How Do You Like Your Eggs Served? A Review of Just Like Mother

 I have to add a few things I didn't put in my Goodreads or Netgalley reviews. I like Just Like Mother. I really do. Though my fingers were itching to type, I refrained from commenting on the eyeball rolling, lip chewing, and now a new one--eyebrow waggling. I think half the characters waggled their eyebrows. You know what's going to happen? One day and eyeball will get tangled up in an eyebrow and then what?

Here's what triggers me. Characters doing the same damn thing all the time across all genres. I just had my eyeball-roll-o-meter lubed and waxed and then what? Another book with spinning eyeballs. Now, the eyebrows are in on the action. Where will it end?

Here's the review:

So, yeah, the doll on the cover of Just Like Mother is creepy, but want to know what's really creepy? Those baby dolls that look exactly like real babies. This book is crawling with them. Poor Maeve had a crummy childhood because of a cult and a blah young adulthood because of her fear of getting close to anyone. Just when things start looking up, everyone around her dies or disappears and Maeve can't find a toilet that works. That's the way it goes. Silicon babies piling up, a stink coming from hidden hallways, and the damn toilets won't flush. The only things that stand in the way of world domination by a cult are Maeve's eggs, and I don't mean over easy. Never has a woman's ovaries been so in demand. There are men happily serving little meatballs on toothpicks instead of gorging on them themselves, so you can shelve this book as unrealistic. Plenty of blood if you like that stuff (I think the meatballs are legit) but there is child abuse so be warned if you are triggered. Good twists, some I saw coming, but the end was super unexpected. Thanks to Netgalley, Tor and Nightfire for allowing me to read and review an eARC of Just Like Mother.

Review of The Deadly Grimoire (insert lightning flash and da da da dun here.)

 Well folks, I just got out of the hospital where I was drugged up and cut upon and lived to tell about it. Also, my legs are the same length now which they weren't before Tuesday. Ain't modern medicine grand? I won't be walking with one foot flat on the ground and the other foot on tiptoe anymore. Well, not after a few more days. Bones have to settle. 

Anyway, I've neglected my blog for awhile because (see above--drugged up.)

Here's my review of a fun novel (lightning flash and thunder please) The Deadly Grimoire.

 

I had a lot of fun with The Deadly Grimoire. This book could be used as a primer for anyone learning to write cliff hanger chapter endings. It makes sense because the heroine, Betsy the Flapper Detective, produces and stars in the short films of the 1920's that always ended with a cliff hanger so audiences would spend another dime to buy a ticket to the next episode.

When two of her actors disappear during filming, Betsy finds that being a detective in life doesn't always follow a script. There's a lot of strong female characters ranging from a pilot to a bootlegger and the male characters from her advance man to her butler are a hoot. The male criminals are a little ominous, but there is no gross-out violence. The story is more like a thrilling 1920's flick rather than a gorefest like later horror. The seaweed smells pretty bad, though. It's gross. Oh, and there's sea creature/monster thingys flying through storms and biting biplanes. What more could you want?

For some thrills set at the seashore (and we know what kinds of things live in the sea) pick up The Deadly Grimoire and take yourself back to 1926 and get a little wing walking for your reading pleasure.

Thanks to Netgalley and Arkham Horror for allowing me to read and review The Deadly Grimoire.

Get the hair right. And the flowers. Plus the croquet games. What else? Ladies' mustaches.

 I like old movies, 1930s old movies when the conversations were fast paced and witty. For instance: His Gal Friday. Bringing Up Baby. Holiday.

Okay, so those three movies starred Cary Grant. If it was up to me, Cary Grant would have lived forever and stayed 30 years old the entire time.

But it's not up to me and that's not what I'm here to talk about.  Something that irritates me about old movies and TV shows is that they usually get the hairdos, clothes, accessories, games, attitudes and horses wrong.  You, as a writer, should not do this.  Please, as all that is good and holy, do your research by reading history and looking at historic photos to get your story right. Don't rely on TV, movies, pop music lyrics, or novels that get everything wrong.

