Addicted - Amelia Betts

Forever Yours (Grand Central Publishing),

October 13, 2015.

Three Stars

Addicted takes a somewhat silly premise, combined with a gimmicky plot, and uses it to make a serious comment on addiction as mental illness. As you can imagine, parts were successful, while others were not. The characters often slipped into clichés, without enough background information to make me really believe or understand their addictions. However, the story was funny and sometimes clever, and the commentary on addiction did ring true at times.

While the plot was kind of meandering with lots of loose ends, the novel was really focused on character. Liam, the sex addict, was described as so ridiculously perfect that it was hard to believe. We are told that he is so attractive and amazing, but to me he came across as slimy and really just a creep. Maybe I just don’t have much empathy for a gorgeous, wealthy, rockstar/chef who is cursed with having sex with equally gorgeous women. I also felt that Liam’s addiction was trivialized, while Mischa’s was treated with more care.

Mischa is a food addict who uses calorie counting and binge eating to control her feelings. She is studying to be a nutritionist, while working on a juice cleanse plan for her thesis – but in spite of all this food-related knowledge, she treats her own body with little respect. Her internal voice became boring and repetitive as we were forced to listen to her tedious descriptions of food. However, her addiction still felt much more realistic than Liam’s. I also appreciated the use of Cecile, the young daughter of Mischa’s landlord, as she becomes the voice of Mischa’s addiction. Mischa reflects that Cecile’s “blatant, adolescent self-consciousness is a good reminder that my inner voice too often sounded like hers: self-hating, judgemental, joyless.” (Loc. 1467) It is only when Mischa can find joy in food – and more importantly, in life – that she can stop hating her body.

Aside from Mischa and Liam, the minor characters were mostly underdeveloped and often unnecessary. Mischa has a best friend to talk to so that her whole story won’t be inner monologue, but she never felt like a real person. Likewise, there are threads of a love story that were so random and pointless, I didn’t see what they added to the story aside from Mischa trying to make Liam jealous. Mischa is addictive and self-absorbed with men as well as food, and she could only become a strong individual when she gave up both addictions. Because of this, Addicted was not a traditional love story, but the author tried to force it into one, which made it less enjoyable for me.

I received this book for free from Forever Yours (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Where My Heart Used To Beat - Sebastian Faulks

Bond Street Books, Oct. 27, 2015.

Three Stars

Robert Hendricks is a psychiatrist with some mental issues of his own. As his relationships slowly fall apart around him, he is offered an unexpected reprieve – an invitation to a small French island. The invitation is issued by another psychiatrist named Pereira who claims to have some information about Robert’s father, who was killed during World War I when Robert was still a small child. However, over the course of several visits to the island, Robert has still not learned anything about his father. Instead, he is seemingly overcome with the need to pour out his own story to this virtual stranger – the story of his own experiences as a soldier.

Where My Heart Used to Beat is ostensibly the story of Robert Hendricks, but more than that, it is the story of the last century and the many atrocities it witnessed. The novel questions the authenticity of memory and fact, and whether we can trust our own version of the past. Above all, it asks whether humans have been altered irretrievably, due to the acts we have not only witnessed but also perpetrated in the past hundred years or so.

There was some really lovely and unusual language in the novel, but it was hidden amongst pages of reflections on both world wars. I found myself skimming over Robert’s impromptu therapy sessions with Pereira, in favour of the theoretical conversations between the two men.  Their ideas about what makes us human were so interesting, such as discussions of the “billion firing synapses” that make us “believe” we are human (p. 60-61) to the thought that it is only a “dynamic function” or piece of neural tissue that separates us from other animals. (p. 130)

Robert believes that madness is merely a function of the brain, a physical problem. As humans are the only species to go “mad,” he asks whether it has some Darwinian advantage to our survival. It may be “the secret of what we are” (p. 199) and yet it causes pain and distress, much like our proclivity towards violence and war. Robert tells Pereira that the past century of world wars has fundamentally changed the psyche – is this what makes us human?

Aside from these philosophical debates on the nature of humanity, I didn’t find anything new or interesting to hold my attention. This is my first novel by Faulks, and apparently the themes of war and memory are his usual ones. The style reminded me of many other writers as I was reading, and that’s not necessarily a good thing – I didn’t feel like the writing was truly original. There were also some odd sexual incidents with young girls that didn’t add anything to the story except to make me see Robert as a Humbert-like character.

