What Doesn't Kill Her

What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade Book 2)- Christina Dodd
HQN Books
Release Date: January 29, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead!

Synopsis: Kellen Adams suffers from a yearlong gap in her memory. A bullet to the brain will cause that. But she's discovering the truth, and what she learns changes her life, her confidence, her very self. She finds herself in the wilderness, on the run, unprepared, her enemies unknown--and she is carrying a priceless burden she must protect at all costs. The consequences of failure would break her. And Kellen Adams does not break.

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When Captain Kellen Adams learned in the end of Dead Girl Running that she had a seven-year-old daughter she didn't know about, she knew that her life was going to change.  In the beginning of What Doesn't Kill Her , Kellen is trying to learn how to have a civilian life with a man she isn't sure still loves her, that man's mother (who really doesn't love her) and a daughter.  It isn't working well and Kellen is feeling lost. So when she gets offered a simple security job to help drive a potentially priceless artifact from the airport to a reclusive authenticator, she jumps on it.  Warning bells go off (and then explosions go off) and Kellen finds herself in the wilderness with an artifact, a stowaway daughter, and a bunch of bad guys trying to kill her.  While most people would call that impossible, to Kellen Adams "impossible" just means "harder to do".

Kellen is a great heroine.  She has overcome the trauma and torture of her past to become a fast-acting, fast-thinking Army veteran on par with J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas.  But, like Eve, while Kellen is confident the Army has trained her for handling life-and-death situations, she has no idea how to handle a seven-year-old daughter and all the complications that come with a new civilian family life. She doesn't instantly fall in love with daughter Rae and while Rae's father Max doesn't understand that, the reader certainly can.  Rae may be a happy and intelligent child, but insta-bonding with a strange kid is not realistic- in fiction or reality.  Having to keep Rae alive through a mountain journey teaches both mother and daughter important lessons, and the ties that develop during the trip make a much better foundation for a relationship than Max had hoped for.  As Kellen and Max begin to think that at least some of the trouble had less to do with a priceless artifact and more to do with someone wanting Kellen dead, the two of them do some much needed bonding of their own.  By the end of the book, I was convinced that the little family had a great start to a long and happy, trouble free life.  Except of course, Kellen never does anything the easy way. Be ready for a bit of a cliffhanger ending that Dodd will have to solve in the next book!

The double plot of people after the artifact and people after Kellen blended well- Dodd is a master of her craft and knows how to keep readers engaged with drama and suspense.  People who have read Dead Girl Running will be happy to see some cameos from those characters and be proud of Kellen as she continues to battle the past and the present.  People new to the series will get good backgrounds and explanations and not feel lost dropping in to the second book in a series.  And all of us will probably secretly (or not so secretly) wish we were bad-ass enough to take Kellen's life motto as our own:

What doesn't kill her . . . had better start running!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Securing Caite

Securing Caite (SEAL of Protection: Legacy Book 1)- Susan Stoker
Amazon Digital Services
Release Date: January 15, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Caite McCallan is a Department of Defense admin working in Bahrain when a glitchy elevator, of all things, leads to an unexpected invitation to dinner by a gorgeous Navy SEAL. When he later stands her up, Caite’s understandably upset…until she overhears a plot that confirms Rocco didn’t blow her off. Instead, he and two fellow SEALs are in danger—and Caite is forced to put her career and her life on the line to save them. 

Blake “Rocco” Wise never expected his routine mission to go sideways, but he was even more surprised to find himself and his teammates rescued by the adorably shy woman he met in a stalled elevator. Caite’s selfless act saved his life, but when attempts on her own make it clear someone wants her gone, it’s Rocco’s turn to protect the brave, sweet, sexy woman. The longer he knows her, the more he wants her…but keeping Caite close could bring her nearer to the enemy than ever before.

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Securing Caite introduces readers to a new SEAL team and a delightful new heroine in Caite McCallan.  An administrative assistant used to being overlooked and invisible, Caite is stunned when getting stuck in an elevator leads to a date with a hot SEAL.  When he doesn't show for the date she's disappointed- and then she overhears a group of men plotting to kill three injured soldiers. With no one to turn to Caite risks her life to save the men herself. Caite might not think of herself as brave  or beautiful, but SEAL leader Blake "Rocco" Wise does- even before she saves him and his teammates from certain death.  When it turns out she overheard more than just a murder plot, it's up to Rocco and his team to protect Caite from an assassin who has everything to lose and blames Caite for it all.

