spindizzy: A cartoon of me smiling (Here I am!)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-01-13 11:37 am
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[sticky entry] Sticky: Welcome to Read and Buried!

Hi! I'm Susan, and I'll be your reviewer this evening. I read a lot of mysteries; I prefer my mysteries to be cozy, sff, graphic novels, and/or queer-centric, and this is where I'm going to hang my capslock.

Basic housekeeping
  • Reviews will go live on Mondays! I review at a bunch of sites ([community profile] ladybusiness, The Lesbrary, Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and SFF Reviews among them), so sometimes I'll be linking back to reviews I did elsewhere, but check back on Mondays and there'll be SOMETHING. If you don't want to check back but do want to keep up-to-date, Read and Buried is on twitter as [twitter.com profile] unreadandburied!

  • There is a tip jar for my many MANY projects on Patreon and Ko-fi!

  • I am open to ARCs! If you want to talk about it, I'm on twitter as [twitter.com profile] unreadandburied, or you can email me at readandburied at outlook dot com. I don't read thrillers or anything with explicit sexual violence, but I'll consider other things.

  • Official comments policy: be awesome! If you're here from another site and don't have a dreamwidth account, please attach a name to your comment so I know who you are. Standard rules of bigotry and name-calling being an automatic block apply, do not try me.


And that's it! Be safe, be awesome, I'll see you on Monday.
spindizzy: Trevor bowing and gesturing for someone to go this way (Right this way)
[personal profile] spindizzy2021-03-15 09:54 pm

Hell's Highway by Gerri Hill

Cover of Hell's Highway


FBI Agents Cameron Ross and Andrea Sullivan found the unexpected when they met amongst the warm red rocks and cliffs of Sedona--each other. That commitment, along with their ingenuity, courage and resolve, will be tested along the most barren of stretches in California's Mojave Desert.

Someone is using the bleak highways to dump women's bodies, but in a landscape where an inviting road can curve into a sand-choked mirage, and a true oasis can be invisible under a white-hot sun, clues can blow away in the wind.


Hell’s Highway by Gerri Hill is the sequel to Devil’s Rock, a procedural following FBI agents Andrea Sullivan and Cameron Ross (that I reviewed here!). In Hell’s Highway, they are working and living together in Cameron’s fortified motorhome-slash-giant-mobile-computer-lab, when they’re sent to track down a possible serial killer preying on women along the I-40.

I... Had some problems with it.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: attempted rape; kidnapping; sexual assault; offscreen rape, murder, necrophilia, and mutilation]
spindizzy: Raven looked shocked and appalled. (You what?!)
[personal profile] spindizzy2021-02-01 06:50 pm

Devil's Rock by Gerri Hill

Cover of Devil's Rock


Two women vow to bring a killer to justice.
Deputy Andrea Sullivan had hoped to leave the horrors of Los Angeles behind her, but the serial murders of college students in peaceful, picturesque Sedona is her nightmare case to solve. The complexities stretch local resources to the limit, and the FBI joins the case with Agent Cameron Ross in the lead.

The crime scenes are covered with the trademark signs of the fiendish Patrick Doe, whose handiwork has been investigated by Dallas detective Tori Hunter and others. But where Hunter failed Cameron intends to win. She will break the case, find justice and go home. No distractions.

Unfortunately, Deputy Sullivan is very distracting. And Patrick Doe has other plans.
Bestselling, award-winning Gerri Hill presents the turmoil of unbidden passion combined with heart-pounding suspense in a compelling story inspired by her own Hunter’s Way.


Gerri Hill’s Devil’s Rock is both the beginning of a new series and the resolution of a storyline from her Hunter series. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can do this review without spoiling some of the events of Partners, so please bear that in mind!

