Tag: mystery

Review of Gilbert (Leopard’s Spots #5) by Bailey Bradford

Rating: 4 stars

Amur Leopard shifter Jihu Warren was imprisoned by the leader of his lepe, forced into Chung Hee’s rigidly controlled breeding program by the use of drugs and beatings. But even in his cell, Jihu heard of his half brother’s Bai’s freedom and escape from the lepe life that is all Jihu has known.  And that fact gave Jihu hope.  When Chul, father of Bai and Jihu, comes to the compound and confronts Chung Hee, a fight breaks out that allows Jihu to escape with the help of another half brother.   With only an address and dilapidated vehicle, Jihu takes off, intent on finding Bai and a safe place to hide.

Gilbert Trujillo is puppy sitting for his brother, Isaac and his mate, Bai while they are conducting animal rescue from the Colorado wildfires.  Home from a run to the  store, he finds a strange truck in the garage and a very frightened Jihu hiding in the house.  Gilbert realizes immediately that Jihu is his mate but Jihu’s senses are impaired, a result of the injections he received at the compound.  Not only can Jihu not smell that Gilbert is his mate, but he unable to shift, causing physical pain and leaving him unable to tell who to trust as his senses are impaired. Gilbert must win Jihu’s confidence and trust, and quickly.  Because Jihu has brought with him something that will change everyones life around them and Chung Kee is intent on capturing Jihu and returning him  and his package to the compound.  Together the men and the family will have to band together to fight against an insane man bent on continuing his rule.

Gilbert is the fifth in the Leopard’s Spots series by Bailey Bradford and it deepens the mystery concerning shifters being drugged, encarcerated, and experimented on that started with Timothy (Leopard’s Spots #3).  We met lepe lord Chung Hee in Isaac’s book, but the true measure of his rigid rule is made apparent here, very similar to North Korea’s Kim Jong il. Under the guise of furthering Amur Leopards population growth, Chung Hee has kept his people confined to a rigid lifestyle in which men and women are used as breeders only with no affection shown to each other.  Or to the babies who are quickly removed from mothers who never wanted them to begin with.  Kept in fear and ignorance, those who rebel are imprisoned and experimented on with drugs, to what end is never made clear.  But Bradford is clearly setting the stages for momentus events coming in future books.  I anticipate the answer will find us returning to the Himalayas and the Russian Far East, the Amur Leopards original territory.  I love where this series is going and continue to be frustrated by the book length, here only 138 pages.  This has all the aspects of a rich plot and I would love to see it given the space and attention it deserves.

Once again this brings me back to the amount of pages spent on sexual activity.  In Isaac’s book, it balanced out with the plot.  Here not so much. We tip the scales back to so many sexual descriptions of Jihu and Gilbert’s mating that the increasingly complicated plot and wonderful characters are almost lost among it.  Why the author continues to do this when she has so much to offer in characters and storyline baffles me.  I can only hope that as the series moves forward, she finds a balance between the two that both promotes the bonding she obviously feels is necessary to the story and the story itself.

The reason for the higher rating is that the characters are wonderful to go with a rich plot.  Jihu captures our sympathy from the start. Jihu is a young man desperate to escape from the compound he has lived in his entire life, the lepe run much like the cults that end up in the news today, its members so brainwashed that to live otherwise is almost unthinkable. The reason he is so determined to escape is one of the book’s great joys, a spoiler I won’t giveaway here.  Gilbert Trujillo is another remarkable member of his family, fully realized as a kind and gentle  person, awkward outside his family, he finds his strength in coming to Jihu’s rescue and the events that  follow.  I loved Gilbert almost as much as Isaac who is back along with Bai Allen Warren, his mate and other Trujillo family members from previous books.

Gilbert ends with much up in the air, family members are harmed and we are not assured of their status, the villains points the way to a deeper conspiracy, and Esau, the subject of the next book, is missing.  With a lesser author, I might have abandoned this series long ago, but there are so many strengths here, from plot to characterizations, that I gobble up each story as soon as they come out.  Do I get frustrated by the same quibbles over and over, yes.  But the pull to find out what happens next overpowers whatever faults I find in the writing.  So it’s on to Esau (Leopard’s Spots #6) coming out in October.  I will be first in line to get it.

