Tag: review

The Perfect Life That Never Was

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies
Genre: Dark Psychological Fiction
Author: Jennifer Anne Gordon
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Jennifer Anne Gordon’s Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies contains an uncomfortable understanding about loneliness: sometimes pretending to have a better life feels easier than living the one you have. Rebecca “Becca” Gauthier, a forty-one-year-old social worker, is grieving the loss of her son, Gabe, and the end of her marriage. Her escape is Mommy Wine Time, a private Facebook group of women whose expensive habits and carefully arranged meals seem to have immunized them from the normal misery of life. Becca knows a lot of it is ludicrous. She sees. She can’t help it. Gordon turns this innocuous obsession into a dark, razor-sharp study of grief and the dangerous pleasure of becoming someone else.

A Life Behind the Curtain

Becca is not an easy character to like, which is what makes her interesting. She is pleasant at work, fatigued at home, preoccupied with money, and has the ability to make fun of nearly everyone around her, including herself. Early on, she wonders how forty-four women can create “so much beautiful nothing”—a wonderfully sharp description of the online world she secretly loves. The contradiction is huge: Becca hates the privilege on display but covets the security it seems to promise. Her sarcasm is funny until the pain that lies underneath seems so apparent.

Gordon finds that pain does not make Becca a helpless victim. Gabe’s death is always there, in ordinary moments, in a picture on her phone, in words that unexpectedly conjure memories of drowning. Becca’s a social worker who can handle the tough cases but can’t get through her own evenings without wine and the comforting fiction of her online identity. She admits that “Being Becca is hard,” and it is painfully simple. It explains why playing someone else has become more than entertainment.

Women Who Made the Pictures Perfect

Mommy Wine Time is one of the novel’s strongest creations because Gordon knows the particular intimacy of online communities. Its members trade remarks about food, beauty, marriage, and domestic frustrations, often cloaking cruelty in humor. Perfectly photographed breakfasts become a competition, and apparently innocent conversations reveal class prejudice and resentment. Becca belongs to this theater, in the person of Lucy Westenra, the identity she has fashioned for herself. The gag is that she sees through everyone else’s performance but becomes more and more reliant on her own.

Her friendship with Lynn is a revealing contrast. Both women are social workers, know what professional burnout is, and have a history before Becca’s online existence. Their conversations are deliciously messy, full of jokes and annoyance and affection and uncomfortable truths. Lynn realizes that Mommy Wine Time is not just a distraction but a desire to live a different life. The distinction between being surrounded by people and being known is glaringly obvious when Becca says, “The group doesn’t know my real circumstances.”

ALSO READ | The Making of a Fae Queen

When Friendship Turns Into Something Else

As Becca’s online relationships start to take on emotional significance, the book becomes darker and darker, her real life not quite matching up. Gordon is so effective at showing how addictive attention can be, especially when you’ve been invisible for years. An unexpected sign of interest can turn an otherwise miserable evening. Becca doesn’t want just admiration; she wants to feel like she’s important. That need makes her sympathetic even as her choices grow more and more indefensible.

The writing is deliberately restless, flitting between dark humor, grief, social commentary, and Becca’s anxious inner monologue. References to television, horror films, fast food, and social media give her narration a familiar contemporary voice. The endless digressions might exhaust some readers, but they also expose a mind desperate to evade silence. Gordon usually notices mundane details. Even a chocolate shake or an unopened student loan bill can be a reminder of something Becca is not ready to face.

The Cost of Make-Believe

What makes Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies compelling is its unwillingness to present loneliness as something easily fixed by friendship or self-awareness. Becca knows her online life is unhealthy, but knowing doesn’t make leaving it any easier. Gordon also doesn’t make the supposed perfect women into objects of ridicule. Underneath the privilege and the performance lie familiar insecurities and desires for control. The social satire of the novel is at its best in its demonstration of how easily people confuse appearances with happiness.

Ultimately, Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies is a disturbing portrait of what happens when escape becomes more real than reality. Gordon writes about grief without making it respectable and about female friendship without pretending women are always kind to each other. Her smartest observation is that deception is not always motivated by a desire to hurt someone. It may begin with a desire to be loved or even just noticed. And occasionally, the best lie we tell ourselves is that we are being truthful.

DO READ | The Jungle Comes Alive

ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

Midlife Magic Will Not Be Invisible

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: Golem for Broke
Genre: Magical Midlife Urban Fantasy
Author: Deborah Wilde
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Deborah Wilde’s Golem for Broke has a wonderfully wicked proposition: what if perimenopause came with not only hot flashes and brain fog but also magic? Tovah Silver is a fixer in her forties for Mad Queens Inc., in a Vancouver where magic skills, supernatural red tape, and everyday life all happily coexist. Her powers manifest as hot flashes, which is a silly idea until you find yourself in a situation where a well-timed wave of heat is just what you need. Wilde takes the joke without diminishing Tovah, using an unconventional heroine to explore power, aging, friendship, and the experience of being underestimated. The result is urban fantasy with lots of magical trouble, but much of its personality comes from women who refuse to quietly disappear into middle age.