Caite may be my new favorite heroine.  She is completely relatable as an average person: average job, average looks, average life, and the below-average self esteem that comes with all of that.  She has a jerk for a boss who keeps trying to either get her to quit or find a reason to fire her so his friend can have her job. She's smart enough not to go wandering around alone in Bahrain (overseas contract jobs pay better when you're trying to pay off student loans for a French major you loved but have no idea what to do with). She doesn't make waves and tries hard to get along with everyone enough to keep work from being unpleasant.  When she is the only person with information on danger to three soldiers however, she is extraordinary: risking everything to save the men despite being smart enough to be terrified every step of the way.  In short, Caite is who most female readers probably see themselves as, and who we hope we'd be in similar situations.  

Rocco is a sweet guy and it looks like we'll be enjoying some delightful new heroes with his friends.  The plot isn't really a mystery since we see things from the main bad guy's point of view as well, but that allows the suspense to amp up to the exciting finale.  How Stoker (Defending Chloe) is able to get out multiple books in multiple series each year while still maintaining a pretty high standard of characters, plot, and style is beyond me- but I'm glad she does.  While her keyboard probably sets off smoke detectors from all the typing, it means readers never have to wait too long for the next amazing adventure, no matter the series.  And now we are treated to a new addition that has every sign of being just as excellent as the others.

Securing Caite begins a new series but long-time readers will enjoy a few cameos from some of Stoker's earlier books. As always, this can be read as a stand alone, and guarantees a happy and romantic conclusion and a teaser to get you excited for the next book!   

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review

Henry VIII

Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him- Tracy Borman
Atlantic Monthly Press
Release Date: February 5, 2019

Rating: 
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Henry VIII is best known in history for his tempestuous marriages and the fates of his six wives. However, as acclaimed historian Tracy Borman makes clear in her illuminating new chronicle of Henry’s life, his reign and reputation were hugely influenced by the men who surrounded and interacted with him as companions and confidants, servants and ministers, and occasionally as rivals—many of whom have been underplayed in previous biographies.

These relationships offer a fresh, often surprising perspective on the legendary king, revealing the contradictions in his beliefs, behavior, and character in a nuanced light. They show him capable of fierce but seldom abiding loyalty, of raising men up only to destroy them later. He loved to be attended by boisterous young men, the likes of his intimate friend Charles Brandon, who shared his passion for sport, but could also be diverted by men of intellect, culture, and wit, as his longstanding interplay with Cardinal Wolsey and his reluctant abandonment of Thomas More attest. Eager to escape the shadow of his father, Henry VII, he was often trusting and easily led by male attendants and advisors early in his reign (his coronation was just shy of his 18th birthday in 1509); in time, though, he matured into a profoundly suspicious and paranoid king whose ruthlessness would be ever more apparent, as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and uncle to two of Henry’s wives, discovered to his great discomfort, and as Eustace Chapuys, the ambassador of Charles V of Spain, often reported.

Recounting the great Tudor’s life and signal moments through the lens of his male relationships, Tracy Borman’s new biography reveals Henry’s personality in all its multi-faceted, contradictory glory, and sheds fresh light on his reign for anyone fascinated by the Tudor era and its legacy.

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When people think "Henry VIII" they probably think of beheadings and serial marriages. But there is a great deal more to his legacy than this and Tracy Borman explores all of it in Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him.  Borman examines Henry's life by looking at the men he surrounded himself with.  Henry loved to have intelligent, active young men around him who shared his interests in hunting, hawking, dancing, and every other form of sport available.  After a difficult relationship with his father, Henry wanted to be a king as opposite his predecessor as possible.  While he may be more well known today as a harsh and paranoid tyrant, in his youth Henry was trusting and could be easily led by trusted confidants seeking power.

Borman explores Henry's relationships with Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Moore, the Howards, the Seymours, and the Boleyns as well as less well known figures.  A refreshing amount of the book is based on contemporary sources, most notably ambassador Eustace Chapuys. This means the reader is treated to the gossip and rumors that swirled around Henry's court as well as the reality of court life- brilliantly and subtly illuminating the court's atmosphere of infighting and backstabbing as individuals and factions sought Henry's favor and the money and power that came with it.  While Henry's controlling disposition and violent temper increased as he aged, the reader discovers that the popular image of a king who routinely beheads people was enhanced by his followers at court who used their king's paranoia to get rid of their competitors- thinking of themselves more often than the king.  

