March 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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Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Newly minted child psychologist Mina has little experience. In a field where the first people called are experts, she’s been unable to get her feet wet. Instead she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat wave sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplates her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death from years ago.

Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand.

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

My Review: Psychological horror/thriller novels really do scare me. This one, in a lot of ways, was scary; its only issue for full, effective scare factor in my eyes is the journalist/tyro child psychologist tie-up. I'm really oversensitive to that kind of cruel, manipulative relationship, having been abused by jesus freaks with the truly horrific tale of god and the devil making a bar-bet that Job wouldn't buckle under extreme psychological torture. It didn't help that the male journalist scraped her acquaintance in a group for grieving loss sufferers, a true predator move.

For those reasons I could never get all the way into the story, hence my seemingly ungenerous rating. It *is* effective in its creation of a spooky atmosphere, with icksome details and sensory evocations. Lots of body horror that feels very...bodily...so squeamish souls are duly cautioned. Effectively claustrophobic, emotionally sharp-edged horror read that has some serious flaws.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Amazon link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. I say it's a good library borrow.

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A Brazen Curiosity: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 1)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Nothing ruins a lovely house party like bloody murder.

At the decrepit old age of six-and-twenty, Miss Beatrice Hyde-Clare has virtually no hope of landing a husband. An orphan living off her relatives' charity, her job is to sit with her needlework and to keep her thoughts to herself.

When Bea receives an invitation to an elegant country party, she intends to do just that. Not even the presence of the aggravatingly handsome Duke of Kesgrave could lead this young lady to scandal. True, she might wish to pour her bowl of turtle soup on his aristocratic head—however, she would never actually do it. But a lady can fantasize.

But, when she stumbles upon the dead body of another houseguest, all Bea's good intentions fly out the well-appointed window. Although the magistrate declares it a suicide, she knows better.

Time for some very unladylike behavior.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY PAY AUTHORS FOR OUR USE.

My Review: OLD?! TWENTY-SIX WAS OLD?! I reject this notion whole and entire! I don't reject the series, however, as Beatrice is another anachronistic Regency heroine who does not "know her place" which will always get my attention, as someone who has never known his place either.

I don't rate it more highly because it has other anachronistic touches I found less amusing, eg "The difference between who she perceived herself to be and who she actually was was vast, and if she had any fight left in her, she would resent how easily she’d succumbed to everyone’s low expectations, including her own," very much a twenty-first century kind of a thought. Still well worth your time and treasure if you need a pleasant diversion.

Kindle edition's $2.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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A Scandalous Deception: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 2)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she certainly does not consider herself an amateur investigator.

So when a London dandy falls dead at her feet in the entryway of a London Daily Gazette, she feels no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper office, after all, and reporters are already on the case as are the authorities. She has her own problems to deal with anyway—such as extricating herself from a seemingly harmless little fib that has somehow grown into a ridiculously large fiction.

Truly, she has no interest at all.

Except the dagger that killed the poor earl seemed disconcertingly familiar… And so Bea is off to the British Museum because she cannot rest until she confirms her suspicion, while trying to allay her family’s concerns and comprehend the Duke of Kesgrave’s compulsion.

For the handsome lord has no reason to waste his time solving a mystery alongside a shy spinster. And yet he turns up everywhere she goes.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY PAY AUTHORS FOR OUR USE.

My Review: I'm increasingly uncomfortable with Beatrice's facile, foolish, ill-considered lying as a source of plot momentum. It's as squicky a trait as it was to me in I Love Lucy when I was a kid. The lies are so silly, too.

That said I got solid laughs between brow-furrowings. Value delivered, even if in mitigated form.

Kindle edition's $3.49. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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A Pernicious Fabrication: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 13)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

Nothing will persuade her, not even discovering the identity of the victim.

It is the duke’s cousin, son of the wretched Lord Myles, who also met an ugly death—bludgeoned with a candlestick—after going into business with the infamous crime lord, who rules over the worst rookery in London. Mortimer Matlock, a thwarted artist who stopped sculpting after his work was rejected repeatedly by the Royal Academy, was forging artifacts for Hawes’s illegal antiquities scheme.