Hot Flashes Turn Hotter

Tovah introduces herself immediately, with a narrative voice that’s sarcastic, self-deprecating, and seemingly incapable of wasting a good joke. The first line, “No woman woke up with a song in her heart and the words ‘What a great day for a mammogram!’ on her lips,” tells you exactly what kind of book this will be. Wilde continually contrasts the mundane with the magical, letting mammograms and wet boots, work frustrations, and the indignities of aging exist in the same universe as golems and magical crimes. Even when Tovah is in genuinely uncomfortable circumstances, her observations are still sharply comic. That humor makes her less a carefully constructed fantasy heroine and more a woman determined to meet absurdity with greater absurdity.

But the perimenopausal magic joke has a more serious idea behind it. Tovah points out that the powers of the Mad Queens are often treated as if they are symptoms of conditions the women are already suffering from, which she dryly calls “lady troubles.” Wilde turns that dismissal into a nice metaphor for how the experiences of middle-aged women can be trivialized or overlooked. Tovah herself notes the link between physical transformation and identity, writing that perimenopause can alter “how you experienced the world, the fucks you had left to give.” It’s funny, deliberately blunt language, but there is surprisingly perceptive thought behind it.

Long Live the Crazy Queens

Tovah is important, but what’s more important is the friendship at the core of Mad Queens Inc. Nisha, Margot, Su-Jin, and Tovah all have their own personalities and skills, but the way they work together makes the group feel lived in rather than cobbled together to give the protagonist a supporting cast. They tease, argue, eat, solve problems pragmatically, and instinctively care for each other in their conversations. Tovah at one point describes the feeling of being with the right people as if she “could finally do anything as long as I had the right team by my side.” This captures the emotional architecture of the novel without Wilde needing to sentimentalize the friendships.

The Mad Queens also flesh out the title and larger concept of the book. Their powers show up later than society expects. This is unusual in a magical culture where powers tend to manifest much earlier in life; middle age is not a last-ditch effort to reclaim youth for Wilde, but rather these women come to their new circumstances with experience, professional skills, complex histories, and hard-won confidence. Even their office reflects that mix of age and reinvention, described through “history, stubborn survival, and organized chaos.” In that sense, Golem for Broke does not view middle age as an epilogue but as another possible beginning.

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Magic With Rules and Red Tape

Wilde’s Vancouver is fun because magic hasn’t replaced bureaucracy or social hierarchy: it has only made them more complicated. The wealthy use golems, the police investigate magical crimes, protective wards are security, and supernatural powers are governed by laws and restrictions. Tovah’s work thus occupies a fascinating middle ground between formal authority and those who need problems solved outside of the usual channels. She defends Mad Queens Inc. as a business that serves members of the magical community whom official institutions might otherwise overlook. So the supernatural world appears woven into the fabric of everyday civic life rather than behind a curtain that is wholly other.

The golems are especially good worldbuilding elements because Wilde gives rules for their creation and composition. Tovah sees differences in the way they’re built, moved, in the clay, and in the inside. The people who make them know things, not some vague, unlimited power. The book also plays with familiar golem lore rather than simply reproducing it. Tovah dismisses the simple version of the legend by saying she could tattoo “emet” on a potato, and it still wouldn’t do her laundry. It’s a good example of Wilde using humor to deliver exposition without making the reader feel trapped in a supernatural instruction manual.

Queens Who Need to Prove Something

The prose is quick, fueled by Tovah’s commentary and Wilde’s love of banter. The characters also spar verbally almost as readily as they do with the magical problems, and the exchanges often reveal personality while keeping the story buoyant. Serious fantasy fans might think the jokes are relentless, but clearly Golem for Broke is not trying to be restrained. Its humor is part of its worldview, especially its refusal to treat older women as tragic, invisible, or humorless characters. Tovah can be vulnerable without losing the edge that makes her such a compelling narrator.

Beneath the golems, magical regulations, mysteries, and wisecracks is a story about who gets to be taken seriously and what happens when people refuse to play their allotted roles. Wilde grants middle-aged women the powers, friendships, messy lives, appetites, and adventures traditionally saved for younger protagonists in fantasy. Critically, before the heroines get to be formidable, the novel doesn’t make them become younger versions of themselves. Golem for Broke finds its magic in exactly the stage of life others might underestimate. These Mad Queens aren’t waiting to take back their crowns; they’ve already decided they belong on their heads.

DO READ | From Comedy Sketches to Creative Pursuits

ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book Golem for Broke and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

Raising Hell While Death’s at the Door

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: DeathCon: A Zombie Story
Genre: Supernatural Zombie Horror
Author: Nzondi
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Nzondi’s DeathCon gives a quick twist to the familiar zombie story: its protagonist, Cozimel “Cozy” Coleman, is a necromancer for whom raising the dead is less an unspeakable horror than a job. Cozy and her friends run the Scream Teens, bringing back the dead so families can work out the practicalities of unfinished business. “We raised zombies so mourners could say goodbye one last time,” Cozy says, as if she were describing a normal service industry. This normalizing of necromancy sets up one of the most striking ideas in the novel: death can be scary, but in Cozy’s world it can also be commercial and emotional and bizarrely routine. Nzondi uses this unusual premise and blends zombie horror, supernatural fantasy, comedy, friendship, and adventure.

