royalty on his father’s side and Holocaust survivors on his mother’s, Omar Sharif Jr. learned early on how to move between worlds, from the Montreal suburbs to the glamorous orbit of his grandparents’ Cairo. His famous name always protected him wherever he went. When, in the wake of the Arab Spring, he made the difficult decision to come out in the pages of The Advocate, he knew his life would forever change. What he didn’t expect was the backlash that followed.

From bullying, to illness, attempted suicide, becoming a victim of sex trafficking, death threats by the thousands, revolution and never being able to return to a country he once called home, Omar Sharif Jr. has overcome more challenges than one might imagine. Drawing on the lessons he learned from both sides of his family, A Tale of Two Omars charts the course of an iconoclastic life, revealing in the process the struggles and successes that attend a public journey of self-acceptance and a life dedicated in service to others.

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

My Review: Everyone, no matter their looks, their socioeconomic status, or their talents, has got somethin' to carry that just won't quit hurting them. In Omar Sharif Jr.'s case, it was a lot of things based on expectations he was not going to meet and things he simply couldn't see how to fix or avoid. Yes, his life was privileged compared to most lives; yes, he had a lot of advantages that he seems to shrug off as unimportant; but in the end he was a damaged gay kid who fell for traps and snares that did him harm.

The happier part of the story is the gentleman's QUILTBAG advocacy in a country very much on the bubble socially. Egypt's neighbors are not especially stable democratic societies and that has an impact on the country's ability to deal effectively with its unpopular minorities fairly and equitably. To his credit, Sharif is in the trenches swinging his ax at the offenders and working his hardest to fix his chosen corner of the world. Very clichéd writing doesn't dull the gleam of his message of hope and his call to act, to support our QUILTBAG siblings around the world.

It's $11.99 on Kindle, or $26.00 in hardcover (non-affiliate Amazon link).

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Reality Testing (Sundown, #1) by Grant Price

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome to Berlin. Population: desperate. In the throes of the climate crisis the green tech pioneers are king, and if you aren't willing to be their serf then you're surplus to requirements.

Carbon credit for sleeping on the job. That's the offer a dreamtech puts to Mara Kinzig, and she jumps on it. After all, the city ain't getting any cheaper.

Then somebody changes the deal while she's dreaming in the tank.

Now Mara has a body on her hands, an extra voice in her head, and the law on her tail. Only the Vanguard, a Foreign Legion of outcasts seeking an alternative path in the dust between the city states, might be able to help her figure out what went wrong. First, though, she'll have to escape the seething streets of Berlin alive.

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

My Review: Another day, another dystopia. SF loves its dystopias, almost as much as YA does. The reason I rated this one three-and-a-half stars out of five is simple: I like the lesbian lead. She is a cool soul, struggling to make sense of her life while living it in a Grim New World that won't ever let her up or give her a break...and she doesn't carry that weight like it's a burden. She wants better for herself and her loved ones, like all people I've ever known. Daniel, another PoV, wasn't to my liking when I met him but he was compelling, driven by understandable needs and wants. He grows into someone I never expected him to be.

Also terrifically effective was the worldbuilding's slow-burn sensitivity to the plot. Permaybehaps the hardest adjustment was to the mixed slang spoken throughout, a heady brew of Chinese and German and so on and so forth. It's well deployed but still requires effort from the reader. We're in a climate-changed Berlin, a place not hugely resilient or possessed of reserves of natural diversity even now. Technology, that savior of all saviors, is pervasive in this climate-stressed world; I'd even say rampant. Its "blessings" are, as ever, unequally bestowed and frequently mitigated to the point of not being helpful.

A cyberpunk thriller draped over a mystery plot, it's $4.99 on Kindle or $16.95 tree book (too much IMO) {non-affiliate Amazon link} and worth the time, and the money.

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Jabberwocky: A Novella by Theodore Singer

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A double award winner! Best Novella in both the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and the 2016 Best Indie Book Awards!

Inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem, this is a dreamlike fantasy quest through strange landscapes, where the hero gradually grows into an understanding of himself and the true nature of the quest.

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

My Review: A kind of mashup of Lewis Carroll's poem of the same name, his Alice in Wonderland series, and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. The protagonist, Astreus, sets out on a quest and discovers that all is not as he believed it to be, and that must be the basis of his decision to act or not. I don't think anyone who's read much surrealist fantasy fiction will find anything new here, but it's nicely done and entertainingly silly. Don't think too hard...go with the story-logic, ride the waves, and enjoy.

It's 99¢ on Kindle and $5.99 tree book version (non-affiliate Amazon link), so it won't break the bank and will raise a smile or two.

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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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Rivers of Gold: A Novel by Adam Dunn

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: RIVERS OF GOLD is the first in the "More" series of dystopian thrillers featuring MARSOC operator Everett "Ever" More and NYPD Detective Sixto Santiago. The series is set in the Second Great Depression. The primary locale is New York City. The economy is shattered, the government is helpless, and crime and disease run rampant. An underground party circuit has developed, wherein rival cartels use a network of taxicabs to move contraband around the city. The only remaining obstacle to complete mobocracy is an experimental NYPD unit which relies on tough undercover detectives in taxicabs who try to keep the rising tide of chaos at bay. Detective Sixto Santiago is one of these cops, who is grudgingly partnered with a newcomer named Everett More, who does not seem to be aware of any rules governing police conduct. The brutal murder of a cab driver draws them into an increasingly complex investigation that eventually gives them a lead into the gang war between the party cartels. But as the case grows seedier and more dangerous, Santiago is forced to investigate his own partner, and is shocked to discover he is part of a covert CIA operation to infiltrate the NYPD. More is no cop he is something altogether more dangerous. But he is the only one Santiago can rely upon when their case leads them to the rising stars of New York's underworld, whose connections range from immigrant cab drivers to the captains of the finance industry.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY.

My Review: At 18%, Renny (our narrator) says:

The best/worst news is that Tony Quinones will be back from Cannes in time to be our stylist. Tony Q did the costumes for The Snake, a drama about a love triangle of gay sewage workers in Manila that's this year's odds-on favorite for the Palme d'Or. Tony is the kind of gay caricature who gives other gays a bad name (though he's always good for a few Specials for himself and his so-called Queue-terie.)

"Specials" are the narrator's other-career products: Drugs. My. How very edgy of the author, no?
Then, at 30%, Renny (our narrator) says:

She softly aligns her fingernails in perfect formation along my scrotal seam and arcs the tip of her tongue unerringly into my urethra.

My God, this girl.

And I realized how very much has changed since I downloaded this book in 2016; and how much MORE has changed since it was first written, and published by Bloomsbury, in 2008.

And I am so, so glad it has. I hate the homophobia; I hate the sexism (I excerpted the least condescending one I could I find); I hate the endlessly mindlessly habituated into lazy writers' heads use of New York City as dystopia-in-waiting. Use Birmingham, or Wichita, or Salt Lake City for a change.

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Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong

Rating: 2* of five, and I feel damned magnanimous about giving it so much

The Publisher Says: Read about the mother of all alien bases! The big one, the mega-base, the center of the Alien Occupation Government: the headquarters, the brain, the nerve center, the absolute pinpoint big base, is right here on Earth, just outside Della, Alaska. Forget Roswell. Forget Machu Picchu. Forget Stonehenge and Tikal and all those alleged alien bases -- abandoned, every one of them. This is the big one, right here on Planet Earth, right now, the source of all the world's troubles, the whole solar system's troubles. Right here. Finally, the unflinching truth about aliens on Earth is exposed in Truck Stop Earth, as told by an alien abductee to award-winning reporter, Michael A. Armstrong.