Joining forces with the King of Saffron Hill, it seems, is frequently fatal.

That is an unfortunate development, then, for Bea, whose husband is determined to find out who slayed his relative. The duke shares her distrust of Hawes, whose avowals of just wanting justice for the fallen man ring hollow to him too. He believes there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Well, obviously, yes, thinks Bea, who is unable to smother her misgivings.

Surely, they’re walking into a trap.

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

My Review: Entertaining. The art-forgery and antiquities-smuggling aspects are what drew me in initially, and while these plot points drive the story they aren't the focus (if you see what I mean) as much as the web woven by and for the Duchess. It's book thirteen in a series, so good lawsy me have I missed a lot.

I'm not sure I'll go get three through twelve. Don't start here, but if like me you're a fan of Regency-set stuff, pick up book one. I enjoyed it more than this one; most likely because I missed so much in the middle.

The Kindle edition's $6.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre by Aaron Mahnke

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The new book based on the long-running hit podcast by Aaron Mahnke, which has translated into over 120-million downloads to date, and a monthly average of over 2 million listeners.

The podcast, Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities, has delighted millions of listeners for years with tales of the wonderful, astounding, and downright bizarre people, places, and things throughout history. Now, in Cabinet of Curiosities the book, learn the fascinating story of the invention of the croissant in a country that was not France, and relive the adventures of a dog that stowed away and went to war, only to help capture a German spy. Along the way, readers will pass through the American state of Franklin, watch Abraham Lincoln’s son be rescued by his assassin’s brother, and learn how too many crash landings inspired one pilot to leave the airline industry and trek for the stars.

For the first time ever, Aaron has gathered scores of his favorites in print, and curated them into a beautiful, topical collection for devoted followers and new fans alike.

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

My Review: Fun trivia book. I don't listen to Mahnke's podcast but this definitely makes me understand why people do, with his engaging, personable affect, and the combination of infotainment and attractive design.

Sourced anecdotes largely point you to Wikipedia, some are not *quite* as presented here (lookin' at you Saqqara-bird story) but honestly...you'd buy this as a giftie for the nibling who's a Jeopardy!-watcher and they'd enjoy debunking the stuff as much as anything.

St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link) requests $14.99 for an ebook.

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The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (tr. Sarah Moses)

Rating: 3.75* of five

WINNER OF the 2026 Locus Award for TRANSLATED NOVEL! Winners will be announced May 30, 2026.

The Publisher Says: The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.

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

My Review: Seemingly alone among readers, I did not like Tender Is the Flesh because its conceit was simply too absurd for me. I was unable take it seriously enough to get into the real story. Not at all the issue with this top-flight idea. "The Enlightened" are so very of the moment, and so perfectly limned as the abuser tech bros and Aynholes they're...parodying? illuminating in 3D, certainly. By gender-flipping the baddies, Author Bazterrica bypasses facile dismissive male critics' inevitable sexist dismissals of the story's, um, Gothic excesses. She's also thereby making a powerful point about women and their missing solidarity. The (female) abusers rise to the top, thereby to use their power in pointlessly sadistic rituals of pain and humiliation.

Hence my lower-than-expected rating. I do not wish to examine women in any remotely sexual light. It's metaphorical here, granted; I still do not enjoy it; so not-quite-four is my rating of a solid five-star story. YMMV, of course, and I very much hope it will.

Scribner (non-affiliate Amazon link) will say "$13.99 please" at checkout.

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Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hasn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash lands his hot air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in.

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.

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

My Review: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice for modern times. A bit prim and a lot heteronormative for my taste.

I'm not mad about it, also not mad I read it. Some decent one-liners in here.

Knopf (non-affiliate Amazon link) wants $13.99 for the ebook. *shrug*

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O Sinners!: A Novel by Nicole Cuffy

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A journalist investigates a seductive and mysterious cult and its leader, an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran, in this not-to-be-missed novel.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist reeling from the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed in a cult called The Nameless. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War-veteran named Odo, The Nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS,” “ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION,” and “SEE ONLY BEAUTY.” Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of The Nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult's inner workings, compassionate teachings, and closer to Odo. Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come-to-terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo's spell.

Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads between Faruq’s present-day investigation, Odo’s time before the formation of the movement as a Black infantryman during the Vietnam War, alongside three other Black soldiers, and a documentary script that recounts The Nameless’ clash with a Texan fundamentalist church, O SINNERS! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel What is it that we seek from cults and, inevitably, from each other?

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

My Review: I am exactly the right audience for this story: I think cults are reprehensible, predatory horrors; I'm part of the generation defined by the Vietnam War and its aftermath; I'm a strong advocate of novels that tell stories complicated by memories a character needs to repress in order to make sense of their daily life.

After about the fifth time-switch I felt ping-ponged; after the repetitions of the 18 Utterances, I was not able to control my eyerolling. I just liked the story, yet didn't like the storytelling as much.

One World (non-affiliate Amazon link) asks $13.99 for the ebook. I myownself would ask the library to get one.

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The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

2025 Giller Prize finalist Winner announced 17 November 2025.

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring” (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy” (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

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

My Review: Of all the (too-many) characters in this story, I liked the train the best.

Quite a change from Room and its claustrophobic one-space, a crowded cast of characters and actions that merely move them around the train to talk at each other some more left me...unsatisfied. I'd've liked Author Donoghue to cut a few, and home in on the ones left. Beautiful sentences, and a fascinating historical background, rescue the story from mediocrity. Make it a movie already!

Summit Books (non-affiliate Amazon link) charges a reasonable $12.99 for an ebook.

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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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LONGLISTED for the 2026 Dublin Literary Award...the shortlist of six will be announced on 7 April 2026, the winner(s) in May's festival.

The Antidote by Karen Russell (64%)

Rating: 3* of five

FINALIST for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction!

The Publisher Says: From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.

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

My Review: I cried "Uncle" at 64% because I just don't care anymore.

I hadn't meant to sound so angry. Nothing about their calm faces in my uncle's kitchen made any sense.

I read that, thought, "I couldn't agree more," and put the book down. I had steadily lost interest, which was a sadness since I really wanted this read to thrill and delight me. It *sounds* great!

Knopf thinks $14.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link) is right and proper. I say use the library.

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The Ego System: The Awakening by René Zografos (51%)

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Can we afford to stand by as our planet collapses?

In the past 50 years, humanity has wiped out 70% of the world’s wild animals. Our oceans are being emptied, wildlife habitats destroyed, and ecosystems pushed to the brink, all to satisfy an insatiable hunger for meat and animal products.

In The Ego: The Awakening, award-winning journalist René Zografos reveals the devastating consequences of the meat industry on the environment, animal welfare, and our health. With eye-opening insights into factory farming, wildlife crimes, and political inaction, this book challenges us to rethink our choices and their impact on the planet.

Discover how factory farming fuels climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.Animal suffering is hidden by an industry designed to obscure the truth.Plant-based living can lead to a sustainable future and improved personal health.This is more than a wake-up call. It’s a call to action, offering practical steps to create a better world. Zografos blends compelling facts, personal reflections, and a sense of urgency to empower readers to make meaningful changes.

Proceeds from this book support animal welfare, ensuring that every purchase makes a difference. It’s not too late to save our planet. The time to act is now. Will you be part of the solution?

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

My Review: More citations, less verbiage.

However much I agree with you, rigorous adherence to standards is even more urgent than ever when you're arguing against the Orthodoxy.

Kindle Unlimited for free (non-affiliate Amazon link), if you must.

ALL THE QUIET PLACES, debut YA novel by & about First-Nations youth caught in tumultuous times & WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER, CanLit monadnock Howard Norman's YA-themed novel

ALL THE QUIET PLACES
BRIAN THOMAS ISAAC
Brindle & Glass
$18.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Brian Isaac's powerful debut novel All the Quiet Places is the coming-of-age story of Eddie Toma, an Indigenous (Syilx) boy, told through the young narrator's wide-eyed observations of the world around him.

