Book Review: The Trickster

The Trickster, Dorothy A. Winsor. Inspired Quill, March 27, 2021, Print and Kindle, 330 pages.

Reviewed by Barbara Belford.

Dorothy A. Winsor’s young adult fantasy, The Trickster, takes its name from one of the gods in the world in which the novel is set, and true to its namesake, the book spins a tale that keeps readers on their toes, with plot twists and complex main characters.

Dilly—an abandoned street girl—attempts to transform her rough ways to play the role of Lady Elenia’s court attendant. Her beloved dog, Tuc—a fierce and loyal companion—plays an integral part in the story. Fitch—the son of a well-known smuggler with a gift of mind control—seeks revenge for the poisoning of his sweetheart. When Dilly meets Fitch, they unite in foiling a plot to overthrow Elenia’s father, Suryan, the ruler of Lac’s Holding, but unwittingly jeopardize both their goals.

Fitch finds it difficult to hunt for the distributor of the poisonous mage flower and still be a credit to his father’s smuggling business as a trained healer. But when his estranged mother, who he hasn’t seen since he was three, appears and offers him the possibility of a new life where he will be free to be himself, he is tempted to leave Lac’s Holding and his quest to find out the truth about his sweetheart’s death.

Dilly was orphaned as a child when her mother got sick and died, after the man she and Dilly followed to Rin City deserted them. Now, Dilly swears her allegiance to Lady Elenia, trying to fulfill her need to belong. Her street ways prove invaluable when Elenia needs to travel among the commoners.

As if the stakes aren’t high enough, war is looming, and The Watch is bearing down on the townspeople.

The medieval setting with a touch of magic provides a great place for Dilly and Fitch to work out what it means to fit in and belong when family doesn’t provide the love they need. The important theme of loyalty runs through this third book in the series, beginning with the commitment of a dog, and explores whether loyalty to family is obligatory when family has betrayed their own blood. The element of trust—who it’s safe to trust, and learning to trust again after being betrayed—is closely tied to the need to be loved and valued throughout the book.

YA readers and adults who love YA fantasy will appreciate the world-building, especially the wonderful names of characters and places. The Trickster is a clean read, with the perfect balance of espionage and romance. 

I’ve been told that good fiction always has a smoking gun and a ticking clock. The Trickster is full of both with action and suspense. It will keep you intrigued right up to the ending. 

Book Review: The Coming

The Coming, Dan Coffman. Covenant Books, Murrells Inlet, SC, September 1, 2020, Paperback and Kindle, 320 pages.

Reviewed by Andrew Reynolds.

Dan Coffman has written numerous novels that center on the idea that the world we live in is not as it appears. Many of these stories take the form of fables, and through them, Coffman explores the idea that forces unseen steer the course of humanity. Are these forces spiritual, be they demons or angels? Or are they extraterrestrials whose visits have morphed into the legends we tell ourselves about the mystic creatures we regard as sent from our gods?

The Coming is the most recent incarnation of this storytelling continuum. Coffman posits a real-world struggle that is being fought behind the scenes between the governments of the world and shadowy forces inside the world’s religions. All the parties have one goal: to suppress the knowledge that aliens have been visiting the Earth for most of humanity’s history. Why they seek to keep this information secret varies. Many of the religions hope to maintain their hold over humanity by hiding the fact that humanity is far from the special creation of a supreme being. On the other hand, governments hope to use the alien technology they’ve accumulated over time to gain power in the world.

Shane Reid, a man who’s made a name for himself as a debunker of claims of alien visitations, is contacted by an old nemesis. Brad Shelton is a firm believer in UFOs who becomes friends with Shane over their shared interest in understanding the few alien encounter claims that can’t easily be explained away. Phoebe Braham, a genius freelance cipher sleuth, brings together this unlikely trio. 

