Tag: Debut

SAVING RUBY KING by Catherine Adel West

Saving Ruby King

Family. Faith. Secrets. Everything in this world comes full circle.
Ruby King lives on Chicago’s South Side. Her best friend is Layla, daughter of the Pastor. Her mother and Ruby’s are life long friends.
Everyone in the church knows that Alice’s husband beats her so it isn’t shocking when she is murdered in her own home.
The police dismiss it as just more violence in this area. But Ruby has lost her mother and now her father takes his frustrations out on her.
Her father has dirt on the pastor so he isn’t helping Ruby. Everyone has secrets. Everyone is assuming a lot. There are awful secrets and in the end, no one can save Ruby but Ruby.

It is hard to believe this is a debut novel! We hear the viewpoints of all the main characters and their heartbreaking secrets. This one of the most honest and touching books I have read.
NetGalley/June 16th, 2020 by Park Row

The Corpse Wore Stilettos by M.J. O’Neill

The Corpse Wore Stilettos by [O'Neill, MJ]

SHE WORE A DONNA KARAN MARKED FOR REPOSSESSION

I kept seeing Kat Waters as Elle Woods. You think she’s all fluffy pens and designer shoes, but oh she is so much more.

Kat’s father is supposedly in prison. Mob related. All of the family’s assets are frozen and Kat is living with and supporting her socialite mother and her determined, but forgetful grandmother.

It turns out an Art Degree from Harvard isn’t worth very much in the real world of obligations, rent and medical bills. Kat has swallowed her pride and taken a job in the morgue. And this is where our story begins. Kat is in the morgue prepping the latest body for autopsy when guys come in, snatch the body and run. 

Running after them is the sexy Burns McPhee. Former Special Forces and now running his own security firm, he believes this girls death is related to the death of his best friend and isn’t above using his charm to get some information out of our Kat.

When one of the crazies from the body snatching begins sending Kat flowers and cryptic notes and phones calls, she and Burns team up to catch the killer and keep her safe. Someone in the Morgue doesn’t want her here. What better way to flush out a suspect than a party?

Kat may be a socialite working in a morgue, but she is one smart lady. Proving you can be smart and fashionable at the same time. Imagine?!

The characters make this story. At first I wasn’t too sure about Kat. The story reminded me of Two Broke Girls and Legally Blonde. But Kat came into her own quickly and I loved the crazy little facts she tosses in so casually. Her mother and grandmother were hilarious characters and this entire book I laughed with them.

I hope we see more of Kat and Burns. There is definitely something there!

xx Patricia Fairweather Romero   April 30th release.

 

Suicide Club by Rachel Heng

Suicide Club

In this debut set in near future NYC—where lives last 300 years and the pursuit of immortality is all-consuming—Lea must choose between her estranged father and her chance to live forever.

Lea Kirino is a “Lifer,” which means that a roll of the genetic dice has given her the potential to live forever—if she does everything right. And Lea is an overachiever. She’s a successful trader on the New York exchange—where instead of stocks, human organs are now bought and sold—she has a beautiful apartment, and a fiancé who rivals her in genetic perfection. And with the right balance of HealthTech™, rigorous juicing, and low-impact exercise, she might never die.

But Lea’s perfect life is turned upside down when she spots her estranged father on a crowded sidewalk. His return marks the beginning of her downfall as she is drawn into his mysterious world of the Suicide Club, a network of powerful individuals and rebels who reject society’s pursuit of immortality, and instead chose to live—and die—on their own terms. In this future world, death is not only taboo; it’s also highly illegal. Soon Lea is forced to choose between a sanitized immortal existence and a short, bittersweet time with a man she has never really known, but who is the only family she has left in the world.

Even after reading the book, I don’t know much more than what is in the blurb. I felt the characters were stilted and there wasn’t enough back story on any of them or the time period.

None of the characters were enjoyable or relatable and I could not find a plot, so for me this was a no starter.

Netgalley/HenryHolt July 31,2018

The Guilty Wife by Elle Croft

The Guilty Wife

If you were being framed for murder, how far would you go to clear your name?

I’m not guilty of murder.

But that doesn’t make me innocent.

When Bethany’s lover is brutally murdered, she has to hide her grief from everyone.

But someone knows her secret. And then one day the threats begin.

With an ever-growing pile of evidence pointing to her as the murderer, the only way she can protect her secrets is to prove her innocence. And that means tracking down a killer.

An incredibly taut, tense game of cat and mouse – with a twist you’ll never see coming.

