BOOK REVIEW│The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin

Motherhood in the suburbs is an adventure unto itself. Social systems are constructed on your children’s achievements, your helpfulness in your community and your popularity among your fellow soccer moms. It can be a boring existence and it can be one that is easily shattered when you step out of the Stepford Wives Club.

For Lara Love Hardin, her step out comes when her million dollar home on a quiet cul-de-sac is met by the police who are there to arrest her and uncover what she has been doing behind the Stepford Wives façade. Hardin has been stealing her neighbor’s credit cards to fund her heroin addiction and now she faces being charged with 32 felonies and a lengthy jail sentence as she goes from soccer mom to inmate S32179.

Hardin quickly discovers that much like the intricacies of suburban soccer mom life, prison life also offers it’s own social system where candy is currency and tampon boxes make furniture. Also, there is the sad realization that not even prison can quell the adolescent behaviors that permeate through mom social life. Hardin quickly learns what it takes to climb the prison social ladder and becomes “the shot caller.”

In a memoir of falling from soccer mom social status to numbered prisoner, Hardin shows that even rock bottom doesn’t mean it is the end of your life. After her stint in prison, she goes on to become a ghost writer, writing her way through healing and redemption in a memoir that has you laughing, crying and cursing your way through as Hardin shows you that the hardest part of all is forgiving yourself. Powerfully raw–this memoir made me struggle through her journey with her, as a mother myself, I found it hard to sympathize with her and her return to drug use despite the damage it was doing to her young children. However, what kept me reading and loving her writing and her journey was that she told it with humor and humility and ultimately by having her darkest secrets discovered she was able to find herself, find forgiveness and build a new life.

Book Information

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin will be released on August 1, 2023 from Simon and Schuster with ISBN 9781982197667. This review correspond to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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BOOK REVIEW│ATTRIBUTION BY LINDA MOORE

The early 2000’s was a great time for art history books. Of course there was Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code but you also had Tracey Chevalier writing Girl with a Pearl Earring and several other art historical novels. I couldn’t put those books down and in many ways, they helped to further my passion for art history and complete my undergraduate degree in it. I was immersed in their worlds almost immediately and the luscious of the art history periods they were covering just drove me further into the story.

When I first picked up Linda Moore’s Attribution, I was immediately transported into her story the same way I had been in the early 2000’s with other art history novels. Moore starts off her tale by showcasing the misogyny that can plague art history departments if you allow it to. I remember it well as an undergraduate– male professors always loved to tell you you didn’t have what it took, but you overcome it. Moore’s Catherine Adamson is struggling through a similar departmental struggle with her dissertation chair who never is happy with where she is going and inwardly she fears being let out of her graduate program which is why she doesn’t argue with him when her chair sends her down into the basement of the department to catalog any and all works that she finds.

While there, Catherine stumbles across a forgotten room and a stashed away canvas that by the pigment alone tells her is much more valuable than its current surroundings. At first, Catherine is unsure of what to do– leave it? Share the find with her chauvinistic professor? Find a way to catalog it? Catherine is not given much time to decide as her discovery is followed rather quickly by an unnerving meeting with her chair that leaves her rattled enough to forget the painting. Only then, she’s suddenly outside with the painting and unable to get back because the building has gone into lockdown…something very valuable has been stolen!

At first Catherine thinks of the painting, but how would anyone know it was missing since it was uncovered in a secret room, buried in a long forgotten chest? Circumstances and chance quickly push Catherine into the heart of the mystery as she finds herself on a plane to Madrid instead of one home to Michigan for Christmas.

In the vein of Katherine Neville’s The Eight, Moore quickly engulfs us in the mysteries of the past, of women who struggled long ago and of Catherine’s own journey towards her future. Her plot is rich in art world references and lush prose that intrigues you to keep reading. It is an art history fiction that leaves you thinking as Moore teaches us the importance of truth and honesty, even if it was forgotten to the past.