Most of the time, Robert was emotionally cold and generally unlikeable. Over many conversations, he hashes through all of his memories of war and decides to track down his former love – but when he finds her, he’s not all that interested in her. I suppose the point is that it was really only the memory of her that he loved, but I still felt that the scenes between the two could have used more elaboration. I did like the hints that Robert was an unreliable narrator of his own life, but again, I wish that theme had been developed further. Overall, I felt like Faulks started writing with a clear premise – that the world wars ended the importance of individual lives – and that he forced his plot and his characters to fit that idea, no matter how awkward or unbelievable the story became. It was like a fictionalized version of a psychiatric case study, and it could have been read more clearly as non-fiction.

I received this novel from Goodreads First Reads and Bond Street Books in exchange for an honest review.

And West is West - Ron Childress

Algonquin Books, October 13, 2015.

Four Stars

And West is West is the most recent winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for socially engaged fiction, and I think it is well deserved. Childress’s novel is a powerful comment on the use of technology in all aspects of our lives today, from high finance to tactical warfare – it also illustrates how this technology protects us from the immediate consequences of our actions, allowing people to make decisions from a distance that may come back to haunt them later.

Jessica is an Airforce drone pilot who must follow orders to launch a missile at a suspected terrorist – but in the process she knowingly kills several civilians. Unable to live with her actions, Jessica sabotages her military career by writing top secret information to her father in prison, leading to a general discharge. Lost without the military structure, Jessica goes off the grid – and discovers that she will not be permitted to leave quietly because she knows too much.

Meanwhile, Ethan is a “quant” at a huge American bank, crunching numbers and creating algorithms that turn wars and terror attacks into profit for his investors. After a misplaced decimal point loses billions of dollars, Ethan is fired from his job and, like Jessica, cast out by a system that has failed him and many others. He ends up on a cross-country journey of accidental self-discovery which intersects with Jessica’s new path in unexpected ways.

Childress writes about how small actions can have huge consequences that reverberate around the world. Jessica and Ethan are both products of a corrupt system, blamed for decisions that were forced on them by the current socio-political climate. The novel is scary because it is so realistic and topical. The plot is intriguing, exposing the dark and gritty side of our political and economic systems – the side that is usually sanitized for the public.

The characters are strongly written, including the minor ones – I was pulled right into their lives. Their inner conflicts are raw and exposed, as they explore their own consciences. While Jessica carries the blame for the “collateral damage” she caused, it is really the responsibility of all people who not only support war but also those that are ambivalent about current events. In contrast, Ethan is willing to look away to preserve his quality of life, and his ambivalence is a product of the distancing effect of technology.

When we rely on computers to make all of our decisions, there is no longer a moral compass to guide us. Surprisingly, the most morally thoughtful and analytical character in the novel is Jessica’s convict father, Don, whose letters punctuate the story with philosophical reflections about the nature of the world. As his letters follow Jessica’s flight across country, the pacing of the novel speeds up and consequences become inevitable. Jessica and Ethan struggle to regain agency over their own lives, accepting and processing the decisions they made in the past.

The novel is filled with witty, quippy, realistic descriptions of life in a security state, in a constant state of war. The language brings the novel from political thriller to literary fiction with lines such as this: “She just knows too many damn things. She’s a risk to the security of the security state, to the state of things as they are, to the status quo of war.” (Loc. 2086)

I received this book for free from Algonquin Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Death By Water - Kenzaburo Oe

Grove Press, October 6, 2015.

Three Stars

I have read Kenzaburo Oe in the past and really enjoyed it, but I had a hard time getting into this novel. It is an elaborately woven story of reality and myth, in which Oe’s literary alter-ego, Kogito Choko sets out to complete his literary masterpiece: the story of his father’s death by water.

The title of the novel is a euphemism for drowning that comes from a T.S. Eliot poem. Kogito uses it to describe the suspicious death of his father that occurred many years before. Kogito’s father was travelling by boat to an unknown destination, and after his death, all that was left was a red suitcase filled with important documents. Although his father risked his own life, he ensured that the suitcase would be found; however, Kogito’s mother refuses to let him access the secrets within.

