Vita Maglia by Brit Malorie

In Vita Maglia, the spiritual realm is just beyond the fabric of the real world.

Within this other world, spiritual entities like souls, angels, and demons are physical realities.

The story begins with a mystery on a dangerous island called Kadera where reality seems “thinned” and visitors experience a strange ability to sense other people’s emotions.

Why is the island so strange? What is the subject of Zander’s father’s unending studies?

Why does that one person, at the start of the book, die screaming with her skin torn to shreds?

The story answers all of these questions in a timely and satisfying manner.

A warning: don’t start reading it unless you have time to finish it. It’s engrossing and addictive.

Brit Malorie has crafted an extraordinary fantasy world.

It absolutely hooked me. I started to read it in the morning and ended up finishing it in one afternoon.

I felt that the characterizations were strong for this genre, particularly the antagonist.

Malorie’s villain, Lynch Katlan, is totally believable, psychotic, and terrifying.

I haven’t been this frightened while reading about a character since Ramsay Bolten in George R.R. Martin’s series. Seriously.

Further on in the tale, I felt that we didn’t spend enough time in Maglia. Yes, we talked about it a lot and the characters were clearly focused on getting there, but we weren’t “there.”

So, if I had any criticism for this story, that’s it.

I wanted to spend more time in this fantastic world experiencing the different creatures and environments.

Strangely enough, I had the same complaint about Jeff Vandermeer’s Authority.

Recommended for readers who long for escape from reality and fantasy fans.

Thank you to Goodreads First Reads and the publisher for a free copy of this book for review purposes.

Thanks for reading!

The Last to See Me by M. Dressler

The Last to See Me is a fascinating story set in a world where ghosts are real and if they’re hanging around, they can bring down property values.

So, if you find you have an unruly poltergeist in your closet, you call a hunter to put them into the “eternal sleep.”

The tale is told from Emma, a ghost’s, point of view.

“My hearing is so much finer than when I walked alive and with a heartbeat. It’s something I’ve had a century to ponder: how much does the beating heart of one creature drown out the heart of another?” pg 6

I found this story to be absolutely captivating.

“At the turn of the millennium, when the hunts began, I was as scared as any ghost could be. But fear, in the end, does a body no good. If you let yourself be afraid of what can kill you, it weakens you. So you can’t let yourself be afraid.” pg 21.

Inbetween Emma’s fight to remain alive, in a manner of speaking, we get to learn about her life before her death. So, there’s a bit of historical fiction thrown in the mix.

I think M. Dressler has written a fantastic ghost story.

“But I can tell you that the reason you felt something was hiding under your bed, all those years ago, is precisely because it was. It just knew better than to show itself to you.” pg 102

I found myself cheering for Emma, even when the story takes a few surprisingly dark turns.

“But understand and hear me, my friend. Nothing dead, no matter how interesting or difficult, is worth keeping.” pg 129.

Also, I was amazed at how Dressler managed to weave various elements of the story into its conclusion.

Take your time and read carefully, I think you’ll be as delighted with this tale as I was.

Highly recommended for those who like not-so-scary stories or slightly spooky historical fiction.

Thanks for reading!

The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo

A historical fiction about a French King, his mistress, his minister, his mother, an aspiring actor with a secret past and a secret society with hidden knowledge that could change the world.

“A chief minister is dying, yet people are interested only in counting the supporters and detractors of an entertainer…” pg 9, ebook.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for The Sun King Conspiracy.

I felt like it was trying to be a mystery like The Da Vinci Code with the complexity of an epic historical fiction. It didn’t quite reach either pinnacle.

“According to Colbert’s report, the murderers took nothing else of any worth from my apartments. From this, I deduce that their only concern was to seize those papers.” pg 36, ebook.

It was probably just me, but I kept getting the ministers and their roles confused. Also, their alliances and reasons why they hated each other never really made sense to me.