It's 1956, and six-year-old Eddie Toma lives with his mother, Grace, and his little brother, Lewis, near the Salmon River on the far edge of the Okanagan Indian Reserve in the British Columbia Southern Interior. Grace, her friend Isabel, Isabel's husband Ray, and his nephew Gregory cross the border to work as summer farm labourers in Washington state. There Eddie is free to spend long days with Gregory exploring the farm: climbing a hill to watch the sunset and listening to the wind in the grass. The boys learn from Ray's funny and dark stories. But when tragedy strikes, Eddie returns home grief-stricken, confused, and lonely.

Eddie's life is governed by the decisions of the adults around him. Grace is determined to have him learn the ways of the white world by sending him to school in the small community of Falkland. On Eddie's first day of school, as he crosses the reserve boundary at the Salmon River bridge, he leaves behind his world. Grace challenges the Indian Agent and writes futile letters to Ottawa to protest the sparse resources in their community. His father returns to the family after years away only to bring chaos and instability. Isabel and Ray join them in an overcrowded house. Only in his grandmother's company does he find solace and true companionship.

In his teens, Eddie's future seems more secure—he finds a job, and his long-time crush on his white neighbour Eva is finally reciprocated. But every time things look up, circumstances beyond his control crash down around him. The cumulative effects of guilt, grief, and despair threaten everything Eddie has ever known or loved.

All the Quiet Places is the story of what can happen when every adult in a person's life has been affected by colonialism; it tells of the acute separation from culture that can occur even at home in a loved familiar landscape. Its narrative power relies on the unguarded, unsentimental witness provided by Eddie.

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

My Review: This beautifully written debut novel, telling a deeply affecting story of a boy's coming of age amid loss and deprivation, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2022. I'm a bit surprised that it didn't make the shortlist because it's got the power and the credibility to impress any judging panel. Still...however they chose, the judges chose this story to stay longlisted.

Eddie Toma is a character I recognize...a youth whose rudder isn't calibrated like he's told it's supposed to be. It's an adolescent trait, of course, but the issues Eddie is coping with are his life are those unique to an unvalued Indigenous male. In a settler-colonial society he isn't going to find a lot of validation. What he has, in compensation, is a formidable grandmother who models a moral compass nonpareil. He spends his entire growing-up time torn between the need, like all of us, to figure out what the world is about, and the impoverished person's need to find enough food to fill his hunger. His life in the white-people school in the nearest town is a nightmare of bewilderment...how is he supposed to know about racism? until he started school he'd never even been to the white people who lived across the road's home!...and there is no one to explain anything to him at home or at school.

Except Eva, the white girl who lives across the road...she's kind, and she's weird, and she's got something Eddie can't quite figure out going on in her mind. (That remains true all through the book.) Eva is a beautiful, willful, intelligent girl caught in a place too small to hold her talent, still less her interest. As Eddie and Eva continue to knock their corners together and as Life gives them nasty buffets and blows, they simply get on with getting on. Growing up. Learning and wondering and trying stuff out.

When I think about the way the story unfolds after reading the ending of the book, I feel so much more as though Author Isaac brought his bluntest weapons to the tale's wordsmithing. I was always involved in Eddie's solitary life, weirdly lived among the crowds of people who were Others to Eddie and who in their turn Othered him. I wished, at every failed opportunity to make a connection with someone, that I could go into the pages and hug Eddie. I wished his family had seen him, the "him" that this novel builds, the real him. His mother was challenged at every single step by single motherhood, by racial prejudice, by the judgment and unkindness of the world; her treatment of her sons was only marginally better than their treatment at the world's hands, and it's there that I wanted to go be a White Savior.