Cover by Posh Gosh is gorgeous,  the models are  perfect for Jihu and Gilbert, the leopards stunning. what more could you want.

Here are the Leopard’s Spots series in the order they should be read to fully understand the plots and the characters within:

Levi (Leopard’s Spots #1)- read my review here.

Oscar (Leopard’s Spots #2) – read my review here.

Timothy (Leopard’s Spots #3) – read my review here.

Isaiah (Leopard’s Spots #4) – read my review here

Gilbert (Leopard’s Spots #5)

Esau (Leopard’s Spots #6) coming in October 2012

Review of Love in La Terraza by Ethan Day

Rating: 3.85 stars

Cain Elliot is desperate beyond measure and about to give up all hope.  His grandmother entrusted La Terreza, her 1920’s Spanish courtyard apartment complex to him after her death.  La Terraza is special in so many ways, its beautiful  architecture, its magical  courtyard and of course, the unique group of characters that have come to live there over the years, including himself.  And now he is about to let them all down.  La Terraza needs a multitude of repairs to meet code and Cain doesn’t have the money.  He has been to bank after bank to no avail and he is close to bankruptcy.

To make matters worse, there is a real estate developer who is hounding Cain to sell, its tactics almost feeling like harassment in intensity. Feeling like an absolute failure after his last meeting at the bank, Cain heads over to Sully’s Tavern to meet up with his group of friends.  Also at the bar is Henry Abrams. Henry came to town to accept a position in the architectural firm Hamilton-Bach, so he is new, lonely and out looking around town.  He finds Cain and is immediately in lust but after their conversation and a night spent together, Henry finds that they have so much in common.  Cain and Henry really like each other, and Cain’s vulnerability brings out the need to protect him in Henry.Henry also falls in love with La Terraza, it’s magic and architectural beauty capturing his attention and admiration as much as its owner.   In a short amount of time, Cain and Henry finds themselves on the road to a real  relationship, the first for each of them in a long time.  And then Henry and Cain realize his new firm is the one working with the developer to acquire La Terraza.

Henry is horrified to find they want to tear it down, and Cain worries about Henry’s ties to a firm whose methods he thinks is disreputable. As the stress and tensions mount up, their new found relationship starts to fall apart.  Then the plumbing starts to fail at La Terraza and Cain has no money left to fix it.  Henry wants Cain to find happiness with him but at what cost? Cain must overcome doubt and his past. Henry must decide if what he wants is what Cain needs. In the middle of it all is  La Terraza’s future.

I have been a fan of Ethan Day’s since Sno Ho made its debut.  Ethan Day has such a winning way with his characterizations, snappy dialog and portrayals of love relationships from disastrous to dynamic that I eagerly await each new story from him.  Love in La Terraza is no exception.  It has all the earmarks of Day’s earlier lighthearted stories while still capturing some of the darker elements of his latter works.  Cain Elliot is absolultely a Ethan Day creation.  I could tell that immediately.  From his snarky voice, easy tolerance of quirky personas that surround him, and the “oh so happy to hop in bed with you, gorgeous” attitude that he presents Henry with the first night they meet, he is everything I love about  Ethan Day’s writing.  I adore Cain.  He is lovable, vulnerable, loyal and insecure about his abilities.  Henry is his wonderful counterpart.  Solid, ambitious, hardworking to a fault,  still he yearns for something more to his life and recognizes it in Cain.  It’s their hesitant fumble towards a relationship and mutual understanding that is the heart of this story.  Hearfelt, realistic, and full of missteps that occurs in most beginning relationships, it will speak to every person reading this story.