Kogito is obsessed with recording the story of his father’s death – partly to cement his fame as a writer, and partly to allow himself to understand the events that led to the death. As he sifts through his own memories, facts are altered by imagination. He plans to use a fictional format to finally understand the death by water in what he calls “the drowning novel.” Kogito is easily discouraged, but he becomes inspired by the members of an avant-garde theatre group who are in the process of dramatizing his earlier novels – he is then re-inspired to create new work and preserve his legacy as a writer.

Like Kogito, his father also seemed preoccupied with his legacy. He hid his important papers and potential clues to his death so they wouldn’t be found – but he also ensured that they wouldn’t be lost. This is possibly hubris on his part, as a last hope for immortality. Kogito tells us that his father was on his way to “commit a doomed act of heroism when he drowned,” which has echoes of ritual suicide and reminds us of the deeply Japanese roots of this story. I think the cultural identity of this novel is important in understanding both Kogito’s and his father’s motivations, as well as the general tone and pace of the novel – it is slow and repetitive, but also complex.

I found the most interesting part to be the interactions between Kogito and his mother, although she has been deceased for ten years as the novel opens. She left the red suitcase in the safekeeping of Kogito’s sister, not allowing him to open it until a decade after her death. The many layers of Kogito’s identity are peeled back in the poem written by his mother, which is repeatedly analyzed by Kogito and the theatre group. She writes, “You didn’t get Kogii ready to go up into the forest,” which they read as a reflection on preparedness (or lack thereof) for death – both for Kogito himself, his father, and the future of Kogito’s son.

Mortality is a theme touched on repeatedly in Death By Water, and I don’t think Kogito ever truly comes to terms with it, but he does his best to explore its complexities. Losing his father at a young age made him more aware of his own mortality, and that of his son. He continually circles back to these issues, and while it becomes repetitive, I think Oe is successful in making the point that life is cyclical, and our legacy will live on through the next generation, if they choose to embrace it.

I received this book for free from Grove Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Salvador Dali

Princeton University Press, October 7, 2015.

Five Stars

I think there have been more than enough reviews of Carroll’s classic story over the years, and I’m not ready to add anything new. So my review will focus on this edition, which includes surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s gorgeous illustrations, published just in time for Alice’s 150^th anniversary.

The surreal yet logical world of Wonderland perfectly fits Dali’s aesthetic, in which fantasy and geometry collide. The intersection between these two elements is explained in two informative introductory essays, one by Dali expert Mark Burstein, and the second by mathematician and friend of Dali, Thomas Banchoff.

Burstein begins by citing the obvious as well as the potential connections between Carroll and Dali. One instance was that Dali’s time at the Disney studios was concurrent with the production of the Disney version of “Alice in Wonderland”. He may not have directly influenced the animated version, but his creative process was certainly similar to that of Lewis Carroll. Surrealist processes such as automatism and the Exquisite Corpse game (in which a piece of paper was folded up and each artist contributed a part of the picture, creating an accidentally surreal whole) could have easily led to Wonderland. Marcel Duchamp referred directly to Alice’s story as part of the creative process: “I am convinced that, like Alice in Wonderland, [the young artist of tomorrow] will be led to pass through the looking-glass of the retina, to reach a more profound expression.” (Loc. 46)

Dali did not directly translate the story of Wonderland into pictures – instead, he provided a “complementary experience,” (Loc. 108) a place in which the mind can escape to contemplate Alice’s adventures. Banchoff explains that Dali used a previously completed motif, a girl with a rope, to represent Alice – the rope expanded around her to also represent the rabbit hole.

Dali’s work, like the world of Wonderland, is in a constant state of flux, or metamorphosis – what Burstein calls, “an uninterrupted becoming.” (Loc. 113) His abstract, yet mathematically precise, view of the world is a perfect place for Alice to explore. Overall, Dali’s incredibly rich, mostly non-figurative paintings give us the experience of Wonderland – the reader’s mind is free to fill in the blanks with details from own fantasy worlds. I will definitely be purchasing a physical copy of this edition in the future!

I received this book for free from Princeton University Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Bright Stars - Sophie Duffy

Legend Press, October 1, 2015.

