The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons (Book Review)

Title: The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons
Author: Dan Elish
Publication: Vesuvian Books, paperback, ebook, 2018
Genre: Juvenile Fantasy

Plot: Ike Rupert Hollingsberry is trying to be a normal sixth grade at a private school in New York City but random strangers and social media constantly remind him of his father’s tragic death while filming a cult-like TV show called The Fighting Dragons. Ike was a child when his father died and has learned to tune out obsessive fans and does not listen to his classmate Elmira when she tries to tell him the show was not really a fantasy. However, when Ike is attacked by a giant locust, he discovers inner strength that allows him to face down the monster until Elmira comes to the rescue unexpectedly.

Ike and Elmira are joined by two other descendants of the original show’s lead characters and learn they are the next in line to take command of the Royal Order of the Fighting Dragons, and their first assignment is to fly dragons, which Ike had previously believed did not exist. Now Ike is a reluctant but resolute leader, following in his father’s footsteps, and the four children, with some help, must lead the battle to save the world from the enemy locusts!

Audience: Think Gordon Korman meets Rick Riordan meets James and the Giant Peach. My nephews (11 and 13) really like quest-based fantasy and I am sure most children their age would enjoy this.

My Impressions: First of all, what a stunning cover which beautifully sets the tone for a quirky fantasy. In this lively adventure story, there are six very different children, all with their own quirks and personalities. Ike is an appealing main character, one minute avoiding bullies in the cafeteria (which anyone can identify with!) and the next fighting off a giant locust (ugh) and learning how to manage people (tell me your secret!). Author Elish uses humor and the epic tradition of King Arthur to craft a fast-paced story.

Locusts were a real problem in the 19th century in this country. I wondered if the author had ever read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder? That is the book in which locust destroy the Ingalls’ crops and completely demoralize the whole family and other homesteaders, per the New York Times:

Sweeping across North America, flying hordes of Rocky Mountain locusts were once an awesome and horrifying sight, huge glittering clouds of insects laying waste countless acres of crops. Throughout the 1800's, the whirring swarms periodically ravaged farm fields from California east to Minnesota and south to Texas. 

The locusts were easy to please, eating barley, buckwheat, melons, tobacco, strawberry, spruce, apple trees -- even fence posts, laundry hung out to dry and each other. 

When women threw blankets over their gardens, the locusts devoured the blankets then feasted on the plants. Farmers lit fires, blasted shotguns into the swarms and scoured their fields with so-called hopperdozers, large metal scoops, smeared with tar or molasses to grab as many of the offenders as possible. But it was all to no avail.

I had two small concerns: one was that when Ike is given his father’s sword he finds the initials of his ancestor, SMH for Sir Matthew Hollingsberry, were engraved on it – but no one would monogram an honorific! That is like monogramming a D for Doctor. Second, an Italian character’s name is Alexandro Lafcadio Cortesi, and I believe an Italian boy would be called Alessandro. Moreover, he uses several variations of “miei amici” and not all seemed accurate. An editor should help with such issues.

Purchase Links: Amazon * Barnes & Noble * IndieBound

Source: I was provided a copy of this book by the author and TLC Book Tours for review purposes. You can visit other stops on the tour and read the reviews by clicking below:

Friday, September 21st: Write – Read – Life

Monday, September 24th: Instagram: @biblio_files

Wednesday, September 26th: Instagram: @lifebetweenwords

Friday, September 28th: Instagram: @throneofshatteredbooks

Monday, October 1st: Jathan & Heather

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Friday, October 5th: Read Till Dawn

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Tuesday, October 9th: From the TBR Pile

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Saturday, October 13th: Instagram: @alurkingbooknerd

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The Mystery of the Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Book Review)

Title: The Mystery of the Three Quarters
Author: Sophie Hannah
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 2018
Genre: Mystery

US cover

Plot: The world’s most beloved detective, Hercule Poirot—the legendary star of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and most recently The Monogram Murders and Closed Casket—returns in a stylish, diabolically clever mystery set in the London of the 1930s.

