Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

BUT NOT FOREVER by Jan Von Schleh – Y/A Value & Virtues, Y/A Clean & Wholesome Romance, Y/A Time Travel

Like most fifteen-year-olds, Sonnet McKay loves a good adventure. Still, when she, her siblings, and cousins discover a deserted Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods outside a ghost town near Seattle, they get much more than they bargained for. In an upstairs bedroom, Sonnet inadvertently steps inside a time travel portal and is whisked away to 1895. In her place stands Emma Sweetwine, an identical doppelganger for Sonnet.

Emma’s family was prominent when Monte Cristo was a booming mine town, but life is not what it seems for the oldest of the Sweetwine children. With a mother who seems to despise her and a secret engagement, Emma’s life is oppressive and controlled – a sharp contrast to the spirited, independent Sonnet. With no idea how or why they were switched, Sonnet and Emma must quickly adjust to their new environments and rely only on their closest friends and family. But like any good story, time is running out for the girls as both of their lives rush in opposite directions. They must find a way back to their own times before their chance is gone forever.

Family, both those of birth and those of choice, is a significant theme of this novel. Sonnet has a close familial support system in her twin brother Evan, older sister Jules, cousin Niki, and best friend and cousin Lia. She has been surrounded by a loving family her entire life and spends part of each summer with her Aunt Kate, her father’s sister. Without doubt or hesitation, Evan, Jules, Niki, and Lia spring into action to both cover Sonnet’s absence and find the impossible path back to 1895. Rapp, a boy who has only known Sonnet for a day before her disappearance, is also a seamless part of the rescue brigade. This group instantly takes Emma into their embrace and makes her feel safe and loved, a first in her life. Though Sonnet has little help from Emma’s family, she quickly builds that friendship network she enjoys in her modern life. It is only with the support of the sixteen-year-old Sweetwine family nanny Kerry; Maxwell the teenage family driver; and Tor Emma’s secret betrothed, that Sonnet will hatch an escape plan. Both groups vow to take care of each girl, respectively, and help them keep the faith to make everything possible.

The difference between Sonnet and Emma will highlight the struggle and growth of women in the world. Sonnet isn’t burdened by the many stifling rules, both spoken and unspoken, that Emma must endure. Emma is forced to hide her true self, her true feelings, none so much as those she has for Tor. As an immigrant tasked with a life of menial labor, Tor should never be a part of Emma’s social circle, much less her fiancé. She has no close female friends and must remain docile and meek even when her mother demeans and abuses her. She is stifled by all who should love and support her. Sonnet, with her modern mind and outspoken nature, fights all of those restrictions and leaves Emma’s life better.

Sonnet makes Emma stronger, and Emma teaches Sonnet how to appreciate love in her life. In the very oppression, Sonnet finds the enjoyment of her freedom, and Emma’s liberation will create a connection to Sonnet that she can’t even imagine.

But Not Forever won the CIBA 2019 Grand Prize in the DANTE ROSSETTI Division for Y/A novels.

November 17, 2020
INSYNNIUM by Tim Cole – Science Fiction, Dark Humor, Time Travel

The dramatic premise explored in a new novel, Insynnium, is a wild, immersive leap into a world-changing (but fictional) drug. In other hands, what could be a dystopian thriller goes one step further in author Tim Cole’s capable hands. He focuses on the humans who first discover and use the drug and weaves his story with a devilish charm.

This is somewhat Bill Murray/“Groundhog Day” territory, a film exploring one man’s reliving a day in his life over and over until he learned new behaviors, new skills, and came out of it a better man. Unlike “Groundhog,” Max McVista takes multiple doses of the drug against all advice, then somehow expands time itself in what he calls an “AUE” or “Alternative Universe Experience,” enabling him to spend months and sometimes years becoming or experiencing whatever he wishes. When returning to real-time, he’s only missed a day or two. (For E=MC squared fans, it’s basically reverse engineering of Einsteinian physics.)

From a man with few basic skills, a drunk who all but abandons his wife and sons, he returns to his family with outsized skills as a musician, entrepreneur, carpenter, medical savant, and pilot. Skills he could not have learned in any traditional manner. He lies about how he learned everything, tracing it back to an accident, choosing to bury his drug-induced years of time-traveling across the world, spending concentrated periods exploring whatever he fancies with no time “penalty” in the real world.

Of course, it’s not all happy stories and roses for those who take the Insynnium drug. What fun would that be?