When Horror Is Not Pretend

That premise is all the more playful given the setting, as most of the early action takes place on board the Sea Queen during DeathCon 2025, a horror-themed cruise with costumes, music, performances, and people eager to be frightened. The same problem confronts Cozy and the reader: how to distinguish entertainment from danger as strange incidents start intruding upon the festivities. After witnessing a woman acting alarmingly, Cozy begins to wonder whether the ship has just hired her “to scare people.” Given the setting, with zombie nuns, werewolves, grim reapers, and other costumed characters, the confusion is totally believable. So Nzondi turns the very setting of the convention into a source of suspense.

That tension works particularly well because DeathCon isn’t simply relying on darkness to generate horror. The characters are surrounded by bright lights, loud music, flamboyant costumes, dancing, jokes, and references to pop culture, all against an increasingly uneasy atmosphere. Even the bar called Lipstick Zombies looks like a horror carnival with costumed patrons and zombie-themed staff. The contrast makes it easy to dismiss anything unusual as part of the spectacle, creating a natural build-up of unease. In the novel, uncertainty gradually leaks into a world where everyone is expecting scary things to be fake.

Cozy Coleman Raises the Ante

The novel’s best asset is Cozy herself, and her first-person narration gives DeathCon a loud, irreverent personality. She’s impulsive, funny, combative, compassionate, and self-aware enough to know she’s reckless, though she doesn’t always rein it in. Her introduction captures that combination perfectly: “Some girls talked too much, some stole boyfriends, but my vice was raising the dead.” The joke does more than set the tone; it shows how deeply Cozy considers the extraordinary ordinary. Even the explanatory sections are lively, driven by her colloquial narration, pop-culture references, jokes, and sudden observations.

But there is also an emotional counterpoint to Cozy’s bravado. Her humor and attitude coexist with moments of vulnerability, while her interactions with those around her show the importance of real human connection. Her friendships, in particular, give the story warmth without taking away from its irreverent energy. Cozy is also compassionate, unafraid to help others without expecting acclaim. These moments keep her from being just another wise-cracking supernatural heroine.

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Rewriting the Rules of the Undead

The worldbuilding is just as distinctive, as Nzondi deliberately subverts the traditional zombie mythos. Cozy rejects the cinematic notion of zombies smashing their way out of coffins and hunting living people outright, saying that “zombies weren’t savage killers.” Instead, the novel lays out rules for necromancy, protective circles, rituals, substances, spiritual forces, and the obligations of temporarily bringing the dead into contact with the living. These explanations provide an internal logic for its supernatural world, rather than treating magic as a solution without limits. The result is a version of the undead that feels familiar enough to recognize but different enough to remain interesting.

The mythology is also placed next to a very modern universe of social media, music, movies, video games, celebrity culture, and gadgets. References to African, Egyptian, Hawaiian, and other cultures and spirituality help build the supernatural framework. Cozy casually talks about everything from horror movies to cell phones. The combination fits a protagonist who herself lives in several overlapping worlds: ancient practices and modern adolescence, extraordinary experiences and ordinary insecurities, and death rituals and commercial entertainment. The novel therefore avoids depicting necromancy as something that exists only in a mysterious past. Instead, Nzondi invites readers to consider what happens when an ancient supernatural practice becomes a recognizable modern service.

Blood, Banter, Beating Heart

Stylistically, DeathCon favors speed over restraint. Conversations ricochet between jokes and moments of unease, and Cozy’s interior narration ensures scenes rarely stay solemn for long. Those who like energetic narrators will probably enjoy the immediacy, but if you like understated horror, you may find the slang and pop-culture references heavy. But the excess is largely appropriate for the environment because DeathCon itself is intentionally extravagant. Cozy talks to the world at the same volume she lives in it.

But beneath all that noise, the novel keeps coming back to broader questions of connection, identity, responsibility, and the uneasy boundary between life and death. Its more interesting concern is therefore not just the existence of the undead, but how people respond to a world in which death does not necessarily mark the end of human interaction. Cozy is a particularly effective protagonist because her unusual profession exists alongside recognizably ordinary emotions and relationships. Nzondi crams these concerns into an unapologetically energetic mix of zombie horror, supernatural fantasy, humor, and adventure. DeathCon has plenty of blood in its veins, but what breathes life into the story is the discernible heart beating underneath.

DO READ | Stories Among the Stars

ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book DeathCon and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

Old-School Sleuth, New-School Crime

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: :05 Seconds to Die
Genre: Crime Thriller
Author: Bob Brill
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

In :05 Seconds to Die (2025)—A crime novel by Bob Brill, former reporter and private investigator Casey Order meets actress Ginger Queen, then is pulled into a criminal plot concerning the 2028 Summer Games. The novel has 25 chapters and moves rapidly from a meeting in Hollywood to a much wider world involving organized crime, law enforcement, technology, and international links. The premise is deliberately inflated: Ginger warns Casey that powerful criminal networks might be teaming up and using ‘high-tech gadgetry to steal from the summer games.’