Andrea Sullivan is a small-town police officer, confident that nothing as terrible as what happened to her in LA can happen in Sedona… And then the murders begin, because a serial killer who escaped the police in Dallas is using Sedona as his dumping ground. FBI Agent Cameron Ross shows up with her own set of issues, a kitten, and a motorhome full of FBI supercomputers to help figure out where he’s going to strike next.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warning: murder, kidnapping, abuse, bullying, mentions of infidelity, mentions of sexual assault, ableist language]
spindizzy: (Done)
[personal profile] spindizzy2021-01-04 03:01 pm

Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet by M. Fenn

Cover of Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet


Detective Piper Deez, newlywed but still hardboiled, is a solar system away from home investigating murder and thievery on Alta-na-Schell, the Winter Planet. Who can she trust? Who should she trust? Why didn't anyone tell her monogamy was going to be this difficult? Eye of the Storm, a domed city riven by clan rivalries and corruption—with only fingerlengths of shielding protecting its denizens from certain death—may hold some answers and, perhaps, even the end of Piper Deez.

If monogamy doesn't get to her first...


Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet is a hardboiled scifi mystery by M. Fenn; Piper Deez is sent to investigate thefts on a mining planet owned by the clan that she serves, where there are definitely no factions, no bubbling undercurrents of resentment, and only a few murders.

Hello, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, lesbian detective fiction is where I live. Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet was always going to be my jam.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: partner abuse, abuse of power, police harassment, oppression]
spindizzy: Yurio wiping sweat off his face while looking determined. (Determined)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-11-23 09:28 pm

Partners by Gerri Hill

Cover of Partners


Detective Casey O'Connor is back, this time with new partner Leslie Tucker. They join forces with Tori Hunter to track down a killer targeting single women who live alone. But as Casey and Leslie grow closer, Leslie begins to question her sexuality.


Partners is the conclusion to Gerri Hill’s Hunter trilogy (the previous books reviewed here and here.), and it brings the trilogy round full circle. Casey, the detective introduced in In the Name of the Father, has officially joined the homicide department and has been assigned to partner new detective Leslie Turner on a serial murder case, which would go better if they didn’t find each other intensely distracting.

Hoooooooboy, this book.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexual assault.]
spindizzy: Catarina dramatically lit while making a villain face (I WILL FACE YOU HEAD-ON)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-11-16 02:50 pm

In the Name of the Father by Gerri Hill

Cover of In The Name of the Father


In this sequel to "Hunters Way," Dallas Homicide Detective Tori Hunter and Samantha Kennedy investigate the murder of a Catholic priest who is found naked and strangled in a fast-paced police thriller.


In The Name of The Father by Gerri Hill is the sequel to her 2007 novel Hunter’s Way, with Hunter’s newest case being investing the murder of a Catholic priest, complicated by publicity issues, homophobia, outside interference, and the attempts to bury any suggestion that the victim may have been in a consensual gay relationship.

In The Name of The Father is… Definitely not as enjoyable as Hunter’s Way, but it does have plus sides.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: constant consideration of sexual abuse and rape, mentions of child abuse, homophobia (in the church and out of it).]
spindizzy: She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain. (Book turned brain)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-11-09 06:22 pm

A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner

Cover of A Lily Among Thorns


London 1815, just before Waterloo...

After her noble father disowned her, Lady Serena Ravenshaw clawed her way from streetwalker to courtesan to prosperous innkeeper. Now she’s feared and respected from one end of London to the other, by the lowest dregs of the city’s underworld and the upper echelons of the beau monde, and she’ll do anything to keep it that way.

When mild-mannered chemist Solomon Hathaway turns up in her office, asking for her help, she immediately recognizes him from one fateful night years before. She’s been watching and waiting for him for years—so she can turn the tables and put him in her debt, of course, and not because he looked like an angel and was kind to her when she needed it most.

She’s determined not to wonder what put that fresh grief in his eyes. But after a betrayal even Serena didn’t expect, she must put aside her pride and work with Solomon to stop a ring of French spies and save her beloved inn, her freedom—and England itself.


A Lily Among Thorns is a standalone  Regency romance from Rose Lerner following Solomon Hathaway, a chemist and fabric dyer, and Lady Serena Ravenshaw, a former sex worker who’s now a hotel owner and terror to all who cross  her. Many years ago, he gave her the money she needed to start a new life, and now he’s come to seek  her help in finding stolen family heirlooms. Unfortunately, he’s arrived during one of the worst months in Serena’s life, so it might be trickier than either of them suspected. It’s funny, charming, and heartbreaking in equal measure, with an unexpected number of crime bosses and attempted murders.