A large cast of characters populates this book, including Max’s beleaguered psychic Native American wife Rachel, Duncan, a Lenny Kravitz look-like who is Max’s best friend, their families, the oddballs responsible for introducing Insynnium to the public. And, of course, the multiple storylines and subplots enrich the already fertile premise of the life and multiple times of Max McVista.

Appropriate to a novel about time travel, there is considerable time-shifting from chapter to chapter that will require readers to stay on their toes as they work through this 500-page novel. And like any skilled author who plants clues neatly in the text – clues that are keys to resolving the overarching mysteries in the book – Cole does the same. What can we say? Here’s an impressive novel by a major new talent, and one we highly recommend keeping an eye on.

November 12, 2020
SHE SEES GHOSTS – Part of the Adirondack Spirit Series by David Fitz-Gerald – Historical Fiction, Paranormal Fiction, Civil War Fiction

A gentle and patient story, She Sees Ghosts is a unique addition to the historical fiction genre. Take a break from the hectic modern world and get transported to a simpler time where the full effect of the industrial revolution has yet to change America’s face forever.

Mehitable lives with her large loving family in a small town in New England and has been hiding a secret her whole life. She sees the spirits of the departed and wishes they would leave her alone. The town is busy getting ready for the upcoming New Year celebration, which will not only mark the start of a new century but also happens to be Mehitable’s sixteenth birthday. On the cusp of adulthood, all around Mehitable, there is talk of love and marriages, but she does not feel ready and wants to keep enjoying her current life.

After Mehitable rejects the troublesome Anson Smudge, tragedy strikes. Anson accidentally starts a fatal fire that claims Mehitable’s family’s lives, leaving her to face the turn of the century alone. Years pass, and she slowly learns to live with her grief but is still visited by the ghost of Anson every night. After moving with her friend Polly and her husband Reuben to rural upstate New York, Mehitable begins to see countless souls of soldiers from past wars, and there she finds her calling. By helping these lost souls, will Mehitable find a way to move on?

She Sees Ghost is a perfect choice for readers who like multifaceted stories with paranormal elements, historical fiction, and Christian influences. Fans of coming-of-age stories will especially like She Sees Ghosts as the story centers around Mehitable’s struggles and her journey to help lost souls. Some books are driven by action, while others allow the characters to unveil the truth behind their pain. This is a story more akin to the latter. Fitz-Gerald weaves characters that will live in readers’ hearts long after putting the book down.

David Fitz-Gerald has a knack for writing historical fiction with supernatural influences. She Sees Ghosts is the second in the ongoing Adirondack Spirit Series. In this installment, time is a big theme. Mehitable’s story begins at the turn-of-a-century, where she grows up hearing stories of the fight for independence. She experiences a cultural tradition for storytelling where people look into the past for lessons to bring into the future.

A story about love, loss, and the various forms grief can take over the years, Fitz-Gerald’s She Sees Ghosts is a compassionate tale about a woman using her unique gifts to help those around her, living or long passed.

November 10, 2020
SOLSTICE SHADOWS: A VanOps Thriller, Book 2 by Avanti Centrae – Espionage Thriller/Suspense, Historical Thriller,

Something really nasty is afoot in the world as the Russians attempt to build a super quantum computer so powerful that it will be able to hack into America’s computer capabilities, bypassing even our most advanced protection and control or shut down every computer in the U.S.

As we find out about halfway through Solstice Shadows: A VanOps Thriller, the second book in Avanti Centrae’s VanOps thriller series, they’ve run a test of their capabilities by using a prototype to shut down Manila in the Philippines, a city of nearly 14 million people. The test shuts off its electrical power, lights, traffic signals and causes its citizens to tear the city apart. A fine test case for its potential impact on the USA.

All they need to complete their evil system is some rare superconductivity material that appears to have come from a meteorite that allegedly landed on Earth at roughly the same time as Moses led his people out of Egypt. The clue to its location is an ancient star map dating back to those times now in the possession of Maddy Marshall, the heroine of the VanOps’ first book. Also in her possession are slivers of the actual meteorite that she can activate with her mind, giving her the ability to meld with the ancient material and hurl deadly fireballs at an enemy.

It’s a breathless chase across the world as Maddie, her twin brother Will, Maddie’s boyfriend Bear, and a female operative named Jag use the resources of VanOps, shorthand for Vanguard Operations, a secretive CIA unit to uncover the secrets of the star chart and discover whether the meteor even existed and if so where it might be located.

