Kirjailijakuva

Janis Susan May

Teoksen The Avenging Maid (Candlelight Regency #625) tekijä

15 teosta 47 jäsentä 9 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Sisältää nimet: Janis S. May, Janis Patterson

Tekijän teokset

The Hollow House (2011) 8 kappaletta
Beaded to Death (2012) 6 kappaletta
Inheritance of Shadows (2012) 5 kappaletta
Heritage of shadows (1986) 2 kappaletta
Lure of the Mummy (2011) 2 kappaletta
Family of Strangers (1984) 2 kappaletta
Timeless Innocents (2013) 2 kappaletta
Dark Music (2006) 1 kappale
Lacey (1987) 1 kappale
The Fortunes of Love (1995) 1 kappale
Regency Missives and Mischief (2021) — Tekijä — 1 kappale

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Virallinen nimi
May, Janis Susan
Muut nimet
Patterson, Janis

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

I don't know who recommended this one to me, but I really enjoyed it! I was unable to put it down. The way the book ends it feels like it is setting itself up for a sequel. When I get a chance I will see if the author published another book starring this character.

A woman named Geraldine Brunton is hiding from something. Scared that she is going to be found and eventually on the street since she is running low on money, she applies to be a companion for an elderly woman (Emmaline Stubbs) living in Denver. Readers are privy to the fact that Geraldine is doing what she can to not be noticed since she is worried that if if her identity is revealed, someone is going to come looking for her. A murder occurs and then the entire household is under suspicion.

I thought the character of Geraldine was so interesting. I don't want to spoil the story. But when you find out more about her background and upbringing and what caused her to flee, you will be shocked. I also really liked her burgeoning friendship with Emmaline Stubbs.

I thought some of the other characters were underdeveloped, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the overall book. We have Emmaline's background to get into which I wish we had gotten more details about. Or at least a prologue going into the incident that left Emmaline bedridden. We also have Emmaline's daughter and son in law who both just ooze malevolence at times.

The writing was easy to follow and I think that Patterson did a good job with keeping the wording/writing style to the time period this book takes place in (1919).

The ending wasn't a surprise to me. Even though I saw it coming, I still enjoyed this book.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
ObsidianBlue | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jul 1, 2020 |
Bert Carmody is a translator who specializes in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. He dreams of fame but seems destined to slog through boring grunt work for the rest of his career. Only handsome, young, and athletic guys like Rick Hamilton get the interesting assignments. Nothing in Bert’s life will ever go right as long as guys like Rick are around. Even gorgeous and sweet Melanie Kerry is more interested in Rick than in him.

Things begin to change when Bert acquires a mummified cat from one of the locals. Fame and Melanie might finally be within reach, if the consequences don’t catch up to him first.

Even from this horror wimp’s perspective, this wasn’t particularly scary. It managed to be slightly creepy at times (very slightly), but that was it.

Bert was a horrible guy. I felt a little sorry for him at first, because it did seem like he was in a depressing situation. And his boss did later admit that Rick got a better assignment because he had more star quality than Bert, even though Bert would have been better qualified for that assignment.

However, Bert lost sympathy points with me faster than he could earn them. He wallowed in his feelings of bitterness and resentment. Although there were opportunities for him to get to know the people around him better, he instead spent all of his time alone, thinking about how he deserved all these things that, from his point of view, kept falling into Rick’s lap. He lost any remaining sympathy I might have felt for him when he began to realize what was going on and decided that 1) it wasn’t really his fault since he wasn’t doing anything directly and 2) he was going to continue to try to reap the benefits.

The story was fairly predictable but not bad. The only thing I didn’t like was thatMelanie wasn’t able to escape. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. I suppose the other people who died didn’t either, but Melanie’s death bothered me the most.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Familiar_Diversions | Sep 23, 2017 |
Brianna Forte's father would have been the executor of Ralph and Bette's estate, except the same car accident that killed Ralph and Bette also put Brianna's father in critical condition in the hospital. And so Brianna finds herself having to deal with everything on her own...including the one room in Ralph and Bette's house that she never got to enter when she used to visit as a child.

Although the couple had lived frugal lives, to the point that they still had dial-up Internet, they apparently had spent a small fortune amassing an enormous collection of Timeless Innocents figurines. The locked room in their house is filled with them. Although each one is clearly well-made, Brianna finds them to be distasteful, for reasons that seem to go beyond her usual dislike of kitschy knick-knacks.

It probably helps if you go into this story with a preexisting dislike of dolls and figurines shaped like people. Even if there hadn't been something off about the Timeless Innocents figures, I'd probably still have been creeped out by a whole room of them.

At any rate, anyone with even a little experience with the horror genre could probably guess how this story turns out. There wasn't really anything new here, but I did enjoy the slight creepiness of it all, particularly the “Dan” figurine.