It's not, then, the happiest of lives that Eddie and his family live. He loves, I think, almost no one but he crushes on Eva and still can't connect with her. She, in her turn, is both kind and cruel. She's a kid...she's a rebel...she's a privileged white lass whose feelings for an Indigenous lad are titillatingly forbidden, yet came across to me as sincere. As the years progress, Eddie can't make sense of her, can't make sense of his burgeoning feelings for her, can't take in the manifold cruelties he's undergoing on every level except one quiet refuge: His grandmother.

His mother's mother is a calm center of this chaotic bunch. Even her white racist neighbors feel respect for her, though they never express it without nastiness. Eddie loves her, in the best way a deprived and neglected heart like his can love. Only to her can he turn in all his bewilderment and rage, with all his confused longings for nameless-to-him caring and nurturing. From her he absorbs respect for the wild world, and her son Alphonse (whose life doesn't include much voluntary time spent with any kids) leads him by example to knowledge of and connection with his environment. These factors enable Eddie to get through the disasters of most all colonialism-, racism-, and poverty-blighted lives. He is, at base and at heart, only truly, trustingly at home in the wild world.

The ending of the story is, I confess, a bit downbeat for my taste; it's the reason I'm not giving the read all five stars. It makes perfect sense. It is exactly what, I suspect, happened to someone, somewhere in Author Isaac's own past. It is not false; it is just...so very, very sad. I wouldn't recommend this as a read for someone needing a cup of cheer. But I do recommend that you read this tender, loving, cruelly realistic tale of life lived in racism's ugly glare.

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WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER
HOWARD NORMAN
Mariner Books
$14.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country's finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story.

Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda.

Setting in motion the novel's chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat's sinking of the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman's uncannily layered story.

Wyatt's account of the astonishing—not least to him—events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one.

An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE LIBRARY. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY LIVE AND DIE ON OUR PATRONAGE.

My Review: When an author of Howard Norman's stature uses the epistolary storytelling technique, the chances of disappointment...always higher when this difficult-to-master form is used...shrink back into insignificance. As expected, then, this read was a master class in what and how to make of the epistles in question.

Wyatt's parents aren't alive as we meet him. I got a strong intimation that he, looking back on a whole family's life pretty passionately (if unhappily) lived, didn't feel they were alive before they each committed suicide for mixed-up love of the same woman. If I had to guess (Author Norman doesn't over-explain anything, ever) I'd say Wyatt's life more complicated than most from the very beginning. His letter to his largely unseen daughter, however, is all about putting forward the facts of her paternal family's life as he recalls them. It felt to me as though Author Norman's telling of the tale was direct and honest; so Wyatt, then, wasn't aware even in retrospect of his life's peculiarly high levels of complexity.

In The Highland Book of Platitudes, Marlais, there's an entry that reads, "Not all ghosts earn our memory in equal measure." I think about this sometimes. I think especially about the word "earn," because it implies an ongoing willful effort on the part of the dead, so that if you believe the platitude, you have to believe in the afterlife, don't you? Following that line of thought, there seem to be certain people—call them ghosts—with the ability to insinuate themselves into your life with more belligerence and exactitude than others—it's their employment and expertise.

With all the arousal hormones Wyatt's story begins with, and given the fact that he's writing to his twentyish daughter, this is a story pretty much guaranteed to be about the erotic charge that a messy life provides and more importantly about its costs. Wyatt's unrequited love for a person in his family circle who is not a relative is the stuff of life. I suspect it was deeply relatable to anyone who's ever been part of a blended or a found family. The object of his affections, herself an added person (one whose family isn't a birth family), falls madly in love with someone socially inconvenient: A German émigré, and this story's set during World War II. So there's another level of relatability, as what adult has made it this far without an unrequited love?

My whole life, Marlais, I've had difficulty coming up with the right word to use in a given situation, but at least I know what the right word would have been once I hear it.

The problem this inability brings with it, or perhaps the character trait it points up, is that of passivity. Wyatt is not a doer but a done-to. Nothing that happens in his (passive, epistolary) account of his life to the daughter he doesn't know is as a result of his actions. The one truly, damningly awful thing he's involved in, and for which he is now seeking his daughter's forgiveness, is a result of his inaction, his inability to stand for something.