Not only do the four have to constantly fight an assassin from Russia who mysteriously seems to show up wherever the quartet shows up, whether they’re in Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, and a host of other countries, but they have to deal with their own personal struggles. Maddie, for example, vacillates between attaching herself to both Bear and an ex-boyfriend. While Bear must handle his jealousy over Maddie’s attachment to her former boyfriend, Vincent. Will, Maddie’s twin brother, has to deal with the death of his wife while also being attracted to Jag who seems not at all interested in him.

Aside from the fast-paced action, which shares some of Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones” DNA through its chapter-ending cliffhangers and international intrigue, Solstice Shadows features some impressive research into extinct civilizations’ insights into astronomy and structures they built to track the movement of the stars. Be prepared for a physics lesson or two as well as some deep dives into the archeology of pyramids in Mexico and Egypt.

Tying it all together is the not-improbable cyber-attack Russia could launch against the U.S. in the real world. The urgency of trying to find the superconductivity material to thwart a Christmas day attack provides the velocity of this smart, fast International thriller.

Solstice Shadows: A VanOps Thriller won Grand Prize in the 2019 CIBA Global Thrillers Awards for high-stakes thrillers. Find out more about the first book in the VanOps series, The Lost Power, here.

November 1, 2020
MANUFACTURED WITCHES by Michelle Rene – Teen & Y/A LGBT Fiction, Teen & Y/A Wizards & Witches Fantasy Fiction, Teen & Y/A Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Books

Sixteen-year-old Nat is a boxcar kid. It’s the Dust Bowl era, and Nat has lost everything: his grandmother, his family home, and a sense of belonging. He hops trains across Texas in search of a place for himself amid so much loss. Outside of Amarillo, Nat feels a peculiar sensation, a tug from destiny, that pulls him toward the small town of Tanglewood. However, instead of finding a job and some much-needed food, he discovers Polly Jones, a teenager like himself, chained to a post with a sign above her reading, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch.”

Nat can’t bring himself to abandon her to the small-minded, fearful townsfolk and immediately becomes her protector until the arrival of Camille Renoir Lavendou, a local woman who operates Miss Camille’s Home for Wayward Children. No one dares stop Camille from releasing Polly and taking both teens with her because Camille is reputed to be in the “witchin’ business” herself. Nat’s excitement at the prospect of food and a place to stay quickly turns to disbelief and wariness when he steps inside Camille’s sanctuary. What he thought was a ploy on Camille’s part to keep the nosey townsfolk at bay doesn’t seem to be a trick at all when he meets those who are under Camille’s care.

When Polly, too, begins to exhibit extraordinary abilities, Nat begins to feel like an outsider. Despite his limitations, Nat’s intense loyalty quickly leads him into a much more dangerous situation, where his very life may lay in the balance.

For lovers of the paranormal, this novel will be a special treat. Miss Camille’s Home for Wayward Children is a delight in every room. From books that magically fill with stories for a specific reader, to rooms with waterfalls and koi ponds, this realm of possibilities will leave the reader clambering for more and wanting to explore right along with Nat. Although the book would benefit from another round of editing, it is perhaps one of the most compelling novels we’ve read lately. The delight of discovery and fantastic description within the novel will inspire the many magical possibilities that await. While the surface of the plot is innocent, the theme beneath will undoubtedly satisfy.

Nat’s story is one of belonging. Throughout his journey, he has the innate, human need for acceptance and home, not just a physical place to lay his head, but the real need for family and kinship. The Dust Bowl setting plays such an intricate role in this theme because so many Americans searched for what nature and man took from them, their place in the universe. Nat’s story, though fictional, was played out in real-time for millions of people. He has lost everything, his family, his home, his identity. His search and subsequent finding of his place lead to a discovery of himself. Though he often feels he doesn’t belong anywhere ─ not the boxcar, nor the tramp world, nor Camille’s menagerie of unique people ─ Nat comes to see exactly who he is and of what he is capable. Although facing the potential of great danger, Camille, an African American, creates a home for all. She is warned multiple times that she cannot take in white children. Her love for all her “children” is colorblind. Her home is a haven and a place to discover their true identity. Acceptance takes center stage in this novel and leaves the reader wrapped in a cozy hug of belonging.

Manufactured Witches took home the Grand Prize in the 2019 CIBAs in the OZMA Awards for the Best Fantasy Fiction, and First in Category in the Dante Rossetti Awards the same year.