Book Information

Attribution by Linda Moore was published in October 2022 by She Writes Press under ISBN 978-1-64742-253-0. This review corresponds to a paper galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│The Guilty Die Twice by Don Hartshorn

At the heart of this legal thriller, are the family dynamics between two brothers: Travis and Jake Lynch. The two have been at odds for ten years and even their mother nor their wives can seem to get the two to make a mends. However, outside events are going to bring these two feuding brothers together whether they like it or not. Fate has an ironic sense of humor when the death penalty is what makes the two brothers face each other after being torn apart for years over the very same thing.

Years ago, Travis begins to turn his back on his privileged upbringing when he was working on a capital murder case. He goes so far as to even hide evidence to get the killer out of facing the death penalty. This is his turning point where he becomes a virtue-singling jerk bent on living in poverty and taking on any and all pro-bono work at the expense of his family and marriage. In stark juxtaposition, his brother Jake becomes a staunchly masculine character that is prone to heavy drinking and who has maintained his weekly lunch dates with his parents while Travis as remained distant and obtuse. Thrown into the mix is their successful sister, Claire as well as their wives, Shirley and Rita and crime reporter, Christine Morton who are all well-written characters who help drive the plot of the story with their own bits of drama and manipulations.

The feuding brothers are reunited in court under a drug-deal gone wrong. Dubbed “The Rich Kid Murders,” Jake acts as prosecutor wanting to put behind bars the sociopath that killed two “rich kids” and left a third one paralyzed, Sam Park. Travis in contrast, eagerly takes on Sam as a client because he feels indebted to Sam because he failed Sam’s brother years ago. We learn early on that both Sam and his brother are sociopathic killers who gleefully committed their crimes which seems odd since Sam’s parents are described as being sympathetic to him, but yet still managed to raise not one, but two cold-blooded sons.

Hartshorn weaves an intricate crime scene with a killer that is not overly discoverable at first and casts it among a group of well-written characters and family dynamics that are not only believable but interesting in their own right. Overall, Hartshorn creates an in-depth legal thriller that will leave you wanting more after each page. It is well-paced and filled with scenes that will keep you reading– there were many where the tension between characters, especially the two brothers became almost palpable.

Book Information

The Guilty Die Twice by Don Hartshorn was released on March 1, 2020 from TCK Publishing with ISBN 1631610732.This review corresponds to a paper galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review │The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

If you are someone who enjoys horror novels that build on suspense and intrigue throughout before delivering a by your seat kind of ending, then The Only Good Indians is a summer read that you’re going to have to pick up. In a similar vein to Stephen King’s It, Jones plays on the idea that what you uncover years ago will eventually come to find you. There is no running from your past and what your past has created or in Lewis’s case, manifested by his younger self’s poor decision making to elk hunt in a place where they had no right to do so and, who along with his friends, took more than they would ever need. Their kills manifested something powerful that now, a decade later, is wanting its revenge.

We meet up with Lewis, a Blackfeet, who is now in his 30’s. He has lived off the reservation for sometime and works for the post office. He is happily married to Peta and has a solid life. One night, a light appears above the mantel in his home and so he climbs a tall ladder to see what is causing it. When he looks down, he sees the bloodied body of an elk that he has killed years ago and still holds its hide. Startled, he loses his footing and is sure that he is about to meet certain death on the brick beneath him when his wife intervenes and saves him. His friend Ricky, an accomplice to the illegal hunt years ago, is not so lucky, however. He has already met his end in the parking lot of a bar at the end of an elk’s antlers.

Thus, we are thrown into the world where Lewis and his remaining friends are fighting for their lives along an unseen force that is bent on revenge for their choices they made when they were young. These group of men are relentlessly chased by the monster they manifested when they killed the elks years ago. We shift from third person to first person as the she-elk-monster seeks her revenge on them and then back to third for the grand finale. There is much blood and gore and yes, if you are like me, the killing of the dog and the descriptive nature of the scene will leave you marred for days afterwards, but overall, this horror novel that mixes with Native American lore is a great pick for a late night read when you’re looking to stay up late and have your darkened living room feel like a creepy den of subtle horrors.

What I liked most about this novel is that it was not only a well-written horror piece, but it was also generally well-crafted and invited higher literary elements into the text such as the use of Native American lore, symbolism and several themes that helped to drive the tension of the novel including Lewis’s guilt over marrying a white woman, life outside of the reservation and the plays on sanity versus descent into madness.

