THE ANGEL OF HIGHGATE by Vaughn Entwistle

PUBLISHER: Titan, 12/2015

GENRE: Historical Fiction

MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: It is October 1859, and notorious philanderer Lord Geoffrey Thraxton cares for nothing except his own amusement. After humiliating an odious literary critic and surviving the resulting duel, he boasts of his contempt for mortality, and insults the attending physician. It is a mistake he will come to regret. When Thraxton becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman who appears to him one fog-shrouded night in Highgate Cemetery, he unwittingly provides the doctor with the perfect means to punish a man with no fear of death…

MY THOUGHTS: This was pretty interesting and never boring. I like Dr. Silas Garrette and his jars of children best of all. He's pretty unique and sadistic. I really don't see the point of main character Geoffrey's best friend Algernon being in here other than to help him fight off mobsters during one scene. I think the 'angel' Aurelia is pretty bland and found her relationship with Geoffrey to be very underdeveloped and rushed. Two kidnappings involving her were too much. I like the cast of mobsters and what a motley crew they were. The action involving them and Geffrey and Algernon was too over the top though. 

ONE DUKE DOWN by Anna Bennett

PUBLISHER: St. Martin's, 1/24/2023
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SERIES: Rogues to Lovers, book 2
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: Miss Poppy Summers is determined to keep her family’s fishing business afloat. Her poor widowed father has fallen ill, and her foolhardy brother has moved to London, leaving her precious little time to read or pursue her own dreams. But she’ll do anything for her family, so she cheerfully spends mornings in her rowboat, casting her nets. The very last thing Poppy expects or wants to find tangled in them is a dangerously attractive man. Especially one with a head wound—who’s convinced he’s a duke.

Andrew Keane is the Duke of Hawking, but he’s having the devil of a time convincing his fiery-haired rescuer of that fact. The truth is he came to the seaside resort of Bellehaven Bay to escape his life in London. Unfortunately, someone in Bellehaven wants to kill him—and he intends to find out who. He implores Poppy to tend to his injuries and hide him on her beach, reasoning it will be easier to find his attacker if that man assumes Keane is already dead. She wants no part of the scheme but can’t refuse the generous sum he offers in exchange for food and shelter while he recovers. It’s a mutually beneficial business arrangement…nothing more.

Under Poppy’s care, Keane regains his strength—and a sense of purpose. As they work together to solve the puzzle of his would-be murderer, he’s dazzled by her rapier wit and adventurous spirit; she’s intrigued by his mysterious air and protective streak. Though Poppy’s past gives her every reason to mistrust someone like Keane, the seawalls around her heart crumble in the storm of their passion. But when clues hint at the prime suspect in Keane’s attempted murder, Poppy must decide where her loyalties lie. Torn between the world she’s always known and the one she’s always dreamed of, she’ll need true love for a shot at her fairytale ending.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a light read though serious topics are explored but not with any depth, like abandonment and attempted murder. The story is 330 pages and the time span is about four months. The cover is really pretty.

I really like green-eyed Keane. I don't have much to say about him other than he's really into Poppy and isn't disrespectful to her in any way. There's no friction or miscommunication between them at any time, which is something I do like in my historicals.

Poppy's your average likable twenty-three-year-old heroine who's out there getting it done, helping to financially support her brother and father, who's ailing. I like that she doesn't come from money and knows how to take care of herself.

I have to say I was very excited to unravel the mystery of who's trying to kill Keane but dang, it was lackluster, to say the least. Keane was unbelievably forgiving in that matter to those involved.

I never thought the day would come that I'd complain about too many sex scenes in a book. I've been reading historical romances for 29 years this year, since I was a teen, and I can't really tolerate them anymore and generally skim them. This story has four of them, three of which I believe are descriptive, which is too many for a non-erotic novel of only 330 pages.

