Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #9, Precious Bones by Irina Shapiro

About the only redeeming quality of this book is that it was a free Kindle download. Set in modern day London with flashbacks to Elizabethan London, the plot centers around Cassandra. A novelist in modern London, she becomes mesmerized with a news story about the discovery of 500 year old bones found in an old Tudor house in Blackfriars. Somehow, she becomes convinced that she knows the identity of the body and, indeed, knew the details of the house, inside and out, despite the fact that she never set foot in the house. She goes to the house the next day and meets a mysterious stranger who says, “I knew you’d come.”

That mysterious stranger ends up being her new publisher, who pans her latest work and urges her to write about her own life. Cassandra starts writing about the house in Blackfriars, based on dreams and visions she has about the people who lived there. Determined to find out how and why those things are happening to her, she starts digging into the past. She knows that the house is somehow connected to a locket she found at a yard sale. Inside the locket is a miniature portrait of a woman and an inscription, C & R. Along the way, she falls in love with her publisher, Adrian.

Cassandra discovers that the house was occupied by three siblings, Pippa, Constance and Thomas Thorne who are secretly Catholics. In flashbacks, their stories are told. As Catholics, they come under investigation by the Queen’s spymaster, Walsingham, who sends one of his agents, Richard Carlisle, to investigate. Richard ends up falling in love with Constance and marries her. Another of Walsingham’s agents, Edward Norris, thinks the Thornes are guilty of conspiring against the Queen, despite being cleared by Richard. Norris also has some very disturbing rape fantasies that involve Richard and completely distracted from the plot. In the end, Norris never gets to rape Richard, but he kidnaps Constance and rapes her. Richard saves her and kills Norris. For his crimes, he is beheaded. Back to the future, Cassandra finds a researcher in past life experiences and convinces her that she is the reincarnated Connie and naturally, Adrian is the reincarnated Richard.

I finished the book only because I wanted to see how the two storylines came together but I was sorely disappointed. Elizabethan England is one of my favorite time periods, but it’s clear the author did only the minimal amount of research. One glaring mistake, when Norris is killed and before Richard is arrested, the Crown issued a reward of 500 pounds to the person who can identify the killer. That may seem like a modest reward today, but then, one pound was equal to about $500 in today’s money, making the reward an enormous sum of $250,000. That kind of money would never have been given as a reward. Also, the book was rife with spelling and grammatical errors. The author continually used “then” instead of “than,” one of my biggest pet peeves. I wouldn’t recommend this book.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #8, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey : the Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by the Countess of Carnarvon

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you surely have heard of the hit show Downton Abbey, maybe even gotten caught up in it yourself. Downton Abbey fever has spread faster than did the Spanish flu after World War I. The Season 2 finale episode was the most-watched program on PBS since the premiere of Ken Burns “National Parks” in 2009. The show is set at the fictional Downton Abbey but is filmed, sometimes on location, at the real Highclere Castle. Written by Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the current Countess of Carnarvon, the book details the history of the real Highclere Castle and the people who inhabited it, concentrating on the same time period featured in the PBS show.

The book begins with the wedding of Almina Wombwell to the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert. Great care had to be taken during the planning of the wedding, as many locations to hold the celebrations were not available to Almina because she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say. She was the daughter of a French woman, Marie Wombwell and the director of the Bank of England, Sir Alfred de Rothschild. While Almina’s paternity was an open secret, Rothschild was referred to as her uncle, but he lavished attention, and especially money, onto Almina, who never wanted for anything.

Almina was a vivacious, charming hostess and fit into her role as Countess quite well. She and her husband entertained frequently at the castle and no expense was spared. They received many dignitaries of the day, from government ministers to the Prince of Wales. Almina was exceedingly generous with her household staff and made life at Highclere as comfortable as possible for them. Almina and the Earl had two children, a son Henry, known as Porchy after his title Lord Porchester, and a daughter Evelyn, known as Eve. Life is all parties and soirees until World War I breaks out. Almina was very anxious to do her part for the war effort and her natural generosity led her to transform Highclere into a working hospital. Almina believed in treating the whole person, body and spirit, and made Highclere as comfortable as possible for recovering soldiers. She was also instrumental in getting the most advanced medical equipment and latest surgical procedures to be performed at Highclere. Inevitably, the hospital had outgrown Highclere so she had the entire operation transferred to Mayfair.