“We Agatha Christie fans read her stories--and particularly her Poirot novels--because the mysteries are invariably equal parts charming and ingenious, dark and quirky and utterly engaging. Sophie Hannah had a massive challenge in reviving the beloved Poirot, and she met it with heart and no small amount of little grey cells. I was thrilled to see the Belgian detective in such very, very good hands. Reading The Monogram Murders was like returning to a favorite room of a long-lost home.”
— Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica (Book Review)

Title: When the Lights Go Out
Author: Mary Kubica
Publication: Park Row Books, Hardcover, September 2018
Genre: Suspense

Plot: Two parallel stories: Eden, a carefree newlywed, becomes so obsessed with having a child that it threatens to destroy her marriage, and Jessie, a young woman who has just buried her dearly beloved mother and has not been able to sleep since that terrible day. As if being without family or friends isn’t bad enough, when Jessie submits a college application, she is told her social security number belongs to someone else and is plunged into a mystery about her own identity. Is there anyone she can turn to? Is everything her mother told her a lie?

Audience: Fans of psychological suspense; author such as Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Tana French

Cotton in My Sack (Book Review)

Title: Cotton in My Sack
Author/Illustrator: Lois Lenski
Publication: Dell Yearling paperback, originally published 1949
Genre: Children’s fiction

Plot: Joanda, age 10, is part of an Arkansas sharecropper family on the Cotton belt. Children help their parents pick cotton and school only takes place in the off season. It is a hard life but it is all the Hutley family knows and they have fun together despite their hard work and financial worries. The sharecropper life is very bleak for Joanda’s parents: they don’t see any escape and do not know how to save so are constantly at the mercy of unexpected disasters such as illness or can’t pay for daily living expenses due to their own feckless spending. Yet the Hutley parents are good people, well-liked by their peers, respected for their work ethic, and compassionate toward others. The story is told from Joanda’s perspective as she becomes more perceptive and begins to glimpse how the work done by her father and others fits into an economic system its participants are unaware of.

Ricky Hutley gets hit by a tractor - no health insurance!

Audience: Lenski wrote this story at the request of Arkansas children who had admired her Newbery Medal winner, Strawberry Girl. I don’t remember reading it as a child, although if it was in my library I probably did, but I see so much more in the story as an adult reader: the feckless yet well-intentioned father, the teacher trying to save the Hutley family’s pride yet provide a nourishing hot lunch, the kind uncle instilling savings lessons in the family that likes to spend every penny it earns on junk.

My Impressions: As an adult I was interested in Lois primarily in her role as illustrator of the first four Betsy-Tacy books but enjoyed a recent biography, Lois Lenski: Storycatcher. This described Lenski’s American Regional series, a group of 17 books, of which Cotton in My Sack is one. Lenski began writing these books in the 40s, setting them in different parts of the United States to show how real children lived – initially, regions she observed while driving to Florida but later she responded to specific requests as she did here, visiting Arkansas twice and picking cotton herself. I enjoyed the book as a slice of Americana and found the description of rural farming and sharecropping fascinating but sad. Joanda herself is a bright girl who loves words and books. Her home has newspapers pasted on the wall instead of plaster that she reads:

Joanda loved to read. There were no books or magazines in the house, only the newspapers on the wall [instead of plaster]. The words – strange words she did not know the meaning of – had a fascination for her. She used to ask Daddy to explain what they meant. But he couldn’t – he only went to third grade, he said.

Later a kind teacher lends Joanda a pioneer story she brings home to read aloud with her father:

The book told of hard work and courage and struggle. It had happiness, meanness and sorrow in it. At the sad parts they all cried. Daddy and Joanda read each evening after school until the end was reached.
“It sounds like real to me,” said Daddy. “I feel like I know them folks somehow.”
“That’s ‘cause they’re just like us. They had the same troubles in them days too,” said Mama. “We’re not the only ones had it hard.”

This was Lenski's reason for writing such books - to show these children there were families like theirs with similar challenges.  Joanda’s teacher would have been gratified to know how much the Hutleys liked the book, but unfortunately Joanda drops the book in a mud puddle and is too terrified to return to school. Of course, I thought about the lost library book in All-of-a-kind Family and the kind librarian who works out a payment plan with Sarah to save the family’s pride. In fact, Joanda could have paid for the book from her cotton picking money but the children are allowed to squander their earnings on Saturdays.

