Review – Shades of Grey

Shades of Grey

By Michael Cargill

This novel is actually a collection of three short stories about three very different people and settings.  Each main character, in their own way istrying to survive in messed up situations where they have very little control.  There are tons of books out there right now with the same or similar titles, so be careful!  I won this book from Becky a couple of weeks back and just want to say thank you!

Story 1 – Shades of Grey; this is largely a stream of consciousness of the wandering mind of a captured operative, John, who is being tortured for information.  He has been worked on for a while and he keeps flashing between past and present.  It does go through some flashback to other people in John’s life so the reader can understand the ending.  You don’t read too much about any gross torture stuff, but you know he is hurting.  And, while it is a heavy subject matter, there are actually funny bits.  Cargill seamlessly blends humor with horror and made me surprised that I found levity and laughed at times while reading about this situation.

Story 2 – There and Back Again – Set during WWII right before the Germans occupied France, we follow a British soldier, James who is one of the troops trying to stop the invasion.  Also filled with a few humorous bits, this snapshot of war and the men who fight them shows what we are capable of committing and surviving during wartime, and a bit of the ridiculousness that accompanies it all.  I don’t normally read war stories, but I found it interesting.

Story 3 – Down the Rabbit Hole – this third story is the longest of the bunch and the most disturbing to me.  Hard to believe since the others about the atrocities of war and torture!  But this one follows a young boy named Tom who has an abusive father and loving but ineffectual mother, though relatively strong willed, even though she has stuck it out with such an ass of a man for so long.  His best friend, a stuffed rabbit named Borger, comes alive, or at least begins talking, and makes suggestions to Tom, both in what to say and what to do when faced with adversity or even boredom.  Borger’s suggestions begin helpful and smart and take a turn to menacing and even deadly.  But Borger has Tom’s best interests at heart, or does he?

This collection was great.  I really enjoyed each of the characters and even after having finished this book a week ago I am still picturing some of the scenes.  That can be both good and bad since some of the scenes were intense, but it made me think and stuck with me so I find that impressive.  I also really enjoy the seamlessly blended humor.  It felt natural and normal, maybe I am messed up in the head, but I resort to humor during trying times, and I really felt that it works in these stories.  After having read Cargill’s blog, I was expecting much more ridiculous and wacky stuff, but he keeps it limited and it almost sneaks up on you in Shades of Grey.  I am looking forward to reading more from Cargill and give this book a 3.5/4 stars.

Teaser Tuesday (May 22)

I am late today, but it is still technically Tuesday!

Teaser Tuesday is a meme hosted by MizB of Should be Reading.  Everyone should play along and post a couple of sentences from a randomly chosen spot in whatever you are currently reading.  No spoilers!  Be sure to include the title and author so we can look it up and add to our TBRs.  Link back to your blog TT in the comments.

I am currently reading the ARC of Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews.  I am loving it and am almost done, but thought this was a fun bit of repartee near the beginning (pg 49).

“And stop looking so scandalized.  I covered my boobs, didn’t I?”

“But I still know they are there.  I saw them.”

“Treasure the memory.”

I am looking forward to reading your teasers!

Review – Dead Man’s Hand

Dead Man’s Hand

By Lee Jay Stura

This book takes place in 1906 up in San Francisco.  Our hero Denver Sinclair, tells this story from his POV (which is refreshing since most of the paranormal heroes these days are women!) and is a bit of an anti-hero who you root for anyway.  He is a relatively new vampire, serving an evil mistress who has bonded him to her with a blood debt.  He owes her a lot and like an indentured servant, sees no freedom in sight.  Denver likes to gamble and he is not an obedient man, so he cheats in every way possible, either by skimming off the top of his boss’ deals to playing cards and winning every time.  Denver is in love with Lily, a Chinese human woman and is trying to figure out how the two of them can have a future together and away from  his evil mistress, when mother nature throws a huge monkey wrench in everyone’s lives.  The earthquake of 1906 hits in the early morning and afterwards fires raged out of control throughout the city due to broken gas lines.