Also true to a Ethan Day novel are the wonderful oddballs that live in La Terraza and make up a core family group for Cain.  There’s the Scalia brothers, Vito and Tony,a pair of elderly men who play Frank Sinatra tunes, blasting them out into the courtyard, Mrs. Ruth Robinson, a grey panther married many times over and still going out on dates nightly, Eddie,  blind and a teacher at the school for the Blind and his boyfriend Matt, musicians Pixie and Thrash.  Thrash speaks as though he’s from England  but is actually from the Midwest, both are in a band, and Nic and Stu, her husband, a recently married couple playing at being hippies and close friends of Cain’s.  Each a splendid portrait of eccentric individuality. These people will absolutely engage your affections. They did mine.  I wanted to get to know all of them so much better.  In fact I wanted to move right into La Terraza and make myself at home with all of them.

La Terraza herself is that grand dame of Spanish buildings the shout out romance at  every cobblestone and ooze amore from it’s stuccoed walls.  I  wanted to be strolling through the courtyard myself, so vividly did Ethan Day describe her.  La Terraza is a character in her own right, sumptuous, a true classic beauty.  I wonder if  La Terraza exists outside of Ethan Day’s imagination, I hope so.  But either a figment  or reality, La Terraza lives on these pages.

There is so much to like here that I find it hard to bring up the quibbles I had with it. And that would be the secondary plot surrounding the group of  firms trying to take La Terraza away from Cain, no matter the legalities.  I won’t go into more details but I felt at times I was in another novel with this storyline.  It just did not seem to fit in with the romance between Cain and Henry because the way Day built up the relationship between the two men was so well done that the second section seemed almost clumsy in comparison.   I knew without a doubt before I even got halfway through the story what was going on with the building, who was doing it and who was the ultimate “bad guy” at the top of the evil chain.  In these economic times, it is easy to believe that Cain is having money flow issues to go with rehabbing an older structure without bringing in a melodrama that seeks to drown out everything with it’s exaggerated accompanying score.  Without the melodrama, this is a solid 4  star story.  Unfortunately, with the cloak and dagger stuff thrown in, it takes away from a wonderful romance and pulls it all back into a “nice story” category.

Ethan Day fans won’t want to pass this one up because it is an Ethan Day story.  For those of you new to the author, seek out his other books before you read this one.  Try Sno Ho for a wonderfully comedic bent on romance or At Piper’s Point, a more serious contemporary romance that gets it all right from beginning to end.  There are so many wonderful Ethan Day books out there.  I am just not sure this is one of them.

Cover art by Adrian Nicholas. The two men are lovely but the building standing in for La Terraza is a misstep.

Review of Suicide Point by Georgie Leigh

Rating: 3.75 stars

Surfer boy Charlie and police officer Ness have a one-night stand and part, not to meet up again until the night Charlie crashed his car.  Until that traumatic day Charlie has only been interested in casual relationships and days spent at the beach while Ness has been fighting with the nightmares and scars that remain from a past relationship gone horribly wrong. But on that day when Ness and his partner come across Charlie’s twisted wreck of a van, the lives of both men change forever.  As Ness holds onto Charlie, the emergency team must amputate Charlie’s arm in order to free him from the twisted frame of his van.

When Ness visits Charlie in the hospital, a relationship is struck up between them. Charlie needs Ness in so many ways.  To help him adjust to his new body and loss of his arm, to provide emotional support as Charlie works to accept the reality of his disability.  Ness also needs Charlie’s love and faith to conquer his insecurities and doubts in starting another relationship and reaching out  again after such a long time alone.  But it is not just their fears and uncertainties they must overcome, but Charlie’s foster brother, Joey whose possessiveness and instability threaten all around him.

Suicide Point is interesting and successful on several levels but ultimately falls short in my opinion due to too many plots within one book.  The main issue I see here is that the author has two great stories here.  One story is that of Charlie’s traumatic accident,  from his amputation,through his journey from  shattered self image to one of self reliance, recovery and acceptance of his body. That plot line alone, along with starting a relationship with the man who helped rescue you and was present during the amputation, would have elevated Suicide Point into the 4 star category easily.