Before war had broken out, she and the Earl had been accustomed to traveling to Egypt over the winter months. The Earl had been fascinated with Egyptology and was anxious to be involved in a dig himself. He made the acquaintance of Howard Carter and over the period of fifteen years, had made some small discoveries. Money was running out and they were on the verge of giving up entirely when they decided to give it one last shot at a location in the Valley of the Kings. The Earl was in Luxor recovering from an illness when Carter sent him a telegram that said, “At last have made wonderful discovery in the Valley. A magnificent tomb with seals intact. Recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations.” Sadly, the Earl wouldn’t live long enough to see the excavation to conclusion. He had gotten bitten by a mosquito while on a Nile river cruise and subsequently cut open the wound while shaving and it became infected. The Earl rallied enough to travel to Cairo to join Carter in discovering the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, but his illness got worse. The Earl developed blood poisoning and eventually pneumonia, which killed him. That his death happened so soon after the opening of the tomb led to the rumor of a curse of the pharaohs.

The book is written in a light, conversational style and is quite enjoyable to read. Life upstairs and downstairs in the castle is written about in detail, but there are also stories like the one about King Tut, that take you by surprise. There is also a lot of detail about the disastrous battles of World War I. I would recommend this book to those fans of Downton Abbey, but also to anyone who is interested in late Victorian/Edwardian history and social life.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #7, These Hellish Happenings by Jennifer Rainey

You wouldn’t really know it by the books I’ve reviewed so far, but I am a vampire junkie. I just can’t get enough. I’m always on the lookout for fresh, new voices in vampire fiction, who don’t try to rewrite what has already been done, who aren’t trying to be the next Laurell K. Hamilton (sorry, there can only be one and she sits rightfully on the throne of modern vampire fiction). I hit the jackpot when I found this book, which the author promises is the first in a series.

Three hundred years ago, Jack Bentley made a pact with the devil in order to escape a vampire hunt. When the devil is ready to collect Jack’s debt, a demon is sent to earth to escort Jack to hell. He is reluctant to go. He has visions of an eternity in hellfire and brimstone, unending torture. He wasn’t far off. Jack was chosen to spend his eternity working in the Registration Office of the Damned, welcoming new souls to hell.

By luck or fate, instead of being forced to live in employee housing, Jack manages a way to live permanently with his demon escort, Alex Ridner. Normally, those new to hell only live with their escort for a week to get accustomed to the drudgery that is hell. Alex gets Jack involved in his first election for Administrative President in Hell. Traditionalist candidate Chaz Colby wants to keep demons in positions of power. Progressive candidate Quentin Hart champions the rights of non-humans, like vampires, ghosts, etc. Alex is a passionate supporter of Quentin Hart, but takes Jack to a meeting of Colby supporters to stir up trouble. This sets up one of the best lines in the book. Alex is doing his damndest to heckle the speaker and Jack decides to help and says, “Play Highway to Hell or get off the stage!”

Lots of hilarity and escapades ensue. I hope Ms. Rainey is working feverishly on book 2 because I can’t wait to see what happens to Jack and Alex next. This book is hilarious, irreverent, sarcastic and just plain fun.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #5, Gnome on the Range, by Jennifer Zane

 

This book is a hoot and a half. And it has zing, as the main character would say. I downloaded it based on the clever title and it didn’t disappoint me. Jane West is a single mom of two young boys who runs an adult boutique with her mother in law. She meets a really good looking firefighter in the store who overhears a rather embarrassing conversation she has with a customer about dildos. She finds out later that he is her new neighbor.