“Death is too easy. Better to make every moment of the rest of a person’s life agony.”

About the Author

Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author with over 20 titles to his name. He holds degrees from Florida State University, University of North Texas and Texas Tech University. A native of Texas, Jones is currently the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. For more information be sure to visit his website.

Book Information

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones was released on July 14, 2020 from Gallery Saga Press with ISBN 9781982136451. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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The Hart Home│Life in Pandemic Filled NJ

None of us were expecting for us to come home from Florida at the beginning of March to the world pretty much shutting down. We had taken our son to Disney World and attended my doctoral graduation. It was our first real family trip. We had also finally listed our starter home and were about to get out of attorney review on our new house. I was completely relieved because our house at the shore was most likely going to sell quickly and while our new home needed extensive renovation, it was a single family home with a lot of land and we would be able to be in there well before our second son was due in the summertime.

pandemic

Then we got back and the world fell apart. I had several days to plan online learning. Our new home fell through. No one wanted to look at our home. And then I was suddenly being a full-time mom while trying to teach both middle school and college from home.

I was absolutely exhausted. Online school was 24/7 and it required so much of me–chasing kids down, actually teaching, grading in creative ways, making sure kids had food and internet and also listening to them because so many were just as lost as I felt.

I was very happy to see school end in June.

I also moved into using my real estate license while taking care of Logan. He loves that I am home so much more and truthfully, I am much happier too. This has definitely become a time of recovery and re-figuring out what I want my life to look like. I have worked in an under-funded high poverty school for almost 10 years already. And I don’t think you realize how much of a toll it really does take on you until you’re away from it.

I’m a better mom with a lot more patience. I enjoy doing things for my family that previously I was just too tired to do like cooking dinner and baking. I also realized how much I have missed reading and writing.

I am down to weeks left in my pregnancy. Unlike with Logan, I am not fearing my maternity leave but rather really looking forward to the time I will have with both of my boys and hopefully finding just a little time for myself. I mean, I wrote a dissertation when I was out with Logan…maybe now I can get caught up with my book reviews and maybe even finally start sending in some of my research to educational journals. That’s my goal at least.

It’s a weird time to be alive. It was also a very weird time to be pregnant. And don’t even get me started on what it’s been like to try and sell a house during all of this either…I am hoping the end of summer and the fall brings us what we need.

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Book Review│Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

cover174871-mediumAfia Atakora’s Conjure Women is a richly detailed narrative that takes us back to the pre and post Civil War South through the eyes of Miss May Belle and her daughter, Miss Rue. The chapters alternate viewpoints between the two women to showcase how different and still yet similar life is for women of color in the South during and after the war when freedom really didn’t mean that these women were in fact free.

For Miss May Belle, it is 1854. She is a practicing midwife and conjurer. Her special talents give her a life with benefits that she wouldn’t have had other wise or as she puts it,  “Hoodoo is black folks currency.” Other slaves seek her out for help and at times, so do the wealthy white men who are too embarrassed by an ailment to seek out a doctor. Rue is young and growing up under Miss May Belle’s watchful eyes, learning her secrets and seeing first hand what conjuring can do to a person’s body and soul.

The two live in a large plantation owned by the prosperous Marse Charles and his daughter, Varina. His young daughter becomes a playmate for Rue who is eager to act out her rebellions which usually ends in punishment for Rue. Miss May Belle knows that her talents afford her freedoms, but that she is still a slave and as such must adhere to the unspoken rules of the white-men who control her life. She makes sure Rue learns her place while learning the ways of hoodoo and conjuring to ensure that Rue keeps her place with Marse Charles long after she is gone.

For Rue, it is 1867 and the war is over. Her mother is long gone and she has taken over the hoodooing that Miss May Belle had abandoned after a horrific tragedy. Rue is intimately involved in many of the townspeople’s lives as she has delivered every baby since the war. When a fair skinned, black eyed child is born the town views the arrival more as a curse than a blessing and the praise they used to give Rue turns to criticism as suspicion begins to swirl. Suspicion is only heightened with the arrival of a preacher to town who is bent on ruining Rue because the bible marks her as impure and evil with her hoodoo and magic. However, is the preacher all that pure and truthful himself? Rue’s story is filled with suspicion and conniving scheming that fuels much of the conflict in her story.

