Book Review: The Vengeance of Jasper Daniels by A.K. Lawrence

 

Jasper Daniels, once known as "The Web", has abandoned her outlaw gang and the responsibility of tracking souls. She's settled down with her husband, has helped him build a house and a barn and is in the process of living a calm, ordinary life. That is until said gang tracks her down. Jasper has something they want, and when she refuses to give it up, they burn her house, murder her husband and leave her horribly disfigured.

When Jasper wakes from her horrific ordeal, she is in the care of a neighbor who has put Charlie to rest and tended to all her many injuries. Her hands—which the gang mangled intentionally so that Jasper could not use her magical revolvers—are rendered all but useless, but she's not about to let what her gang has done go unpunished. She dresses in men's pants, chops off her long hair, and gratefully takes the horse her friend and neighbor offers her. Vengeance is the name of the game, and Jasper understands all too well how to play.  

Jasper digs up her husband's body, grinds his bones and makes the charmed bullets for her pistols. Then she sets off to find each woman with whom she used to ride. Her plans are paused when she comes across an orphaned girl named Little Bird who is also all too familiar with violence. Against her better judgement, Jasper becomes attached to the child, and she has to decide if she has anything left to offer her.

This book starts off speeding at hundred miles an hour from the very first page and never slows down. This tale is dark and gritty, sad and touching. It's a western like no other you've ever read. It's brutal and beautiful. It's magical and raw. I can tell you from personal experience that Jasper will make her way into your heart, and she'll be with you long after you finish her story. This one is unforgettable.

Book Review: Killer Comfort Food by Stacey Roberts

 

This book is listed under both mystery and humor, which makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of both in this novel. The author is skilled at crafting both an entertaining story as well as creating interesting and complex characters. I truly enjoyed Amelia and her son, Gene Four, and the recipes that were included before each chapter were a fun and creative touch.

So many of the adults in young Amelia's life left her at a young age. When her uncle George dies, he surprises both of his sons as well as Amelia when he leaves her his farm and a huge amount of land. For a while, Amelia makes her own life incredibly hard with alcoholism. She finally learns how to keep that devil at bay, then all the property she owns begins to cause her a whole heap of trouble. She's a tough woman raising a genius son with an ex-husband who is less than helpful, and ex-in-laws who are even more than less than helpful. She's well versed in the use of her shotgun—and actually finds reason to use it several times throughout the book—and Roberts really had me, hook, line and …

Well, not sinker. There's a bit at the end where he explains how the murders—and there are plenty—were actually carried out, and while it was well written, I struggled with placement. Or something. I'm not even quite sure what the problem was, but it didn't flow for me. Perhaps one issue was that the perspective changed a couple of times without any warning and I had to run to keep up. It wasn't a smooth ride.

Then came the epilogue. I guess the only thing I can think to say about the epilogue is that maybe it went a step too far. I read that this book was the first of a series. I can see where Mr. Roberts might go with a second book, but I'm afraid if it isn't back to the past when Gene is a younger child, I have a hard time seeing how he will capture what he built in the majority of this first novel.

I really did love so much of this book, but I think I can only give it three and a half stars. I really hate that because there was so much to celebrate in the first three quarters of this tale.

I Remember 9/11 - The 25th Anniversary of the Attacks

 

Photo by Andrea Booher

In September 2001, we were living in Castle Rock, Colorado. We'd just bought our first house two months before, and Steven was working overnight as a Field Engineer for General Dynamics. Maya was just over two years old, and she liked slow and leisurely mornings. The three of us were lounging in bed when our phone rang.

Steven answered the call in the kitchen. Judi, my mother-in-law, was on the other end of the line. Before Maya and I could talk ourselves into getting out of bed, Steven had hung up with his mom and was rushing back into the bedroom.

I didn't think I'd heard him right when he told me a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. I remember asking him to repeat himself, and by this time, he'd turned on the television that was sitting in our room. I watched the smoke lift into the sky in a thick rolling plume from the wound in the building. I remember thinking about some of the reasons why something like this might happen. Everything came up either a mechanical malfunction with the plane or a medical emergency for a pilot. The truth of the matter never entered my mind.

I moved forward with our day. I couldn't have imagined that there was more to come. I got Maya fed, which only took a few minutes. She was wild about Nutri-Grain bars at the time and could eat one in record time. We were upstairs getting her dressed when I heard Steven yell from below us. I left Maya sitting on the floor in her pale green room with bees stenciled around the walls. There was a Winnie the Pooh comforter on her bed, and a small blue and green wooden table with a tray holding a plastic tea pot and four small cups. Getting dressed hadn't taken long, either, and she'd gone and pulled a dozen books off the shelves and was happily flipping through pages, her little voice quiet and breathy as she "read" the book in her lap out loud.

I ran down the stairs just in time to see a replay of a second plane flying into the South Tower. This was no accident. There were no health issues. The planes were strong and solid. Someone had done this on purpose.

Less than an hour later, we watched the South Tower crumble in slow motion. It was unbelievable to watch something so big, so tall lose its place towering over the city to wind up nothing more than a pile of rubble and clouds of smoke. Just a few minutes later, passengers aboard Flight 93 launched a counterattack on the four hijackers who had taken over the United Airlines plane. Two instigators of the attack claimed later that the target had been the U.S. Capitol building. It never made it. The plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 130 miles northwest of the capital.

We continued to watch replays of both planes while Steven filled me in about Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. I was stunned. Four planes. One ear was listening to the television while the other ear was listening for Maya. Steven and I just sat at the end of our bed staring at the screen. It was dreamlike. Neither one of us could wrap our heads around what had happened. It didn't even feel real.