Three Stars

The synopsis of this book tells us that four students are involved in a tragedy that rips their friendship apart, and they are reunited twenty five years later. I found this a bit misleading, because the “tragic event” really played such a small part in the story. There wasn’t even much anticipation leading up to it, and in fact I forgot that we were waiting for some sort of climax to occur.

Complicating things further was the fact that there were actually two incidents we were supposed to be looking forward to – one in 1988 when the four were students, and another in 2013, in which Cameron lost his marriage and may be losing his job. Because there were not many clues to either incident, they just didn’t seem that exciting and it was sort of a let-down when we discovered what actually happened.

With two incidents set in different time periods, there was a lot of jumping back and forth between the timelines. It was very choppy, and the time changes happened randomly, with no flow. It also didn’t help that there were multiple footnotes at the end of each chapter that explained small details and didn’t really add anything to the story – they were mostly just Cameron trying to be clever.

While the insecure Cameron is uncertain how he fits into the group, he is in fact the one holding it all together. I did like the four oddball main characters, who were all very flawed and yet likeable. Aside from Cameron, there is also Bex, a politically minded beauty who Cameron is quietly in love with. Tommo, Bex’s boyfriend, is the classic bad boy, playing in a band and getting into trouble. Then there’s Christie, on exchange in England from Canada, so of course she gets along with everyone. There were some clever lines and astute character-building. Their actions show the fine line between good and evil, as the four young people grow into mature adults and learn to take responsibility for their actions.

The title of the novel is from one of Tommo’s band’s songs, taken from a John Keats’ poem. It was who they were, until one tragic event dimmed the light of their friendship. The storyline is original and unusual, and doesn’t fall easily into any one genre – part mystery, part romance, part coming-of-age story. The pace accelerated towards the final reveal, but in the end, it was anticlimactic because it didn’t really matter at all. The ending was somewhat happy, but tied everything up a little too neatly. There were some bright moments in this novel, but I was left wishing for more.

I received this book for free from Legend Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Determined Heart - Antoinette May

Lake Union Publishing, September 29, 2015.

Four Stars

The Determined Heart is the story of Mary Shelley, best known as daughter to philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and wife to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In this novel, Mary Shelley is finally given her own spotlight, as the author highlights Mary’s own literary achievements amidst the many struggles she faced.

Mary’s melodramatic childhood would be unbelievable if it wasn’t based on fact: her mother died shortly after her birth, soon to be replaced by an evil stepmother and demanding stepsister. Her father was moody and unreliable, constantly using his friends to pay his debts, and her older sister Fanny was virtually ignored, eventually choosing suicide over spinsterhood. The drama carries forward into her adult life, when she runs away with a married man who will ultimately be unfaithful to her as well. Her love story with Bysshe, as she called him, was complicated by his ideals of free love, much of which involved him sleeping with Mary’s stepsister, Claire. Meanwhile, Claire was carrying on a relationship with – and eventually carrying the child of – the infamous Lord Byron, which resulted in yet more scandal.

All of these multi-layered plot points would have been way too much if they hadn’t actually happened – and this novel is very well-researched, rich with historical details. My only complaint is that some of these issues were skipped over without a lot of emotional content. I especially wished for more depth to the love story between Mary and Bysshe – it happened so suddenly, and there was a lot of telling us how they felt, instead of showing how their love progressed.

I didn’t find either of the main characters to be sympathetic, until Mary began to focus more on her creative life. Living in the shadow of the literary Shelley, Mary epitomizes her mother’s famous work: A Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was interesting to see the moments in Mary’s life that inspired her to write her most famous work, Frankenstein. She had a great interest in the advances of science at the time, including the new “electric machines.” The story of a man resurrected from the dead had more meaning to Mary as she lost several of her children and wished for nothing more than to bring them back. She dreamed of finding a means to “not only create life but sustain it.” (loc. 3913) Finally, Lord Byron’s challenge to his friends on a dark and stormy night to write a ghost story led to Mary writing her novel, which has now surpassed even her husband’s literary achievements.