Full review available at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

[Caution warning: period-typical homophobia, mentions of suicidal inclinations, sexual harassment, mentions of abuse]
spindizzy: (I love you but oh my god)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-11-02 08:56 pm

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki

Cover of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volume 1


Your body is their business! Five young students at a Buddhist university, three guys and two girls, find little call for their job skills in today's Tokyo... among the living, that is! But all that stuff in college they were told would never pay off - you know, channeling, dowsing, ESP - gives them a direct line to the dead... the dead who are still trapped in their corpses and can't move on to the next reincarnation. The five form the Kurosagi ("Black Heron" - their ominous bird logo) Corpse Delivery Service: whether suicide, murder, accident, or illness, they'll carry your body wherever it needs to go to free your soul! The kids from Kurosagi can smell a customer a mile away - it's a good thing one of the girls majored in embalming!


Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki's Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a horror/mystery manga series about karma, justice,  resolving the last requests of the dead, and the truest horror of all: trying to get a job after university with an arts degree. It follows a group of students who've recently graduated  from a Buddhist college, who combine their special talents to go into business together, except their talents are hacking, embalming, dowsing for corpses, channelling aliens through a handpuppet (maybe), and speaking to the dead. Together they find corpses and take them to the place they want to go! As you might expect, because it’s me: anthology horror series! With stories that are mostly only connected by this cast of misfits attempting to bring peace to the dead! This is my kryptonite. Especially because it’s almost like a morality play in its formula; something deeply unethical happens, a usually-likeable person dies, and after some investigation the corpse gets up to ruin someone’s day, although there's usually enough variations that it doesn't get boring.

Full review available at Lady Business.

[Caution warning: suicide, murder, body horror, gore, abuse (sexual, physical, medical), incest, mentions of attempted rape, infanticide and dead children, kidnapping, mentions of war crimes, harassment and stalking, urban legends, mutilation, zombies]
spindizzy: The clock from Guardian (Clock)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-09-14 02:21 pm

Hunter's Way by Gerri Hill

Cover of Hunter's Way


Homicide detective Tori Hunter was used to doing things her way. But even after having six different partners in seven years, Tori isn't prepared when she's forced to team up with the hot-tempered Samantha Kennedy.

Samantha, on the other hand, is trying to juggle a new job, a demanding boyfriend, and now finds herself with an even greater challenge -- being partnered with the most difficult detective in the entire squad.

After a brief terrorist scare disrupts their serial killer investigation, the two women find themselves growing closer. Samantha begins to question the relationship with her longtime boyfriend, and Tori, never one to allow anyone to get close, begins to feel her defenses slipping in Sam’s presence.

A serial killer and drug deals gone bad; the two detectives struggle with their feelings, trying to maintain their professional relationship while keeping their nearly flammable physical relationship in check.


Hunter’s Way by Gerri Hill revolves around two homicide detectives: Tori Hunter and Samantha Kennedy. They are the classic opposites buddy-cop duo: Hunter is aggressive and antagonistic, burning through six partners in seven years but apparently being a good enough detective alone to make up for it. Samantha Kennedy is on the surface a much more personable officer who has to juggle a new job, a demanding boyfriend, and Hunter. It goes about as well as you think.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: murdered lesbians, there are some transphobic comments and police mishandling of a trans person’s murder; onscreen rape.]
spindizzy: Joe looking sheepish in the middle of a river (We'll be okay)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-08-24 11:55 am

Out of the Ashes by MJ James

Cover of Out of the Ashes


Alex Porter’s life goes up in flames the night his tiny bookstore catches fire. Powerless to stop it, he can do nothing but stand by and watch as the only thing he’s ever loved is taken from him.

Fire sergeant Matt Fields is ordered to Cliffside, Maine by the privileged Porter family, which doesn’t mix well with his quick temper, to investigate exactly what happened. When he meets Alex, he can almost taste the sexual tension hanging between them and fights to focus on his job to find out what started the blaze.