October 29, 2020
BAY of DEVILS by Grahame Shannon – History of the Pacific Northwest USA, Maritime History & Piracy, Mystery/Thriller

Grahame Shannon’s Bay of Devils presents an action-packed mystery/thriller that invites readers on a journey up the Inside Passage, a boating route from Vancouver B.C. to Juneau, Alaska, in search of long-lost treasure. Who wouldn’t want to tag along with the protagonist, Sean Gray, archeologist, PI, sailor, jack-of-all-trades, and all-around good guy on a high-seas adventure?

Sean lives on the Tangled Moon, “a 41-foot Olin Stephen sloop,” and we realize we are in the capable hands of a seasoned mariner in both Sean Gray and Grahame Shannon. The hawsers, sterns, stern cleats, and mooring lines create a lingo not only boating enthusiasts will recognize but will be apparent to even a landlubber. Shannon expertly weaves yachting into the setting and adventure.

Darya Hubert, the lawyer to Elizabeth Hadley, sets this story in motion. When her lawyer doesn’t sufficiently impress Sean, Ms. Hadley, Lizzie, the attractive elderly widow, calls on him. She explains her story and shares a fifty-year-old letter that has recently come into her possession. It refers to a box that could hold Alaska riches from the Yukon gold rush. She asks Sean to lead an expedition aboard her yacht, Lady L, to retrieve the package.

Sean may be reluctant at first, but the story’s intrigue captures his imagination, and he soon finds himself logging hours of research before he even accepts the job. We follow Sean as he works the waterfront bars to troll for information and becomes a target in the process, and that’s only the first couple of chapters.

Sean accepts the case and finds himself with a unique and quirky cast of characters to help crew the yacht. Sean must also contend with a rooky yacht captain, a crusty old engineer/mechanic/deckhand, a muscular deckhand/bodyguard, and a parrot who spews profanity at the sight of Sean. And last but not least, Cindy, his love interest, who joins the crew as sous chef so he can keep her safe, a plan with good intentions. Except no one is who they appear to be, and just as high winds and rough waters make it difficult to stand on any seafaring vessel, Grahame Shannon keeps us off balance as the story takes its delicious twists and tantalizing turns.

We cruise from Vancouver up Inside Passage to the bays of Farragut, and Thomas, also referred to as Bay of Devils, in Alaska. Shannon blurs the boundaries of mystery/thriller and historical with elements of non-fiction to build a world typical of the late 1960s, but with the added flair of the nautical.

There is nothing typical about this world filled with moneyed widows, and playboy businessmen turned thug. Sean Gray must navigate the tumultuous waters of all these worlds as well as the immigrant experience of his love-interest Miss Cynthia Lu, a tough broad extraordinaire of Chinese descent and Sean’s match, for sure.

Shannon’s ability to keep his tricks up his sleeve will delight readers as the plot slowly unfolds. It is a classic whodunit that will thrill and amaze readers and fans of the mystery thriller. Our Sean Gray may not be James Bond, but Shannon creates a flawed protagonist who is sympathetic and easy to fall in love with or admire, take your pick.

Bay of Devils is a page-turner from beginning to end and does not disappoint, ever. The action never stops and will likely keep readers glued to the page well into the night.

October 27, 2020
CHASING DEMONS by John Hansen – War & Military Action Fiction, Westerns, Action & Adventure Fiction

In the first several pages of Chasing Demons, a novel of the Old West not long after the American Civil War, the following happens to U.S. Army Private Gus O’Grady: he kills two Apache Indians, saves the lives of a troop of U.S. soldiers, kills two more Indians, kills a bad guy, winds up being mistaken for a man who may have robbed a bank of $20,000 in gold, and gets arrested for possibly being the man who raped a lass in an Arizona town populated by Mormons, and meets a woman he thinks is far too good for him. Oh yes, and he deserts the Army after 13 years.

That’s just for openers.

Gus is a complex character. He knows his strengths—he’s an excellent soldier—but understands his weaknesses—not being fond of authority and deathly afraid of the effects of alcohol on him. He is also awkward in the extreme when it comes to women. He doesn’t shoot anyone that doesn’t deserve to be shot and lets his nobler impulses rule when others might run or turn to wickedness. He hopes his deserter status remains a secret, but it keeps on leaking out at the most inopportune times despite his impressive list of good deeds. Trying to forge a new path for himself in the dog-eat-dog, unforgiving times of our post-Civil War western frontier is no easy task.

