It’s a miracle, folks. This post is proof that I’ve stuck with a personal goal for three years in a row!
Oh, this isn’t a post about New Year’s Resolutions. It’s about books, specifically the ones I’ve read over the past twelve months and my thoughts on each of them in a brief micro-review.
I’m skipping the longwinded introduction this year because I’m pretty sure no one reads these posts anyway. But that’s okay. It’s fun to revisit the stories I’ve read and to talk about other people’s books for a change.
So, without further ado, my 2022 Reading Roundup in random order.
Moonshadow: A Love Story – Joy Lynn Goddard
Mystery Romance
I was curious to find out how a work of fiction based on the grim truths of the Canadian residential school system could be categorized as a love story, but Goddard’s Moonshadow blends the two themes together seamlessly.
This modern-day story follows Lauren, a young woman fresh out of journalism school who is called upon to help care for her cherished grandfather who has fallen gravely ill. During their time together at the family cottage, Lauren’s grandfather discloses how, in the early 1960s, he fell in love with an indigenous girl named Rose with whom he had a brief, but passionate courtship and with whom he regretfully ended up losing touch. He appeals to Lauren to help him find Rose with the hope of atoning for old wrongs.
Thanks to the author’s sensitive yet forthright storytelling, this book not only captures the innocence and yearning of young love but also brings to light the injustices of racism, abuse, forced assimilation, and the genocide of children—created and perpetuated by government- and church-run schools for more than a hundred years.
Moonshadow is a compelling story that will grip your heart.
The Dreamwaker Saga – Lee Gabel
YA Urban Fantasy
I flew through the first two books in Lee Gabel’s newest YA urban fantasy series, the Dreamwaker Saga, and the third instalment is on my TBR list.
The stories take place in the mid 1980s, and as someone who grew up in that era, I especially appreciated all the references to the technology, music, and fashions of the time. That said, the target demographic for this series should relate to it well as many of them have probably watched the Netflix series, Stranger Things—also based in that decade—or at least have been brought up with 80s music playing in their households.
In book one, Lucid Bodies, 16-year-old Wynter discovers she can summon people from her dreams. But when the boy (literally) of her dreams takes physical form in the real world and the pair become romantically entangled, it doesn’t take long for Jezebel, one of Wynter’s jealous adversaries, to set her lusty sights on the new boy in town.
Lucid Revenge picks up right after the thrilling conclusion of Lucid Bodies, but I’m hesitant to say much more and spoil it for readers.
Instead, here’s a snippet of the author’s description: Trapped within her own mind, Wynter must learn new ways to use her newfound powers. With no access to her dreamwaker boyfriend, she uses the power of dreams to convince her good friend Cash to help her find him.
Suffice it to say that both books were packed with unique, well developed (and sometimes downright evil) characters along with the perfect amount of intrigue, suspense, and romance. The series is classified as YA urban fantasy, but it definitely skews toward the older end of the young-adult spectrum because of some of the language and sexual content.
A Hot Flash of Homicide – Dawn Dugle
Rom-com Murder Mystery
I found this author on TikTok, of all places (or rather, Dawn found me…she’d read my first book and raved about it!), and I wanted to reciprocate by reading one of her books. She writes in a genre I’d never explored before: rom-com murder mystery with a horny, menopausal police-sergeant protagonist. I digress. That’s not an actual genre, but it emcompasses everything the book has to offer.
Oh, what a ride it was!
On Sergeant Wysdom Ward’s 40th birthday, she’s sitting alone in a bar, despondent and upset that everyone forgot her big day, when a handsome hunk of burning love walks in and offers to be her birthday present for the night. How can she refuse? She’s finally found him, The God Among Men.
Everything would be fine if their champagne- and chocolate-fuelled hookup ended that night, but the next day, The God Among Men becomes a suspect in a murder, and it’s Wysdom’s job to haul him in for questioning. Will Wysdom serve as his alibi? Or did she unwittingly copulate with a killer?
A Hot Flash of Homicide is a quick, fun romp that will surely satisfy fans of romantic comedy.
The Dead of False Creek: A Journal Through Time Mystery – Sarah M Stephen
Historical Mystery
It was serendipitous when I spotted this book on Instagram as I once lived in the area where the story is based. But one doesn’t need to have lived in Vancouver’s False Creek to appreciate this intriguing time-bending tale.
It is 1897, and police detective Jack Winston has a journal in which he records details about the cases he’s investigating. Fast forward to 2017 where Riley Finch, the Vancouver History Museum’s newest archivist, stumbles on that journal and discovers it is not just an average notebook from the past but a direct line to its late-nineteenth-century writer.
The two decide to join forces—through their written messages back and forth—to solve what is an active murder investigation for Jack and a 120-year-old mystery for Riley.
This was a unique concept that worked well. The characters jumped off the page and right into my heart with their distinct voices and personalities, and the author’s vivid descriptions of Vancouver at the turn of the century added a charming ambiance to the story.
I look forward to reading the next book in the series The Hanging at the Hollow Tree where Jack turns to Riley once again for help solving a murder in 1897 Vancouver.
The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner
Women’s Historical Fiction
Have you ever been so intrigued by a book’s cover that you bought it without even knowing what it was about? That’s what happened to me the moment I saw this book. Isn’t it gorgeous?
Granted, I did read the synopsis before actually clicking the Buy button, but it only solidified my decision to snap it up.
Like The Dead of False Creek, this story follows a split-narrative structure beginning in a bygone era. It also features a female protagonist who puts her history-loving knowledge to the test in an attempt to solve a long-ago mystery. But that’s where the similarities end.