The second book contained inside Suicide Point is that of a thriller.  Two men brought together by a life changing event are threatened by a person close to them, who not only plays cruel mental games with them but physically sets out to harm one or both men, a la Gaslight.  The level of anxiety the author creates increases exponentially until the reader is constantly waiting for the next horror to occur. Separated, the stories are fine but together intwined, each fights for the reader’s attention and empathy until both suffer from an overload of angst and anxiety and a really satisfactory ending is lost.

The other issue here is that of characterization.  Charlie is easily the most realistic character Leigh created.  I really believed him, from the cocky surfer to the depressed amputee.  Charlie grabbed my attention and my compassion.  Ness Anderson was part of the problem though.  He was weighted down with too much backstory.  He had an unstable lover who shot him and then committed suicide.  He is a police officer who works on RBDU, Rescue and Bomb Disposal Unit.  And yet even as Ness recognizes the dangers that Joey poses, he disregards his gut and intellectual feelings?  I just never bought that.  Ness came across as a much less authentic character and that took away from the story.  I think he was most successful as a character during the time he was helping Charlie adjust to life as an amputee, after that the realism faded.  Their layered relationship seemed to have a realistic foundation as Charlie went through the known stages of grief for his past life and body.  Joey, however, made a very credible damaged kid.  A unstable child, his fixation on his foster brother turns him into a menace that no one wants to recognize, a personality often seen in the news today in shattering detail.

To recap, there is much to admire about Suicide Point and the author’s ambitious goals for this book.  Sometimes less really is more and Suicide Point could have used a divider so that both stories could have gotten the attention they deserved.  I look forward to more from this gifted author.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Cover:  Reese Dante’s cover is fine except for the font.  While I get the idea of a red (bloody) messy font, it’s not necessary and a cleaner font would have been much better.

Review of The Druid Stone by Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane

Rating: 4.75 stars

Sean O’Hara has not had an easy life but he never knew what terror was until the nightmares started.  Night after night he relives the torture and death of a young man.  It all started after he inherited an Irish stone from his great grandfather. After seeing every type of doctor and taking all sorts of medicine, Sean is at wits end until he sees an advertisement in the paper and decides this is the only way he is going to get the help he needs, even if it takes him to Ireland.

Cormac Kelly is a Druid.  He runs a paranormal investigation business that is also his family’s calling.  Like his father, and his grandfather before him, Cormac sees the world in layers, including the realm of the fae.  He doesn’t have time for frivolous calls from American tourists wanting to see the Ireland of the movies and fairytales.  Cormac knows those fairytales have their basis in things humans should not meddle in.

But when Cormac meets Sean, he realizes that the stone Sean carries is hexed and Sean’s plight is all too real.  The haunted, pale American touches Cormac on many levels.  He hasn’t been more than just physically attracted to someone in a long time but now Sean pulls at him both physically and emotionally, although Cormac is loathe to admit the latter.  As they investigate Sean’s stone and the meaning of his nightmares, they find the sidhe of Ancient Ireland are deeply involved and not just in Sean’s case.  Ten years earlier, Cormac lost the love of his life on a night he was to destroy a changling child, now both cases are twining together.  As the danger surrounds them, Cormac and Sean must journey into the past through the realm of the sidhe to solve both cases and save their burgeoning relationship as well as their lives.

I am becoming obsessed with the stories of Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane.  As they did with Hawaiian Gothic, they throw us pell-mell into another land, mire us in its customs and cement upon us both the fascination and obsession that Ireland holds for us. They do this as they weave a story of two men of Ireland, one so rooted in the old ways that he cannot bear to leave the family lands and township.  The other, Sean O’Hara, is of Irish descent.  Ireland has a deep hold on both of them but only one is aware of its true power.  The authors use  these wonderful characters to explore Ireland and her mythology, sink us deep into her alluring land, her people, and the Fae of Ancient lore. Belleau and Vane feed us information about the Irish countryside and folklore so skillfully that not once did I feel as though a info dump had occurred.

