Celticlady's Reading Room

Paranoid by Lisa Jackson is the story of Rachel Gaston, who lives in Edgewater Oregon with her son and daughter. She is divorced from Detective Cade Ryder but they do have an amicable relationship if only for the kids. 
Twenty years ago, Rachel along with some classmates was in an abandoned fish factory with pellet air guns when hers was replaced with a real gun, unbeknownst to her. When someone jumps out she panics and shoots, finds out that the person she shot was her half brother Luke. 
Despite counseling Rachel still feels that it was her fault that her brother is dead and blames herself after all of these years. A high school reunion is being planned, she feels that there are objects being moved in her house, whiffs of cologne and cigarette smoke is in the air. She is being tailed and feels that someone is watching her home.
Now that there are classmates being murdered her paranoia increases. 
Her ex knows that Rachel has issues but he is not sure whether to believe her or not as to her paranoia. Not only that, her daughter has been sneaking out at night to be with a guy whom Rachel is not fond of. So all of these things come to a horrifying conclusion that I did not see coming.
I had not read a Lisa Jackson novel in quite a few years and I am not sure why I haven't as I do remember enjoying them. This one was no exception. This book is character driven and is believable. I love the writing as it was pretty suspenseful and I did not see the ending coming but I like to think that the ending is such that there is another book coming with the same characters.
I think that if you enjoy a good psychological thriller that you can't go wrong with the novel. 

Elizabeth McCourt Tabor better known as Baby Doe was a woman who came from poverty. She married Harvey Doe but later divorced him for a variety of reasons including not providing a living and abandonment. She was from Oshkosh, Wisconsin but moved with Harvey to Leadville Colorado.

She met Horace Tabor, mining millionaire, and owner of Leadville's Matchless Mine. They fell in love and Horace tried to divorce his wife, Augusta of 25 years who denied him the divorce. He obtained a divorce in a different jurisdiction and married Baby Doe but was it legal? Because of their dalliance, divorces and subsequent marriage they were shunned by society.

They had two children but Baby Doe, still shunned by society but still donated money to charities. The Tabor's were rich in silver and with the repeal of the Silver Act, Horace lost his fortune and had to take a job as postmaster in Denver in 1898. Baby Doe eventually had to take menial jobs to survive and eventually died supposedly as a 'madwoman'.

I had read in the past a bit about Baby Doe and Horace and found the story fascinating. A story of a woman who goes from rags to riches and back to rags again. A strong woman who takes on her role as a woman who would work in the mines, as a homewrecker by falling in love with a married man and being called a gold digger. She is a legend among the women of the mining west. I always love reading a story of strong women and I read this book in two sittings. Fascinating story, I think if you love a fast-paced, character-driven, based on real people, then go get a copy of this book! I highly recommend it!

Murder Knocks Twice is a new series by Susanna Calkin that takes place in 1929 Chicago during prohibition. We see Gina Ricci, the main character, start a new job as a cigarette girl in a speakeasy, replacing a girl who was murdered. 

We meet a myriad of characters that work at the speakeasy, The Third Door owned by Signora Castallazzo, the customers, ie socialites finding some fun, ex-servicemen playing poker in a back room. Prohibition cocktails and mentions of gangsters such as Al Capone and there is also a mention of the St.Valentine's Day Massacre and the rise of organized crime. 

I have not read much about 1929 Chicago other than the stock market crash. What does a cigarette girl do, she wears this box around her neck and goes around the speakeasy selling cigarettes and cigars, she also waits tables as needed. That is what Gina started doing but she also wants to be a photographer. The piano player, Marty is murdered and Gina comes upon the scene just as Marty is dying. Gina had learned that she and Marty were cousins on her mother's side so this murder was personal.

Gina finds herself right smack dab in the middle of trying to figure out who and why Marty was murdered. With a camera and a roll of film, that she learns how to develop, may give her answers. Will she find out what she is looking for?  She does learn more about her mother's family and I see this as a big part of the series. Who her mother's family are and why were they estranged?

I enjoyed reading this book, not fast-paced but easy enough to read. I see this as a fun series that I would continue reading. If you love a good historical mystery that takes place during Prohibition, then this is the series for you.

Why Kill the Innocent by C.S.Harris is the 13th book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. Jane Ambrose is found covered in snow, murdered, by Hero, the wife of Viscount Devlin. Devlin will be the one investigating the murder. His suspects include a wide amount of people connected to Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne. Untangling the secrets of Jane's world leads Sebastian into dangerous treachery where no one can be trusted.

This is the first book in the series that I have read. Except for a few bits of information that would have helped me in the book, I was in no way put out by that. That said, this can be read as a stand-alone. I found the story to be really well researched. As I finished the book and read the Author's Note, I was amazed as to how much research by the author there was. That always impresses me when an author of historical fiction sticks to the facts as much as they can. 