Once Matt discovers arson, a simple case of accidental fire becomes much more dangerous, and Alex’s life is suddenly at risk. Someone is out to get him…and Matt wants to know who. As he digs deeper to find the person who torched the shop, he and Alex finally give in to the wild heat between them. From hot as hell phone sex to even hotter face-to-face encounters, they grow closer together as the case spins out of control.

In the end, their newfound love will be put to the test when secrets come to light and arson turns to murder.


In MJ James’ debut Out of the Ashes, Alex Porter loses everything when the bookshop that he rebelled against his wealthy family to build goes up in flames. His overbearing mother insists that a fire marshall be called for, so Matt Fields has to drop everything and devote himself to the case, and Alex.

I wanted to like Out of the Ashes. Queer mysteries are my wheelhouse, and I’m
always looking for new authors! The initial introduction of characters and problems hung together well, and the story was fast-paced enough that I burned through it in a day. Unfortunately, I still had several problems with it.

Full review available at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

[Caution warnings: abusive family members, references to infidelity and attempted suicide, drugging, kidnapping, poor depiction of mental health issues.]
spindizzy: Sypha with one finger raised (Allow me to explain)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-07-28 12:07 am

Gilded Cage by KJ Charles

Cover of Gilded Cage


Once upon a time a boy from a noble family fell in love with a girl from the gutter. It went as badly as you’d expect.

Seventeen years later, Susan Lazarus is a renowned detective, and Templeton Lane is a jewel thief. She’s tried to arrest him, and she’s tried to shoot him. They’ve never tried to talk.
Then Templeton is accused of a vicious double murder. Now there’s a manhunt out for him, the ports are watched, and even his best friends have turned their backs. If he can’t clear his name, he’ll hang.

There’s only one person in England who might help Templeton now...assuming she doesn’t want to kill him herself.


Gilded Cage is the follow-up to KJ Charles' Any Old Diamonds and The Rat-Catcher's Daughter, and I could probably get half of it's intended audience by just yelling "FRIENDS TO LOVERS TO ENEMIES TO LOVERS" and "THERE'S ONLY ONE BED" and "SUSAN LAZARUS IS THE DONE-WITH-THIS-SHIT PROTAGONIST WE DESERVE." The actual summary is that once upon a time, Susan Lazarus was the common girl in love with the son of a lord, which went about as well as you could expect. Seventeen years later, he's a jewel thief, she's a private investigator, and when he gets framed for a murder that he didn't commit, she's the only person he can turn to to clear his name.
There's the messy emotions I was looking for!

Full review available at Lady Business.

[Caution warnings: off-screen miscarriage, kidnapping, child abuse, threats of torture, mentions of off-screen spousal abuse, off-screen slut-shaming] [This review is based off an ARC provided by the author.]
spindizzy: Noctis holding a frog. (Frog!)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-07-20 10:12 am

The Rat-Catcher's Daughter by KJ Charles

Cover of The Rat-Catcher's Daughter


Music-hall singer Miss Christiana is in serious debt, and serious trouble. She owes more than she can pay to a notorious criminal, and now he plans to make an example of her. There’s no way out.
But Christiana has an admirer. Stan Kamarzyn has watched her sing for a year and he doesn’t want to see her get hurt. Stan’s nobody special–just a dodgy bloke from Bethnal Green–but he’s got useful friends, the sort who can get a girl out of trouble, for a price. Christiana’s not sure what it will cost her…
The two slowly reach an understanding. But Christiana is no criminal, and she can’t risk getting mixed up with the law. What will happen when Stan’s life as the fence for the notorious Lilywhite Boys brings trouble to his doorstep?

A trans f/m asexual romance novelette (17,000 words).


The Rat-Catcher’s Daughter is a prequel to KJ Charles’ historical romance Any Old Diamonds. The focus is not on the Lilywhite Boys themselves, although they are an integral part of the story, but on their fence Stan and the music hall performer he admires, Miss Christiana.

Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

[Caution warnings: Misgendering; references to forced sex work; threats of violence, acid attacks, and torture.]
spindizzy: (Then we go mad)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-07-13 10:25 am

Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

Cover of Any Old Diamonds


Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes is the younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, with a bitter grudge against his wealthy father. The Duke intends to give his Duchess a priceless diamond parure on their wedding anniversary—so Alec hires a pair of jewel thieves to steal it.

The Duke's remote castle is a difficult target, and Alec needs a way to get the thieves in. Soldier-turned-criminal Jerry Crozier has the answer: he'll pose as a Society gentleman and become Alec's new best friend.

But Jerry is a dangerous man: controlling, remote, and devastating. He effortlessly teases out the lonely young nobleman’s most secret desires, and soon he’s got Alec in his bed—and the palm of his hand.

Or maybe not. Because as the plot thickens, betrayals, secrets, new loves, and old evils come to light. Now the jewel thief and the aristocrat must keep up the pretence, find their way through a maze of privilege and deceit, and confront the truth of what's between them...all without getting caught.


Any Old Diamonds follows Alec Pyne, the cast-off son of a duke, who hires a pair of jewel thieves to rob his father in revenge. Cue constant threats of betrayal, unexpected feelings, and HEISTS. It has possibly knocked Spectred Isle off its spot as my favourite KJ Charles book, which seriously takes some doing.

Full review available at Lady Business.

[Caution warning: murder, suicide, abusive and neglectful parents/spouses] [This review is based on an ARC provided by the author.]
spindizzy: Alucard giving the middle finger (I love you but)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-07-06 09:47 am

Not Dead Enough by J. M. Redmann

Cover of Not Dead Enough


A woman wants to find her missing sister. That should be easy for an experienced PI like Micky Knight. Until the woman―or someone who looks like her―ends up in the morgue.

Micky finds herself in a tangled mess, not knowing who the real victim is, or how her name keeps coming up in places it shouldn’t. Like newly minted Realtor Karen Holloway’s house sale papers, as the contact for another missing buyer, one who looks a lot like Micky’s client.
The same woman? The sister?

Micky has to uncover what the game is and who’s playing. Because the stakes are murder.


I didn’t realise until I was halfway through J. M. Redmann’s Not Dead Enough that it was a continuation of a series; I thought it was the first book in a series where all of the characters had very detailed backstories! Either way, Not Dead Enough follows Micky Knight, a private detective who’s been asked to track down a woman’s missing sister, only to find that someone matching her client’s description has been murdered.

Full review available at The Lesbrary.

[Caution warnings: Spousal abuse and murder, misogyny, homophobia, drug overdoses] [This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley.]
spindizzy: Trevor looking INCREDIBLY done with life (Do I have to?)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-06-29 11:12 pm

Witchmark by CL Polk

Cover of Witchmark


In an original world reminiscent of Edwardian England in the shadow of a World War, cabals of noble families use their unique magical gifts to control the fates of nations, while one young man seeks only to live a life of his own.

Magic marked Miles Singer for suffering the day he was born, doomed either to be enslaved to his family's interest or to be committed to a witches' asylum. He went to war to escape his destiny and came home a different man, but he couldn’t leave his past behind. The war between Aeland and Laneer leaves men changed, strangers to their friends and family, but even after faking his own death and reinventing himself as a doctor at a cash-strapped veterans' hospital, Miles can’t hide what he truly is.

When a fatally poisoned patient exposes Miles’ healing gift and his witchmark, he must put his anonymity and freedom at risk to investigate his patient’s murder. To find the truth he’ll need to rely on the family he despises, and on the kindness of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen.


C. L. Polk's Witchmark follows Miles Singer, a psychiatrist working with soldiers returned from the war front, right until a dying man reveals him as a witch – a dangerous thing to be in a world where witches either end up in asylums or enslaved as living batteries – and charges Miles with solving his murder.

I loved it, because of course I did.

Full review available at Lady Business.