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

My Review: So, after this guy Jimmo cadges a ride from a couple lesbians (one of whom he's just, um, been with *nudgenudge winkwink*), he gets out of their elderly VW Bus and says:

"Thanks for the other night," she whispered. Her cute little tongue, with that little gold stud, flicked into my ear. "Take care, Jimmo."

"Yeah. Hey, thanks for all the rides." I looked at Margo, looked at Lilly, and somehow I knew I'd never see Margo again, which wouldn't rip me up much. Lilly I wasn't sure about, and if I did, now that would be a whole other story.

This is 1970s-level creep-you-out adolescent straight boy fantasy fan-fic stuff. I am NOT here for it. I'm out, it's deleted, and good riddance.

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Branches by Adam Peter Johnson

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A mindbending page-turner in the tradition of Dark Matter and The Midnight Library, this surprise bestseller will make you question everything you know.

SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE LIFE TOOK A WRONG TURN … WHAT IF IT DID?

This isn’t your life.
This isn’t your reality.
And there’s a way out.

For one man, the past few years have delivered one shock after another. The election of an authoritarian president. The sudden loss of his mother. A series of debilitating seizures. Now, as America descends into a nightmare, he’s shocked to discover the explanation for his seizures: He’s in the wrong universe.

A drug trial promises to return him to the timeline where he belongs. With his family life strained, his job gone and tanks in the streets, he jumps at the opportunity. But what will he find on the other side?

Take a reality-bending trip filled with surprises and second chances. Visit alternate timelines where life played out differently. Explore the roads not taken. Question the nature of fate. And find an answer to the biggest question of all: in a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control, what would it take for one person to make a difference?

Now an international bestseller, Branches is at once a twisty cerebral drama and a deeply personal journey through fear, grief and redemption.

First in a series.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME READING LIBRARY.

My Review: This one hurts. I love this idea. I suspect this is, in fact, reality and we haven't discovered it yet because there's just no way to test it scientifically.

And I bailed. Because the way the author has his PoV character handle the discovery process is...by phone: "I have more questions but the call drops. I try again, but after letting it ring for several minutes with no answer, I give up."

By phone, the calls drop, important words are obscured...in a multiverse-travel story. And we're already on Tuesday of the week we're spending in the story. I take exception to this, since it feels oh-so-conveniently deployed...and pat...and that leaves me wondering why, if I could write this for/with him, why I am spending my time.

Short answer: I'm not. And I really wanted to.

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The Killing Fog by Jeff Wheeler

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Kingfountain series conjures an epic, adventurous world of ancient myth and magic as a young woman’s battle with infinite evil begins.

Survivor of a combat school, the orphaned Bingmei belongs to a band of mercenaries employed by a local ruler. Now the nobleman, and collector of rare artifacts, has entrusted Bingmei and the skilled team with a treacherous assignment: brave the wilderness’s dangers to retrieve the treasures of a lost palace buried in a glacier valley. But upsetting its tombs has a price.

Echion, emperor of the Grave Kingdom, ruler of darkness, Dragon of Night, has long been entombed. Now Bingmei has unwittingly awakened him and is answerable to a legendary prophecy. Destroying the dark lord before he reclaims the kingdoms of the living is her inherited mission. Killing Bingmei before she fulfills it is Echion’s.

Thrust unprepared into the role of savior, urged on by a renegade prince, and possessing a magic that is her destiny, Bingmei knows what she must do. But what must she risk to honor her ancestors? Bingmei’s fateful choice is one that neither her friends nor her enemies can foretell, as Echion’s dark war for control unfolds.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME READING LIBRARY.

My Review: At 10%, Bingmei sees a pickpocket steal coins from a yokel she's got to help. The clunky dialogue, with her fixing a hard gaze on the yokel before dashing off leaving him in a crowd by himself so she could flex her badassery etc etc just wore me down. I flipped through the rest of the book to see if there was something not-tedious going to happen. It didn't.

I give up. There's a lot of good fantasy written by Asian women these days...why read mediocre time-sucking fantasy by an old white guy writing in an Asian woman's voice?