I have always loved Irish folklore and have the groaning library shelves to prove it.  And reading an author(s) take on the Fae is almost a compulsive read for me.  Belleau and Vane did an outstanding job of bringing the Sidhe to life in all their seductive and terrifying ways.  When Sean meets Finnbheara, the Sidhe lord, you feel Sean’s helpless attraction as well as his fear so real, so powerful does Finnbheara come across. Almost half of the book takes place in the realm of the Sidhe and the vivid descriptions keep the reader engaged, pulling us into a world so authentic that the characters fears become our own.

Along with Ireland itself, the characters of The Druid Stone are as believably realistic as the people next door.  They have made mistakes, have faults and histories of loss and love. Cormac shows an amount of arrogance and pride that at times makes him dislikable but hidden behind it is a need to keep himself separate from others and from the possibility of love so deep is his hurt and guilt over Michael’s loss. Sean is a beautiful character, with unexpected facets and layers that quickly endear him to the reader as well as the other characters in the book, human and otherwise. Sean’s sexuality is also an area of confusion for himself and the reader.  Cormac is his first real male love but his previous encounters with women have been unsatisfactory. So it is never completely resolved as to whether Sean is bisexual, gay or “gay for Cormac”.  I don’t think it really matters to either the story or their relationship, but Sean reads bisexual to me.  There are aspects to his sexuality that I cannot discuss because of spoilers but in the end, it is the love between two individuals that matter and not labels.

If I have any quibble, it is that towards the end, their journey towards happiness has one too many obstacles to overcome to my satisfaction.  Perhaps, I was getting too impatient but one less jump to clear would have made this a 5 star instead of 4.75 star read for me. As it is this story ticks so many boxes for me.  I am of Irish and Scottish ancestry and have had three Irish Wolfhounds to enrich my life.  I love Ireland with a passion, the land, the culture, the feeling of coming home when I visit.  Reading this book took me back there, what a gift. I loved this book and will reread it again.  I hope you will yourself doing the same.  Slainte!

Cover: Gorgeous cover.  I couldn’t locate the name of the cover artist.  My only quibble is that I would have loved to see a Irish Wolfhound somewhere on the cover.  But that’s just me!

Read my review of Hawaiian Gothic by Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane here.

Review of A Self Portrait by J.P. Bowie

Rating: 3.75 stars

Artist Peter Brandon is getting ready to have old friends visit for the weekend and is a little irritated that his partner, Jeff Stevens has scheduled a meeting in L. A. about a case at the same time he was hoping to have help with the preparations. As it gets closer for Jeff to leave, Peter starts having feelings of dread, twinges of intuition that have always been right in the past.  But Jeff goes anyway promising to be back in the evening. When Jeff doesn’t arrive home as planned and doesn’t answer Peter’s phone calls,  Peter knows that something terrible has happened. A vision shows him Jeff, hurt, bound and gagged and Peter  jumps into action, determined to rescue Jeff at any cost. And one of the people Peter counts on to help him is none other than the spirit of his dead lover, Phillip.

Peter finds out that Jeff had been pulled into a case involving a Satanic cult whose leader, Lefevre, has followers everywhere and the LA police have no leads on Jeff’s location.  As Peter and Jeff’s friends gather round to help in the search, Peter heads out with only Phillip as his guide. When Lefevre finds out about Phillip’s ability to aid Peter from beyond the grave, he plans to acquire the spirit and kill all who stands in his way.

In my opinion, A Self Portrait is really two separate books attached loosely two thirds of the way into the plot.  While I enjoyed each separately, I don’t that it worked successfully fused together.  The first two thirds of the book happens when Peter falls unconscious after hearing the news of Jeff’s disappearance. During this state, he remembers his love affair with Phillip from beginning at age 15 to the attack that killed Phillip and severely injured Peter to the point he remained in a coma for 3 years.  I loved their story although Phillip’s sheer perfection got on my nerves a bit. While I can see the memory of a deceased loved one become burnished over time so that their imperfections vanish, I don’t think that was the case here.  I just wish Bowie had Phillip gnaw on a cuticle or two, something to humanize Phillip more for the reader.  Peter is far more the believable human being here, with his flaws and imperfections front and center, I certainly liked Peter more.  And I was genuinely upset when the couple was attacked and devastated when Peter woke alone in the hospital.  That said, I also saw the attack coming, much like watching one of those college kids go down into the basement in Scary Movie.