Do you believe it when a current novel has a young Victorian woman marrying at age fifteen? Nope. The average age of first marriage for a Victorian woman was twenty-two. 

Take a 1950's cowboy movie. All the men wear the same style cowboy hat, short hair, little leather vests, and spend their free time drinking whiskey and playing poker. Oh, and the men are white. Back in the day, one out of every four cowboys were Black. Take a look at some cowboy era photos. They wore all kinds of hats, from Derbys to sombreros to leftover Civil War caps. That famous photo of Billy the Kid...he's wearing a sweater. A recently surfaced photo of Billy the Kid shows him playing croquet, which was wildly popular among cowboys of the old West. Ever see them playing croquet on Rawhide? They would have been in real life.

By the way, the most popular card game was faro, not poker.

Now we get to horses and flowers. Ever read Son of the Morning Star? It's about Custer. When the 7th Cavalry was in the Black Hills, they were amazed at the number and variety of wildflowers. So much so that when they rode off the next day the soldiers had decorated their horses with flowers. That's another thing we don't see in old movies. 

Slight mustaches on women were considered sexy. Anna Karenina has a mustache and that's not the reason she threw herself under a train.  Tolstoy brings mentions her 'tache because it was hot.

I just finished reading The Taking of Jemima Boone. One of the minor male figures had a braid so long that another historic man wrapped his braid around a tree to keep him in place. Wow! Even if that was a sapling, that was some long hair. Daniel Boone's teenage son wore his hair braided in the style of the local Native Americans. 

My whole point of this drawn-out essay is that it's okay to have cowboys playing croquet, and women with mustaches, and horses with flowers, and guys with braids because they really did. Writers don't have to drown in research, but don't depend on cliches you see online or in books on your granddad's old VCR tape.

I wandered all over the place with this, so I'll add one more to the pot. Archeologists recently discovered that medieval knights' war horses were no bigger than modern ponies. Somehow, a knight in shining armor dragging his feet on the ground isn't what we usually picture.

Not exactly how cowboys looked but still kinda cool.

Our Wives Under the Sea. Our sea creatures on the land. Our high water bills.

 Our Wives Under the Sea is a beautifully written book. It's more thoughtful than most horror, much of it taking place in the minds of the two main characters, Mira and Leah. The story leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and the reader has to use her own imagination. I suspect this tale will stick with readers and we'll all be filling in our own blanks, coming up with a hundred different possibilities.

What was the big eye on the bottom of the ocean? Why is Leah changing? What was Jelka hearing?  What ever happened to Matteo? What the hell happened to Matteo? And was that little bitty St. Brendan moving around on its own? That little dude was creepier than the big eye.

Our Wives Under the Sea is way different than the books with never ending action. Lots of description, both lovely and gross. Lots of memories and thoughts. It's a good novel for those who love the beauty of language.

Thank you to Flatliron Books and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review an eARC of Our Wives Under the Sea.

Action. More action. Unspooling guts are part of the action. Review: Friend of the Devil

 Friend of the Devil is a book for readers who like constant action. There's some background story to the protagonist, Sam, a veteran of the Vietnam War, and to the gardener, a stoner former Mormon. There's not a lot of pondering, mainly action, action, action. And unspooling intestines, though watching intestines fall out is also a form of action.

The action is gruesome, and the punishments don't fit the crimes. As much as we'd like to unspool someone's intestines for wearing a Reagan button, most of the time we refrain. This flying/demon/thingy hacks away at just about anybody.

Friend of the Devil could go right into a movie script. Action. Dialogue. Did I mention action? It won't be remembered as a literary novel--demons, guts, and krummhorn playing don't often win Pulitzer's, but it's good for action and disembowelment. And there's a krummhorn player!

Thanks for Netgalley and Putnam for allowing me to read and review an eARC of Friend of the Devil and reminding me that if I want to keep my intestines inside of my body, I should not hang around with BBFs of demons. And maybe not take up the krummhorn.