[Caution warnings: enslavement, false imprisonment, mentions of forced marriages and off-screen rape, murder, abuse, mentions of torture]
spindizzy: Yurio wiping sweat off his face while looking determined. (bring it)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-06-01 10:36 am

The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson

The cover of The Assignment; two shirtless men whose faces are not visible.


Detective Nicholas Valenti, tall, dark and stoic, has been best friends with his partner, Sean O'Brian for six years. The two men have seen each other through divorce, disaster and danger and saved each other's asses more times than Valenti can count. Exactly when he started seeing his blond, intense partner in another light Valenti isn't really sure. He only knows that he wants O'Brian in a way that has nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with possession. It is a desire that he will have to hide forever because O'Brian is undeniably straight.

Just as Valenti is coming to grips with his new, unacceptable feelings for his partner, their police Captain puts them on a new case that could blow Valenti's cover once and for all. He and O'Brian are going undercover at the country's largest and most infamous gay resort to bust a notorious drug lord and stop the shipments of poison cocaine that are flooding the gay bars all over the city.

Now Valenti will have to make a choice between friendship and desire. He and O'Brian will play the roles of gay men that will push the limits of their relationship to the breaking point. Will their time at the RamJack forge a new bond between them or destroy their partnership forever?


I picked up The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson and went "Oh man, fake boyfriend trope! In an actual, published book! With detectives!" The plot is literally your standard fake boyfriends fic set-up. Nicholas Valenti and Sean O'Brian are detectives in the LAPD in the early 1980s, who have been sent undercover as a couple at the biggest gay resort in the country: the Ramjack. (Yes, that's really what it's called). And in the tradition of fake boyfriends fic across the internet, of course Valenti is secretly in love with O'Brian, and of course O'Brian Must Never Know because a) that's how this trope works, and b) O'Brian is Totally Straight and possibly homophobic. It's a solid set-up! This is a fic that I would (and possibly have) read, so I was hopeful!

... Yeah, that didn't last long.

(Rest of the SUPER NSFW review available at Lady Business with bonus fic recs!)

[Caution warnings: attempted and threat of rape, homophobia]
spindizzy: (Did you really)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-05-25 10:18 pm

Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

Cover of Slippery Creatures


Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle’s chaotic second-hand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else.
Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.
And then Will discovers the truth about Kim. His identity, his past, his real intentions. Enraged and betrayed, Will never wants to see him again.
But Will possesses knowledge that could cost thousands of lives. Enemies are closing in on him from all sides—and Kim is the only man who can help.


Will Darling came back from World War I with a box of medals, a trench knife, and no hope of getting a job. Fortunately for him, he's inherited his uncle's bookshop! Unfortunately for him, that comes with the War Office and secret societies barging into his life demanding information that he's never heard of. Good thing his new friend Kim Secretan is willing to step in and help him find his way out of this mess!

Or, in shorter news: KJ Charles has written more pulp adventures and I am ecstatic.

Review posted at Lady Business!

[Caution warnings: imprisonment, knowing adultery; references to a pandemic, gas attacks, and an off-screen attempted sexual assault] [This review is based on an ARC from the author]
spindizzy: Taiga staring over her newspaper (*reads suspiciously*)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-05-11 09:30 am

Pulp Friction by Julie Anne Lindsey



Thanks to Winnie's new cider shop, Smythe Orchards is out of the red and folks can get their fix of the produce and other delectable products they love all year round. The locals are even booking the shop for events, including a June wedding! Winnie couldn’t be happier to see the barn filled to the rafters for the big bash—until her doting ex, Hank, is caught in a heated argument with the groom. Winnie plans to scold Hank after the party, but spots him running off instead. And when the groom turns up dead, apparently hit by the honeymoon getaway car, Hank is the main suspect. Now Hank is on the lam, and it’s up to Winnie to get to the core of the truth—before the real killer puts the squeeze on her . . .


Pulp Friction is the sequel to Julie Anne Lindsey's Apple Cider Slaying, and I'm honestly so stoked. After the murders and struggles at Christmas, Winnie has finally got her cider shop up and running! So successfully in fact that she even opens it up as a wedding venue – which turns out not to be as good for business as she hoped, because the groom gets murdered in her orchard.