As you can imagine, the people who want to keep alien encounters secret are not going to sit idly by as they begin to examine the evidence they have. From the novel’s opening scene—Reid engaging in a high-speed chase through the streets of Chicago—they are under constant threat. 

Coffman keeps the story moving with his protagonists striving to understand what’s happening while doing everything they can to keep things from getting worse. He gives them enough close calls to make the reader wonder if they aren’t under some form of divine protection. And perhaps it is that aspect of the novel that bothers me. At many points in the story, the protagonists should have failed. They shouldn’t have made the miraculous escape. They wouldn’t conveniently know someone who could answer the question that has them stumped. And the bad guys wouldn’t fail to take advantage of their superior resources, be it in intelligence about the situation or wealth, to bring about the end they desire. 

There are several instances of deus ex machina in the story, which may not appeal to all readers, but those who like diving into a good conspiracy will enjoy this sci-fi thriller.

Book Review: The Connubial Corpse

The Connubial Corpse, Thomas J. Thorson. Self-published, February 21, 2021, E-Book and Paperback, 238 pages.

Reviewed by Marssie Mencotti.

The Connubial Corpse is the second mystery novel in Thomas J. Thorson’s Malcom Winters series. The story begins when a very enterprising student, Lily Cheng, stops coming to Professor Vinn (V.N.) Achison's college class. Not knowing where her responsibility to the student lies, Vinn turns to her friend Malcom. They connect with a Chicago police officer who shares information about another recent case that could be connected. Vinn and Malcom begin to ask questions and enlist an interesting group of friends to assist them, including a cross-dressing businessman, an elderly faux Cuban cook, an overeager journalism student, a government source hiding behind a Vladimir Putin mask, and a posse of eccentric misfits. Their actions draw the attention of the local criminal Triad, putting a target on our heroes' backs before a final confrontation in a most unexpected place.

One of the most interesting themes in The Connubial Corpse is whether to get involved in something that may not come under your purview. Unlike most standard mysteries, Malcom and Vinn are peripheral to the missing young woman but are concerned because they believe that the student has no family or connections in the U.S. 

There’s a lot to enjoy about this mystery, including how it brought the west Loop of Chicago to life. I found myself getting on and off the L, sitting in the many small nosh-eries and restaurants that dot the neighborhood, and walking through Chinatown with the crime fighters. Many of the food descriptions will make you hungry. The feeling that the two might be out of their depth never leaves the reader, and we are sure they will be busted or worse as the issue becomes larger and larger and involves more and more people to carry out their elaborate plans of foiling the “ghost bride” trade.

I found The Connubial Corpse charming and compelling. To me, it falls in the mystery book space between a cozy and a thriller. It’s cozy because we feel at home with most of the characters and their lifestyles, and it’s a thriller because, like Malcom and Vinn, we are often flying without a net and have no idea what comes next or if the villains can be stopped, but we can’t stop trying to solve the crime.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I found areas to criticize. There were places where I felt the author owed us more information. There’s also a lack of that urgency in the pacing that should build as it comes to a finish. And we get the mystery from Malcom’s perspective, but I wanted to know more about Vinn’s take on it as well because she was more vested in Lily’s fate.

Overall, I enjoyed The Connubial Corpse and the freshness of the amateur sleuths, each with complex skills in their backstories. This is a solid read that’s a perfect pairing with superb hot mugs of tea or glasses of fine wine.

Book Review: How to Walk on Water

How to Walk on Water. Rachel Swearingen. New American Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2020, Paperback, 175 pages.

Review by Jose Nateras.

In How to Walk on Water, her debut collection, Rachel Swearingen presents readers with characters moving through lives that are simultaneously less than they dreamed of and more than they can handle.

Many of the stories in Swearingen's collection take place in the Midwest—most written while Swearingen was at Western Michigan University. She consistently subverts the idea of "Midwest Nice," revealing a sinister edge to her characters' interactions with neighbors, coworkers, and even family.

