THE MIDNIGHT CAROUSEL, debut magical novel of loss, grief, and redemption

THE MIDNIGHT CAROUSEL
FIZA SAEED McLYNN
Park Row / Harlequin (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The Night Circus meets Water for Elephants in this enchanting, darkly glittering story of grief, obsession, revenge, and enduring love.

Come children, come children from far and near. Come choose your steed, you galloping knights, to enjoy the fun of the carousel . . .

1920, Chicago
Maisie Marlowe has come to America for a fresh start. After discovering an antique fairground carousel, she is seized by the idea of running a glittering amusement park. But little does she know that the wondrous object has a sinister past of its own.

Paris
A decade ago, fairgoers inexplicably vanished riding an extraordinary carousel, and Detective Laurent Bisset closed the case with a suspect behind bars. So when rumors of fresh disappearances in Chicago also linked to a carousel make their way across the Atlantic, Laurent sets out for new answers to an old mystery.

Maisie and Laurent both hold clues to this dark puzzle.

But can they piece it together before the carousel claims someone else?

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

My Review: Carnivals are intentional, designed liminal spaces. Carousels, maybe more than most attractions at a carnival, are meeting-places for mundanity...powered separate spaces that go in endless circles like the ritual dances of so many cultures accompanied by endlessly repeating music...and magic.

Magic always demands a price, a sacrifice of treasure. It works like all the other balancing systems in nature. Benefit given, cost exacted...it is the universal law, it functions across time and (on terrestrial scales for sure) space, many cultures have a divinity whose purpose is maintaining or restoring balance: in my case I refer often to Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of balance and rightness. In this story a terrible painful tragedy rips the balance utterly and without redress...so a perspectiveless human seeks out a powerful way to exact a price for it.

Tragedies ensue, all linked to that loss...though not obviously or directly.

What works best for me in this read is the atmosphere of unreality, made stark by the very quotidian writing. This enhances the surreal events being evoked in the direct prose. It's a debut novel, so I can't say from experience with the author if this is a stylistic trope of hers or not. As a novel, it's got some flaws. There is a great reliance on coincidence, which might or might not have been intended to heighten the sense of mysterious forces in action to redress that balance discussed above; there are dangling threads that could be intended to evoke the certainty that no pattern is ever truly complete.

Debut novels get the charitable interpretation from me. Especially debut novels that evoke similar reading experiences to The Night Circus, a read I adored in the Aughties. I hope some more work of Author McLynn's will come out soon for my delectation.

WHO KNOWS YOU BY HEART, layered storytelling...in the Satanic second person

WHO KNOWS YOU BY HEART
C.J. FARLEY
William Morrow (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what’s real in an age of artificial intelligence.

Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents’ deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection—these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.

Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian’s very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation’s gleaming headquarters.

But she sets her suspicions aside when she’s recruited by another Black coder—the infuriating but attractive Walcott—to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that’s programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott’s excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer—something that they can’t unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.

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

My Review: Told in second person, so no possibility for anything above four of five stars exists. A Columbia educated (as we're reminded often) Black woman succumbs to the lure of tech money in this romance-tinged technothriller. It's very much a game of two halves, as the beginning sets up the circumstances of Octavia's decision to accept cold capitalist reality and take a high-paying, not likely to be fulfilling job in order to buy her way out of debt...much of which was inherited from her mother, thus involving Octavia in debt peonage.Fortunately for her a megacompany, Eustachian, Inc.'s, testing algorithm taps her as A Talent.

As witty, obsevant Octavia spends time in Eustachian, Inc., we get the deeply uneasy sense of "offness" that a thriller needs to make it exciting. The author chooses to make this a very extended part of the book, not igniting the thriller part until Walcott, the love interest/cospirator with excellent aims, appears far too near the halfway point. This is also when the language shifts registers as technobabble (for all of me, anyway) predominates from here on out. I perked up, though, because the stated aim of these two Black folks in a lily-white tech company staffed by tech bros is to subvert the systemic racism and misogyny from within using coding skills.

As this is exactly what I think keeps Aynholes awake at night and causes them to refuse DEI anything with all their might, I was so down with this! Especially since I was being tenderized by the (for white people) immersion into Black culture, use of Black contributions to the world, and centering of a Black woman in a plot about confronting and subverting racism and misogyny.