A Detective Who Knows He’s In Trouble

Much of the personality of the novel comes from Casey’s voice as narrator. He knows the situation is dangerous, but Brill keeps letting humor break the tension. Faced with the enormity of the crime he intends, Casey lets himself dream of becoming famous enough to take over from Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street before admitting, ‘Maybe, just maybe, I might end up dead. Might make me a legend.’ The mixture of fear and bravado sets the scene for the slightly overblown world the novel wants to inhabit.

Humor also comes through in smaller exchanges. Casey’s assistant, Trixie, is comfortable enough to say ‘You look like shit’ when his behavior gets noticeably odd. Such dialog prevents the characters from becoming mere plot devices in a crime story. Casey may be up against dangerous folks, but his normal relationships provide comic moments of normalcy in between the threats.

A Private Eye Walks Into Cyberspace

Brill pits a quaint, personal-eye persona against a decidedly modern technological menace. Casey talks like someone who has read a lot of detective fiction and has watched a lot of old movies, but the crime he is investigating involves digital systems, hacking, burner phones, and the vulnerabilities of cashless transactions. The scheme also covers common purchases, tickets, sellers, financial data, and digital money. That contrast between Casey’s throwback persona and the technological scale of the danger gives the novel an unusual flavor.

It also refuses to remain geographically small. What appears to be out of Casey’s professional sphere of expertise is in fact a case that involves many criminal organizations and official agencies. Even Casey realizes the disproportion of himself to what he has stumbled upon: ‘This was something bigger than my little world. ‘ Brill exploits that imbalance to keep the suspense alive because Casey is never presented as an invulnerable mastermind who can solve everything himself.

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Crime With a Broad Grin

The novel’s style is playfully knowing. Film references, cultural observations, jokes, food, travel details, and Casey’s running commentary—all sit alongside serious danger. ‘No, old boy, I’ve got a leading role in this one,’ he tells a postman once, when he is laughed at for his conspicuous clothes. That sentence almost sums up Casey’s whole personality: he behaves as if he knows he’s in an adventure.

This will especially appeal to readers who like their crime fiction without the gloominess. The stakes are pretty high, but Brill still leaves room for banter and character quirks. And Ginger is not just presented as a glamorous actress. Her financial struggles and reduced professional circumstances complicate Casey’s original picture of her.

Five Hours Well Spent

:05 Seconds to Die is therefore less concerned with austere realism and more interested in momentum, personality, danger, and entertainment. Its core threat is technologically contemporary, but its storytelling often evokes a more traditional private-eye adventure, replete with wisecracks and a narrator willing to admit to the absurdity surrounding him. That blend gives the novel its identity.

I give :05 Seconds to Die 5 out of 5 stars. Brill deserves that rating for taking a big criminal premise and filtering it through a narrator with an unmistakable voice. It’s a story that keeps itself lively with a mix of technology, organized crime, humor, international movement, and old-school detective swagger, without requiring the reader to take every moment deadly seriously.

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ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book :05 Seconds to Die and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

The Business of Knowing How Business Works

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: Corporate Coach Approach
Genre: Career Development Guide
Author: Nicole Fronek
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Corporate Coach Approach: A Systematic Guide to Career Development is a career development book with a practical approach by Nicole Fronek, a corporate coach, published by Painted Gate Publishing. In ten chapters, Fronek touches on personal branding, resumes, workplace communication, stakeholder engagement, meetings, presentations, corporate environments, and performance reviews. She brings outside research into the discussion, along with her professional experiences, and she concludes each major topic with a list of best practices. It is intentionally written for both those who want to read it cover-to-cover and those who want to go straight to the most relevant topic.

Lessons Learned From Experience

What gives the book its personality is Fronek’s willingness to use her career as evidence. She doesn’t pretend to be someone who started in corporate life knowing the rules. For example, in the chapter on resumes, she recalls applying to many jobs and finding that hiring managers could not clearly understand what she did or how her experience related to the positions she wanted. Her final advice, then, is to communicate accomplishments accurately, and it is not abstract but born of experience.

This same quality enhances her discussion of personal branding. Fronek differentiates reputation from a willfully constructed professional identity, arguing that workplace interactions are always sending cues to other people about what they can expect from us. One of her most insightful observations is that ‘Every engagement is an opportunity’ to reinforce how others see you. But she’s not suggesting you create a contrived professional image. In fact, one of her tips is that branding has to be authentic.

Work Is Too Often About the Little Things

Much of the Corporate Coach Approach is about activities so routine we may hardly notice them: writing emails, preparing resumes, attending meetings, speaking to colleagues, and giving presentations. The chapter on business writing by Fronek is particularly helpful, for she advocates clarity, not ornamentation. Her advice to ‘Write economically as if each word had a monetary value’ sums up the chapter rather nicely. She also advises writers to avoid complexity for clarity and to read their work aloud when editing.

Her philosophy for approaching meetings and presentations is the same practical one. She understands the changing relationship professionals have with meetings as their responsibilities grow, from wanting ‘a seat at the table’ to being far more discerning about whether a meeting is worth the time it takes. Technology is also dealt with in a balanced way. Fronek views AI as a useful tool to help refine material and analyze information but stresses the important distinction that ‘while AI may help to solve a problem, it should not be seen as the solution in full.’ Spontaneous reaction and human judgment still play a key role in effective communication.