Denver and Lily survive, though Denver has to go to ground right after the quake to survive the dawning day.  Once they escape the building rubble they race for their lives across the burning city with run-ins from the army, refugees and his master’s minions.  Denver is hoping against hope that his master died in the quake and he will finally be free.

So, Denver is an interesting character.  I really wasn’t sure I was rooting for him for a while, because he isn’t a good guy by any means.  But by his actions, you find he is practical, and human in his thinking, but not evil.  It is the wild west after all, and when he was human he didn’t have the best judgment and it hasn’t really changed now that he is a vampire!  The story is quite fun, escape and survival being the issues to deal with.  These two are thwarted at every turn.  The race against the fire and the army are interesting.  Not quite as breath-taking as they could have been.  It almost seemed like Denver and Lily had a lot of time to do things…yet the fire was right behind them so it felt a little incongruous at times.  But the action is high, the characters grow on you and you root for Denver.  Lily is a spitfire and she complements Denver.  The storyline did not go where I expected it to, which was enjoyable and Stura had better be writing a sequel because there is definitely more story to be told with that ending!  I loved the setting, the Barbary Coast was fairly lawless in a lot of ways and these vampires are carving out a niche for themselves.  The other interesting thing is that Stura’s vampires, while strong and magical in many ways are not perfect and flawless.  They can’t get away with everything they want and actually have to be careful of discovery.  It made them much more interesting as characters to have a few weaknesses.

This is a historical urban fantasy with a male lead first person POV with action, adventure and paranormal craziness.  It is a strong first novel and I am looking forward to seeing more from Lee Jay Stura, 4 stars.

Teaser Tuesdays (May 15th)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I just started Shades of Grey by Michael Cargill today.  It is interesting.  It is a book of three stories though I am not 100% sure what connects them, different types of war perhaps.  What I do like is that while it has serious subject matter, war and torture so far, it is darkly hilarious at times.  My teaser:

One shell landed near me and completely buried me in mud! I can still taste the earth in my mouth as I write this! I think I have had an interesting insight into what life is like for a spade and gardening will never be the same for me again.

Thanks everyone.  I can’t wait to read your teasers! I find out about the best books on Tuesdays!! 

Birthday Cake!

I didn’t get to read much this weekend because it was my good friend’s birthday party and she asked me to be in charge of the cake with her 13 year old daughter.  We settled on a beach/ocean theme.  She made the cupcakes and I brought the cake.  I wanted to make this impressive towering thing but it didn’t really work out that way as it started listing to the side as I added layers!  Stevie made cupcakes with umbrellas, a piece of a sour rope thing to look like a towel, brown sugar for sand and swedish fish gummies in the blue icing water.  They looked really cute.

I went a little nuts, because that is what I do.  I decided to try making marshmallow fondant for the first time ever.  I made two batches around 3 days ahead, and I think it needed a bit more powdered sugar…it was slowly oozing all day, like old glass sped up.  I made a quadruple batch of butter cream icing and 3 boxes of devil’s food cake mix, doctored with a recipe from The Cake Doctor cookbook, plus I added pudding.  Needless to say my cakes were moist and tasty, but heavy!  I should have made thinner layers.  Anyway.  I found a gorgeous picture of someone else’s handmade cake online and I fashioned mine after theirs.  This is what I ended up with. Oh, I made the inside of the octopus and crab out of rice krispy treats…I love trying new things!

Giant octopus near the cupcake shore

Crab cake – without tartar sauce!

Review – The Kingdom (Graveyard Queen #2)

I read the Restorer on my kindle but loved it so much I decided I needed the hard copy as well.  I ordered it through paperbackswap.com and waited quite a while.  The lady who sent it to me also sent me The Kingdom and The Prophet!!  So, she made my year and I hope karma works and something wonderful happens to her soon.  I delved into The Kingdom without any wait time.  These books are a little bit paranormal romance-y without a ton of smexing and urban fantasy-ish.