On a garage sale run, her kids buy two garden gnomes and quickly become enamored of them. Things heat up between Jane and Ty the firefighter but she’s content to keep him at a distance for now. One night as Ty was leaving her house, he runs into someone trying to steal George, one of the gnomes. The would-be gnome-napper gets away but drops the gnome and it breaks. As they pick up the pieces, they discover that something was hidden inside the gnome. A small glass vial of something that looks like cow sperm, according to Ty, who naturally grew up on a ranch.

Lots of accidents and strange things start to happen around Jane. She gets caught in a propane explosion, a runaway demolition derby car nearly runs her over, just for starters. Tracking down a lead on the sperm, she takes a trip to a horse ranch run by Drake Dexter. He takes an immediate liking to Jane and starts wooing her relentlessly. After having no man to pay any attention to her in several years, she finds herself with two suitors.

Still determined to solve the mystery of the stolen gnomes, cow sperm and all the crazy things that have happened to her, Jane gets a text message from Ty asking her to meet him because he had some information to share. Unfortunately, Jane realized too late that the text wasn’t actually sent by Ty. Without giving too much away, she is drugged and tied up. After a struggle, she does manage to get away and call 911.

This is more of a romance than I normally read, but it has enough of a mystery to it that it kept my attention. Plus, it is funnier than hell. If you are squeamish at thought of sex toys, then I wouldn’t recommend this book. It’s not overly graphic but the author isn’t shy in talking about sex toys. And some of the funniest parts of the book are related to the sex toys. I will definitely look for more books by this author.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #4, Whitechapel : The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes by Bernard J. Schaffer.

 

The great literary detective Sherlock Holmes is probably more popular now than he has ever been, thanks to the re-generated movies featuring Robert Downey, Jr., and the BBC television production featuring Benedict Cumberbatch. I have to admit that I am a huge Holmes fan and I consider myself to be a purist. That is, I don’t like anyone who fools with Conan Doyle’s Holmes. That said, I have to give huge kudos to Cumberbatch for updating the character yet still maintaining the subtle nuances of the consulting detective. I do not care for Downey’s action-adventure, shoot-’em-up version of Holmes. I don’t think that Downey has the acting depth to portray Holmes, which is why he turned him into an action figure. If you liked that version of Holmes, then you’d probably like this book. I didn’t particularly care for it.

The author started out with a juicy premise: the famous consulting detective gets called in to investigate what would be come the world’s most famous serial killer, Jack the Ripper. The author takes quite a few liberties with the time line. When we meet Holmes, he has come to a lull in his career and has been relying too much on his seven percent solution (cocaine). We are led to believe that Holmes is bored and needs a good adventure. Yet, in real life, the Ripper killings happened in 1888, which was just one year after the first Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, was published. Holmes is hardly bored by that point, surely.

The author gives us a good Ripper suspect and spends a lot of time on his childhood and background and what may have turned him into the killer he allegedly became. But Holmes balks at first, refuses to give up his seven percent solution, so the main part of the investigation is left to Dr. John Watson and Sherlock’s infamous femme fatale Irene Adler. Also investing is Inspector Lestrade, naturally. I give credit to the author for exploring the Ripper’s background, but I wish he had put that much effort into the other characters. He doesn’t have the same subtle characterizations that Conan Doyle does and it shows. He basically turned Lestrade, who is pretty well known as a well-meaning if not exactly all that intelligent copper, into an alcoholic bully with a penchant for police brutality.

I stayed with the book to see how the author would end it and was very disappointed. There were some twists and turns in the book and without giving too much away, I will say that the suspect is and is not the Ripper. The violence may be a bit too graphic for some. I think the author did go a bit too far in that respect. There is a “gentleman’s edition” of this book without the graphic violence and sex. There are a lot of reviews on Amazon about how brilliant this book is, but to each his own. As I said, I don’t think the author did justice to Conan Doyle’s characters. Not only that, while the real Ripper was never caught or revealed, the author surely could have come up with a more satisfying ending.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #3, Gypsy Nights, by Mandy M. Roth

I have been lucky to have been able to do a lot of reading on my Kindle Fire over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays. The last book I finished promised to be a good one. If you are like me and are obsessed with vampires and are addicted to True Blood and eagerly await each new Anita Blake vampire killer book, trust me, this book is not for you.