ALSO READ | The Jungle Comes Alive

A Coach Who Doesn’t Idealize the Office

There’s a bracing unsentimentality to Fronek’s take on corporate life. This is not a book that promises that hard work will automatically lead to promotion or security. She acknowledges reorganizations, mergers, budget cuts, favoritism, challenging professional relationships, and the uncomfortable truth that an employee can sometimes ‘become a number’ regardless of their past contributions. What follows is pragmatic advice: develop skills, maintain professional relationships, understand the business, and keep enough physical and mental capacity to respond when circumstances suddenly change.

That realism is also where the book sometimes welcomes dissent. Some suggestions are so specific that readers may feel they do not apply to their work environment, personality, or career. But Fronek herself repeatedly emphasizes individuality, encouraging readers to establish their own standards and aspirations, since professional goals are unique. The book therefore works best not as a compendium of commandments, but as the advice of a seasoned professional that you weigh against your circumstances.

Careers Are Built, Not Finished

The overall impression is of a book less concerned with shortcuts than its highly practical format might initially suggest. Fronek characterizes self-awareness as a continuous process and cautions against rushing or taking on more than one can handle. You cannot force career development into being. Experience changes what people want, what they are able to do, and occasionally where they want to go next.

I would give Corporate Coach Approach 4.5 stars out of 5. Its greatest strength is the combination of practical advice with the experience that has created it: Fronek doesn’t just tell readers what to do; she shows again and again why she came to believe it. The best-practice lists also make the book easy to revisit long after the initial reading. Most importantly, behind all the recommendations about resumes, meetings, communication, visibility, and performance is a more lasting idea: professional growth is progressive and never totally finished.

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ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book Corporate Coach Approach and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

The Making of a Fae Queen

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BOOK REVIEW

Book: To Be a Fae Queen
Genre: Romantasy
Author: Tricia Copeland
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

In To Be a Fae Queen, Tricia Copeland puts a young woman under the weight of a crown and asks a more interesting question than whether she can wear it: what happens when power comes before certainty? Titania knows she has a kingdom depending on her, but she is far less confident than her subjects might imagine. ‘How am I to rule a nation, an anxious girl?’—a novel with immediate emotional honesty. What follows is a fantasy as much a product of Titania’s internal struggle as it is of the world she has been called on to lead.

A Heroine Learns to Stand Tall

Copeland makes Titania convincing because she can be strong and uncertain at the same time. She is able to say, ‘I am the best archer in the land,’ with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what she can do, but that confidence does not automatically extend to the responsibilities placed before her. That difference is recognizably human. It suggests that excelling at something in no way equates to feeling prepared for whatever comes next.

Her vulnerability is particularly touching in the quieter passages. Titania’s collection of crystals ‘makes me feel connected to them,’ revealing a private relationship with loss that supports her public identity. In moments like these, she becomes more than a figure traversing a fantasy landscape. Copeland provides her with a life of the mind where memory has a physical presence, and this imparts an intimate dimension to Titania’s development.

A Faerie World of Its Own Reason

The novel’s world is convincing when its magic has consequences. The faerie rings are essential for the realm to function, and the threat to ‘sun, rain, and winds to clear our air’ makes their importance feel urgent. Copeland does not treat the supernatural as decoration but weaves it into the conditions under which her characters live.

Titania also has a pleasing uncertainty about the stories she has grown up believing. Things she once considered ‘myth, rumor, folklore’ now have a different resonance. There’s a muted tension between belief and what could actually be true. The addition of Upper Earth and Lower Earth adds depth to the setting, suggesting a universe that is far beyond what Titania first understands.

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What Power Means

Titania’s character is all about movement. When she says, ‘Doing something will be better than nothing,’ she reveals her instinct to respond rather than retreat. It is a flawed form of courage, but perhaps a more persuasive one for just that reason. She may not always have the right answer, but she will find a way to act.

She also has a more reflective understanding of leadership than one might expect from the simple possession of a title. Titania believes elections ‘will increase diversity and help bring all ideas to the council,’ demonstrating a desire to make authority responsive rather than merely inherited. The idea provides a modern undercurrent to the novel without detracting from its fantastical setting. The ruling is starting to sound less like sitting on a throne and more like taking responsibility for the voices beyond it, for Titania.

Fantasy Meets the Personal

Copeland’s first-person narration keeps the reader close to Titania’s consciousness, an effect that is particularly effective when the outside world begins to press upon her private fears. The fantasy provides the scale, but Titania gives the emotional heart. Her thoughts are centered on the question of whether she can live up to the expectations of her position, so the story’s larger concerns feel personal, not remote.

What makes To Be a Fae Queen stand out, ultimately, is its interest in the person behind the title. Titania’s courage is her action in the face of fear, not the absence of fear. Copeland has provided her with space to question herself and constructed a heroine whose journey is less the fulfillment of a prophecy and more the arduous, recognizable process of becoming the equal of the life one has been given.