“The truth is,” said the scholar with a sad smile, “that this question of succession seems to be the only matter that interests anyone in Paris, when the real subject that ought to occupy us, the only one worthy of any interest, is entirely different: it concerns the stability of the Kingdom.” pg 142, ebook.

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It felt like there were nuances to the court relationships that were never explicitly stated.

Maybe the author assumed a familiarity with the court of the Sun King that I don’t possess.

The whole secret society part of this story was just flat. I felt like I’d read the same conspiracy in half a dozen other books.

“I am more aware of this than anyone else. I have paid so dearly for it that my belief in its ultimate success is perhaps the only thing that still keeps me alive…” pg 229, ebook.

I didn’t connect with any of the cast of characters either. They were so cookie cutter.

Here’s hoping I like the next read more. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott

A girl from Indiana goes to Hollywood and ends up taking care of Hollywood royalty in A Touch of Stardust.

The reader gets a behind the scenes look at the making of Gone With the Wind and the private, slightly dysfunctional lives of Carol Lombard and Clarke Gable.

It was fun learning about what went into the creation of Gone With the Wind. Those parts of the book sort of read like a Hollywood-fan magazine, but better written.

The dialogue in this book is snappy and smart, like a Bogie and Bacall film.

I loved the heroine and how she pulled herself up by the bootstraps to make it in Hollywood at a time when very few women did.

Overall, it’s a great story. I absolutely loved this book up until the ending which I hated.

We discussed this read in my book club and some folks liked the ambiguous feel of the ending. I was not one of those.

Recommended for readers who can handle an ending that might make them say: “Huh?” or “No!”

Thanks for reading!

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

The Lost City of Z is a well-researched tale by journalist David Grann about Percy Fawcett, the intrepid explorer who disappeared in the Amazon jungle on his search for the city he called ‘Z’.

The part in this book that I appreciated the most was Fawcett’s struggle to learn about and appreciate the cultures of the people he discovered in the Amazon, while at the same time, juggling his own biases against any culture other than his own.

In some ways, he was a product of his time, but the fact that Fawcett at least tried to understand different cultures made him different than other explorers of his age.

It’s only a small part in a larger tale full of adventure, exploration and discovery.

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The tid-bits about the jungle, I first learned about in The River of Doubt by Candice Millard.

The narrative in River of Doubt was more focused than this novel, but Millard was talking about one trip, not multiple trips or explorers.

There’s a lot of weird stuff that goes on in the jungle. Read either of these books to find out all about it.

Recommended for fans of non-fiction. If you’re looking for a more straight-forward adventure tale than this wandering title, choose River of Doubt.

For readers who like book-to-screen movie adaptations, The Lost City of Z was made into a film in 2016.

Thanks for reading!

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Sex and sleep with a marked individual is the way to the city of Palimpsest, a mystical and deadly place that exists beyond the borders of our world.

The first time you cross over, your spirit is bound with four other travelers. For what purpose, no one knows.

“Where you go in Palimpsest, you are bound to these strangers who happened onto Orlande’s salon just when you did, and you will go nowhere, eat no capon or dormouse, drink no oversweet port that they do not also taste, and they will visit no whore that you do not also feel beneath you, and until that ink washes from your feet… you cannot breathe but that they breathe also.” pgs 4-5, ebook.

A visit to the city leaves a visible mark on your skin, a map of the location you visited. You cannot travel beyond the borders of where you have already been, unless you sleep with someone who has a different map.

“It’s like a ticket. And once you’ve bought your ticket, and been to the circus, ridden the little red train, then you can sort of see other people who’ve done it, too. They walk a certain way. Smell a certain way. Their whole body becomes like an accent.” pg 42, ebook.

Palimpsest is so beyond belief, some people who have been there can’t believe it is more than a dream, at first.

“But it’s a dream,” Oleg insists. “It was fun. We won’t even remember it in the morning.” “You don’t know anything, Oleg,” sighs Gabriel. pg 73, ebook.

But, no one has ever woken up from a dream covered in blood.