Gus’s life, his demons, and his existential quandaries could well have been produced as a film noir set in fog-shrouded San Francisco during the late 1940s, shot in black and white, bad, bad guys and good-hearted dames with a past, bodies falling left and right, a sense of foreboding as the central character tries to escape his fate even as we well know he never will. No less an authority than the puritanical motion picture industry Production Code of the 1930s laid out the fate that awaits guys like Gus, even the best of them: “Sympathy with a person who sins is not the same as sympathy with the sin or crime of which he is guilty. We may feel sorry for the plight of the murderer or even understand the circumstances which led him to his crime: We may not feel sympathy with the wrong which he has done.”

Poor Gus . . . or maybe not. The book keeps his ultimate fate to the final page. No fair peeking!

Chasing Demons is for anyone who enjoys a fast-paced well-written, articulate novel. The memorable characters, clever plot, and terrifically entertaining story is every reason for you to wander into your favorite saloon, listen to the piano player banging out “Buffalo Girl Won’t you Come Out Tonight” on his tinny piano, watch the Five Card stud game over in the corner, then sit down at the bar, order a whiskey, two fingers if you please, and start reading Chasing Demons. Oh, and keep your revolver handy. You never know when you’ll need it.

Chasing Demons won 1^st in Category in the CIBA 2018 LARAMIE Awards for Western Fiction.

October 23, 2020
WHISPERS by Lynn Yvonne Moon – Family Drama, Teen & Y/A Physical & Emotional Abuse, Teen & Y/A Sexual Abuse

Whispers by Lynn Yvonne Moon explores the issue of incest through the life of twelve-year-old Musetta, whose father has just died. We meet Musetta at her father’s funeral and realize that this girl is dealing with serious issues. Still, more than grief, she’s filled with rage – and relief. And we cannot blame her. Whispers is filled with enough intrigue and family secrets to glue readers’ eyeballs to the page and hug their parents when they reach the end of the tale.

Musetta can’t get the attention of her grieving mother, and she’s not sure who she can turn to for help. Who will believe her story? But she knows what happened to her. After her father’s funeral, she believes the Friday night ritual of rape is over and that the molestation will stop. However, it’s not quite that easy.

First off, there are voices in her bedroom walls – and worse, the molestation continues. Is it her father’s ghost? She can’t go to her mother for help, and she won’t go to the law unless her mother is by her side. Who would believe her over her late father’s reputation as an upstanding citizen and the favorite local judge?

But Musetta isn’t alone. Her friends hear the ghostly voices and soon believe her. As they band together, taking on the role of detectives, they have no way of knowing how much danger lies ahead. But when one of her friends is abducted, then another, it will take all the courage and resourcefulness she has to continue on and to discover precisely who is behind the creepy whispers and the horrible abuse before it’s too late.

Lynn Yvonne Moon develops a protagonist who will search for the truth no matter where it leads, and no matter what, she discovers about her family. Soon, she uncovers the lies of her grandparents.

Her father was a twin? It takes several more visits with her grandparents and a box filled with photos and papers before Musetta has the proof she needs. But will it only get her into more trouble? Of course.

This award-winning, page-turner of a novel reveals the reality that generational secrets have power. Secrets that put Musetta and all of her friends in great peril. Musetta’s determination to put the pieces of her family puzzle together led her further along the path to her family’s undoing. Because what she uncovers will have readers blood running cold.

Lynn Yvonne Moon unravels her complicated plot on this sensitive topic with a deft hand. Careful readers will pick up tiny clues that will keep them turning pages as we root for Musetta in this hair-raising tale of family intrigue and abuse.

Whispers won the CIBA 2018 DANTE ROSSETTI Award for Young Adult fiction novels.

October 22, 2020
The MADWOMAN of PREACHER’S COVE by Joy Ross Davis – Paranormal Ghost Thrillers, Occult Fiction, Witch/Wizard Thrillers

Award-winning author, Joy Ross Davis’ latest work, The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove, ventures beyond the paranormal into the surreal. Like Medusa on a bad hair day, the lives of characters are intertwined and twisted in a snaky snarl of conflicting human desires, terrifying inexplicable events, and the lingering afterlives of ancient, supernatural beings.