Joanda is surprised to learn the landowner's wife has financial worries too

Along with the spoiled toddler, this is the most upsetting part of the book – watching the Hutleys carelessly spend their money at the Goodwill store every week while the father goes off to get drunk. Fortunately, Mrs. Hutley’s uncle is as worried as I am about the family’s future and comes up with a scheme to help them focus on savings. Given that my job is all about asset building for low-income residents, I felt that Uncle Shine and I were working together on this feckless family!

Source: I recently picked up a copy of this book for my friend Nicole but naturally had to read it before giving it to her. While Lenski’s books are not fun the way the Betsy-Tacy books are, I enjoyed this and recommend it.

Images copyright to the publisher

Campion Towers by John and Patricia Beatty #1965Club

Title: Campion Towers
Author: John and Patricia Beatty
Publication: Macmillan, hardcover, 1965 (now available as an ebook for $2.99)
Genre: YA historical

Plot: When 15-year-old Penitence Hervey travels from Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to England, she arrives in 1651 as the country is still embroiled in Civil War. As a Puritan, Penitence is wary of her new family, the Killingtrees of Campion Towers who are unabashed Cavaliers, and she agrees to spy on them for Cromwell. Her relatives are unfriendly: her grandmother is dying and mistakes her for her deceased mother, her grandfather is furious to see her, her aunt is critical, her cousin Douglas is a spiteful girl her own age, and they lock her into her room at night. Pen is delightfully flawed – quick to anger and jump to conclusions and less respectful than most girls her age (although, surprisingly, this helps to win over her grandfather). She is also appealingly intrepid and as she explores her home and the Worcester area she learns some of the family secrets, including that her handsome cousin Julian, outlawed by Parliament, is a boon companion of Charles Stuart, the rightful king of England. Soon Pen finds herself caught by the claims of old and new loyalties, inspiring the kind of courage that delights readers and which makes a compelling story with unexpected twists.

Tear Me Apart by J.T. Ellison (Book Review)

Title: Tear Me Apart
Author: J.T. Ellison
Publication: Mira Books, Trade Paperback, September 2018 (ebook also available)
Genre: Psychological Suspense
Giveaway:  I have one copy to give away to US or Canadian readers. Please leave an email by 9/7/18 if you are interested!

Plot: The follow-up to her critically acclaimed Lie to Me, J.T. Ellison’s Tear Me Apart is the powerful story of a mother willing to do anything to protect her daughter even as their carefully constructed world unravels around them.

One moment will change their lives forever…

Competitive skier Mindy Wright is a superstar in the making until a spectacular downhill crash threatens not just her racing career but her life. During surgery, doctors discover she’s suffering from a severe form of leukemia, and a stem cell transplant is her only hope. But when her parents are tested, a frightening truth emerges. Mindy is not their daughter.

Who knows the answers?

The race to save Mindy’s life means unraveling years of lies. Was she accidentally switched at birth or is there something more sinister at play? The search for the truth will tear a family apart…and someone is going to deadly extremes to protect the family’s deepest secrets.

Moving through time, Tear Me Apart examines the impact layer after layer of lies and betrayal has on two families, the secrets they guard, and the desperate fight to hide the darkness within.

Audience: Readers who don’t mind staying up late!

My Impressions: I could not put down this thriller and finished it about 2 am! It starts with an attractive young skier bound for the Olympics who instead has a bad fall – a situation we have all seen and sympathized with – and then it takes off as years of lies are exposed, bit by bit, moving from the past to the present and back again. I especially liked the talented and empathetic aunt (surprise!), Juliet, who is devoted to her niece, Mindy, but still clearsighted about the issues surrounding her medical situation. I did not find the segments from the past to be very convincing; moreover, certain aspects of the plot were signposted to the reader and there were holes that a self-respecting detective should have investigated, which lessened the impact of the last 20% of the book. Despite these flaws, this was an enjoyable if not entirely convincing read by an author who knows how to deliver suspense, and it was perfect for the last few weeks of summer!  I had read and reviewed Lie to Me by this author but I liked this much better.