Complaints: Pet peeves of mine are when hero/heroin ages aren't given, or the year. If Keane's age was given, I missed it, and the year this story began isn't mentioned. A major pet peeve of mine is when authors put modern day ways of typing into historical stories. Here are two examples of that from this novel, "Let.Go." and "You.Are.Mine." There are two typos in the book too. The heroine has auburn hair yet it's said to be 'strawberry' colored too, which is nothing at all like auburn. Also Poppy has "blue-green" eyes that were once described as being sapphire! Overall this was a decent read.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

THE GOOD SON by Todd Strasser, book vs film

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books, 1993
MY GRADE: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: Here is the chilling story of a young boy sent to live with relatives after the death of his mother, and of his prankish cousin, who is responsible for increasingly dangerous "accidents".

MY THOUGHTS: Though I'd seen the film a few years ago I didn't realize until recently it was novelized at the time of its release. I read it since I like the film. The novel's better. I don't like Macaulay Culkin in this role at all. I think he's quite awful. Fortunately when I read it I didn't have trouble picturing someone else as Henry/Macaulay. Henry comes across as more sinister in the novel and that's another reason why novel is better than film. Since the novel is only 212 pages, it's pretty condensed, going from one incident to another. Had it been longer, with more dialogue between incidents, I think it could have been a 5-star read for me.

-There's a scene in the novel when Mark is climbing the tree where Henry is and the piece of wood he's stepping on breaks, causing Mark to dangle. He later looks at the piece of wood and sees that it had been partially cut with a saw, making it easier to break when stepped on. That part with Mark discovering what Henry had done wasn't in the film.

-Richard, Henry's dead two-year-old brother who died in the bathtub, his whale toy that he'd play with in the tub was changed to a yellow rubber duck in the film.

-Henry and Mark are playing on train tracks before Henry hurts the dog. A train's coming and Henry waits until the last minute to get off but that scene's not in the film at all.

-Later, Mark threatens Henry with a screwdriver but in the film it's changed to scissors. I think it's during that scene in the novel when Henry threatens to harm his mother but it's not really said in those words in the film.

Henry's Freddy Kruegeresque green and red jacket wasn't lost on me.

PROM DRESS by Lael Littke

PUBLISHER: Scholastic, 1989
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: The pretty lace dress that Robin finds in her myterious employer's attic does not look deadly; it looks perfect for the prom. Robin cannot resist the power the dress holds over her an decides to 'borrow' it to wear to prom. But the dress has a horrifying secret and lures innocent, unsuspecting girls into an evil and terrifying nightmare.

MY THOUGHTS/POSSIBLE SPOILERS: This was pretty entertaining and suspenseful. I like how the possessed dress came to be in each person's possession. Robin is the main character. She's in high school and looks after an elderly woman named Miss Catherine. Catherine lets Robin choose between two many-decades-old dresses that she's seen in Catherine's attic but Robin wants the one she can't have, the lacy cream colored one. It's the one Catherine wore herself to her own prom way back when. Catherine has a deep secret that's revealed at the end and I liked it. I didn't see it coming. I like too that the dress goes on to be owned by another unsuspecting young woman, Natalie.

A tragic accident happens to Robin at prom. The dress punished her for wearing it. It ends up in the hands of another thief, twenty-one-year-old nurse, Felicia. I really like what the dress is doing to her. Once she takes the dress off I don't care for this part of the story as it gets real stupid and the slightest bit convoluted. The next girl, Nicole, who's either in high school or college, I was never sure which, comes by the dress via Felicia's abandonment of it. She steals it and in a tragic accident, is severely injured. That injury, like Robin's, affects the rest of her life.

This book could have been even better if it could have been more than 167 pages. I was disappointed to see that Robin's 14-year-old sister, Gabrielle, didn't get punished for stealing it....and wanting to steal Robin's boyfriend, Tyler. I first read this as a teenager around 1993.

EMMET OTTER'S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS by Russell Hoban

PUBLISHER: Parents' Magazine Press, 1971

READ FREE: link
MY RATING: 5 stars

SYNOPSIS: Both Ma Otter and her son, Emmet, hope to win the $50 talent show prize and surprise each other with a special Christmas present.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a sweet story about a poor mother and son who steal an item from each other without the other knowing so that each one of them can use the item to help them win a talent contest. Neither knows the other one is entering the same contest. They want to buy a Christmas present for the other.