Palimpsest showcases Catherynne Valente’s mammoth imagination and descriptive powers. The pieces of the city she allows readers to glimpse draw you in and make you want to see more.

Each location is unique, has its own backstory and feel. It’s an extraordinary work of urban fantasy.

The gates of sleep are two, a gate of ivory and a gate of horn. He had been horrified as a child, picturing a great door of tangled antlers and tusks. Surely that was the gate of Palimpsest.” pg 144, ebook.

It’s disturbing to read the main characters become more and more desperate to re-enter Palimpsest.

The way they seek out sex with strangers reminded me of a drug addict’s desperate search. The cost of entering the city is too high.

It ruins peoples’ lives.

I read Palimpsest years ago and couldn’t finish it then because the narration made me feel sick.

I think the trouble was that I used to put myself into the stories I read, imagining myself as the hero, villain, every part.

I’ve ceased doing that, at the cost of some grand adventures. But, in hindsight, it also allows me to navigate my way through stories I would not have been able to touch back then.

Because of its content, I’d recommend Palimpsest only for mature readers and fans of urban fiction. It’s a strange trip, but full of wonders if you can endure the cost to get there.

Thanks for reading!

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

A classic exploration of spirituality and consciousness by the former Harvard professor turned drug-fueled, then clean, spiritual seeker, Ram Dass.

What a strange book.

The first part is Ram Dass‘s life story.

He has trouble relating exactly how his guru changed his life. He also has trouble expressing his life changing spiritual insights.

This could perhaps be because of all the LSD he experimented with, but no judgement here.

I think Dass could have added another couple hundred pages to the first part and still probably not fully described his experience.

The next section of the book is block text printed on, what seems to be, brown paper bags. Monty Python-esque photos are drawn in, and sometimes behind, the text.

It reads like a stream-of-consciousness, path to enlightenment, how-to lecture.

Some of it is worthwhile, but I can’t sugarcoat it: It’s pretty far out there.

My description doesn’t really do it justice. Perhaps Be Here Now is one of those books that needs to be “experienced” rather than read.

The last section was a “cook book” on how to live an enlightened lifestyle.

If you have a question about how an enlightened person lives, it’s probably included in there.

Dass elucidates how he believes you should eat, sleep, breathe, interact with others, think, meditate, raise a family, form a commune and so on.

I didn’t like it because it felt too brain-washy, cult-ish.

Dass attempts to put the reader’s mind at ease to all of the strictures. He mentions that one needn’t be concerned about family or social responsibilities because, once you reach the ultimate level, you’ll realize that none of those things are real anyway.

Looking back on my review, it seems as if I don’t like Ram Dass, but I do.

I rather enjoyed his Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart and a documentary that I saw about him once called Fierce Grace.

I too have had life experiences that have led me to the belief that human kind is here to “be high” and not just to “get high.”

I don’t buy into the idea that life has to be lived a certain way to get certain results.

And, perhaps because I haven’t personally had the experience yet, I don’t get the whole guru relationship thing. I know it’s my western background speaking, but there you have it.

Recommended for spiritual seekers, but don’t forget to trust your own inner guidance.

Thanks for reading!

Speakeasy by Alisa Smith

Lena Stillman is a codebreaker during World War II. But she hasn’t always been a hero.

During the depression, she robbed banks with Bill Bagley and the Clockwork Gang.

What is she going to do now that the past seems to have caught up with her?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Speakeasy had some interesting elements, but the story suffered from a back and forth narrative and flat characters.

“I spread my papers out in front of me, and at first they all looked the same: a random mix of roman letters divided always into five characters with a space between each set, so no word lengths were revealed. I was searching for any repetitions.” loc 15, ebook.

The story is told from Lena’s perspective and diary entries of one of the members of her old gang.

“Bill Bagley was being punished because he had failed at something for which he possessed genius.” loc 80, ebook.

The back-and-forth storytelling was jarring. I liked the stories separately, but together, it didn’t really work.

They interrupted the flow of each other. I think it might have fit together more smoothly in a Part I/Part II presentation rather than interspersed.

