Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Category Archives: Book Reviews – Fiction


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What Do ‘Sanctuary’ & Secretariat Have in Common?

“Okay, Mom. Close the pages and step away from the book,” says I, Kimber the Magnificent. You know. The one with sense. Cuz it’s like, the middle of the night. And Mom’s buried in a book. Again.

Well. You know Her Momness.

“In a minute, Kimber,” says Mom. “Just let me finish this chapter, okay?” In a voice that never means an actual, real minute. Then she gives me The Look.

Insert eye roll here.

Cuz Mom said “in a minute” two hours ago. She also said “finish the chapter.” Thirty-one chapters ago. So why is it the wee hours and we’re both still reading Sanctuary? I’ll let Mom fill you in:

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4 Reasons Why We’re World Champion ‘Book Bailers’

Book Bailer-Outers Extraordinaire!

Did you know Mom and I are World Champions? Well. We are. We’re World Champion Book Bailer-Outers. In fact, Mom’s getting to be a world class book bailing sprinter! The number of minutes it takes Mom to determine whether or not she wants to invest any more time in a particular book is getting shorter and shorter. It used to be six to eight chapters. Or one hundred-ish pages, depending on the book. Now it’s about half that. (We don’t need to chow through an entire garbage dump to know that it’s rotten. We can tell by the smell. Usually a mile off.)

Ya see, Mom and I? We get scores of book review requests every day. We accept about half. And we just don’t have time to read junk. As defined by us. Our blog. Our rules. Hence the sprint thing.

4 Cases in Point

Four recent Book Bailing cases in point? Gabriela Marin’s Made of Pixels and Jasper Fforde’s The Constant Rabbit. Kathleen and Michael Gear’s People of the Canyons, and Ruth Ware’s One By One. Here’s the 4-1-1 :

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Fantasy Reveals Truth in ‘City of Snow & Stars’

The City of Snow & Stars (New Degree Press, 2020)

Cities of Wintenaeth Book One

By S.D. Howard

Fiction/Fantasy

“There is no such thing as coincidence.”

This book grabbed me in the first chapter and reeled me in. The author’s expert use of fantasy and imagination undergirds a serious message that’s both subtle and powerful. Sturdy writing, a solid plot combined with well-crafted characters and prodigious world-building skills round out the theme.

Main Characters:

Trinia: A young woman on the run, fleeing her abusive father – who’s also king. Her Gift is the ability to duplicate herself. But her father wants to exploit her Gift to create an army for his own nefarious purposes.

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Kick Back With 3 Fun Fiction Reads

Ever want to take a break from heady literature? Kick Back. Put  your feet up. Dive into a book that’s fun and frothy but No Great Brain Strain Fluff Stuff? Well. I’ve got a deal for you. Three, actually. They include werewolves, a family camping trip gone south, and a town where children are disappearing and no one knows why. Like this:

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Discover One Woman’s Road Back to Real in “The Girl I Used to Be’

The Girl I Used to Be (Bookouture, 2021)

By Heidi Hostetter

Women’s Fiction

All that glitters is not gold in this delightfully captivating of story of one woman’s inner search for and journey back to her true self. There are plenty of pitfalls along the way. Lots of obstacles to navigate. Like a full-time jerk who’s a part time hubby (to put it charitably). Lost friends. Fake “friends.” A humble past Jill ‘s been told to not just forget, but to erase and be ashamed of. Also enough tangled webs, betrayals and duplicity to make Shelob look like a piker.

But in the end, friendship, solidarity, personal fortitude and a refusal to be pressed into someone else’s artificial, pre-fab mold win out. Lots of intrigue and unraveling along the way.

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LONG WALK HOME Serves Up Hope & Dreams

Long Walk Home (Bookouture, 2021)

By Ellyn Oaksmith

Romance/Women’s Fiction

Home, no matter how long it takes to get there, is worth the struggle.

Lola Alvarez has a dream.  She wants to stand on her own two feet. “Make her mark on the family business.” Step out of the shadow of her older sister, Carmen. One way of doing this is adding tiny cabins to the family’s Blue Hills Winery and restaurant. Throw true love into the mix and she’s good to go. But it won’t be easy as past and present collide in this gentle romance about family, forgiveness, and courage.

Standing in the way of Lola’s dream are her overbearing restaurant manager and sister, Carmen. Gordon Ramsay wannabe “Horrible Neil,” Aka: Chef Jerk on Steroids. An overprotective father, Juan, who’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. And a choice between two men: steady, respectable Hidalgo Ruiz of Ruiz Construction and Gus Weaver, newly released ex-con, master carpenter, and Lola’s high school heart throb.

After his release from a ten-year prison stint, Gus is hired by Hidalgo to build Lola’s tiny cabins. This, while the relationship between Lola and Hidalgo heats up. Catch: Lola hasn’t exactly come clean to anyone about anyone else, the building project, or the tangled web of the past. And when Lola fires Chef Jerk on the eve of Carmen’s wedding, which he was going to cater, and Gus and Hidalgo square off, can disaster be far away?