The 1977 48 minute CBC film adaptation is better, more detailed. It aired on HBO in 1978 then went to ABC in 1980, I think. I know it from ABC in the very early 80s. The Riverbottom Nightmare Band doesn't make an appearance in the book until they're at the talent contest but in the film they're introduced early on. In the book they have a female lead singer, Mary Jane Chipmunk. Emmet and his crew never meet them in the book.

Irma Coon and Harvey Muskrat aren't in the film but are in the book briefly. Some of the first names were kept but the last names, which is the type of animals they are, were changed for some reason; Wendell Coon in the book's name was changed to Wendell Porcupine in the film. Charlie Beaver's name was changed to Charlie Muskrat. I think Ester Snapper in the book was changed to Hetty Muskrat in the film. In fact, lots of names were changed. The Nightmare band in the book's name was changed to Riverbottom Nightmare Band, which I like a lot better. Those were just some examples of name changes. I'm sure the songs were changed too.

The illustrations are full-color and very nice. Russell's wife at the time, Lillian, did the artwork. 

My favorite image from the book is when Emmet and his mother are playing on a slide, pictured below. That's a really fun scene in the film too.

The late author's website says this book was written in 1969 but not published until 1971. 

DRESSED TO KILL by Brian De Palma and Campbell Black, book vs. film

PUBLISHER: Bantam, 1/1980
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: A psychiatrist's patient is brutally murdered by a mysterious blonde woman with an obviously troubled sexual history. A call girl witnesses it and is now on the murderer's list to kill.

MY THOUGHTS/SPOILERS: Campbell Black wrote the novel that's based on Brian De Palma's screenplay. I like the novel better than the film. The novel gives us more background on Bobbi, one of Dr. Robert Elliott's transgendered patients. We get a few flashback scenes of her childhood that aren't in the film. Also not in the film are two scenes of her chatting with men in bars.

I don't like Bobbi's reason for killing. I think the reason's really stupid. I also think Nancy Allen's acting was terrible. I thought the scene where Kate meets the man at the museum lasted far too long and that the scene in the taxi with him on the way from the museum was ridiculous and unnecessary. Her finding out the man had STD's was completely pointless considering she got murdered immediately afterward.

Some differences between novel and film are:

-Kate Myers' (Angie Dickenson) last name was changed to Miller in the film. 

-Near the beginning of the novel, Bobbi leaves a message on Dr. Elliott's answering machine telling him she's stolen something but doesn't say what it is, leaving him to figure out what it is. In the film she says she stole his straight razor.

-The man Kate meets and goes home with was given one more STD in the film than in the novel. In the novel he only has gonorrhea but was given syphilis too in the film.

-The character Norma, Liz's friend, was in the novel visiting Liz and she thought she'd seen the killer in the elevator of Liz's building. That's not in the film at all.

-Dr. Elliott speaks to his wife Anne several times on the phone in the novel but she's only mentioned once in the film and he never speaks to her on the phone.

-The scene in the film where Peter, Liz's fifteen-year-old son, played by Keith Gordon, is in the police station eavesdropping on a conversation, in the novel he's doing it by putting a dirty drinking glass to the wall then putting his ear to it. In the film he's got a listening device attatched to the wall and his ear.

-It's stated in the novel that Liz is twenty-one but ages aren't mentioned for her or Peter in the film.

-Liz's character is softened up a bit in the film. In the novel she's far more foul-mouthed.

-In the film, after the killer is identified, Liz spends time at Peter's house while his stepfather's away, then she has a terrible nightmare. In the novel she only makes plans to have lunch one day with Peter and doesn't go to this house. 