Note: In this story, apothecary is the term for the person who runs the apothecary shop. It took me a little while to get used to that since these days, at least where I live, the word is often used as a synonym for a pharmacy rather than a pharmacist.
So, Nella is the apothecary, and her tiny Back Alley shop in London, 1791, is a secret emporium that caters to women and their specific problems. As it turns out, most of the women’s problems are the men they live with, and at Nella’s shop, they can purchase all manner of life-shortening potions to administer to the dastardly fellows in their lives.
I thoroughly enjoyed following along with aspiring historian Carolyn Parcewell as she attempted to unravel the 200-year-old mystery of London’s unsolved “apothecary murders.”
Coincidentally, I happened to be watching the Apple TV Irish dark comedy, Bad Sisters, at the same time as I was reading this book. The series features a group of women trying to exact revenge on a villainous man in their lives—which is, of course, the main theme in The Lost Apothecary (minus the comedy). I highly recommend both!
Falling – T.J. Newman
Kidnapping Thriller
This book came into my house as I was putting the finishing touches on my second novel, and it was all I could do not to read it. I held off for two reasons: One, I didn’t want to compare my book to another one that featured a doomed flight. And two, I wanted to avoid accidentally “borrowing” language or themes from another author. So, I waited, and it was the first book I read after my novel, Flight 444, was finally released.
As someone who (well, used to) fly often, I’m morbidly fascinated with these kinds of stories. Stories of hijacked planes, the villains who commandeer them, and the heroes that generally save said planes from, you know…falling. The plots are all pretty much the same, so I wasn’t expecting a mind-blowing experience with this book.
Unfortunately, my expectations came true. It wasn’t mind-blowing, but it did keep me feverishly flipping pages a couple of nights in a row until my eyes were mere slits. Newman’s characters are robust and believable, and I was totally invested in their plights, even the villains.
I was a little disappointed by the Hollywood-style finale that had me rolling my eyes and wishing for a less clichéd conclusion. However, if you gobble up these kinds of suspense thrillers like me, you’ll probably enjoy this book regardless.
This was Newman’s first book, the bulk of which she wrote while passengers slept when she was employed as a flight attendant.
The Book of Two Ways – Jodi Picoult
Literary Saga / Women’s Literary Fiction
By now you know I’m a plane-crash-story junkie, so I was immediately hooked when I read the description: Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.
Oh, how I wanted to love this book. It had all the elements of a great read: the impending plane crash, the mystery of the man from Dawn’s past, and—through the title of the book itself—the suggestion of different paths Dawn will no doubt have to consider. I’m also a huge Jodi Picoult fan and have never read a book of hers I didn’t enjoy (The Storyteller, My Sister’s Keeper, and Handle with Care are my favorites). But this one was tough for me.
I felt Picoult was trying to impress her readers with her knowledge of Egyptian history and quantum physics with this book, so much so that I skimmed over large portions of it. This is not to say I didn’t appreciate the author’s departure from her usual, lighter fare. It just wasn’t what I was expecting. That said, encyclopedic matter aside, the book showcases Picoult’s signature concepts of love, purpose, and fulfillment poetically.
The protagonist, Dawn, is a death doula (a person who supports someone in end-of-life care), and the story opens with Dawn facing her own possible demise as her plane plummets toward Earth. Furthering the theme about alternate paths, Picoult masterfully weaves the “what if” question throughout the story. What if Dawn hadn’t abandoned her Egyptology studies—and her soul mate, Wyatt—all those years ago to care for her dying mother? What if she’d never met Brian on that hiatus from her studies? What if she hadn’t married Brian after finding out she was pregnant with his child? And the biggest question of all: What if she’d stayed with Wyatt and followed her dream to finish writing The Book of Two Ways – the world’s first known account of the great beyond?
I would recommend this work to anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of an academic vibe to their fiction and who—if a fan of Picoult’s work—accepts that this is not one of her typical stories. Oh, and if ambiguous endings aren’t your thing, you might want to think twice about picking up this story. It is The Book of Two Ways, after all.
The New Neighbor – Carter Wilson
Psychological / Domestic Thriller
Carter Wilson’s latest release, The New Neighbor, is an absorbing psychological thriller about Aidan Marlowe, a man who learns he’s won a huge lottery jackpot the day of his wife’s funeral. Desperate to start a new life, he packs up his seven-year-old twins and moves to a giant house in a whole new town. Before long, he learns someone is watching them. Someone who knows everything about them.
There’s something to be said of a book that can keep me reading late into the night, as I’m one of those people who nods off after one or two pages, even if I’m completely engrossed in the story. But one of my favorite literary devices is an unreliable narrator—which this book employed superbly—and I simply had to find out what would happen to Marlowe and his family as he battled past demons, grappled with new ones, and tried to solve the mystery of the creepy, unseen “watchers.”
I wasn’t too surprised by how it all turned out, but the story was well written and populated with such interesting characters that I wasn’t disappointed in the least. Finally, it was refreshing to read a psychological thriller with a mentally fragile male protagonist for a change. Bravo, Carter Wilson!
If you’ve made it this far in the post, bravo to you, too.
At the very least, I hope my ramblings have inspired you to pick up a book you previously hadn’t considered and give it a go. As you can tell by my varied reading list, I’m genre-agnostic so there’s a good chance at least one of the titles above will tickle your fancy. If you do end up reading one of them, I’d love to hear your thoughts, either in the comments below or via email. I always reply.
Oh, and if you’re so inclined, you can also check out my Roundups from 2020 and 2021.
Wishing you fun times, good health, and happy reading in 2023.