Innocence Lost by Sherilyn Decter is a story of Maggie Barnes, a widow with a young son to raise in Philadelphia, 1924. Maggie is finding is extremely difficult making ends meet including putting food on the table and paying the bills. She decides to open her house to guests, she has room for a few lodgers. One of the lodgers is Constable Joe Kelly, also living with her is Mr.Mansfield and Mr. Smith. 

Her son Tommy is at a warehouse along with a few of his friends, where there are some bootleggers, led by Mickey Duffy.  There is a police raid, they end up running and one of his friends, Oskar, goes missing. Tommy is scared and doesn't say anything of what he knows about the raid and the missing boy. The boy is eventually found, in the river and this starts the investigation that Maggie finds herself in. Ironically, Maggie also becomes friends with Mickey Duffy's wife Edith.

Prohibition was the norm in the '20s, there were speakeasies all over  Philadelphia. Maggie along with the help of Joe, they try to find and capture the bootleggers. Maggie also has another person helping her, a ghost of a Victorian cop, Inspector Frank Geyer. Their investigation into who and how Oskar died takes them into the world of gangsters and corruption. 

I have not read a lot about Prohibition or gangsters, so I was a bit apprehensive because I like different genres in historical fiction, that said, I really enjoyed this book. There was a great amount of research done in this book, an ultimately the whole Bootlegger's Chronicles. A fast and entertaining read.  I highly recommend and look forward to reading the next in the series.

What a delightful book! About Mary Pickford and Frances Marion, two real characters from the Hollywood scene. Mary was a child stage actress who continued to play girls even into her twenties. Her younger siblings, Jack and Lottie were also forced to work on the stage. The main characters in this story though are Mary, Frances and Mary's mother Charlotte. 

in 1909, with no work in sight, Mary decides to appear in the "flickers" and becomes America's Sweetheart. Frances Marion is a talented woman who writes screenplays. She met Mary Pickford when Mary's first husband, Owen, invited Frances to sketch his wife. They immediately became fast friends and they collaborated on films. Mary doing the acting and Frances writing the script. Mary came to own her own production company along with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. So with Frances writing and Mary acting, they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. Both women were passionate and fierce when it came to their careers and would do what it took to succeed. 

Mary had a whirlwind marriage with Douglas Fairbanks but their marriage did end. Frances was introduced to the love of her life, Fred Thompson and they had two sons. Mary and Frances stayed friends until Frances died in 1973 and Mary died in 1979. 

This book was very interesting to me, I had not read a lot about Hollywood and Mary Pickford in particular. It appears that there had been a lot of research. Full of real characters, producers, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Albert Capellani and the Lumière brothers from France and actresses  Lilian Gish, Lois Weber, Frances Marion, Anita Loos, June Mathis. What a cornucopia of people! A book with a passion for acting and the persona's of Mary and Frances were amazing and poignant. Lots of history of Hollywood, silent films and talkies! I loved it and recommend reading this one! The girls in the picture may have faded over time but they are never forgotten!

As with any book by Nancy, I always learn something. I never knew that the color blue had such a significant place in history. Genevieve Planché is an English born woman but is actually a Huguenot and absolutely hates the French and all they stand for, including the King. She aspires to be an artist, but of course, women in 1758 London are not taken seriously so she paints porcelain. She lives with her grandfather on Spitalfields, a questionable area to live in. 

She meets Sir Gabriel Courtenay who wants her to spy for him regarding the color blue, he wants the formula for the color.  She is tasked with going to Derby and is expected to infiltrate the lab where the color is formulated. The main obsession of Sir Gabriel is with getting the information on a new shade of blue on porcelain that is a perfect shade. 

She wants to be able to go to Venice as Sir Gabriel has promisedto fulfill a lifelong dream of being able to study so she agrees. Things don't go as planned though and she finds herself in France, the very place she hates. She is concerned though that the task she has to undertake could cause problems for her grandfather. Spying is not something she has wanted to do but in order for her to fulfill her dreams, she must do this.

Like I said before, Nancy's novels always seem to teach and thrill at the same time. An exciting story that is character driven, and has a female protagonist that is strong and goes after what she wants and does not let society tell her what she can and can't do. The addition of a love story keeps the story fluid and easy to read. When I look at some of the porcelain figures I have, I just never realized nor cared how they were made or about the colors that they are painted with. Well, I will now..lol.

 I always look forward to a new book by Nancy and this one did not disappoint! Go get your copy when it is released, you won't be disappointed!