-Major spoiler for the ending of novel- I don't think the ending was a dream Liz was having but I'm not quite sure. She's attacked by Bobbi and, "A dream, Liz thought. A bad dream. In a moment she would wake. Any moment now, she would open her eyes and the dream would be over. But it hadn't yet begun." Her bad dream in the film was clearly a dream. When Bobbi visits her at the end of the novel, that sequence was different than in the film and I don't see it was being an actual dream. So the film had a happy ending and the novel, as far as I'm concerned, didn't, which I like.

I learned that this was similar to the Italian film The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. I watched it and it is indeed similar. That one was likely inspired by the novel/film Screaming Mimi. In the DVD extras on my edition, no one interviewed mentioned this film being inspired by another one.

CURIOUS TOYS by Elizabeth Hand

PUBLISHER: Mulholland Books, 2019

GENRE: Historical Fiction/Mystery

MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: The year is 1915 and Pin, the fourteen-year-old daughter of an amusement park fortune teller, disguises herself as a boy to run with the teenage boys who thrive in the dregs of Chicago's street scene. 

Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy its attractions, Riverview Park is also host to a brutal serial killer, a perfumed pedophile who uses the secrecy of a dark amusement park ride to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and leave without her, she knows that something deadly is afoot.

The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man obsessed with his illustrated novel about a group of young girls who triumph over adult oppressors. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a very interesting and enjoyable read. I read it in 48 hours, which is a miracle for me these days. I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending and how the killer was caught. That's what kept this from being a five-star read. I never suspected him until it became obvious. The author had him be too clumsy at times which I thought wouldn't have happened in real life, especially in broad daylight. I'd have absolutely loved some background information on him but we got none. In fact, none of the characters were well-written. I really like the amusement park setting but felt there were too many characters.

I didn't see the point of the author having the police briefly accuse a Black man of the crimes or make the lead, fourteen-year-old Pin, a lesbian as this plot had not one damn thing to do with her sexuality. It was put in there just to be put in there, maybe in hopes of getting put on some LGBTQ+ book recommendation lists. I don't like that Pin has a tie to the crimes/killer. Too coincidental for my liking.

 

UNMASKED- MY LIFE SOLVING AMERICA'S COLD CASES by Paul Holes

PUBLISHER: Celadon, 4/2022
GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: For a decade, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn out the lights. The sadistic predator disappeared in 1986, hiding in plain sight for the next thirty years in middle class suburbia. In 1994, when cold case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask the Golden State Killer and finally give these families some closure. Twenty four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying a 73-year-old former cop named Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted from the U.S. to Europe: one of America’s most prolific serial killers was in custody.

That case launched Holes's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true crime world with television shows like The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes and America's Most Wanted, and with the podcast Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad. Everyone knows Paul Holes, the gifted crime solver with a big heart and charming smile who finally caught the Golden State Killer. But until now, no one has known the man behind it all, the person beneath the flashy cases and brilliant investigations.

In this memoir, Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including the hunt for the Golden State Killer, Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. This is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones, the inability to walk away from a challenge--even at the expense of his own happiness. Holes opens up the most intimate scenes of his life: his moments of self-doubt and the impact that detective work has had on his marriage. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime solving when there are no flashbulbs and “case closed” headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to cases and people who might have otherwise been forgotten.

MY THOUGHTS: I wanted to read this memoir because I know who Paul is through his work with the EARONS (I refuse to call Joseph James DeAngelo, 'JJD' the Golden State Killer) case, which I've known about since early 2001. I also was a big fan of his now defunct show on Oxygen, "The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes." Paul learned of the EARONS in 1994 when going through a file cabinet at work with the Contra Costa County, CA sheriff's office. He also discovered Q-tip evidence in 1997 from an EARONS attack and got the ball rolling with the genetic geneology stuff that got JJD identified then later arrested in 2018.

Paul's a nonbeliever, an introverted loner who's shy, has anxiety and panic attacks and drinks too much. I don't think he said if he'd eased up on the drinking or not. He comes from a strict Catholic home. His father was in the air force, his mother's anorexic and his brother has OCD. That's pretty much all he said about them. He's definitely not much of a father and for that he should be ashamed. He's a bit too boastful when talking about his 'gift' for solving crimes and it borders on arrogance. Though very open, I felt this lacked in the noncrime part of the memoir.