At 10:28, we watched the North Tower fall. The sky in New York City was gray and gritty, filled with smoke and debris. The completion of those towers took place in 1972. They'd stood for twenty-nine years, which, at that point in time, consisted of my entire life. I'd never seen a photo or a film of the city without them. Then they were gone. 2,977 people lost their lives on that otherwise ordinary Tuesday. Thousands more were injured.

We didn't know anyone who was killed that day, but we mourned them all. The mood in our home was unusually somber after hearing the news. Both Steven and I had heads filled with our own thoughts. Perhaps it was our shift in mood that affected Maya, because later that day, she fell down the stairs from the top down to the bottom. We hadn't had stairs in our previous house, but she'd been up and down this flight every day since we moved in. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt, but it really scared her dad and I. Along with everything else I think about when this anniversary hits, I remember that fall.  

It happened twenty-five years ago, and yet it feels like it was yesterday.  

Book Review: The Firefly Hour by Annie Rains

 

Grandma Laverne's bed and breakfast, The Shelter Inn, sits in a small town on the North Carolina coast. After a hurricane hits, three siblings come together to repair the inn, but the only thing they seem to have in common is Laverne herself and the reunion ends up in angry words and tears.

Amelia has just gotten a high paying job she's been working towards for years, while Maggie floats from job to job and relationship to relationship. Amelia thinks her sister is only at the inn because she has nowhere else to live. Duncan, who is usually the one who works to bring peace between them has been running the inn since their grandmother's death, and he's a bit preoccupied with something he's not yet ready to share.

There is so much discord and anger, especially between the two women in this novel. They are coming together because their grandmother's inn has weathered a storm, and then Duncan's secret comes to light—at least for the reader if not for his sister's right away. There is much to be sad about in this novel, but Rains has created a story that still feels hopeful even though the characters she writes are carrying so much on their shoulders. The recipe cards Grandma Laverne wrote and kept in a box were a huge bit of levity in this family drama, and even when it becomes clear that this story is heading in a difficult direction, it's almost impossible to be unhappy.

This is a beautiful novel. The family dynamic was convoluted, but realistic, and Rains brought the past into the present so well. Few books have made me feel like this one did. I would definitely recommend this read. I give The Firefly Hour five stars.

Book Review: Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

 

Arlene Fleet was born in Possett, Alabama. She lived with her mentally ill mother in her Aunt Florence and Uncle Bruster's house and shared a room with her cousin, Clarice. High school has its ups and downs and life is generally predictable until one night when a date goes horribly wrong. That's when Arlene began wearing all black, and she stopped playing hard to get with the boys. That might not have worried anyone but Arlene's family, but the disappearance of Jim Beverly, star of the football team, throws the whole town into an uproar.

After graduation, Arlene flees to Chicago, leaving Possett behind her. Ten years later, she's got several degrees under her belt and she's working as a teacher in a local college. She's madly in love with Burr, a tax lawyer, but she hasn't been able to fully commit to him because of the trauma she still carries with her. Burr has been more than patient with Arlene—who he calls Lena—and he wants to marry her, but he's handed down an ultimatum. He wants to be introduced to her family or he's gone. When she gets news that her Uncle Bruster is retiring, she knows she'll be expected to show up. She can't imagine taking Burr, who is African American, and placing him in front of her incredibly racist family, but she can't imagine losing him, either.

Lena decides she needs to go and face what made her run away a decade ago. She finds that Clarice married her high school sweetheart. She's a mom to three kids and is every bit as sweet and kind as she was before Lena left. Lena's mom's mental and physical health have continued to decline, and the woman has a knack for stealing meds and helping herself to pills. Her aunt and uncle are much the same as they were ten years ago—at least that's what Lena thinks at first. But things aren't entirely as they might seem at first glance. Things that happened in Possett—the things Lena ran away from—are far from being settled, but she'll have to come to terms with all of it before she can leave again.

I loved the mystery in this novel. Jackson's narrative is sarcastic and funny while being serious and sincere at the same time. There are surprises peppered throughout, and the ending … This title was published twenty-one years ago. I've read her latest, which came out just this year. I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I'm happy to have gotten to experience it. This was definitely a five-star read for me without question. 

Book Review: Mr. Winterbourne by Clara van Houten

 

Debra Cowdry keeps all the rejection letters from literary agents and publishing houses in one specific drawer in her apartment. She works in a law office as a typist, and on her lunch breaks, she often sits at her favorite bookshop. The window display and all the tables are decorated with books written by men. Bestsellers with glossy covers, and a woman's name on only a few of them. When her best friend, Sheila, jokes and says she should send in her manuscript under a male pen name, Debra takes it to heart. What kind of response might her book get if she were to do this?

She receives a letter back from an agent, and when Lisa, the agent's assistant, lets Debra into the room, an unexpected thing happens. The book is picked up by a publishing house with Alec Winterbourne as the author. There are only three people who know Alec Winterbourne isn't a real person. They keep her secret, and Debra publishes more books under this pen name.

Then Debra meets a man named Alec Winterbourne. He's an architect, and he's funny and charming. He's handsome and smart, and in no time at all, Debra has fallen in love with him. When she writes a book that garners a lot of attention, requests for interviews start pouring in. She and Lisa, who has stepped in as her agent, let Alec in on Debra's secret. He begins filling in for Debra, pretending to be the person who wrote her books. Things work—sometimes smoothly, sometimes less so—until they don't.

This was a very entertaining read based on a very interesting premise. I wasn't sure why Lisa—the assistant turned agent—couldn't help Debra when things turned sideways, but maybe there were reasons I didn't have figured out. There were a couple of twists that surprised me. This was very different from van Houten's Everything He Never Told Me, but every bit as engaging.

I gave this book four stars. This title releases on October 6, 2026.