Read more... )

The long and the short of it is that I really enjoyed Pulp Friction, it was a fun sequel to a book that I really liked, and now I'm desperately shaking Goodreads to try to make the third book come out faster.

[This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley.]
spindizzy: Alice in chibi mode looking really confused, with the text "curiouser and curiouser" above her. (Curiouser and curiouser)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-04-27 09:43 pm

Apple Cider Slaying by Julie Anne Lindsey

Cover of Apple Cider Slaying


Blossom Valley, West Virginia, is home to Smythe Orchards, Winnie and her Granny's beloved twenty-five-acre farm and family business. But any way you slice it, it's struggling. That's why they're trying to drum up business with the "First Annual Christmas at the Orchard," a good old-fashioned holiday festival with enough delicious draw to satisfy apple-picking locals and cider-loving tourists alike--until the whole endeavor takes a sour turn when the body of Nadine Cooper, Granny's long-time, grudge-holding nemesis, is found lodged in the apple press. Now, with Granny the number one suspect, Winnie is hard-pressed to prove her innocence before the real killer delivers another murder . . .


I really liked Apple Cider Slaying! It had all of the beats that I expect of a cosy mystery: a young woman trying to start her own business, a warm and loving family, a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, the prioritising of normality over the details of investigating a murder, and inexplicable heteronormativity.

Read more... )

[Caution warning: threats of violence and stalking, off-screen murder, references to neglectful parents, off-screen animal death and on-screen animal peril] [This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley.]

This review was originally posted at Lady Business.
spindizzy: A cartoon of me smiling (It me)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-03-02 03:18 pm

1st Impressions by Kate Calloway

Cover of 1st Impressions by Kate Calloway


Rookie PI Cassidy James is hired to find a murdered man's killer in a quiet Oregon lakeside resort -- but the town's sexist police sergeant doesn't care to have an uppity lesbian gumshoe on the case. He's keen to arrest the victim's beautiful niece, who has Cassidy head over heels in love -- and in danger.


Kate Calloway's First Impressions was one of the first mysteries I reviewed for The Lesbrary, and it read like a cross between a soft-boiled PI and a cozy mystery, but with more dead spouses in backstory.

Cassidy James is our heroine, a former teacher who moved out to Cedar Hills and trained as a private investigator after her lover, Diane, died of cancer. Her best friend brings her the case of Erica Trinidad, a beautiful woman whose uncle was murdered and mutilated, which may or may not be connected to things like a break-in at the school and a case of arson.


The full review can be read here.
spindizzy: A cartoon of me smiling (It me)
[personal profile] spindizzy2020-02-24 09:34 pm

The Fade-Out by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Elizabeth Breitweiser

Cover of The Fade Out


Brubaker and Phillips' newest hit series, The Fade Out, is an epic noir set in the world of noir itself, the backlots and bars of Hollywood at the end of its Golden Era. A movie stuck in endless reshoots, a writer damaged from the war and lost in the bottle, a dead movie star and the lookalike hired to replace her. Nothing is what it seems in the place where only lies are true.


I can't tell if The Fade Out is trying to subvert the "starlet dies in Hollywood sleaze" tropes or play them straight. A script writer with PTSD and writers' block - who specifically threw his ghost-writer under the McCarthyism bus - wakes up after a drunken party to find an actress dead next to him. He removes any evidence of his presence, only to find that the murder itself gets covered up, which means that someone else knows and he doesn't know who.

I'll be honest: it made me want to read Angel City again. The art here is fine, and the level of sleaze feels plausibly noir, but after the first chapter I was bored of white men having feelings about dead women. I appreciate that it's probably intended as commentary on how the film industry protects white men from consequences, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to read. It does introduce a female protagonist eventually (who a lot of men have feelings about!), but by that point I was already bored and not in the mood for more stories about gross men trying to take advantage.

Maybe it gets better later, but for me, it wasn't worth the effort.

[Caution warning: murder, abuse, PTSD, racism]

Originally posted at [community profile] ladybusiness.