DAMNING THE DEAD by Kerry Blaisdell: release date 1/5/2022

 I guess this is my year for reviewing non-Georgian/Regency novels. Recently I finished Kerry Blaisdell's third novel in her series featuring Hyacinth Finch, who is sort-of-dead illicit antiquities dealer on a mission from the Archangel Michael.

Do I need to say I read the third because I really enjoyed the preceding books? If you haven't read Debriefing the Dead and Waking the Dead, do that before Damning the Dead.

Kerry Blaisdell’s Damning the Dead is the third in her Dead series. You might have thought Hyacinth Finch’s life—half-life? Non-life?—couldn’t get more complicated. You would be mistaken. She started out as an inoffensive buyer and seller of stolen antiquities. Now in the third book, she’s up to her neck in demons, Nazis, ghosts, and two boyfriends, one of them dead, the other half-demon. Then there’s her part-time job for Michael, the Archangel, and her guardianship of her nephew. They’re all bound to conflict at some point.

There’s a peculiar realism to these novels. Hyacinth is no superhero and neither are her allies. In spite of supernatural dangers, the characters still have to eat (if they’re even half alive), find transportation, and deal with sneaky and/or jealous boyfriends. Hyacinth remains ethically challenged in some respects. 

That grounded-in-reality feeling and the fact I’ve never yet foreseen all the twists and turns in Ms. Blaisdell’s novels keeps me reading. Also they’re page-turners. 

I received an ARC for my unbiased review.

  

 

Once in a while I review a book, usually one in the Georgian/Regency period. I do like other historical fiction, however, and mysteries, and besides, my father grew up in New York City not long after the period in which this series is set. I could not resist reading this turn-of-the-century mystery.

I’ve read and liked several of Rhys Bowen’s novels so I had high expectations for Wild Irish Rose by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. There are a number of series running to a dozen or eighteen books that I love and keep reading, but I’ve been reading them since the first, and I think that makes a difference. Wild Irish Rose is the 18^th in the novels featuring Molly Murphy Sullivan. I found it difficult to establish a rapport with the characters, coming to it so late.

I did expect something a little meatier, more in the tradition of Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries or Charles Todd’s WWI and early 20^th century mysteries. Something that bothered me a little is that it’s my understanding that the various ethnic groups in New York in the 19^th and early 20^th century tended to live in their own neighborhoods, like Little Italy in the case of Italian immigrants. There seems to be more of an ethnic mix in Molly’s neighborhood.

Another stumbling block for me was that Molly didn’t “feel” like a comparatively recent immigrant. But again, that may be because I’m a Joanie-come-lately to the books.

However, it’s well written and an entertaining read and fans of the series will probably enjoy it.  It’s scheduled for release on March 1, 2022.

 I received an ARC of Wild Irish Rose in exchange for my unbiased review.

 

I’m running a little behind this year. Today I put the Halloween decorations away except for the skeleton sitting on the rollator between the kitchen and the front room. I also put up a string of lights to augment the string still up from last December…or maybe the December before that.

I meant to do something seasonal and New Mexico for the blog this time but ran out of that commodity. So instead, here’s a semi-seasonal ditty:

My Favorite New Mexico Things (with apologies to The Sound of Music)

Rain in the arroyos and lightning that flashes,

Dust in your bedding and clothing and lashes,

Dry canyon winds that blow in the spring,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Doors and sashes in blue and old royal roads,

Pickups with firewood and artwork in loads,

Rose colored adobes and red chile strings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Roadrunners that dash with never a stop,

Mesas standing tall with pueblos on top,

Kachinas and kivas, hidalgos and kings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Happy holidays, everyone.