The remaining third of the book deals with Peter, his visions, and his attempts to locate Jeff before they are all killed in a satanic ritual.  Again, Bowie built the reader’s apprehension and suspense bit by bit, so much so that in parts I was on the edge of my chair reading.  Very skillfully executed indeed.  The one thing that threw me off balance was Lefevre turning out to have real powers as opposed to being just another bogus whackjob with pretensions to evil.  J.P. Bowie never built a case for that happening so it didn’t seam to fit in with the rest of the story.  I did like the idea of Phillip’s spirit assisting Peter but wish we had a more solid base for all the actions of the last act, especially when the psychic powers become all important to the plot and its resolution. As I said I think that there are two successful books here, I just am not sure that A Self Portrait contains one.  I liked the book (with reservations), and I like the author.  If you find my quibbles palatable, then I recommend this book to you.

Cover.  This is not the cover on my book. The cover artist for that particular cover is Deana Jamroz.  But both covers have the same elements and work for the story

Review of The Mystery of Ruby Lode by Scotty Cade

Warnings: Rape, mention of past sexual abuse, attempted rape, child abuse

Rating: 4.75 stars

Bowen McAlister and his partner Cyrus Curran along with their friends Duff Gentry and Lockhart Dawson are headed out to Boulder, Colorado to research and explore the Ruby Lode, an abandoned gold mine for Bowen’s outdoor adventure company.  But even before they take off, Duff gets a premonition that makes him uneasy. When Duff tells the others, they listen out of respect for their friend’s psychic abilities but continue on even as Duff’s fears grow.

They should have listened.  Because Duff is right.  Lurking deep in the mine shafts of Ruby Lode, something dark and dangerous awaits the four men, determined to protect its secrets at all costs, including death. It preys on each man’s insecurities, it visits them in their dreams turning them into nightmares.  For each man to survive, they will have to look deep within themselves for the truth about each other and secrets long hidden must come to the surface if all are to remain sane and survive the mystery of Ruby Lode.

This novel was just a cornucopia of wonderful elements that it is hard to know where to begin.  Usually I start with the characterizations and with the four men mentioned above Scotty Cade has done a great job of bringing together diverse personas with some truly heartbreaking backgrounds and meshing them together as a close knit group of friends the reader loves spending time with.  Bowen McAlister and Cyrus Curran have been together for 10 years as the story opens and their easy dialog with each other along with other touches makes that relationship and each other very believable.  Bo and Cy have the authenticity of a long term couple still very much in love. After reading the author’s bio, I could almost feel Cade bringing experiences from his own long term relationship into the portrait he paints here of Bo and Cy so grounded and real do they feel.  Next to them are their two friends, Lockhart Dawson, who seems shallow and commitment phobic, and Duff, who is psychic, shy, and hiding many secrets behind his insecurities.  Both men have background and secrets that will come out over the course of the story that will bring the reader much closer to Duff and Lockey.  Cade’s characterizations are terrific, but the ones I truly loved are the ones that will surprise you.  I won’t go into them here as I feel that is spoiler territory but let’s just say that other characters will hook you in from the beginning and,  like the mournful refrain from a mountain folksong, will haunt the pages and the reader from then on. Bravos all around for the author on characterization and character development.

The characters are thrown into the middle of a heartbreaking and deeply dangerous mystery located in the depths of Ruby Lode, an abandoned gold mine.  Cade skillfully builds the atmosphere in spine tingling detail, amping up the anxiety and dread for the characters we have come to love until it explodes in a gut wrenching finale.  Parts of this story are not for the fainthearted so please take the warnings at the beginning to heart. At first, I was tempted to think it was emotional overload on the author’s part but as the story continued I could see that Cade had a justification for its inclusion, and it all made sense in the end.  Again I am being obtuse to reduce any chance for a spoiler here.