A well-researched, well-written, and entirely fascinating book, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him is a must-read for anyone interested in English history, and the Tudor dynasty.  More readable than might be expected from a tome of its length, readers who know something about Henry's reign will discover new fascinating gems of information and readers new to the time period will get a wonderful and thorough introduction to the life and times of Henry VIII and the men who helped make him who he was.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Ragnarok Unwound

Ragnarok Unwound- Kristin Jacques
Sky Forest Press
Release Date: January 8, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Prophecies don’t untangle themselves. Just ask Ikepela Ives, whose estranged mother left her with the power to unravel the binding threads of fate. Stuck with immortal power in a mortal body, Ives has turned her back on the duty she never wanted.

But it turns out she can’t run from her fate forever, not now that Ragnarok has been set in motion and the god at the center of that tangled mess has gone missing. With a ragtag group of companions—including a brownie, a Valkyrie, and the goddess of death herself—Ives embarks on her first official mission as Fate Cipher—to save the world from doomsday.

Nothing she can't handle. Right?

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Unraveling fate might sound like a good job, but Ikepela Ives has been ignoring her own fate since her absentee mother dropped that surprise on her three years ago.  Until now Ives' closest contact to the supernatural has been her best friend, the brownie Jules.  Now an insistent Valkyrie is claiming Ives needs to use her abilities as the Fate Cipher to help stop the Norse apocalypse, Ragnarok.  Seeing outside the box and possessing high-level snark may be two of Ives' biggest talents, but will they be enough to help her survive her first day on a new job?

I went into Ragnarok Unwound not entirely sure what I was getting into, or if it was a good idea.  One chapter in and I knew this book was going to be a winner! Ives (don't call her Ikepela!) is a heroine full of snark, courage, and a fantastic ability to roll with weirdness.  Completely unprepared for her job and in total denial of her heritage, Ragnarok forces Ives to confront her destiny.  Like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, Ives has no clue what she's doing, but before long is fully committed to doing it anyway and trusting that luck and fast-talking will help her stall until she's figured it out.  And it works.  She's completely believable, and absolutely who you'd want at your side for an impending apocalypse.  

Ives comes at Ragnarok thinking that it doesn't make a lot of sense and that Loki and his children got a pretty lousy deal through it all.  What if they aren't the monsters the legends have turned them into?  On meeting Hel, goddess of death, Ives knows there is far more to the story than what's on the surface.  She becomes determined to figure out her abilities, to save Hel's family and to stop Ragnarok. Things are complicated since Hel's brothers are a giant wolf and the World Serpent; they've lost Hel's father; there are frost and fire giants destroying Las Vegas and Hawaii; the Hound of Asgard protecting Ives' father is completely incompetent; and it turns out that using her Fate Cipher abilities too many times will kill the mortal Ives.

I can only hope we get more of Ragnarok's cast of secondary characters in future books. Hel and Loki in particular are wonderfully entertaining and scene-stealing.  There were enough touching moments to see that Jacques has talent for emotional depth as well as humor and is good at doling those moments out just when they are needed.  Unexpected twists and turns, surprise allies and enemies, characterize a book full of non-stop action that you won't be able to put down once you've started!

Full knowledge of the mythology isn't needed to enjoy Ragnarok Unwound, but is always a good excuse to re-read Neil Gaiman's magical Norse Mythology.

Norse and Hawaiian legends meet in a way that Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Xena & Hercules/Marvel fans will love in this first book of a new and delightful series! 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

2018 in Books

Normally I'm not a fan of the "Year in Review" type of thing.  Whether it is "Looking Back on" a year in the news, the year in photographs in the newspaper, or any version of this, I tend to skip it and move on.  Then a friend shared a link to The Book Stop's "2018: My Year in Reading and Blogging" and I started thinking about the whole retrospective idea in a different way.  So I've decided to give it a try and look back at my 2018 through books.

The last few years I've done the Goodreads Challenge for how many books you plan to read in a year. For 2018 I aimed to read 120 books. A bit of a lofty goal, but since I frequently read more than one book at a time and have been aiming to read enough new books to keep this blog interesting, I thought I had a shot.  I ended up reading 168 books. Ok, some were novellas- but not that many.  How did I manage such a larger than average reading list?