Oh it started out very promising. A tall, pale, handsome vampire saves the life of a pregnant Romani witch. As she dies in childbirth, a prophecy is foretold. The vampire will be the mullo (demon mate) of the newborn girl and together they will have a child that will have unimaginable powers. After the mother’s death, the child is sent with relatives to be raised. Since the vampire was under orders to kill all Romanis, he had to flee and hide.

Thirty years later, Gitana, the aforementioned baby, works as an herbalist and uses her Romani magic to shield herself from her werewolf ex-husband who is intent on reclaiming her. Luckily, the vampire Sebastian, shows up at her shop in time to save her and have explicit sex in her greenhouse.

The rest of the story is irrelevant. Throw in the stereotypical werewolf-vampire antagonism, explicit raunchy sex and lots of stolen plot points from Laurell K. Hamilton and you end up with this book. I have to say it had good potential but never lived up to it. The characters weren’t well defined. The author didn’t delve into vampire mythology, didn’t lay out any kind of background for the plot. I’m just grateful this book was free because I would have been really ticked off if I had paid for this.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #2, What Would Satan Do, by Anthony Miller

Those of us who simply love to read will know that some books barely scratch the surface of your soul, while other books leave an indelible imprint on your psyche. For me, this was one of those books. We meet Satan while he is on his way to his job teaching a History of Religion course at Georgetown University. There are frogs everywhere and they are thoroughly disgusting to the Prince of Darkness and he would love to stomp them to death, but doesn’t want to ruin his expensive Italian leather shoes.

Before he can really get into his lecture, students pepper him with questions about the recent string of bad storms and plagues that some were calling signs of the Apocalypse. The students want to know if it is the end of the world as they know it. Satan replies, “I had nothing to do with any of that!…Nothing! And if I didn’t do it, it can’t be happening! So it’s nothing!”

Meanwhile,the pastor of a megachurch in Texas has been preaching about Judgment Day, even offering services to help parishoners get their worldly affairs in order. He wasn’t worried about not convincing people of the end of the world. He had inside information.

After Satan realizes that someone is indeed trying to bring about Judgment Day, he drives off in his white Lamborghini to find the culprit. Along the way, he has encounters with archangels, televangelists, militia members, CIA agents and a Jesus impersonator named Festus P. Bongwater. They all converge at the megachurch to find out if the world will end or not.

If you loved “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, you will feel right at home with this book. The writing is witty and clever and made me really laugh out loud in spots. This book is so good, I wish I had written it.

Iamachaiaddict’s #CBR4 Review #1, Honor Bound by C.J. Archer

I bought myself a Kindle Fire for Christmas and was delighted to discover a blog dedicated to free Kindle books. The first book I read was “Honor Bound” by C.J. Archer. It is the first in a series called The Witchblade Chronicles. Set in Elizabethan England, the story centers around a woman named Isabel with a mysterious background who work as an apprentice in an apothecary. Someone has tried to poison the Queen. A spy in the service of Walsingham is sent to investigate and ferret out the culprit. When he walks into Isabel’s apothecary, she is stunned to see the estranged husband she has not seen for several years.

 

While investigating the attempted poisoning, her husband Nicholas, also learns more about Isabel’s past and why she left him all those years ago. It seems that around the time of her marriage, Isabel also inherited the power of witchcraft. Fearing what would happen to her family and reputation, Nicholas’ mother succeeded in driving Isabel away. Nicholas also learns of evidence that makes Isabel a prime suspect in the poisoning, but he is sure that the woman he married is not a killer. Or is she? He readily admits that she isn’t the woman he married.

 

After some twists and turns, and a few sparse uses of magic, the poisoner is revealed. The mystery is quite satisfying and the characters well developed. I was disappointed, though, that there wasn’t more magic in the book. That is why I downloaded it. There are some unanswered questions, like why did Isabel’s powers only come in when she got married. Hopefully the author will answer those questions in future books in the series. Overall a good book and worthwhile read.