You'll have noticed the incomplete fourth star. I was a bit surprised by Author Farley's complete absence of Asian characters in a novel centering race-based prejudice. Historical reckoning with racism and combating is perpetuation is very much incomplete without more inclusion. Still, It's not fatal as flaws go, nowhere near as guaranteed to put me off as Satanic second-person narration.

I would've relegated this novel to a short review until I got to the final chapter. A summation of the extreme dangers inherent in AI's development *at*all* left me slightly winded from the emotional ooof as the gut-punch landed.

For that alone I hope you'll read the book. (I won't forgive the second-personning waterboard torture, though.)

HE'S TO DIE FOR, fun, entertaining gay rom-com/mystery with good opposites attract energy

HE'S TO DIE FOR
ERIN DUNN
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Brooklyn 99 meets The Charm Offensive in this sparkling romantic murder it's murder cute in the first degree when a detective finds himself falling for the lead suspect in a career-making case.

At 29, Detective Rav Trivedi is the youngest member of the NYPD’s homicide squad, and his future looks bright. He may be a bit of an outsider in the department—an ivy-league educated gay Brit with a weakness for designer suits—but his meteoric rise and solve rate prove he belongs.

So when his CO assigns him lead on the high-profile murder of a record executive, Rav is ready for action. He won’t be distracted by TV crews, tabloids, or what’s trending on social media, nor by the ridiculously hot rock star with a clear motive and no alibi.

This is it, his shot, and he is not going to screw it up—certainly not by falling in love with his number one suspect…

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My Review: Told in third person from Rav's PoV, this story of opposites attracting is the exact kind of cuteness booster-shot of a story I've been needing as my world darkens. You'll note the link above to my review of The Charm Offensive, which was a good story well-told, much the way this one is.

What makes it a half-star less of a good read than that one is really simple: Switching the PoV from the anxiety-suffering character to the neurotypical character lessens the impact of anxiety into the (ironically) anxiety-inducing "this is a burden" feeling that all anxiety-suffering people I've ever known dread.

I'll also mention the mystery plot was...underwhelming...though not in any way substandard. Given how much time it took up, it was as thorough as it could be in being a mystery; it's akin to a mystery short story, though, and those are never top of the heap for me. I'll also bring up the low-steam aspect of the romance, to be fully informative. It was fine for me because it was one strand of the story among several.

It sounds as though I didn't like the story, and I promise I did! I loved the way these two really different men learned to talk to, not at or past, each other. I liked the moments of sweet sharing, bringing each other into the other man's thought processes and history. I battened on the sense that they were building something for each other, out of themselves, as a loving demonstration of need. That it was done using both humor and flirtatious silliness was the way it made me invest in it not simply roll my eyes.

It's in that context that Rav and Jack connected most deeply...their struggles to be able/allowed to exercise their strengths to really satisfying degrees. Rav's very pretty, very posh, and very much expected to glide through his job while making the department look good. Doing actual detective work? Not really in the cards. Like Jack, he's supposed to do and keep doing what others want. Unlike Jack, Rav doesn't get panic attacks that are used against him.

All told a really enjoyable summer's afternoon of reading. I hope to see more from Author Dunn, and might even pick up a book two of these men if one appeared.

THE RED NOTEBOOK, what Queen Camilla calls “Parisian perfection”

THE RED NOTEBOOK
ANTOINE LAURAIN (tr. Jane Aitken & Emily Boyce)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: In this bestselling novel, a bookseller pursues a mystery woman—known only through the jottings in her red notebook—through the streets of Paris

Bookseller Laurent Letellier comes across an abandoned handbag on a Parisian street, and feels compelled to return it to its owner. Quickly ruling out the police station, which is always best avoided, he turns the contents out onto his kitchen table to see if they hold a clue. The bag contains no money, phone or contact information. But it does yield a small red notebook, full of handwritten thoughts and jottings that reveal someone Laurent would very much like to meet. From the lists of likes and dislikes, things noticed and things felt, emerges the portrait of a woman who might just be his soulmate.

But without even a name to go on, and only a few of her possessions to help him, how is he to find one woman in a city of millions? He’ll have to turn to his daughter, who helps him decode the possessions and sends him on a madcap journey around the French capital.

