In Julia Dahl’s newest mystery, “I Dreamed of Falling,” all of the main characters are people who have failed at parenting during at least one point in their lives. Parents of these neglected children (some of whom are now adults) were not married and the conception of said children was completely accidental.
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While both these children’s picture books are historical fiction, they are both based on real occurrences. One is based on the actual court case when a Chinese American family wanted to send their daughter to school in California and fought in the courts for that right. The other is based on the experiences of Black women who, after centuries of not having rights, and decades of not being able to vote, finally went to the voting booth.
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This review will be short and sweet. “My Vampire vs Your Werewolf” by Paul Tobin is a middle grade chapter book about, no surprise here, vampires and werewolves. My grandson, an avid reader and lover of the horror genre, devoured this in one sitting. It’s a clever concept in which an organization called the Crafters Guild sends children out to find lonely monsters and get them in shape for fighting. Apparently monsters like to fight each other.
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It’s difficult to write nonfiction that is so engrossing and relatable that it reads like fiction, yet that is just what veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas manages to do in her book “Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian.” This collection of anecdotes and personal history ranges from the why—the reason Attas wanted to become a veterinarian and how she accomplished that—to the many famous people who were/are her clients. From Joan Rivers to Billy Joel, we read about the connections that the uber rich and famous have with their pets. But we also read about those not in that stratosphere of economic wealth, and how money doesn’t dictate how much we love our four-legged (and sometimes three-legged) pets.
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The title and cover art of Scott Phillips’ new novel, “The Devil Raises His Own,” suggest that the reader is about to embark on another Phillips noir novel. At the bottom of the scene on the cover is a smoking pistol belching a black miasma that envelops a night-time view of a large, perhaps crime-ridden city neighborhood. But by the time we arrive at chapter two, barely six pages in, we suspect that the cover artist and the novelist are playing tricks on us.
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Mysteries with senior citizens are jumping out of the woodwork, and many of them are delightful. Add “Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime” to that growing list. Author Leonie Swann does an excellent job balancing the third person narrative from the viewpoints of the many octogenarians and septuagenarians who live together at Sunset Hall in the tiny English hamlet of Duck End. Agnes, the title character, is a retired police officer, and while she is a bit scatterbrained, she also is good at happening across murder victims.
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Christine Wells’ newest historical fiction, “The Paris Gown,” takes us back to the capital of France, where her novel “Sisters of the Resistance” was set. The title gown is a Christian Dior confection, and while the story doesn’t center around the gown itself, the couture dress serves as a symbol of the ties that bind the three main characters, young women, together.
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