I realize I've sometimes raced over the years like an ice skater fleeing the devil on a frozen river.
–and–
I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven't told you.

But what he does, this man of inaction, is write the young woman a letter. How typical of him...make an effort but make it ineffectually. What a letter does is enable him to remain inactive yet still offer, as if from behind a wall, an accounting of the young woman in question's heritage. What happens as a result? We never know; Author Norman's story is of Wyatt, not Marlais.

You'll have to decide if that's a deal-maker or -breaker for you. I fall on the line between those poles. I need to feel a story is complete, fulfilling its brief, to really lose myself in it. The musicality of Author Norman's line-by-line creation can draw one along for a good while but there's always that need to have some story pay-off for me. I was not all the way satisfied...I wasn't dissatisfied...there was a strange liminality in this tale of passive inaction's consequences. I would recommend you read the book. I wouldn't recommend it to you, however, of you're in the mood for a propulsive plot-driven thrillride. Does the read repay the effort? It did for me—mostly.

I think Author Norman turned me into Wyatt!

THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER, Black Queer Canadian historical novel & CABIN COMMOTION, a fun romantic read

THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER
SUZETTE MAYR
Coach House Books
$17.95 (US) trade paper, available now

SHORTLISTED for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award!

CONGRATULATIONS to Coach House Books & Suzette Mayr for THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER, a #queer #Black & #Canadian being THE WINNER OF THE 2022 Giller Prize! Watch the shining moment here.

The author's search for models among people who don't necessarily want to be used as models, from Lit Hub.

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair

The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. Affecting, imaginative, and visceral enough that you’ll feel the rocking of the train, The Sleeping Car Porter is a stunning accomplishment.

Baxter’s name isn’t George. But it’s 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he’ll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with “George.”

On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the train is stalled for two extra days; their secrets start to leak out and blur with the sleep-deprivation hallucinations Baxter is having. When he finds a naughty postcard of two queer men, Baxter’s memories and longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can’t part with the postcard or his thoughts of Edwin Drew, Porter Instructor.

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

My Review: The burden of racism lands without rhyme or reason. In no way does R.T. Baxter, dentist in training, want to believe he needs to be "George" to the oblivious white people his job as a porter on this particular cross-Canada trip from Montreal to Vancouver. They call him George anyway; he knows better than to correct them. And he knows that he's retaining a degree of his selfhood by allowing them to use a name that isn't connected to his self. It's not his self the oblivious don't see. It's not his self the crude jeer at, demean, demand from. It's George, the porter.

The beginning of the book makes you, a twenty-first century reader, ill with the shame of being a witness to a man's humiliation at the whims of people no better and mostly significantly worse than he is. There's a repugnant attempt at sexual assault; there's a nasty trick played regarding a tip; most of all, Baxter...George, really...is w-bombed by one of the continent's most repulsive specimens of whiteness. And you're only on your first leg of the trip, Reader! BaxterGeorge is so very not on his first, fourth, fifteenth even. And the hits keep comin' with the company's Bartlebys announcing he has new demerits. New ways to risk losing this job that could, if he just makes himself stick the landing enough...enough more...times, get him closer to the goal of becoming a dentist.

What transpires in this 1929-set tale of oblivious, privileged people behaving as badly as they are capable of without tipping too far into actual malice...even their obliviousness is used to shield them from the reality of those who serve them!...is seen through the stream of Baxter's desperately fatigued consciousness. His never-ending round of service isn't met with thanks, gratitude, or praise; just with demands for more. His brain serves up the memories of men he's cared for, he's served in the manner he's happy to serve them. He can't always connect the "reality" outside himself with the needs and wants of the young man he really is. He doesn't have a second to himself to dive back into The Scarab from Jupiter, for heaven's sake, even though a landslide trapped them...train-them, keep up!...in a pass and the Egyptologists are just finding out where on Jupiter they've been taken by their captors. Esme, little newly orphaned scrap of flesh that attached itself to him to escape a Gorgonops of a granny, won't let him go long enough to keep Pulp and Paper, those pompous bombastic business travelers, keep them from complaining about his unconscionable lack of information as to why the railroad allowed their train to be delayed by an Act of God, and then there's Mad Mary making all the sorts of noises as only his conductor-queen self can about Baxter also watching over Templeton's sleepers-only car...but in Baxter's car the Doctor's having A Crisis over his David, his colleague David, being arrested and, well, couldn't Baxter...you know...stay?