DO READ | How Maria Jane Found Her Voice Through Fiction

ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book To Be a Fae Queen and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

The Jungle Comes Alive

Published on by Stavyah Vatsarah2 Comments

BOOK REVIEW

Book: Chewed Up by the Jungle
Genre: Romantic Adventure Thriller
Author: Ann Charles
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

The third book in the Dig Site Mystery Series, Chewed Up by the Jungle, by Ann Charles, takes us back to the Maya jungle with archeologist Angélica García and photojournalist Quint Parker. Their work at an archeological site combines Charles’s love of Maya history with a story woven with danger, humor, romance, and the possibility of the supernatural. What makes the novel so fascinating is how well these different threads weave together. There’s enough mystery to keep us guessing with the story and enough warmth in the characters and their interactions to make the journey just as important as the destination.

Charles also provides the novel a visceral sense of place. Quint’s first description of the jungle as ‘angry’ suggests generations of human intrusion and scarring. Angélica immediately punctures the description when he compares humans to ‘chiggers’ and ‘leeches.’ This exchange establishes something important about the novel: even when Charles creates an atmosphere of threat, she allows her characters to respond with humor.

The Jungle as Context and Beyond

The jungle is slowly absorbed into the reading experience. Charles fills it with sounds, movement, heat, insects, and hidden spaces so that the characters are never entirely apart from their environment. Her use of auditory imagery, describing the jungle as ‘loud with chirps and chatters and whistles,’ makes the setting feel alive rather than static. There is an undercurrent of uncertainty pervading the archeological expedition, for the characters can never be quite sure of what may be lurking just beyond the edge of vision.

The archeological context is integrated into the narrative just as well. Through Angélica’s work, Charles is able to introduce the reader to Maya architecture, glyphs, mythology, and ancient traditions and archeological practices without the novel reading like a history lesson. The characters and their work also connect the technical details of LIDAR technology and the study of ancient structures. This adds a dimension to the adventure and also reflects Angélica’s real interest in the past.

Characters Give Heart

This interest in the past is for Angélica. She has a professional relationship with archaeology but also a personal one, particularly with her mother’s work and theories. ‘For Angélica, the thought that there were civilizations that prospered so long ago was a comfort,’ writes Charles thoughtfully. The concept goes beyond archeology’s excavation and discovery; for Angélica, learning how people lived in the past also becomes a way of reflecting on life in the present.

The added warmth of her relationship with Quint is also a source of comfort. They say they like to tease in casual conversation rather than let the excitement happening around them shut them off. Quint’s interest in Maya culture is important because it shows his desire to understand something that is important to Angelica. So their relationship is more than a romantic thread; it’s another way that Charles shows character.

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A Fine Mix of Suspense and Humor

One of the most attractive things about the novel is perhaps its humor, which arises naturally from the characters. Finally, when Quint and Daisy joke about Angélica’s obsession with archeology, Daisy gives the condition its wonderfully simple name: ‘It’s called archeology.’ It’s a clever exchange, but it also shows how the characters see Angélica and how comfortable they are with each other. Charles mines humor from character, not laying it in for laughs.

That humor is especially effective when the story veers into more unsettling territory. The supernatural element is unsettling, but Charles still makes room for skepticism and wit. Quint is less certain of what he has experienced but still considers rational explanations. This balance keeps the paranormal engaging without overwhelming the archeological and human aspects of the story.

A Story of the Past

A further one of the more subtle strengths of Chewed Up by the Jungle is its curiosity and respect for Maya civilization. Charles’s research appears in the specifics of the archeological sites, the language, the beliefs, and the relationship between the ancient Maya and their environment. The glossary also provides readers with an opportunity to learn about unfamiliar terms, such as ‘aguada,’ ‘cenote,’ and ‘Chakmo’ol,’ without interrupting the narrative.

But the past never loses its people. Angélica reflects on the lives of people from centuries ago, reminding us that history is, ultimately, a tapestry of shared human experience. That perspective gives the archeological material an emotional dimension and helps explain why the past matters so much to her.

A Fun Trip

Chewed Up by the Jungle succeeds because it knows what kind of story it wants to be. It’s an archeological mystery, but it’s also about the people who are chasing it. There’s a feeling of peril, but it doesn’t sacrifice humor. It brings in the supernatural but allows for some doubt. These work because Charles keeps character and setting at the center of the story.

The result is a novel that is easy to enter. Charles herself describes it as a mixture of ‘quick wit and mystery, sweat and adventure, wonder and Maya mythology’ with ‘laughter and romance,’ and this description does quite well encapsulate the book’s generous spirit.

Its most impressive aspect is how it makes the archeological work, the relationships, and the setting feel like natural parts of the same story. Chewed Up by the Jungle is surely a satisfying addition to the Dig Site Mystery Series for readers who like their mysteries with a strong sense of place and characters who are just as much fun to spend time with as the mystery itself.

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ENGAGE WITH LH | Click on the cover image of the book Chewed Up by the Jungle and buy yourself a copy right off the bat!

The Man Behind the Wolf

Published on by Stavyah Vatsarah2 Comments

BOOK REVIEW

Book: A Canadian Werewolf in New York
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Author: Mark Leslie
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Mark Leslie’s A Canadian Werewolf in New York is the kind of book that the cozy confines of genre cannot contain. It may start with a werewolf, a mysterious attack, a bullet wound, and a confused writer waking up in Manhattan with human blood in his mouth, but Leslie soon shows that the real story is far more compelling: the complex business of being human. The disturbing prospect that his body and instincts are now unrecognizable confronts Michael Andrews, the protagonist, while his career as a successful writer brings its own pressures of identity and creative confinement. What you get is a joyous supernatural novel that mixes mystery, humor, tenderness, and philosophical curiosity and shows that to understand humanity, sometimes you just have to put a wolf in it.