Fear overtakes the town and trust is lost. Rue is overwhelmed by the burden of the secrets and magic that she carries. Will she ever truly be free or will she be forever bartering for other people’s well-being while sacrificing her own? Ultimately, what is the price of her freedom?

Afia Atakora’s Conjure Women is a fantastic debut novel that makes Atakora an author to watch. Her poetic prose and use of magical realism make the details of this novel come to life. You become immersed in her world–a fantastic read that brings the world of slavery and life before reconstruction to life.

Book Information

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora is scheduled to be released on April 7, 2020 from Random House Publishing with ISBN 9780525511489. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore

the companionIn the same vein as Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, we meet a young woman, accused of a horrible crime, but even when she begins to tell us her story, we can only help but wonder just how innocent and truthful she really is. Kim Taylor Blakemore delivers with The Companion. Set in 1855 New Hampshire, The Companion, follows Lucy Blunt as she is set to hang for a double murder. However, as readers, we are kept in the dark as to who she is actually accused of killing and the events the led up to the murders.

Instead, we spend the novel feeling tense and isolated as the story of Lucy Blunt unfolds. She is a sheltered servant who is spending a winter at a remote estate– the Burton mansion– which is almost as cold and isolating as the winter. Lucy arrives at the estate with a fake letter of reference in pursuit of employment. She is taken in by the Burtons and quickly develops a close bond with Eugenie Burton, the lady of the house who is also blind and hyper-aware of her surroundings. This happens in part because her companion, Rebecca, a rather insufferable woman, falls ill early on. When she recovers, there is a clear jealousy between the two women over the affection of Eugenie. This is further fueled by the ideas of class and placement in society– Lucy is just the kitchen help, who is she to be favored by the lady of the house?

The tension is further fueled by the nuances of a lesbian relationship that begins to unfold in the house. The sex scenes are there and they are not graphic or out of the blue. They align with the overall gothic feel of the book and lend to the tension and bleak excitement of the story. Overall, a solid read that will keep you guessing and immersed in the world of 1855 New Hampshire and the gray winter that surrounds and lends to the emotions of much of the novel.

Book Information

The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore was released on January 14, 2020 from Lake Union Publishing with ISBN 9781542006392. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

cover165462-medium I recently got really into Marianne on Netflix. I binged the entire series in a weekend and was superbly creeped out the entire time. I loved the idea of a centuries old demonic witch having controlled a young writer into telling the world of her stories so that she could use the magic of influence to continue to kill and mame through brutal accidents each time the woman wrote a book. It was really well done and if you have a weekend where you just want to binge something creepy, I highly recommend it.

Similarly, Damien Angelica Walters takes us on a journey through the past and present to bring to life the story of a decades old murder and the tale of The Red Lady. Years ago, Heather was part of a club with her friends. They called it The Dead Girls Club because they would sit around and tell stories about death, the macabre and serial killers. Somewhere along the line, one of the girls, Becca, introduces the story of The Red Lady, who is a witch that was killed centuries ago.

After the story is shared, strange things start happening to the girls and ultimately tragedy strikes that summer when one of the girls is killed. Was it really The Red Lady or was it just hysteria among a group of 12-year-old girls? Years later, Heather is bent on finding the answer as she takes us back through her story and we weave into the past and present trying to put the pieces together. As Heather gets closer to the truth, mysterious threats and clues arrive, bringing Heather into a panic…who could really know what happened that summer? Who would know and why are they coming forward now? Heather becomes lost in a sea of time and regret, unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not, leaving us readers in just as panicked a state as we try to reach our own conclusions on whether or not Heather had killed Becca 30 years ago or if The Red Lady is, in fact, very real.

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is the kind of horror thriller that will keep you reading until the early hours of the morning. This is a book that will keep you on your toes and won’t let you go until it’s done. Walters crafted a solid plot that immediately pulls you in and drives you through a roller coaster of events and moments before reaching it’s inevitable end. Just be sure to read this one with your lights on and your husband near by because you will feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and little noises will send  your book flying across the room– a wonderfully written thriller.

