® REVIEWS
BOOKLIFE, AUGUST 28, 2017
Across a Dark Highland Shore:
Hot Highlands Romance, Book 2
Kelly Jameson. Kelly Jameson, $2.99 e-book
(404p) ASIN B00UPH6MI2
Jameson (The Falcon’s Prize) immerses her
reader in the warfare between the Maclean
and MacKinnon clans in the Scottish
Highlands in 1447. Isobel MacKinnon is
known for having the ability to see visions
of the future. During the new year’s celebration of Hogmanay, she’s accused of being a
witch and set to be burned at the stake. At
the last moment, she’s saved by Leith
Maclean, the same dark Highlander she’s
seen in her dreams. Isobel is now charged
with helping Leith win the heart of Lady
Katherine Campbell, the fiancée of his late
brother, Logan, though their developing
feelings for each other make that difficult.
Leith seeks to keep the tenuous peace
between the Maclean and Campbell clans by
fulfilling the marriage contract, while also
investigating the suspicious death of his
brother, which Isobel’s visions may be able
to help with. Jameson’s strength lies in her
worldbuilding, and she demonstrates a solid
knowledge of Highlands history and lore.
The story moves slowly, taking too long to
get to the relationship between Isobel and
Leith and to the heart of the plot. If readers
make it to that point, however, they’ll be
rewarded with a strong Highland romance.
Begin Again
Crystal Walton. Impact Editions, $13 trade
paper (346p) ISBN 978-0-9862882-8-9
Walton (Write Me Home) delivers heart-wrenching emotion in the second book of
her romantic contemporary Home in You
series. Ti is a former model who has fled her
art studio in Astoria, N. Y., after receiving
a threatening call, seeking shelter on the
shores of Ocracoke, N. C., despite having an
extreme fear of the ocean. While there, she
encounters Drew, a single father struggling
to raise his 10-year-old daughter, Maddie,
and maintain the store his father built. But
Drew is close to the end of his rope: the shop
isn’t doing well, and Maddie has been
recently diagnosed with an immune disorder that brings the medical bills pouring
in. But Ti doesn’t see a struggling man.
Instead, she sees a grump who needs to be
shaken out of his comfortable (and failing)
ways, and so she sets herself up as a consultant with the idea of helping Drew succeed.
Quickly, though, she finds that she needs
Drew and Maddie just as much as they need
her. Walton’s writing is lyrical but not
cloying. This classic love story will have
readers enthralled until the last page.
Blood Family
Brent Winter. Brent Winter, $2.99 e-book
(356p) ASIN B01M0RSSCA
In Winter’s smartly written, if overly
long, debut, Alex Whitfield’s mundane life
is turned upside down when a quest to find
his missing half-sister, April, sends him
deep into the paranormal and uncovers dark
family secrets. On the first anniversary of
his father’s suicide, Alex is visited by a
haunting vision of his sister in his bathtub
with her wrists slashed. Alex initially fears
he’s succumbing to the same insanity that
saw his father committed to a psychiatric
hospital. April’s increasingly horrifying
appearances push Alex to enlist the aid of
narcissistic necromancer Clyde Braveboy,
who has disturbing motives of his own. But
before he can save his sister, Alex is forced
to confront the secret source of his family’s
troubles. Winter adds gravitas to the emotional scenes by interweaving genuine
humor throughout, and readers will connect with Alex as he deals with the improbable changes in his life. However, the novel
consistently overstays its welcome.
Multiple points feel like natural conclusions with plot threads tied up and characters in good places, but Winter continues
putting Alex in escalating situations.
Despite the prose being consistently witty
(“You think you can do this without me?”
“Yeah, I can almost get killed without you.
And for a lot less money, too”), by the end,
the events have built to a point where the
conclusion isn’t satisfying.
Dead Weight
Matt Casamassina. Matt Casamassina, $5.99
e-book (320p) ASIN B01N7JFZI0
An almost absurd premise sets up
Casamassina’s gritty, cinematic postapoca-
lyptic thriller. Seventeen-year-old Zephyr
returns home from a camping trip to dis-
cover that most of the world’s population
has vanished, leaving only piles of clothing
behind. As he tries to understand this new
reality, he meets a seemingly friendly older
man, Ross, but it soon becomes clear that
Ross is dangerous, and Zephyr decides to
flee the city in search of more people. As the
tense journey progresses through scenes of
horrifying lawlessness, Zephyr allies him-
self with fellow wanderers, including a shy
but endearing young girl, much-too-chill
twins, and an aimless slacker. The group
liberates two sex slaves, teen Aurora and
30-something Sarah, after a gruesome
struggle in Las Cruces, N. Mex. Zephyr and
the other survivors, who are a bit too
unbothered by their victimization and
sudden capacity for violence, limp toward
California to join a collective called Alpha
that intends to rebuild society. Once they
reach Alpha, Zephyr and Aurora’s love
blooms, but they are soon forced out again
into the harsh, uncertain world. Despite
some loose threads, the work will appeal
broadly to fans of breathless end-of-the-
world action sequences.
Death at Dinner:
A Cassie Pengear Mystery
L. A. Nisula. CreateSpace, $16 trade paper
(220p) ISBN 978-1-5076-2967-3
Nisula’s entertaining second mystery set
in an alternate Victorian universe that
includes bizarrely modified technology
(after Killing at the Carnival) finds energetic
Cassie Pengear, who has no backstory to
speak of, reluctantly agreeing to help serve
at a dinner party held at the home of businessman Edgar Carrollton in London’s posh
Mayfair district. When Carrollton’s solicitor, John Ainsworth, collapses during the
soup course and subsequently dies, foul play
is suspected. Scotland Yard’s Inspector
Hamilton arrives to interview the guests,
with Cassie on hand to discreetly pour tea
and soak up clues. She takes a more active
part in the investigation after Mrs. Pomeroy,
the cook, comes under suspicion. Nisula,
who also writes fantasy novels under the
name Lisa Anne Nisula, offers readers a fair
play puzzle—all the clues are clearly on
display for those who wish to match wits
with Cassie—though anyone expecting the
complexity of an Agatha Christie whodunit
will be disappointed.
77a
Fiction