Davis gifts us with a 21st-century legend, replete with mythological themes and creatures, and snippets of folklore and superstition melded with documented vagaries of weather, obscure herpetology, and creates a mystical potion worthy of Circe. In other words, Davis gives us a thrilling read!

Rumors about suspicious deaths have put Preacher’s Cove, Alabama, a small, historic town notorious for powerful, killer storms, on the map. Hap Murray, Huntsville’s Channel 12 field reporter, with family ties to the Cove, arrives in town on assignment, armed with only limited knowledge of the town’s history of inexplicable deaths. The rumors speculate that the local pastor may be involved.

Hap meets the beautiful, provocative owner of Cove’s Inn, Libby Arbuckle, when he first arrives. She is a woman with many secrets—a woman with a history. When Libby, along with Chief of Police Riggs, join Hap in the search for the truth, their ensuing relationship proves integral to Hap’s investigation.

During his stay, Hap experiences supernatural events that sometimes make him question his sanity, and he already has issues. Like PTSD, he is plagued by periodic, severe headaches accompanied by fragmented, bizarre visual and auditory hallucinations along with phatomasia, he smells things that are not there, which renders him anxious, fearful, and confused. These are never far from his mind, along with the guilt he feels over losing the love of his life and their child through his own failure to act.

Little does Hap know that the affliction and emotional angst he experiences are pieces of the puzzle he’s challenged to solve. Or, that when Preacher’s Cove welcomes him, a chain of events are triggered that change the shape of residents’ lives forever, in ways that no one could ever predict.

Joy Ross Davis has crafted an eerie, twisted plot where reality is warped—slightly out of focus, keeping the reader off-balance and engaged. The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove satisfies dreamers’ needs for a taste of magic, the desire for good to triumph over evil, and the reassurance of a benevolent all-powerful being that is always available.

The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove won Grand Prize in the CIBAs for Paranormal Fiction.

October 20, 2020
The SKEPTICAL PHYSICK (The Stockbridge Series, Book 2) by Gail Avery Halverson – Historical Romance, Romantic Suspense, Renaissance Literary Criticism

In the second in a series by author Halverson, an aristocratic, intellectually curious young woman has fallen in love with a young physician, a commoner whose radical experimentations have jeopardized his reputation. The couple is just recovering from the professional and personal rigors of dealing with London’s plague victims when the city is overwhelmed by fire. Their services are needed now more than ever.

Supported by mentor hospital administrator Father Hardwicke in his medical endeavors, Simon McKensie is finally on the verge of marrying the woman he adores, Catherine Abbott. Even the wealthy, protective Aunt Viola has come to terms with the fact that, though she might not approve the match on social grounds, she sees that Catherine will be happy with Simon.

If winning her aunt’s approval and administering aid to plague victims wasn’t enough, just days before their planned nuptials, a fire breaks out that threatens to delay them yet again. Worse, Catherine sustains a severe injury on her way to the hospital to help Simon treat burn victims. It seems that there may not be a wedding. But Simon acts quickly and effectively to save the life of his beloved, exchanging wedding vows with her even as she is barely recuperating from her accident.

The couple enjoys a short respite of marital bliss until their world comes crashing down again as Simon, experimenting with the new innovative field of blood transfusion, is accused of the murder of one of his patients. It will take all of Catherine’s energy and ingenuity to try to save him from the gallows, as enemies who have long despised his radical approaches rush forward to heap accusations on him.

Halverson follows the storyline begun in her earlier novel, The Boundary Stone. She has built and now sustains the romance between Catherine and Simon – emphasizing his scientific daring and her unusual willingness to step outside the expected role of women of her time and class – against a background of chaos, terror, and death. The author has drawn heavily on factual material about the horrendous fire that began in a little London bakery and destroyed thousands of houses and churches, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, leaving up to 70,000 homeless. Aggravating factors depicted included the Lord Mayor’s selfish unwillingness to act to contain the fire in its early hours, while in contrast, the rather flippant, fun-loving King Charles II steps in once the true extent of the damage becomes evident. Both these real people are characters in the narrative, along with Lady Wilbraham, a brilliant but unsung female architect, but will she be able to save McKensie from the gallows? Halverson brings many nameless figures in history to life to create a vibrant reality and a dynamic plot. Something all historical fiction fans crave.

With a loving and highly adventurous duo, readers will be looking for Part 3 of this impressive saga.

The Skeptical Physick won the CIBA 2019 Grand Prize in the CHATELAINE Book Awards for romantic fiction.

October 16, 2020