1) No TV.  I'm not generally a huge TV watcher, but when you have access, you tend to watch something.  So when I no longer had access through work (and am probably one of the only people alive who hasn't gotten into streaming yet) I read more in the evenings.

2) No job. In September I left my job at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum and moved back to New York for medical reasons.  Long story short, for several months I was focused on health and not even looking for my next job. Think about the last time you had a doctor's appointment.  How late was the doctor? You know you got way more reading done in that waiting room than at home where people kept interrupting you.

3) NetGalley. I definitely discovered more new authors or books scanning NetGalley this year than anywhere else.  Between one thing and another I didn't spend much time browsing bookshelves at my library or favorite independent bookstore. But the magic of NetGalley and the internet still introduced me to some of my new favorite books

A few surprises . . .

30 History/Biography
Thanks to NetGalley I read more biographies and histories than usual. From Napoleon to U.S. Grant, politics before the Civil War to the sinking of the Indianapolis, I enjoyed discovering more histories and have definitely been recommending them to people!




18 Fantasy/Sci-Fi
I was surprised to add these up and find I read fewer sci-fi and fantasy books than usual. Not sure why that happened, but I will be trying to read more in 2019!









20 Mystery
I also expected to find I'd read more than 20 mysteries. Maybe the year as a whole was too dark for heavy murder mysteries?








67 Romance
This didn't really surprise me. 2018 was definitely a year I wanted to read books with happy endings.












In the end, I ask myself the same question that curlygeek04 asked. Does reading and writing about books really matter in the big scheme of things?  Between politics, the environment, and all the things that are meaningful and impactful, do books make a difference?  To me, the answer is: yes.  We turn to books for escapism, for happiness, for familiar friends and worlds.  We learn about people, food, and cultures.  At the end of a bad day we turn to books for comfort.

Books matter. So if my blog introduces someone to a book they'd never heard of that becomes their new favorite, that makes me happy too.  Which is sort of the point, isn't it?

Untouchable

Untouchable (Cutter, Sutler & Salinas #3)- Jayne Ann Krentz
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: January 8, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Jack Lancaster, consultant to the FBI, has always been drawn to the coldest of cold cases, the kind that law enforcement either considers unsolvable or else has chalked up to accidents or suicides. As a survivor of a fire, he finds himself uniquely compelled by arson cases. His almost preternatural ability to get inside the killer's head has garnered him a reputation in some circles--and complicated his personal life. The more cases Jack solves, the closer he slips into the darkness. His only solace is Winter Meadows, a meditation therapist. After particularly grisly cases, Winter can lead Jack back to peace. 

But as long as Quinton Zane is alive, Jack will not be at peace for long. Having solidified his position as the power behind the throne of his biological family's hedge fund, Zane sets out to get rid of Anson Salinas's foster sons, starting with Jack.

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For the last few of Jayne Ann Krentz's books (When All The Girls Have Gone, Promise Not To Tell) readers have been following the foster sons of retired cop Anson Salinas as they struggle with traumatic childhoods and the ghosts of the past. All four men have been sure that one of those ghosts- murderer, con man, and pyromaniac Quinton Zane- is still alive.  In Untouchable Jack Lancaster finds himself on the front line in the battle against Zane, because Zane knows Jack may be the most dangerous of them all.

Jack is a delightfully tortured hero whose very strengths when it comes to working cold cases make for less than ideal relationship material for the average woman.  He worries that each case he solves is bringing him farther into a darkness that one day he may not be able to come out of with his sanity intact. Jack prides himself on being able to calculate the odds of anything, and never considering anything 100% until it has already happened.  Fortunately, Jack finds his way to the little town of Eclipse Bay and to Winter Meadows.  Winter is one of those very rare individuals who sees reality plainly, and still manages to put a positive spin on situations.  For all her positive thinking, Winter is not an annoyingly chipper or bubbly person, but a perfect match for Jack.  She has her own secrets but is now setting up in Eclipse Bay as a meditation instructor.  When Winter is attacked by a crazed stalker, Jack realizes that things are more than they seem, and the stalker is only a pawn being controlled by none other than Quinton Zane.