This book is the first in the Victorian Ladies Series and is about Eleanor Sheffield and her family business. Her father has recently passed and she is trying to keep the business afloat. Her uncle, who was a twin to her father, has recently exhibited signs of dementia. Eleanor is an evaluator of antiquities and very talented. The death of a long time client of the business, Baron Lydney, left a provision in his will that Eleanor is supposed to evaluate the collection that he has. After evaluation, she is to determine whether the collection stays in the family in the care of his son Harry, or have it go into a museum.

Eleanor had had a relationship with Harry and when he never returned to her and propose she became disillusioned with him and does not trust him. Harry does come back but she does not think that there is a future for them, he has brought back an Italian beauty and she is not sure what their relationship is. Harry is nothing but persistent and the more time she spends with him the more her trust returns.

The problem is that her uncle has not paid any bills and the debt collectors are at her doorstep. In those days there was debtors prison if bills were not paid. Because she is a woman and her uncle is not well, the remaining clients of Sheffield Brothers have developed a distrust to her. She must do all she can to reclaim their trust. As time goes by and with her investigation, she does turn out to be a lady of a thousand treasures as she makes her determination about the Lydney collection.

As usual, Sandra Byrd has written another enjoyable first book to what I hope will be a great series. A gothic novel set during the mid to late 1800s in Victorian England, a time where women were not allowed to do much except stay in the home, Eleanor turns out to be a strong woman in a time dominated by men. I love reading about strong women and I love anything by Sandra as she does remarkable research. She always tells a great story and the characters are more than memorable! If you love a great historical fiction novel, then give this one a try!

As a fan of Jodi Picoult for years now, I of course was more than excited to get her latest novel A Spark of Light. While nothing she writes will compare to My Sister’s Keeper (in my humble opinion), one of the things I love most about Jodi is her ability to tackle tough subjects and turn them into a conversation via a fictional story with rich characters.

Her latest novel is centered around the age-old argument of pro-life or pro-choice regarding abortion, as well as women’s rights. 

The description of the book on Goodreads reads:

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.

One of the most fearless writers of our time, Jodi Picoult tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding.

As a woman and parent myself, I don’t necessarily condone or support the abolishment of abortion; however, I am neither pro-life or pro-choice, but rather pro women’s rights. I believe every woman has a right to choose what happens to her body, even if that involves pregnancy. I also understand that we are talking about a potential human growing inside of her and what rights that future child should have, but I also have the opinion that a baby is not “alive” until it is born, so how can something that hasn’t been born yet be “murdered”? And how can it be murder if it’s just tissue when most abortions occur? Do we allow tissue to have rights? By the time a fetus has a functional brain and fully developed heart and other organs, it is far too late to abort, so allowing the baby to have rights when it is more a baby than tissue makes sense, but do we value those rights over the rights of the woman carrying the potential baby?

I can’t answer these questions, nor can anyone, which is why we have such extreme opinions on both sides. These are the types of issues Jodi Picoult tackles in this novel. Every character is different and comes from a different angle regarding abortion and women’s rights. It is amazing to me how she can take such a controversial topic, include all sides of the argument, and interweave them into a crazy Venn diagram where all the opinions overlap and we are all left wondering, what is the right answer? How can we come to some sort of understanding as a country, and why do we have to resort to violence to be heard and feel understood?

While I don’t think this was her best novel to date (again, I'm biased with My Sister's Keeper), I do love the fact that she wrote this book during such a difficult and pivotal time in our country. Women died for their rights, to be equal to men, and it’s unreal how in 2018 this is still such a hot topic. There are many moments in this novel where she makes some poignant points through various characters’ dialogue, but perhaps the best thing she wrote was included in her author’s note, which reads as follows:

“Honestly, I do not believe we, as a society, will ever agree on this issue. The stakes are too high, and both sides operate from places of unshakeable belief. But I do think that the first step is to talk to each other—and more important, to listen. We may not see eye to eye, but we can respect each other’s opinions and find the truth in them. Perhaps in these honest conversations, instead of demonizing each other, we might see each other as imperfect humans, doing our best”.

One of the only issues I had with the book is there is a character, a background character that had a purpose and was the catalyst of the events of the gunman, but her story was not wrapped up in an appropriate way. Jodi sometimes leaves things to our imagination but this particular character inadvertently started the entire chain of events, yet we don’t know what becomes of her. While that was disappointing, the novel itself is still definitely worth a read. Especially if you’re a woman and especially if you have opinions about abortion and women’s rights. Perhaps reading this book will open your eyes to other perspectives. 

And thanks to Jodi Picoult for once again working her magic and tackling such difficult issues and making her readers do some critical thinking and possibly reevaluate where we stand, or how we treat each other.

Guest Review: Kara Kelly