The Kingdom begins a couple of months after The Restorer.  Amelia needs some time away from Charleston, and a certain haunted detective, so she takes a job restoring a cemetery in Asher Falls.  The creepiness starts right away, the town is in major decline, the people are not what they seem and Amelia feels some evil something in the background.  There are two cemeteries, the one she is going to restore and one that was flooded and now underneath a lake called Bell Lake.  Why is it named that?  Because it used to be you would bury bodies with a bell pull so in case you made a mistake and bury someone who isn’t really dead, they could ring the bell and be dug back up.  So now, at night, when the mists rise from the lake, you can sometimes hear bells ringing.  Eeek!

The characters are new and creepy.  There is a rich, old family with a wheelchair bound patriarch.  A hot, sexy playboy love interest, some witchy-like women and a love crazed teenager amongst others.  The job itself is shrouded in a little mystery.  The monetary donation to hire her was anonymous and Amelia feels like she is picked for this particular job for a reason, but she is just unsure why.  The characters are reticent and have a sneaky vibe.  The local police chief has a chip on his shoulder and makes Amelia feel anything but safe.  Her contact in Asher Falls places her in the home of a man who is out of town, right next to Bell Lake, yet the house used to be a church and is on hallowed ground.  Oh yea, that also means the old graveyard is in her backyard.

Thane, the sexy playboy love interest, who is not personally haunted, keeps the readers and Amelia’s mind from Devlin.  Amelia tries to do research on the graveyard and the mystery of the town but is thwarted here and there by the various characters.  She finds a mysterious, well-tended but unmarked grave hidden behind the graveyard that she feels a bizarre attraction to, but no one will talk about…

Stevens writes beautifully and she still does her breadcrumb trick of dribbling out information to keep me riveted.  The action becomes break neck at the end with a storm and evil and ghosts and all sorts of pandemonium.  We do end up finding out some answers about Amelia and why she can see ghosts.  And the ending was perfectly sexy, making me so excited to crack open The Prophet!

There are a couple of things that weren’t perfect for me.  The title, the kingdom felt forced into the first few chapters.  Everything, a graveyard, the town, whatever is someone’s kingdom.  Ok…we get it.  Also, the love interest thing, there are a few repetitions between Thane and Devlin, even though they are very different characters.  Also, Amelia seems to drift along like seaweed in the tide, stepping into trouble here and there.  She is either really young or just socially inept.  And at the end, a little too do-goodish.  She tries to help someone who really doesn’t deserve her attention (trying not to spoil anything here!).  Anyway, these things are fairly minor, I just hope they don’t compound as the series progresses, because I have been totally loving it so far!   I give this book 4.5 stars.

Teaser Tuesday – May 8

Now that April’s A-Z Challenge is over, I can actually keep up and participate in the weekly meme’s again!  I just couldn’t do it…without further ado…

Teaser Tuesday – May 8, 2012

This is a weekly even hosted by Miz B over at Should be Reading.  Take a couple of lines from the book you are currently reading and post ‘em. Don’t give anything too big away.  Post a link to your blog in the comments below.

This week I am reading Dead Man’s Hand by Lee Jay Stura.  This takes place in San Francisco in 1906, there are vampires and gouls, gambling and oh yea, a big ole earthquake.

“I pushed Lily into a corner, wedging her slender body against the wall, and covered her with mine. There was one last thunderous roar that seemed to last days on end as the building came down above us; floor after floor of the three-story building crashing down along with God alone knew how many other buildings out there.”  Loc 134 – 34%

I am enjoying the novel so far, and Denver Sinclair is an interesting vampire lead, running his cons as naturally as breathing.  I am wondering what con is running that we can’t see yet!