I'm appalled and insulted that he said that 'in a way' Michelle McNamara (who penned one of the worst memoirs ever written) was a victim of the EARONS too. No, Paul, she's simply a victim of drug abuse that you're blaming on a then unapprehended serial killer. I sincerely hope true victims of JJD's have contacted him to let him have it for that comment.

I didn't care to hear anything about old well-known cases like Scott Peterson and Jaycee Dugard that he'd worked on. I like learning of lesser known crime and he didn't disappoint with the chapter on the still unsolved murder of Emmon Bodfish, from 1999, a wealthy transgendered man who was bludgeoned beyond belief in his home, and his son who killed himself shortly after.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

YOU by Caroline Kepnes

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books, 2014
GENRE: Fiction/Suspense
MY RATING: 4 stars, bordering on 3

SYNOPSIS: When a beautiful aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age.

MY THOUGHTS: You'd think a book written from a stalker's point of view would be interesting, right? It was for awhile but was very repetitive and never-ending. Nothing was happening and it dragged. I did love reading from a stalker's perspective. Sadly we didn't get any background information on him and we only know one thing, something awful, about his past. 

I absolutely hated Beck from the start.​ ​I've never read a more self-absorbed character in my life. There wasn't anything interesting about her. It's not surprising to me that the Lifetime series made her blonde though she's brunette in the novel. 

I don't like the nonsense of the cage being in the bookstore's basement​.​ I'm picturing the cage from The Silence of the Lambs with a drawer you can put stuff in and the person in the cage can get the object out of but I don't know if my mental image is accurate. The story was very dragged out and I almost couldn't take it. Most of Joe's ​dialogue​ is his inner monologue and damn, is he funny...and deranged. I laughed out loud many times. Unfortunately he speaks (thinks) in run-on sentences the majority of the time so it gets annoying real​ly​ fast. For that reason I won't be reading the sequel. I read the first two chapters, which were in the back of my edition of You, and it was just like reading You; the writing style was identical.

Beck is twenty-four and Joe's age wasn't given. I think I read that he was a child in 2001 so they're both millennials. I ​can't imagine why the Gen X author ​was drawn to write about millennials. I read that the Lifetime/Netflix series made many changes/added characters so I won't be watching any of it.

OPEN BOOK by Jessica Simpson

PUBLISHER: Dey Street, 4/2020

GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir

MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey. 

Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.

MY THOUGHTS: The book started out very strong then dropped down to 3 stars. Jessica has always seemed very likable and girl next door to me, if you ignore the fact she had, while married, a nonsexual inappropriate relationship with Johnny Knoxville, who was married too, in 2005 while working together on The Dukes of Hazzard remake. She's very vain, told us at least three times she weighs under 120 pounds, thinks highly of herself, and even referred to herself in third person when talking about her husband near the end of the book, and truthfully I wanted to put the book down but carried on with it since I was almost finished. She's unrelatable, as I'm sure all celebrities are, and the only thing anyone could maybe relate to is someone's childhood, before they were famous. I'd like to know how you go from believing in no sex before marriage to years later having two pregnancies out of wedlock. She's very needy too, always has to have a full house and tells everyone in her life all her personal business for the attention it brings.

She mentions being molested for six years, ages 6-12, by a girl who was one year older, who was also being molested by a male at that time, and mentions many times that she has a drinking problem but with those two subjects there's not much depth. Her parents literally ignored that she told them she was being molested and it was never talked about again, I guess. She never said if she brought it up to them as an adult. They're awful but she doesn't see it. She never said why she thought she began drinking in the first place, if being molested lead to it, and I don't think she ever called herself an alcoholic, but I could be wrong about that. She's a lifelong diet pill popper but never said if she's still on them or if she wants to stop using them. She also mentions God so many times you'd never be able to keep count.