Untouchable is an exciting suspenseful thriller from start to finish, bringing Jack and Winter from tiny Eclipse Bay to trendy California to the mysterious San Juan islands as they chase leads.  Long-time Krentz/Amanda Quick readers will be happy to revisit Eclipse Bay and Burning Cove, and will cheer cameo appearances by Arizona Snow, Max Cutler, Cabot Sutter, and Anson Salinas.   As always, you can count on Jayne Ann Krentz to keep you glued to the page with her delightful blend of dry wit, crackling chemistry, and edgy suspense.  An excellent finale to this trilogy, new readers won't feel like they jumped into something halfway through the action and devoted readers won't be disappointed!   

  

Bringing Down the Colonel

Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age & the "Powerless" Woman Who Took on Washington- Patricia Miller
Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
Release Date: November 13, 2018

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In Bringing Down the Colonel, the journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely nineteenth-century women’s rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her “ruined,” Pollard brought the man—and the hypocrisy of America’s control of women’s sexuality—to trial. And, surprisingly, she won.

Pollard and the married Colonel Breckinridge began their decade-long affair when she was just a teenager. After the death of his wife, Breckinridge asked for Pollard’s hand—and then broke off the engagement to marry another woman. But Pollard struck back, suing Breckinridge for breach of promise in a shockingly public trial. With premarital sex considered irredeemably ruinous for a woman, Pollard was asserting the unthinkable: that the sexual morality of men and women should be judged equally.

Nearly 125 years after the Breckinridge-Pollard scandal, America is still obsessed with women’s sexual morality. And in the age of Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein, we’ve witnessed fraught public reckonings with a type of sexual exploitation unnervingly similar to that experienced by Pollard. Using newspaper articles, personal journals, previously unpublished autobiographies, and letters, Bringing Down the Colonel tells the story of one of the earliest women to publicly fight back.

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In the era of the Me Too movement, women are looking towards history and politics and wondering: are we the first to stand up?  We know women fought for the right to work, the right to vote, and we earnestly want to know not only what those women went through, but why.  Why did society and politics need the push they needed, and why did it succeed sometimes but not others?  What were all the unwritten currents for and against these pioneers?

Patricia Miller does an excellent job answering these questions in Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman who Took on Washington.  Here she tells the story of Madeline Pollard and Colonel Breckinridge, and the unlikely lawsuit that helped turn of the century America question their double standard of men, women, and sexual morality.  Pollard was in a relationship with Breckinridge for at least ten years while he was married to another woman- and always claiming that were it possible, he would marry her.  But when his wife died, Breckinridge married another woman instead.  Madeline Pollard did what few women of the time were brave enough to do: she publicly admitted the relationship and her "ruin" and sued Breckinridge for breach of promise.  The resulting scandal not only forced society to ask questions it had never asked before, but brought down an elected official and brought thousands of Southern women into the political fray.

As fascinating as the story is by itself, Miller fills modern readers in on the backstory- the social norms of the time and those that were changing- to flesh out a complete world for her readers to understand.  Women were beginning to enter the workforce in increasingly large numbers.  Fathers and brothers were beginning to have to face the idea that a woman unchaperoned in public wasn't announcing her sexual availability, because their own wives, sisters, and daughters were now in those public spheres.  It was not 'just' the radical women who were asking for work equality and the right to vote, or to stand up to abuses happening around them. Miller explores the economic and educational environments that had begun to change, and does a solid job of helping the reader to understand why the mid-1890s was a time ripe for the changes Pollard and others pushed for. 

 Madeline Pollard forced the conversation of sex into public, into politics, and into the home.  She forced society to look at foundling orphanages, homes for fallen women, and the manipulations and social conventions that powerful men used to keep an entire class of women vulnerable to them.  She inspired the first movement of women who (though they couldn't vote) used their opinions and influence to ensure that a sexual predator was not reelected to a government position.  Pollard and the women who financed her battle took on Washington and inspired a generation of women to demand conversations and change in society and politics, morality and ethics.  The Pollard trial certainly didn't end the sexual double standard, but it did begin the conversation we still carry on today.

Although occasionally dry and repetitive, Bringing Down the Colonel is an inspiring, well-researched book, and gives readers an excellent understanding of how women have fought the 'battle of the sexes' - and gives an excellent historical reminder of how far we have come, and how equality is always relative. A must read!