Purchase Links: Barnes & Noble * IndieBound * Amazon * Books-A-Million

Source: I was provided a copy of this book by Mira Books and TLC Book Tours for review purposes. You can visit other stops on the tour and read the reviews by clicking below:

Monday, August 27th: @prose_and_palate

Monday, August 27th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, August 28th: Bewitched Bookworms

Thursday, August 30th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Friday, August 31st: Jathan & Heather

Monday, September 3rd: Books & Bindings

Tuesday, September 4th: Moonlight Rendezvous

Wednesday, September 5th: @katyslibrary

Thursday, September 6th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Friday, September 7th: Becky on Books

Monday, September 10th: Novel Gossip

Tuesday, September 11th: 5 Minutes for Books

Wednesday, September 12th: Midwest Ladies Who Lit

Wednesday, September 12th; @girlwithnoselfie

Thursday, September 13th: @basicbsguide

Friday, September 14th: Girl Who Reads

Monday, September 17th: Helen’s Book Blog

Monday, September 17th: @bookishconnoisseur

Tuesday, September 18th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Wednesday, September 19th: @bookenetics

Thursday, September 20th: Why Girls Are Weird

Friday, September 21st: Cheryl’s Book Nook

Monday, September 24th: @hollyslittlebookreviews

Tuesday, September 25th: Thoughts from a Highly Caffeinated Mind

Wednesday, September 26th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, September 27th: A Bookworm’s World

Friday, September 28th: Book Reviews and More by Kathy

The Fallen by David Baldacci (Book Review)

Title: The Fallen: Memory Man #4
Author: David Baldacci
Publication: Hachette Books, hardcover, April 2018
Genre: Suspense

Plot: FBI detective, Amos Decker, has survived many challenges – from the football injury that derailed his NFL career, leaving him with the perfect recall that has helped his investigative skills, to the terrible night he came home and found his wife and daughter had been murdered. He uses work to forget his past so is not able to relax when his FBI partner Alex Jamison drags him along on a vacation to visit her sister’s family on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. Like any self-respecting hero of a thriller, he senses something wrong in the house next door and breaks down the door, discovering two dead bodies. This is the first but not the last mystery that Amos and Alex find in Baronville, PA, and because Amos is driven to solve murders and he and Alex excel at fitting pieces of crime together like a puzzle, they go full speed ahead even when they learn Alex’s brother-in-law is somehow part of the former mill town’s deadly secrets.  This is another bestseller from a talented and prolific novelist.

Audience: Fans of thrillers, those who like angst-driven protagonists

My Impressions: Why do I enjoy David Baldacci’s books so much? He combines suspense, intricate plots that alternate between plausible and incredible, fast-paced action, quirky characters, and unexpected humor. Here, Alex is both fond of and exasperated by her partner, whose analytical skills are boundless but who doesn’t always remember to keep her in the loop, often plunging into danger alone:

Before they could answer [Baron] simply walked from the room.
Jamison looked over at Decker. “Wow, just walking out like that. Who does that remind you of?”
He looked at her. “Who?”
Her only response was an exaggerated eye roll.

Amos has lost his ability to feel emotions other than revenge so he never gets Alex’s humor but in this book he connects with Alex’s niece, who reminds him of his deceased daughter, and there are some touching scenes with her. I think human contact is helping Amos begin to recover from his tragedy.

I was hoping to get my oldest nephew hooked on Baldacci this summer and got The Camel Club for him from the library but I am not sure he has tried it yet. For new Baldacci fans, I recommend starting with that one or Split Second: The Camel Club begins a series about a motley collection of friends who are determined to investigate a CIA conspiracy while Split Second focuses on two discredited Secret Service agents who turn into a powerful force when they begin working together.

Source: I got this book from the Boston Public Library. The BPL does not usually receive new books quickly so I have been waiting quite a while to get to the top of the reserve list. In addition, Baldacci is very popular. Some libraries (but not this one) pencil in the date the book arrives so occasionally I can tell I am the first or close to the first to receive the book, which is always fun.

Day of the Dead by Nicci French (Book Review)

Title: Day of the Dead
Author: Nicci French

Publication: William Morrow, trade paperback, July 2018

Genre: Suspense

Plot: For years, dangerous criminal Dean Reeve has been playing mind games with psychologist Frieda Klein (and perhaps vice-versa), and to save her family and friends from further suffering she has gone off the grid.