Set in the stunning beauty of Chelan, Washington in the shadow of the North Cascades, Long Walk Home offers a mouth-watering menu of simmering romantic tension, familial friction, heart break, confusion, and intrepidity in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. It’s tightly written and reads quickly, with each chapter flowing seamlessly into the next.

Pro tips:

  • Keep an eye out for Daisy, Lola’s faithful Australian Shepherd mix. Scene stealer!
  • Don’t read this book when you’re hungry. The descriptions of cooking and meal prep inside the Blue Hills kitchen will have you drooling!

Possible Turn-offs:

  • The male protagonist’s name. “Gus.” Not Joe or Ethan or Blake? “Gus”? Seriously?
  • Perhaps unwittingly, the author repeats the same phrases, running on redundant. (“Your lack of empathy is stunning,” etc. We got it the first time, okay?)
  • Repeatedly lower casing the “g” in “God.” Yeah, we noticed.
  • Carmen’s future in-laws, the Hollisters. Cardboard caricatured much? Barf.
  • The 27 year old Drama Queen thing gets old. Fast.
  • The ARC, at least, could benefit from another proofread.

Even so, Long Walk Home is well-written, expertly paced, and packed with (mostly) memorable characters. This is a sweet and gentle read. If you’re hungry for bright and nimble fiction flavored with romance, forgiveness, rugged natural beauty, delicious food, family, and robust word pictures seasoned with hope and humor, take a bite out of Long Walk Home.  


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Hold on Tight for ‘Cliffhanger’

Cliffhanger (Moot Point Productions, 2021)

By Michael R. French

YA/Sci Fi/Political Thriller

Nostradamus, a 16th century self-proclaimed “prophet” with a batting average of about .500, predicts that in 2048:

“a string of political assassinations would push the world toward chaos, godlessness, and possible extinction. People would be imprisoned by their own fears, and their helplessness would allow others to strip them of their humanity.”

That’s the basic premise for this fast-paced political thriller. The action revolves around a tooth-and-nail race for student body president at Hawthorn High, a struggling school in a struggling town in Nowheresville, Indiana.

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Enchantment & Intrigue Abound in ‘The Disappearance of Emily’

Meet my new bud, Nola. You’ll get that when you read The Disappearance of Emily (Better Beginnings, 2021 ). It’s Book 2 in the Destiny Falls Mystery and Magic series by Elizabeth Pantley.

Just don’t tell Kimber about Miss Fancy Feline, okay?

Not on a Map

Anyway, Destiny Falls is a magical place. You won’t find it on a map. You can’t get there on your own. You have to be called by either the town or the “cozy, mansion-sized mountain cabin” family home of Caldwell Crest. And oh yeah. Once you’re “called” to Destiny Falls, you’re kinda stuck. You can’t choose to leave, as young Hayden, formerly of Seattle, finds out in this delightful sequel to Falling Into Magic. (See my full review here.)

Young Hayden is minding her own biz, enjoying a nice hot cuppa with her bro Axel when she’s suddenly accosted by a ferry boat captain, Nakita. The captain delivers a vague, mysterious message about meeting the day after tomorrow. Nakita says it’s a matter “of life and death.” She insists  Hayden come alone and “tell no one.”

Well. What the Hay?

Cuz next thing ya know, Nakita winds up dead.

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High Octane Powers C.J. Box Mystery-Thrillers

We discovered C.J. Box a year or two ago at The Book Place. By accident. Mom was reaching for another title when she accidentally bumped a C.J. Box book. It plopped onto the floor. Mom picked it up. Read the synopsis. Checked it out. We really liked the American west/great outdoors settings. Read our first Box book, The Bitterroots, cover to cover in one sitting. (See our full review of that first C.J. Box novel here.)

Pro Tip!

Same thing with a couple subsequent Box mystery-thrillers, Paradise Valley and Wolf Pack. Only this time mom made the mistake of starting the former in the evening. Pro tip: Don’t do that unless you can stay up all night reading. Cuz it’s a barn burner from the get-go.

Rugged outdoor settings and strong female leads make Paradise Valley a dual stand-out in the genre. Like investigator and Montana native Cassie Dewell. Now in Bakken County, North Dakota, she’s been trailing a serial killer for years. He haunts highways and truck stops. Anyone he picks up or grabs vanishes.

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Why THE GREAT ALONE Blows THE FOUR WINDS Away

Mom and I? We get it. We’re supposed to go gaga over every new Kristin Hannah novel that comes down the cat. Yes, Hannah is one of our favorite writers. She proves her mettle once again in The Great Alone. So what happened with The Four Winds?

I’ll let Mom explain. (You know how Mom is, right?):

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