While my expertise in gold mines is limited to Maryland’s (yes, we had a few), I can tell Cade did his research and the settings seem very authentic right down to the equipment and mine layouts.  The supernatural elements explored here are accomplished with the same expertise and deft touches displayed throughout the novel. I loved how these elements were woven into the stories, starting with mere threads in the beginning, adding one here and there until Cade has fashioned a old time storytelling quilt, colorful with basic patterns turned into designs of complexity. Parts of this book will have you in tears so have the tissues handy as you will need them.

So why not five stars?  It all comes down to one character who I absolutely disliked right to the end.  I understood him and his actions but that never translated into anything even remotely approaching “like”, especially his actions at the end.  I am sure others will not agree with me and for you this is a solid 5 stars. So 4.75 stars from me for just an outstanding read from Scotty Cade.  You will love it as I am just quibbling over another well done character.  Grab this one up.

Cover:  Another favorite cover of the month for me.  The artist is Reese Dante whose work I love and this is another example.  Beautiful haunting painting of the insides of an abandoned mine.  Perfection in tone and coloring.  I love it.

Review of Abstract Realism by Edward Kendricks

86 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Tonio, a renown painter of abstract realism, made the mistake of accepting an invitation for a movie date from a man he just met at a gallery opening.  The man’s jealous lover made sure Tonio never made that mistake again by savagely attacking him with a knife.  Now scarred and traumatized, Tonio rarely leaves his studio.  His only contact with the outside world consists of his sister, Jessie who is also his agent.  With a gallery opening a new show of his paintings, his sister finally talks him into attending the opening and go to the gallery party afterwards.

Jonam is also attending the gallery show.  He owns a close protection agency and had met Tonio by accident in a nearby park.  Tonio had been sketching people in the part and rejected Jonan’s efforts to talk to him. When Jonam attends the gallery show, Tonio does his best to avoid him. But Tonio’s attacker calls and threatens him just before the party. When her brother doesn’t show up for the party,  Jessie and Jonam show up at Tonio’s apartment and the find the man cowering in fear.  Jonam offers to protect Tonio and find out whose behind the threats.  Can Jonam find the attacker and free Tonio from the threats and fears?

The author packs a lot into 86 pages.  There is contemporary romance, mystery, the art world, a scarred artist, and lethal stalker.  Edward Kendricks did a great job with Tonio. Tonio is a believable character, traumatized by a brutal attack on him by unseen thugs.  The scars left behind are both physical and emotional.  I can believe that this character retreats into a shell and that his art changes direction with the brutality inflicted upon him.  That the attack was unexpected and undeserved only deepened the trauma left behind.  I did find it unrealistic that the police were not brought into this case especially given he was a well-known artist but PTS can make victims act illogically. Jonam was a tad less defined as a character.  Jonam was tall, good looking and efficient at his job. It wasn’t until the end of the story that I found out he was Swedish and that accounted for his name.  More of a backstory on Jonam early on would have helped. It was hard to get a feel for a connection between the two men when I could only get a handle on one of them.  The story seemed rushed at the end and the denouement resolved far too quickly for the buildup that preceded it.

Still Abstract Realism is a neat little short story that I enjoyed reading.  I look forward to more from Edward. Kendricks.

Cover: Cover Artist Reese Dante.  Cover is gorgeous.  Both models work for the characters inside the story.  Fonts are great.  Good job.

Review of A Token In Time by Ethan Day

Rating: 4.85 stars

Zachary Hamilton comes from a family endowed with special gifts.  He has them as well and it has cost him everything.  Zachary doesn’t want his gift and his family doesn’t think he should have it  either.  To “return it” is to die so Zachary and his love, Nick, have been on the run  from the Hamilton family since they were teenagers.  Living as fugitives has been hard and each time they think they are safe, the Hamiltons find them yet again.  Then Zachary and Nick land in Los Angeles, California and their luck seems to change.  A benefactor appears out of the blue, offering them a store for their antique business and a place to call home.  And for a while they are happy.  Until a bullet shatters their lives and Nick dies in  Zachary’s arms.