With Swearingen at the helm, romantically charged encounters between men and women become eerie with possibility and disaster ("Felina," "Notes to a Shadowy Man"). In her prose, regular people are revealed to have secrets, desires, and pains that unfold into Hitchcockian spirals. One example is "Mitz's Theory of Everything Series," wherein memories of a troubled friend haunt a young artist.

The Midwest Swearingen creates has less to do with location and more to do with a sense of longing and danger, feeling trapped by circumstance, and of longing for excitement while foreboding that disaster will come in its wake.

Swearingen is a skilled and graceful writer who manages to build tension and suspense with deft ease. She creates a sense of familiarity in stories of heartbreak and tragedy that work to satisfy readers without veering into predictability.

The sense of Midwestern charm in How to Walk on Water is not a charm that relies on sweetness or simplicity. Swearingen's characters are rarely friendly or kind in the ways Midwesterners might stereotypically be portrayed. Instead, at the heart of Swearingen's stories are people striving to hold on to the sparks of life that will allow them to keep moving forward, even if those sparks are as odd as eating bits of postcards ("Boys on a Veranda") or playing macabre pranks on one's neighbors ("Edith Under the Streetlight"). The charm lies in the fact that Swearingen manages to unpack these sometimes wild attempts to "keep moving forward" without judgment. Even when her characters behave in unexplainable or morally dubious ways (like illegally abducting a grandchild—"The Only Thing Missing Was the Howling of Wolves"), Swearingen paints a humanizing portrait of people trying their best.

Swearingen has amassed a series of awards for her writing, named one of 30 Writers to Watch by the Guild Literary Complex. Her stories in How to Walk on Water demonstrate why.

Book Review: No Lies Live Forever

Compher, Catherine Fatica. No Lies Live Forever. Austin Macauley Publishers LLC, November 30 2020, Print and E-Book, 279 pages.

Reviewed by Paige Doepke.

No Lies Live Forever is first and foremost a love story, but perhaps not in the way many of us think of “love stories.” In some ways, sure, it is the typical love story of a man and a woman. But more than that, it’s a story about the love of a father toward his children. I very much enjoyed this unique angle and the format in which the story was told, over several decades, with each chapter dedicated to a different character’s perspective.

The main character and father, Sal Casalino, has spent his life trying to be the “good guy” in situations that keep trying to force him to be bad. When decisions he made to keep his family afloat as a young man in Italy come back to haunt him as an older man with a wife and children in America, he chooses to put his family first, as he has done each time before.

To protect his family from harm, Sal fakes his death to all except his friend, George. For a decade, he goes on living in a self-made “prison,” never able to see or talk to his wife and children as they grow older. George keeps him up to date on big occurrences, ultimately breaking the news to Sal that his wife and longtime love, Elizabeth, has passed away.

The news of his wife’s death catapults Sal’s story, which until this point has buoyed among four decades, into the present. Sal finds himself inching closer and closer to his children, observing them without their knowledge, until finally, the troublesome family who led Sal into confinement in the first place threatens his adult children’s safety.

After years apart, Sal returns to his family to finally put an end to the threats that have haunted him, and now them, for years. While he never imagined that his wife, Elizabeth, would be gone by the time he could reunite with his family, Sal watches his children and thinks that life alongside them must be a dream come true.

There is a beautiful quality of self-sacrifice that immigrant parents make time and time again for their families. Sal embodies this quality, which is so very un-American in so many ways, to his core. He gives and gives throughout his whole life just to keep the people around him safe and cared for. I found his love for his children, particularly, and the pain of being separated from them, to feel so real and raw.

I highly recommend No Lies Live Forever to any reader who appreciates real-life stories of trial, tribulation and love. Compher’s ability to create such robust characters through their development over several decades is what kept me particularly engaged in this story. I wanted to know who Sal would be as the years went on and how he would rise to the changing occasions in his life. This book is a beautiful tale of coming home!