Meanwhile, in an anonymous hospital room, fragmentary thoughts float through the mind of a woman in a coma. She thinks she’s called Laure, and she has some strong opinions and painful memories – but will she ever wake up and get a fresh chance at life?

Soaked in Parisian atmosphere, this lovely, clever, funny novel is the perfect French holiday read!

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

My Review: Author Antoine Laurain (Vintage 1954) is a major bestseller in the UK. Given how much y'all like those Japanese weird-bookshop-soulmate-finding books, why haven't you gone all-in for this guy?

The absolute perfect one-sitting read, a novella about a bookseller in Paris turning detective in the wake of a violent crime he knows nothing about. His motive is to find the owner of a red notebook full of her jottings but noticeably devoid of a name or an address.

What happens to Laurent the bookseller as he reads the notebook is the magical sense that the writer is his soulmate, long lost other half, all those romantic notions that plague us harder in warm weather. He uses the list, with his daughter's help, to scour the city to "reunite" with this dream woman he's never met.

This gives Author Laurain a chance to rhapsodize about his native Paris. This he does with a facility I can but admire from a distance; he evokes Paris as a living city not a tourist theme park in just over 150pp! It gives the reader as lovely an experience as going there does without the hassle of plane travel.

The resolution isn't mysterious; or the point, really. It's a story about how a decent guy can act stalkery, but get away with it by knowing he's treading a really fine line, adjusting his expectations, and still managing to find who he's looking for. He does nothing to indicate he thinks he's got a right to his mystery love's returned affection. He is honest throughout with himself and all around him about his intentions but never claims he is entitled to anything from the woman he doesn't know just because he's fallen for her.

Honestly impressive feat on Author Laurain's part. Still it *will* trigger some, so be advised it's in the story. I was a bit less impressed with the way the PoV shifts between Laure, the woman, and Laurent were handled. It takes little enough to put a break in the text; nothing literary was gained by not having one. I dinged a half-star for positive mention of c-a-ts. *shudder*

A lovely summer vacation in Paris with little fuss. What's not to love about that?

SPEAK EZ, clever, endearingly endowed with dog energy, paranormal lesbian romantic suspense

SPEAK EZ
ELLE E. IRE
Bywater Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$20.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When a mysterious dog shows up during the renovation of the Big City Little Theatre, one woman falls in love with the victim of a century-old homicide who might not be as dead as she seems. And now it's a race against time to ensure she stays that way.


On New Year's Eve, in 1923, someone walked into Michelle "Mickey" McFadden's queer speakeasy hidden beneath the Big City Little Theater and shot her and her dog, EZ, dead. Or . . . sort of, mostly, kind of dead, maybe? Because instead of crossing over, they become trapped within the bar's cinderblock walls. And though EZ eventually manages to wriggle his way free, Mickey remains, her spirit frozen in time.

In 2022, employees of the Big City Little Theater begin encountering a stray dog sneaking in and around the premises. When Ciara, the theater's bookkeeper, saves the dog from being hit by a truck, she begins to suspect there's something odd about the mysterious canine and makes it her mission to catch him and either return him to his owners or keep him as her own.

That is until Ciara and her friends happen upon the sealed-up speakeasy in the theater's subbasement --and find the dog inside. But how did he get in there when the door was locked? And why are there bullet holes in the otherwise beautifully preserved bar? Their discovery launches them on the investigation of a lifetime, complete with an ancient murder to solve, strange occurrences to explain, and a missing person to find.

When Mickey's spirit, which has been trapped in the mysterious in-between for the past hundred years, begins to find her way out, she and Ciara finally come face-to-face. And it's more than the speakeasy's old wiring that makes sparks fly. Ciara's falling hard for Mickey and Mickey for her. Can they solve the murder and figure out how EZ returned to the world of the living before the clock strikes midnight on the next New Year's Eve?

Because if they don't, they're pretty certain Mickey's time will finally be up—this time for good.

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

My Review: EZ the dog better be coming back. The women, well...if that's how I get EZ back, okay.

I had a lot of fun with this read because I'm all about ghostly love, and even lovin'. It's very clear these women would smoke up a train station with their chemistry. Any author who can get me to invest in the love of two women is an author whose chops as a storyteller are superior. Developing Mickey into someone I was interested in seeing get justice for her century-old murder took some doing. Her post-death time in the walled-up speakeasy in the basement of the theater where Ciara works isn't detailed...in fact the way Mickey's existence gets handled is mostly with believable "I don't know"s and much pondering without a lot of resolution, which is fine by me.