Brianna wasn't exactly a likable character, but I could feel some sympathy for her as she thought about her distant relationship with her father, her uncertain future as a lawyer, and her issues with her boyfriend. Brianna's boyfriend was a controlling jerk who rapidly went from annoying to scary, and I cheered a bit when he was neatly dealt with, although I imagine Brianna will eventually come to regret the decision she made at the end of the story.

Characters' emotional reactions felt somewhat hollow, and some of the phrasing struck me as being old-fashioned. For example, Brianna mentally called Jason, her boyfriend, a “son of a so-and-so” (19), and Jason got upset when he thought that Brianna had “taken up with someone else” (71). Overall, though, I enjoyed this nicely creepy story. I only wish I'd gotten to see a bit more of what the figurines could do.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Familiar_Diversions | 1 muu arvostelu | Dec 6, 2015 |
This one caught my eye when I was browsing Carina Press's mysteries. I loved the cover, and the setting, Denver in 1919, intrigued me, so I bought it. I'm very glad I did. It had its issues, but it was still a really enjoyable book.

The story: Geraldine Brunton's real name isn't Geraldine Brunton, but it will do, as long as it keeps anyone from connecting her with her past life in Boston. She wants to start a new life in Denver, but first she has to find a job. Unfortunately, she has no marketable skills and no references. It seems hopeless, until she stumbles across an ad for a companion to a semi-invalid lady. She takes a chance and applies. To her relief, Mrs. Stubbs, the lady, takes an immediate liking to her and is willing to overlook her lack of references.

Being Mrs. Stubbs' companion is sometimes boring and occasionally stifling, but Geraldine finds herself growing to like her employer. Her position gives her temporary security, but she knows things could change at any moment. This becomes especially apparent when one of the servants turns up dead and Mrs. Stubbs almost dies of what is either an accidental overdose or an attempt to poison her.

This book's biggest failing was that it was predictable. I spent a large chunk of it thinking that surely the most obvious culprits couldn't be the true murderers, but they were. The one surprise was that the total number of villains was slightly greater than I originally thought, but even then I was able to guess who the extra person was before the big reveal.

However, I still very much enjoyed this book. While, sadly, it looks like Patterson hasn't published any other historical mysteries, she has several works published under the name Janis Susan May that are now on my personal wishlist.

Based on the cover, I thought this might end up being one of those atmospheric books where the setting, the house, practically becomes another character. That wasn't the case. However, the story did have a nicely claustrophobic feel to it. Most of it took place inside the house, and Geraldine had a very limited view of what was going on around her. Eula, Mrs. Stubbs' daughter, and Milton, Eula's husband, had active social lives, but Geraldine was very firmly Mrs. Stubbs' employee, and Mrs. Stubbs rarely left her room. As a result, Geraldine was fairly isolated. Even her companion status was isolating – she wasn't part of the family, but she wasn't quite a regular servant either.

Geraldine held herself apart from people emotionally, as well. It took a while for readers to learn the full truth about her past, but there were enough bits and pieces along the way to have some idea of what happened. She had once had a much higher social status – her father was in a position to meet the president, for example – and she had once been married. There were indications that her husband seriously abused her. I should note that the abuse was both physical and sexual, and she has some flashbacks later in the book – I don't recall anything graphic, but it was still horrible.

(While I'm at it: two dogs die in this book. Readers don't get to know either one while they're living, but they were both beloved pets. One was poisoned off-page, and the other was horrifically murdered. I wish book villains could be villainous without killing animals.)

Geraldine lived in fear of anyone finding out about her past, and I suppose her preoccupation with her own secrets could explain why she failed to notice certain things more quickly. For example, I caught on to the poisoned dog's importance much sooner than her. It was a little frustrating how long she took to catch on to some things, or to remember certain details.

Still, I enjoyed the characters, particularly Detective Warren, and I wouldn't say no to a spinoff starring Rhoda. The story kept me hooked the entire way through, and I had fun trying to work out what was going on and what everyone's motivations were. This is one of those cases where the journey was worth it, even if, in the end, a couple of the villains were a little over-the-top. I do wish the ending had been a little less abrupt, though. I'd have liked to see Geraldine talk to Mrs. Stubbs after everything was over and all had been revealed.

Rating Note:

My grade for this book was B-/B, either 3.5 or 4 stars. I settled on 4 because I decided that this is one of those cases where personal enjoyment trumps any issues I had with the book's predictability.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Familiar_Diversions | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | May 12, 2015 |

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Associated Authors

Tilastot

Teokset
15
Jäseniä
47
Suosituimmuussija
#330,643
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.5
Kirja-arvosteluja
9
ISBN:t
27