It's a sadly unchanging situation. People who, themselves, want and need are instead wanted and needed at, and only the right ones get those needs met. What Baxter gives up in his one wild and precious life is meant to be an investment in a better personal as well as social tomorrow as a dentist caring for needful peoples' teeth. What happens to him in the meantime is the out-of-body experience of sleep deprivation, the absolute and utter abnegation of meeting the needs of people who can't so much as bother to learn, still less use, your name, the all-consuming pandering demanded by those whose lives are built on shoals of "I PAID FOR THIS" without ever seeing the vast deeps of suffering the shoals stand in.

Capitalism is cruel, and the comfortably fixed for money like it that way. There's nothing wrong with the system, says the pale faces and pink gums of the privileged. Look, I tipped George, didn't I?

Simultaneously moving, infuriating, beautiful, and deadly, this is a superb choice for the Giller Prize.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CABIN COMMOTION
BRINA BRADY
non-affiliate Amazon link
$4.99 available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: High-paid escort Marcus graduates college and he’s ready to leave The Manor. Working for pimp Kalepo for four years, Marcus believes there’s no way out without paying a fatal price. When Kalepo ends Marcus’s apartment lease and moves him into his home as his full time escort without his permission, Marcus leaves California on a train to New York City and a bus to a rented Vermont cabin for one month to hide from Kalepo and to think about his future.

Playboy Blaze is the son of Sal Bossio, a New York City Italian mobster. His father orders him to his Vermont cabin for one month while he settles mob business. Blaze hires a rent boy for one month, but unexpected events occur and he finds himself alone in Vermont. When he reaches his cabin, he finds a stranger sleeping in his bed. The gorgeous gingered-haired man could be a hitman sent by his father’s enemies.

Two lonely men solve the cabin commotion by sharing the only bed in the cabin during their sex fest, saving hidden pasts and tough decisions until the month ends.

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

My Review: One of those "join my mailing list, get a free book," come-ons that worked out just fine. It's a meet-cute, with a slutty edge to it, kind of story about how hard it is to break the habits of a lifetime's training and trust people, talk to people, who stay long enough to listen to you.

Marcus's parents aren't. They left him with a nasty uncle whose rage at him for being a faggot (a word we see a lot in this short book) led to his living the life of a highly paid escort. I mean, it's good to earn your keep by using the weapon that got you chucked out, right? Talk about lemonade from lemons!

The life of a seriously pricey escort isn't materially deprived. Marcus still feels abandoned, feels rejected, and then feels everything in the world reorient itself when he meets Blaze (and Blaze's anger issues). Blaze's dad is a mafioso, and is perfectly aware that his son's a hothead who gives men head. Yeah, so? My son, my priority, not you and your stupid issues.

Well, it's a romance, you know we're gettin' our HEA. You also know we're gettin' our drawers warmed up, some smexytimes and a little helping of spanking kink along the way. These guys don't waste a lot of time fully clothed. Their sex wasn't fresh or new to me, but it wasn't rote or mechanical. I believed these two characters would have this sex. And I believed they'd have these exact, precise miscommunication problems, one prideful and arrogant (Blaze) and the other wary and untrusting (Marcus). What I didn't expect was that Blaze's Pop would adopt Marcus with such tenderness. He genuinely sounds pissed off when Blaze acts the dickhead and drives Marcus away. He even gives Marcus the plan to make Blaze pay for it by igniting his jealousy via a fake date!

Anyway, a free treat for signing up on Author Brina's newsletter list made this a just-fine Sunday afternoon-passing story of young, horny hotties finding out early that the family you give yourself is worth fighting for.