Book Information

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is scheduled to be released on December 10, 2019, from Crooked Lane Books with ISBN 9781643851631. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg

cover163695-mediumDid you ever find that you have something that constantly pops into your life? For me, that is West Virginia. When I was little, my dad’s company would often send him to WV for work and those were the longest weeks, waiting for him to come home. When I got older, my first real-world love was from West Virginia and ironically, worked for that same company. Now, I have to laugh when our new principal talks about her life growing up in West Virginia and our other vice principal walks around the halls with a WVU alumni mug. Last week, I had one of my students tell me that he was going to be missing class this afternoon because he was leaving to head on down to…West Virginia…to see the WVU game. West Virginia…I feel like it finds me everywhere.

When I was offered the chance to review Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia I knew that it was kismet and therefore, had to be reviewed here on my blog. Because? Well, West Virginia of course!

“Misogny is in the groundwater of every American city and every American town, but for me, it was done here.”

– Emma Copley Eisenberg

If you aren’t familiar with Eisenberg’s book, then you should know that it is a true crime novel centered around the events that occurred on the evening of June 25, 1980 when three girls were traveling to the Rainbow Gathering in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Two of the women, Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19 were killed in a clearing while the third woman lived. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted of the crimes, but was ultimately cleared of the charges when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility.

West Virginia is a mixed bag of extremely rural, mountains and small city life once you edge into Charleston or to Morgantown. Where the murders occurred, the area is still extremely rural and most view it as being an area filled with people who are poor, uneducated and backward– capable of extreme measures.

Eisenberg lived in Pocahontas County for a few years and the novel that she writes weaves together pieces of her memoir, facts about the case and the uniting thread that brings together the ideas about the case with a way through the haze of the passage and time and grief that has seemingly buried this cold case into local lore. Eisenberg takes facts from documentaries, local accounts and documents which do become lost and almost overwhelmed by her own opinions and thoughts on the murders and her views on life overall.

At points in the novel, I felt as though I was reading an extremely condescending view of West Virginia and everything that transpired because there was such a focus on the writer being “woke” as opposed to focusing on what the novel was ultimately about: true crime and the murder of these two women in a clearing. I would be interested to read more from Eisenberg as she finds her voice as a true crime writer. What really could not allow me to pick my own jaw off the floor as I read, was the pervading misogyny throughout the investigation and evidence files that Eisenberg presented. I couldn’t believe how many hands that were involved in this felt in some way that the two women almost deserved what they got because of the hippie lifestyle that they chose to live. Overall, a very interesting case and a solid start for an emerging new true crime writer.

Book Information

The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg is a true crime novel that is scheduled to be released on January 21, 2020 from Hachette Books with ISBN 9780316449236. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│Across a Broken Shore by Amy Trueblood

cover163516-mediumWilhelmina “Willa” MacCarthy is your typical 18-year-old girl. She is stuck between what her devotedly religous family wants for her and what she wants for herself as she strives to find her own way in the world as a young woman. It is 1936 and her family would like nothing more than to see her become a nun. However, Willa has other plans. She is ahead of her time and longs to find her footing in medicine, a field that is almost completely male-dominated at the time. Change is coming though, both within the ideas that are held for women and within the physical area where Willa lives and works. The Golden Gate Bridge is being built and in many ways can serve as a metaphor for Willa’s ow bridge between her family obligations and her own dreams for herself.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Dr. Maloy, the local physician has retired and in his place, Dr. Katherine Winston has arrived. The town is buzzing with news of a female doctor and many are unsure if she can handle the position. Willa and Katherine spark up a friendship which leads to Willa accompanying Dr. Winston on her appointments and visits to patients. In her journey of self-discovery, we also get to fall in love with characters like, Paddy, the brother who believes in Willa from the very start. There is also Sam, a total sweetheart, that makes for that subtle young love that makes both Willa and Sam completely endearing overall.

This novel was a quick read with an enjoyable backdrop that illuminated Willa’s journey. Depression-era 1930’s San Francisco drove much of the story and made the setting enjoyable overall.

Book Information

Across a Broken Shore by Amy Trueblood is scheduled to be released on November 5, 2019, from Flux: North Star Editions with ISBN 9781635830422. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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