I think Bill Bagley, one of the central characters, didn’t have the depth required to pull off this story.

He’s supposed to be this charismatic, brilliant criminal who inspires the men to risk their lives again and again, and also captures Lena’s heart.

Bagley has some failings, but, initially, there must have been something to him to draw the gang together.

Instead, from the start, he comes off as a volatile jerk.

We meet Bagley as he’s denying the parentage of a child who looks just like him: “This un ain’t mine and don’t tell me again that it is,” he said, thrusting the baby back to a lady with burning red cheeks.” loc 80, ebook.

He doesn’t improve from there.

“I returned from a visit with Bill, received a threatening note from him, and now this. He must have a copy of it and wanted to hold it over my head.” loc 741, ebook.

I guess I just never understood what Lena saw in him.

Also, for a genius code breaker, she doesn’t seem to be able to puzzle out the people around her very well.

“My morals were just not like other people’s, because unlike the somnolent majority I saw society’s problems. In my youth I had been misguided, and picked the wrong way of lashing out against an unfair system. But I had left the gang behind, and found a greater ease in my soul.” loc 1781, ebook.

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There’s a twist that occurs during Lena’s code breaking era that I saw coming from miles away. And I’m not particularly good at calling plot twists.

My favorite part of this book were the gang-era years. My heart was in my throat during most of those chapters.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t carry the rest of this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book.

Thanks for reading!

The Wicked We Have Done (Chaos Theory, #1) by Sarah Harian

In a not-too-distant future, humanity has developed the technology to see inside the mind of criminals. Through simulations and tracking responses, the law claims to have the ability to measure motivation and “goodness.”

Evalyn Ibarra says she is guilty, but not of the crime she is on trial for. Rather than rely on a jury to prove her innocence, she chooses the “compass room,” the new technology, to prove her innocence.

If she is truly evil, the compass room will kill her. If she is innocent, she will walk free.

“My throat tightens, but there is no time to reflect. I had months to imagine this moment, months to mourn. That time is over, because today is the beginning of my inevitable execution in the Compass Room.”pg 7, ebook.

I found the premise of this book to be interesting, but it suffered in its execution and characterizations. Both were rather flat.

“The tension after Stella leaves is awkward and volatile. … We’ve been given provisions, so it’s obvious that, if this is the Compass Room, we are meant to head out. It’s either that or stay in a house full of psychopaths.” pg 25, ebook.

Did I mention that the compass room tries more than one criminal at a time? Very Hunger Games-esque.

“The one thing I do know about the Compass Room is that this test is supposed to see who you truly are, despite your research. Despite good acting or the lies you tell yourself.” pg 27, ebook.

Wouldn’t it be something if detecting evil was as simple as marking a chemical or hormonal response of the brain?

But then, of course, you wander into the problem: what if the technology gets it wrong? Or glitches?

“A terrorist attack finally convinced the Supreme Court. All charged in the bombing were forced to undergo the Compass Room’s exam. And they were all found to be, as reporters said on the news, ‘morally tarnished.'” pg 12, ebook.

The thing about execution is that there are no second chances or second guesses. Evalyn believes herself to be innocent. Will the room think so too?

I think if the author had fully explored the compass room and the psyches of those involved, I may have enjoyed it more.

Photo by Ignacio Palu00e9s on Pexels.com

As it was, I felt like we only skimmed the surface of what was possible. It lacked complexity because of the number of characters she wrote into the story.

Also, the author includes some half-baked romances, perhaps to prove this is in the “new adult” genre? I don’t believe it added much.

There’s also some non-spooky horror elements, that are meant to evoke the harrowing nature of the compass room. They felt overdone.

If you must read The Wicked We Have Done, I recommend borrowing it from the library.

Thanks for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Tag: Reviews

Vita Maglia by Brit Malorie

The Last to See Me by M. Dressler

The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo

A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

Speakeasy by Alisa Smith

The Wicked We Have Done (Chaos Theory, #1) by Sarah Harian

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