All the characters are fun to listen to. Mickey's not all that different from the others, something I'd usually frown over, but the four in the group are witty enough that I let it go. What counts in a crime novel is solving the crime, right? Not to me, though I'll admit the pleasure of reading a series mystery is a satisfying solution to the crime and the crew around the sleuth. I don't know the author's plans, but it seems to me that, after this story, she's likely to stop. As long as she brings back EZ somehow, okay by me.

So the murder does have a solution that we are given adequate means to think through. I won't talk about it because the Spoiler Stasi is ever-vigilant, but it makes sense and it works. It's also part of the reason I think this could be a satisfying standalone story. I like the idea of this story existing in and for itself, not needing to carry forward baggage.

What cost a half-star off perfect-fivedom was my sense that Ciara needed too little time to adjust to Mickey's...unorthodox...existence. How does Ciara just buy into this decidedly offbeat mode of being? No obvious anxiety around any of it, which I'm not really prepared to accept all the way; so a measly half-star off instead of a whole one, because once they get to bantering, well, it's just utterly clear why they love one another.

Very much a story to keep the #PrideMonth reader involved, entertained, amused, and invested.

BETRAYAL AT BLACKTHORN PARK, latest from emerging favorite storyteller Julia Kelly

BETRAYAL AT BLACKTHORN PARK
JULIA KELLY (Parisian Orphan #2)
Minotaur Books
$28.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: With mystery, intrigue, and the hints of romance international bestselling author Julia Kelly is known for, Evelyne Redfern returns in Betrayal at Blackthorn Park.

Freshly graduated from a rigorous training program in all things spy craft, former typist Evelyne Redfern is eager for her first assignment as a field agent helping Britain win the war. However, when she learns her first task is performing a simple security test at Blackthorn Park, a requisitioned manor house in the sleepy Sussex countryside, she can’t help her initial disappointment. Making matters worse, her handler is to be David Poole, a fellow agent who manages to be both strait-laced and dashing in annoyingly equal measure. However, Evelyne soon realizes that Blackthorn Park is more than meets the eye, and an upcoming visit from Winston Churchill means that security at the secret weapons research and development facility is of the utmost importance.

When Evelyne discovers Blackthorn Park’s chief engineer dead in his office, her simple assignment becomes more complicated. Evelyne must use all of her—and David’s—detection skills to root out who is responsible and uncover layers of deception that could change the course of the war.

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My Review: After the four-star detail-filled atmospheric romantic thriller that was A TRAITOR IN WHITEHALL, my expectations and hopes were high for this second read featuring Evelyne and David.

I got the period details I wanted, I got the relationship development I expected (minimal), and the mystery element was interesting. But the second time is so often just a bit...samey...isn't it? We've been here, now we want something to happen. Author Kelly chose to meet that desire fairly late in the proceedings, setting us up for a sequel.

The fact that this is a romantic suspense novel far more than a puzzle-solvong one is just fine by me. Evelyne and David are well-matched, though not perfectly mated. That would get a bit dull. Instead they're given enough friction by their shared career as confidential agents of The Powerful at a tremendously consequential crossroads in history to keep their focus clear and mutual; there's an enemy to fight, a reason to keep fighting, and a lot of work to put into that fight.

Witty banter is a risky narrative strategy in a book without an explicit romance. David and Evelyne are clearly headed that way, but at times their palaver gives the future of the game away. This results in oddly reducing the tension that so many series stories rely on. Just ask Moonlighting's producers how letting that drop works out...yet, despite this (I suppose inevitable) middle space in a series being unsettled, the way Author Kelly words things is enough fun, the period evocation is so skillfully interwoven, and the history treated with such respect that I can't help but bump this fun book two of more to come up a quarter star. I'm especially calling out Evelyne's character-appropriate, but period-shocking, willingness to chafe against what she sees as unfair boundaries set for her because little is expected of her in terms of ability. This is something I suspect many intelligent people from disrespected groups and backgrounds relate to. Events transpire that give Evelyne reason to reassess her responses...sometimes training wheels save the savant from a bad fall.

All in all, a series I'm enjoying more as it unfolds. An increasingly rare experience that I genuinely appreciate.