The circumstances in which Mary and Bysshe lived would be shocking even today – a married man living with two sisters, he was ostracized from his contemporaries, along with Mary. Posthumously, Mary realizes that Bysshe was a “cad” who cared about himself above all; however, she was able to objectively view the genius of his work, preserving it as a legacy for their son. After Bysshe’s death, Mary was “free to be her own creation” (loc. 5963) and pursue her own dreams.

In this novel, the author brings factual events vividly to life – it is perhaps the resurrection that Mary dreamed of. The characters are very well-formed, with men we think of as brilliant literary giants (Godwin, Byron, Shelley) shown with all their human flaws. The Determined Heart focuses on Mary’s years conceiving Frankenstein, but in the process she created a life for herself as well, and her determination would have made her feminist mother proud.

I received this book for free from Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lost in Geeklandia - E. J. Russell

Entangled Publishing, September 28, 2015.

Two Stars

The vivid cover and clever description drew me into requesting this book, but the contents just didn’t measure up for me. It is a story about computer engineer Charlie, who has coded an algorithm for love. Her own program tells her that Daniel, her former friend turned enemy, is the one for her. Meanwhile, Daniel is highly suspicious of dating, but Charlie seems irresistible.

It seems like it should be a cute, geeky love story, but the geeky part overshadowed the rest. The plot is constantly interrupted with techno-jargon and geekery – some of it is fun, but a lot is just annoying. I found the story hard to get into; overall it was convoluted and gimmicky. The premise starts out sweet but becomes too cutesy, and everything is resolved too easily. For instance, Charlie thinks that Daniel hurt her in the past, but he doesn’t even realize he’s her nemesis – then suddenly, everything is fine between them.

Maybe I was expecting too much, for a story like this to be more complex than it is. If you like your romance simple and sweet, then this story is fine, I just prefer a few more surprises and less of a formula. I also felt like the geekiness was trying too hard. The characters had their funny moments, but I just found it hard to believe the connection between the main characters. Still a fun story.

I received this novel from Netgalley and Entangled Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

The Two Levels - Jonathan Miller

June 18, 2015.

 

Three Stars

 

It is always an ambitious choice to write a novel from a child’s point of view. In this case, parts were very successful, while others did not work. Seven year old Jasmine continually fluctuated from childlike innocence to an adult understanding of the world around her – some of this knowledge could come from the serious situation she finds herself in, but the inconsistencies took me out of the story and made Jasmine less believable.

 

Jasmine and her parents are returning from a trip to South Africa, in which they make an unexpected layover in Sierra Leone. Upon their return to the United States, chaos breaks out in the airport because some of the African passengers are showing signs of illness – a topical reference to the Ebola crisis. Jasmin and her African-American mother get caught up in the ensuing madness, and end up locked in the upper level of a shopping mall with the African passengers. Meanwhile, downstairs, a predominately white mall workers retreat (is this a thing?) is taking place. Jasmine, being biracial, is caught in the middle, venturing downstairs to find medical aid for her mother. Neither group truly accepts her, although they both use her to get what they want from the outside authorities.

 

The novel is an interesting, albeit obvious, examination of race issues, mainly illustrated by Jasmine’s being ostracized from both levels. She begins to question her own identity, as she is shut out from the African community for being too white, and kicked out of the worker’s retreat for being part of the group carrying illness. This is when a child’s voice comes in handy – to clearly show the inequality in racial relations without becoming preachy. Without an adult worldview, Jasmine cannot understand why everyone wouldn’t be treated equally when it came to medical care, etc. – the author uses her naivety to show us this unnecessary racial divide. 

 

I really liked the concept of The Two Levels, although sometimes the allegory was pushed too hard.  I also thought the setting was overly complicated – why did the passengers rush into the mall, and what are the chances there would be a group of mall workers spending the night there too? It would have been much simpler to have the whole scene take place in the airport where it began. It seemed like unnecessary drama and it didn’t ring true for me.

 

The ending of the novel was somewhat ambiguous, and not in a good way. Instead of leaving the reader to wonder about the endless possibilities of what could happen next, it just ended suddenly with no hints to the future. I would have loved to read more about the aftermath of the quarantine, perhaps with Jasmine reflecting back as an adult on these events. Hearing her voice at an older age would have strengthened her perspective as a child. Other than these issues, I thought it was a great concept with many current sociopolitical applications.