Another psychological thriller debut. Featuring a supposedly smart woman having an affair with a man who ends up dead. Bethany knows she is innocent but someone is sending her messages and warnings not to go to the police.

My problem with the book was the lack of information about the characters. It felt like we came in to an ongoing story and never quite caught up. I didn’t care about any of them. I figured out the who immediately. It just did not have the depth of a psychological thriller. Or any type of thriller.

Sorry but this one wasn’t my favorite.

Netgalley/Orion

A GRAVE ISSUE (A Funeral Parlor Mystery) by Lillian Bell

A Grave Issue (A Funeral Parlor Mystery #1)

After an on-air gaffe goes viral and jeopardizes her career, journalist Desiree Turner retreats home to Verbena, California for some peace and quiet. She begins working one of the quietest jobs around: presiding over funerals for her great-grandfather’s funeral parlor. But the action seems to follow her as a fist fight breaks out between neighbors Rosemarie Brewer and Lola Hansen at one of the first funerals she’s in charge of running. It exposes a nasty dispute and Rosemarie’s husband, Alan, is found murdered shortly after.

Lola’s husband, Kyle, is immediately arrested. Desiree, whose own father’s death was devastating, has always viewed Kyle as a second father. Determined to clear his name, Desiree jumps head first into the investigation and quickly discovers that Alan had several unsavory habits at his job and in his personal life, including putting assets into his mistress’s account to hide them from Rosemarie. People murder for money and love all the time, and there’s no telling who he offended just enough to push them over the edge.

Desiree is looking in all the right places, but she better catch the killer fast before they come for her next in A Grave Issue, the clever series debut by Lillian Bell.

Ms. Bell has gotten off to a very good start with this new series, featuring Deisree, an on air news reporter who got caught with a hot mic on. With the added stress of her father presumed dead over a year ago when he went out to surf and never returned. And a pregnant sister who has been placed on strict bed rest.

So Desiree heads home to Verbena to lick her wounds and figure out what she is going to do next. It looks as if bad luck has trailed her home however when one thing after another keeps her name in the paper.

This is a very clever cozy mystery! Part serious, part funny and pretty much exactly what I like in a story. A smart, tenacious, independent woman and a bunch of people keeping secrets, which we all know never stay hidden, especially when Desiree starts pulling on threads. People get a tad touchy! Or dead.

Underneath the story is the tale what really happened to her dad? Who is leaving mysterious gifts for Desiree and her sister? So there is a good bit of layering to this series and I like it.

Well Done Ms. Bell!

Netgalley/CrookedLaneBooks   February 13, 2018

The Philosopher’s Flight by Tom Miller

The Philosopher's Flight

A thrilling debut from ER doctor turned novelist Tom Miller, The Philosopher’s Flight is an epic historical fantasy set in a World-War-I-era America where magic and science have blended into a single extraordinary art. “Like his characters, Tom Miller casts a spell.” (Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club and The Last Bookaneer)

Eighteen-year-old Robert Weekes is a practitioner of empirical philosophy—an arcane, female-dominated branch of science used to summon the wind, shape clouds of smoke, heal the injured, and even fly. Though he dreams of fighting in the Great War as the first male in the elite US Sigilry Corps Rescue and Evacuation Service—a team of flying medics—Robert is resigned to mixing batches of philosophical chemicals and keeping the books for the family business in rural Montana, where his mother, a former soldier and vigilante, aids the locals.

When a deadly accident puts his philosophical abilities to the test, Robert rises to the occasion and wins a scholarship to study at Radcliffe College, an all-women’s school. At Radcliffe, Robert hones his skills and strives to win the respect of his classmates, a host of formidable, unruly women.

Robert falls hard for Danielle Hardin, a disillusioned young war hero turned political radical. However, Danielle’s activism and Robert’s recklessness attract the attention of the same fanatical anti-philosophical group that Robert’s mother fought years before. With their lives in mounting danger, Robert and Danielle band together with a team of unlikely heroes to fight for Robert’s place among the next generation of empirical philosophers—and for philosophy’s very survival against the men who would destroy it.

In the tradition of Lev Grossman and Deborah Harkness, Tom Miller writes with unrivaled imagination, ambition, and humor. The Philosopher’s Flight is both a fantastical reimagining of American history and a beautifully composed coming-of-age tale for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

This fantastical tale is well written, but I just could not grab a connection to it. The words are inventions and why so many?

It was difficult for me to suspend belief and jump into this fantasy world when I had no idea what some of the words meant and they sure were not in the dictionary!

However I can see how it would appeal to hardcore, world building, fantasy lovers.

Netgalley/SimonandSchuster  February 13, 2018