A Werewolf with a Human Voice

The opening introduces the wonderfully irreverent character of the novel immediately. Michael wakes in Battery Park naked, injured, and tasting human blood, and his bewildered response is, ‘Michael Andrews, what the hell have you been up to last night?’ It’s both hilarious and ominous. Leslie understands that the supernatural can become more compelling when it is filtered through an ordinary human reaction, and Michael does not behave like the grandiose protagonist of a conventional gothic tale. He behaves like a man confronted with an impossibly awful morning, which makes the extraordinary feel strangely believable.

This comic instinct runs throughout the novel and gives Michael an immediately engaging voice. A particularly striking example is his meeting with Buddy: Michael describes himself as Buddy’s ‘conversational prostitute’ after enduring the older man’s endless monologues. The line is hysterically funny, but it also demonstrates Leslie’s ability to distil an entire relationship into one unforgettable image. His humor never seems ornamental; instead, it is woven into the novel’s narrative bloodstream, keeping the werewolf story lively and unexpectedly warm.

The Humanity Beneath the Fur

But beneath the jokes is a surprisingly tender examination of compassion. Michael’s bond with Wally shows that his transformation has not dulled his instinct to protect others; in fact, his heightened senses make him unusually sensitive to fear and emotional distress. Wally’s question, ‘Do you have to go, Michael?’ is a simple one, but it lends an unexpected poignancy to their short-lived friendship, especially when Michael responds with, ‘Goodbye, my friend.’ What makes this little exchange stand out in a book full of supernatural peril is that affection can be stronger than spectacle.

The meeting also muddies the usual distinction between human and monster. Michael is capable of terrifying violence, but cruelty disturbs him, and he instinctively intervenes when Wally is threatened. His fight with the bully is therefore more than an action scene: it creates a moral tension at the core of the character. The man who looks like a monster may have more conscience than the people who look perfectly human, suggesting the real essence of monstrosity is conduct and not appearance. Leslie doesn’t preach but makes the point, letting Michael’s actions do the arguing. 

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When Identity Begins to Howl

The most compelling literary aspect of the novel is Michael’s struggle to understand what he has become. The werewolf isn’t just a supernatural curse but a physical manifestation of the split self, forcing Michael to confront impulses that he can’t consciously control. His heightened senses allow him to perceive the world as ordinary human beings cannot. His metamorphoses create gaps between what he remembers and what his other self has experienced. So the frightening question is not what kind of creature one is, but how well any person can ever know himself.

It becomes even more powerful when you realize that Michael is also a writer. He has realized the incredible dream of travelling from Canada to New York, becoming successful, and seeing his books made into movies, but even that success leaves him struggling under the pressure of expectations. If his life were a novel, he thinks, readers would be more apt to believe he is a werewolf than that he would ever become a bestselling author. It’s a wonderfully self-aware observation, one which allows Leslie to play with the relationship between fiction and reality while quietly questioning what makes a believable life.

The Writer Who Has to Find Himself

Michael’s creative crisis is an eerily accurate mirror of his supernatural predicament. The pressure to produce another successful novel threatens to turn his imagination into a commercial obligation, just as his transformation threatens to reduce his identity to that of a ‘werewolf.’ His struggle is therefore double and personal: he has to learn to live with the creature inside him, and he has to decide what kind of writer he wants to be. He finds himself through writing, and the keyboard is almost as essential to his transformation as the full moon.

There’s something very satisfying about creativity becoming a way of taking back control. Michael returns to writing after a particularly turbulent period and finds that the act of writing fiction helps him clear his mind and figure out what he has to do next. Thus, the novel suggests that artistic creation is not only a profession or a product but also a way of thinking and understanding oneself. This strand is given added resonance by Leslie’s own experience as an author, for the author’s note at the end of the book reveals that the novel itself evolved over a period of years before finally coming to completion.

A Monster Tale with a Literary Heart

What makes A Canadian Werewolf in New York so enjoyable is that it does not sacrifice entertainment for substance. Leslie provides the pleasures of supernatural fiction, but it is also quietly a story about friendship, morality, artistic independence, and the frailties of identity. The novel is riotously funny in one scene and surprisingly reflective in the next, and this tonal elasticity becomes one of its greatest strengths. It is a book that knows how to entertain without taking its reader for granted.

In the end, Michael’s journey is more than simply learning to live with a werewolf inside him; it’s about learning to live with all the contradictory selves that make a person whole. Leslie takes the familiar werewolf mythology and makes it more intimate, asking if the creature we fear sometimes shows us the person we have been afraid to become. A Canadian Werewolf in New York therefore leaves more than the echo of a supernatural adventure. It leaves the delightful suspicion that the boundary between man and monster was never as secure as we anticipated. In Leslie’s hands, the howl is not merely the sound of transformation but the sound of a man finding his voice.