 

I received this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Japanese Lover - Isabel Allende

Simon & Schuster, Nov. 3, 2015.

Five Stars

Isabel Allende has been one of my favourite authors for a long time. Recently I have read two of her novels that I did not enjoy at all (Ripper and The Infinite Plan), which was so disappointing. They were average novels, good in their own way, just not up to par with my expectation of Allende. In her newest novel, The Japanese Lover, she goes back to her earlier work in both style and subject – it is large in scope and yet it describes an intricate love story. Overall, I was very impressed, and happy to see the return of the wonderful Isabel Allende.

In The Japanese Lover, Allende’s characters travel seamlessly from the past to the present and back again, in the world of memory. The flashbacks are never out of place and the plot has a natural flow. Alma, living a quiet life in a retirement home, has divested herself of all unnecessary belongings, and lives only to reflect back on her former love. She tells her story to her grandson Seth and her assistant, Irina, who has her own hidden past. Through Alma’s memories, we learn about Ichimei, the Japanese boy that stole her heart during childhood before disappearing into an internment camp during World War II. Alma and Ichimei are never truly separated, however, and he continues to write to her throughout their long lives. As he says in one of his final letters, “we have loved each other in past lives and will go on meeting in lives to come.” (p. 322)

Allende explores the hypocrisy of the many Japanese-Americans who were segregated into camps during WWII and yet still joined the U.S. Military and fought for the freedoms of their fellow Americans. Ichimei’s father left Japan because he did not want to participate in their militarized culture, yet his son, Ichimei’s brother, chooses to fight for a country that would imprison his family simply for having a Japanese heritage.

Throughout the novel, Alma is often used as a way to look back at the past and the tragedy of Japanese internment. Without the secondary plot line of Irina, Alma might be no more than a tenuous link to the past. Her interactions with Irina and Seth strengthen her voice and her ability to reflect back with brutal honesty on the choices she has made in the past. With the addition of Irina and the other characters at the retirement home, there is room for many issues to be explored in the novel. Sometimes it was distracting, but for the most part the ideas strengthened each other with their connections – ultimately, there are many different kinds of casualties of war.

I found the language of the novel to be very simple and straightforward, although this may be due to the translation. No matter how intimate the subject, the tone is always slightly detached, and removed from emotion – it gives the writing an otherworldly feel that I remember from Allende’s earlier novels. There is a distance from the characters, and it was a struggle to get to the heart of the story, but it was worth it in the end. I was kind of disappointed not to see just a little bit of the magic realism that featured in Allende’s novels such as The House of the Spirits. This was more like realism with just a hint of magic – for instance, when Ichimei is apart from Alma, “[h]is flowers grew more colorful and perfumed than ever to console him.” (p. 243)

Overall, I appreciated that the love story was so realistic. The novel confronts us with the fact that sometimes we have to accept reality – love doesn’t always conquer all. At the same time, a place for love can be carved out in unexpected places, and that is the hidden place where Alma could be with Ichimei. Alma shows us a realistic experience of growing old, and with a strong voice, she calmly reflects on her past and sets an example for Seth and Irina, who have their own challenges to overcome. As Alma’s life winds down, there is hope for the happiness of a new generation.

I received this novel from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

The Good Neighbor - A.J. Banner

 

Lake House Publishing, September 1, 2015.

Two Stars

This book is supposed to make the reader question how well we can really know the people closest to us, and wonder about the potential evil behind our neighbors’ closed doors. All it made me do, was stop caring what anyone was up to, because the residents of Shadow Cove were so flat and unexciting. Even when they are committing heinous criminal acts to hide affairs, or start other affairs, I just couldn’t be bothered to care what they were doing.

One of the main problems was that the plot was weighed down with way too much unnecessary descriptive detail – mostly describing unimportant things that didn’t help me to visualize the scene or characters as a whole. The second problem was that there really was not a lot of action to build up the mystery. The twist was actually a good one that I didn’t see coming, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as it could have been.

As other reviews have mentioned, I think this novel could have been helped with a lot more editing. There was minimal action, boring characters and too many loose ends left over. This could be a good guilty-pleasure/escapist read, but even to get to that point, it needs more work.

I received this novel from Netgalley and Lake House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.