Zachary is consumed by his grief, refusing to leave his apartment until Dave, his assistant in the shop, pulls him out of his house and back into their shop.  As Zachary tries to determine his next step regarding his family, he receives a phone call from a lawyer.  It seems that Mark Castle, a famous movie star from the 50’s has died and left Zachary the entire Castle estate, including an ancient relic.  This powerful token will change Zachary’s life and those around him if Zachary has the courage to use it. And so begins A Token In Time.

Well, what an amazing story.  I read it twice before sitting down to write this review, not because I needed to but because I wasn’t ready to let  go of Zachary and Marc and all who come with them, past and present.  I have been a fan of Ethan Day’s books but A Token In Time represents a departure from the light comedic fiction I have come to expect from him.  A Token In Time fluctuates between contemporary and historical romance under an umbrella of the supernatural and it does so beautifully.  The story of Zachary Hamilton and Marc Castle flows like a Mobius strip from the year 2008 back to the 1950’s and around again and never hits a false note.

Ethan Day has certainly done his research into life in the 50’s and it shows without it coming across like an information dump.  When Zachary (and the reader) land in Los Angeles circa 1958, the surprises are endless and sometimes very funny.  Stereophonic Hi Fi is new and wonderful, Coke is Coke, and gas “costs a friggin’ quarter”.  And the lack of the internet and Star Bucks come as an unhappy surprise to a young man accustomed to the everyday pluses of life in 2008.   Oh it’s so great to tag along with Zachary as he visits the West Hollywood Sears store and has to pick out pants that most certainly aren’t low riders!  Ethan Day’s deft touch with comedy is everywhere without overwhelming the dark and angst filled romance behind A Token In Time. Ethan Day brought the 50’s vividly back to life so much so that I was reaching for the iTunes store before the end of the book to recapture the sounds of the times.

And lets talk characters shall we?  I have loved Ethan Days previous creations but the characters he has brought to this story are remarkable and have so much depth to them as to be unforgettable.   Zachary is a complicated young man, beautiful, gifted, and still so full of joie de vivre through all his pain. But he doesn’t fully come to life until he falls onto the sand and into 1958. Free from the mechanisms of his family, he starts to blossom and the love affair between Zachary and the reader snaps to life as well.  Marc Castle too is rendered here in gorgeous Technicolor from his golden tan to white movie star smile.   We come to love him dearly the more we get to know him.  And don’t get me started on Jonathon Reed, Max, Maddie, and  Leo.  The author keeps adding characters so real, so damn lovable that I wanted to hold onto them for dear life and not let them go. I am going to beg here, Ethan Day.  Please consider giving us Jonathon and Max’s story.  Pretty please?  With fuzzy swinging dice on top?

And lurking behind all of this is a constant menace, the dark we hide from, the monsters we know are under the bed.  Skillfully, the dread increases, the anxiety ramps ups a notch after notch much like the music from the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. We know where the danger coming from in both eras but not how or when it will strike. And strike it does in stomach churning, heart stopping ways.  Mystically, brutally rendered evil to balance the joy and love that infuses the rest of the story.

So why not give it 5 stars? Only because of the way the story begins.  A minor quibble but it took me a little while to get accustomed to the manner in which Zachary and Nick’s back story is told.  I found it a little jumpy at the beginning, but it soon settles itself out and the reader gets sucked in this wonderful page turner not to be let out until the very last word of the epilogue.  And you will love the end.  Really, you will.  And now I will say no more.

Cover:  Winterheart Designs did the cover and they did an outstanding job of it.  It looks like it came right off the book jacket of a novel from the 50’s, both in color and illustration.  It really couldn’t be more perfect. I would love to have a copy of it for myself, framed and hung on the wall, it’s that good.

Available from MLR Press, Amazon and ARe.