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A Poignant Tale of Love, Loss, Hope, Reunion, and More

Published on by Stavyah VatsarahLeave a comment

BOOK REVIEW

Book: Pretty Flamingo
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Author: Perry Martin
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Stavyah Vatsarah

Love. Hate. Betrayal. Romance. Horror. Hope. Separation. Reunion. Perry Martin’s debut novel, Pretty Flamingo, promises all of this and much more. It is a sublime tale that oscillates primarily between two time periods and two places: the late 1960s set in Brisbane, Australia, and the early 2000s largely set in California, the US. A poignant story of loss and separation, the novel does its best to address a metaphysical question you may have given a thought: Is it possible that we have ever lived before?

An Emotional Ride

As a reviewer, I am pretty darn sure the book will make you laugh and cry at the same time, surprise you with its wondrous twists, and possibly ensure you brood over questions that you might have considered way too philosophical hitherto. And even as it may cause you to shed tears of joy and sadness, it will most likely touch a part of your soul left untouched, thereby kindling a new magical spark. But does the book promise a happy end? Well, you will have to read the book to find that out!

Reading Pretty Flamingo, I found myself crying, shocked at the way certain events unfolded, and pleasantly surprised by the way the author ended it. It gave me what I needed – a break from the real world. I also found the plot resonating with me because I staunchly believe in the afterlife and the fact that the souls often assume a form based on the good and bad karma accumulated over thousands and millions of births. Nevertheless, I liked the way the author decided to build the main narrative around just two characters, detailing the time they spend together, the bond they share, and the uncanny activities they indulge in.

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Heavily Influenced by Music

It is also worth mentioning that the story wonderfully goes back and forth, expounding the ‘forgotten’ days of the main character named David Perry and the life he is leading at present. The narrative is heavily influenced by music, leaving us convinced that the author, being a musician himself, does enjoy everything musical.

The main part of the story, anyhow, details David’s efforts to recover lost memories from a certain period during his teens. How does he come to forget such a significant part of his life? What happened back then?

My Take

I strongly suggest that every avid reader give Pretty Flamingo a read, for it will take you on a tootle that you may have never taken before, the return journey being as mystical as the initial one, if not more. 

Perry Martin, I believe, is set to emerge as an author who will be read by millions in the near future. His is a style that resonates with readers who love simplicity, who like commonly used words being given a new meaning, and who wish to escape the real world with the sole intention of returning to it with something intriguing. So read Pretty Flamingo, for I know it will not disappoint you, and after you finish, you will only plausibly find yourself evolved, metamorphosed, and… experienced.

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If You’re a Lover of Short Crime Fiction, This Book Is a Must-Read for You

Published on by B SudharsanLeave a comment

BOOK REVIEW

Book: Sweet Southern Charm – A Short Murder Mystery
Genre: Mystery thriller
Author: Lanie Goodell
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: B Sudharsan

Sweet Southern Charm by indie author Lanie Goodell is not as sweet as its title suggests. It is a murder mystery after all, so it is supposed to be anything but sweet! The incredibly fast-paced story proves to be an interesting read, though. At least, I found the story refreshing, and after reading the story, I got the feeling of having read a crime novel in its entirety.

I suppose the reason for my feeling so is that Ms Goodell variegates the story by adding elements of mystery, romance, love, hate, and friendship – elements that you are sure to find in a crime novel. Furthermore, she does a great job of transporting the reader to the scenes she describes powerfully, employing crisp adjectives and vivid verbs. I took about half an hour to complete reading the book, but if you happen to be a slow reader, you might take about forty to fifty minutes to finish it, that is, if you read it in one go.

Two Murders With Striking Similarities

Sweet Southern Charm begins with an interaction between Janet Cramer, a ‘trashy’ woman living in a posh locality, and Chester Barfield, a guy masquerading as an employee of a company that offers a free assessment of personal security. The latter manages to make an entry to the former’s house, and it is what ensues that makes the story. Janet is found murdered, and investigator Georgia Beaumont and her subordinate Collin Cavanaugh are consequently roped in to figure out who perpetrated the crime. While the story on the one hand fast unravels the mystery, it also details the love-hate relationship Georgia and Collin share on the other.

Investigating the neighbours of the victim does form an integral part of the story, which also witnesses another murder bearing striking similarities to the first. A lady around the same age as Janet’s is found dead, and her body, like that of Janet, bears no wounds. Also, an eerie resemblance exists in the manner in which the dead bodies are left after the murder. All of this indicates that the perpetrator is a professional who knows his job well.

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The Missing Link Does the Magic

Nonetheless, there is something that Georgia seems to be missing, something that she feels can provide a crucial link between the two cases. This ‘missing link’ adds magic to the story, thereby ensuring the reader continues to read with rapt attention. And why the book is titled the way it is titled is known thereupon.

Having said this, I think it is also important for me to mention that I unearthed the suspense halfway through, so a large part of my reading happened only to find out if what I had surmised was correct.

Give It a Read!

I would recommend this book to lovers of crime fiction who don’t have the time to sit through a long novel or who are perhaps looking forward to reading something interesting before hitting the hay. I myself happened to read this book last night, and I did not regret picking it up. It is free on Kindle Unlimited.

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