Genre: Mystery

My Rating: 6 out of 10

For a $0.99 ebook, The Abbey provides good entertainment value. However, I purposefully set aside consistency issues and hanging threads to make it through. If you are anal about these things, you may wish to save yourself some cursing and skip this read.

Consistency example: Ash is forever interjecting his thoughts about and practice of his Muslim religion, which wouldn’t be bad except for things like explaining to his ex-partner that he couldn’t eat at a diner that cooked their bacon on the same griddle as their pancakes, and later lecturing the investigative lead that Muslims didn’t eat pork, but he sure loved bacon! I guess Ash thought he needed to confess a foible for the lesson, and, to be fair, he may have been referring to the “turkey bacon” he mentions eating later – but that doesn’t really fit with the lesson of “people follow urges despite religion”. I guess he couldn’t exactly admit to being the closet drunk he was and keep his badge, but couldn’t he pick one that didn’t clash so loudly?

Open threads example: Let’s see, a certain question he asks of the main bad person is never answered. The answer impacts Ash directly and, not only does Ash not follow up, he doesn’t bother to ask for any tests to get the answer for himself… yeah, that bothered me.

On a positive note, while most of the characters are left hollow, you can’t help but sympathize with Ash, and the pacing of the story provides a nice tempo to march you through what I would consider a story on par with your average TV cop show episode. It kept me entertained for a few hours with only the occasional, “WTF?” Well worth the buck for the download.

How is law enforcement affected when we allow alien cohabitation here on Earth? The Better Part of Darkness answers this from a very personal perspective. Charlie Madigan, protagonist and narrator, is a tough-as-nails single mother police detective whose divorce and death are triggered through alien criminals. Her death isn’t the worst crime committed against her, though. The hard work begins when she’s brought back to life.

Genre: Urban Fantasy

My Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Outside of a scene where Charlie gives a V8 Mustang its head on I-85, the book’s cover blurb on reality is dead on. (I’ve never been through Atlanta at any time, on any major road, where you could take a moped full speed to anywhere.) The twists Kelly Gay makes to Atlanta Underground and area landmarks are beautiful. The descriptions add a touch of exotic to an already interesting and diverse part of town. Some of them are a tad redundant, but that goes away as the story builds steam.

I especially like that Charlie is Charlie throughout the whole book. Kelly Gay makes no cop outs with her character to advance plot. Charlie is definitely female. She is aware of and affected by her sexuality. It adds some challenges to her life, but she deals with them just like she deals with every other challenge she encounters. She either buries it for later examination or beats the living daylights out of it!

You do discover that there is more to Ms. Madigan than a stereotype tough guy, but it takes a bit to surface, so the beginning was a little slow for me. As the interactions between Charlie and her family and friends deepened, and as her internal conflicts wrapped tendrils of humanity around her character, so did my desire as a reader to see her through each trial. Near the end, while the conflict is building to final climax, I laughed and cried with Charlie. To me, caring equals great story.

From mid-story, following a jump from a moving car while wearing a dress and heels, example of language, tempo and reminder of a smile I had:

I searched the bag for my wallet, pulling out three bucks and some change. At least the counter wasn’t too far away. Wincing, I shuffled forward in the torturous black pumps and ordered a large sweet tea and a chocolate chip cookie.

The clerk lifted an eyebrow at my appearance. “You all right?”

With a wry half-smile, I handed him the three bucks. “Yeah. you’d be amazed what a clearance sale at the Apple Store does to some people.”

He froze. “There’s a clearance sale at the Apple Store?”

“Yeah. Ends today though.”

“Dude. Really?”

“I nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”

The door jingled. The clerk looked beyond me and gave a nod to the new person. No, I corrected, smelling the distinct scent of tar. Not a person. A jinn. Shit.

Be aware that many details are not tied up in the end. The Better Part of Darkness is obviously intended to be part of a series. The ending is satisfying enough that it doesn’t let you down too terribly, though, so I didn’t mind.

I did mind the few typos I stumbled across, and the mix up of names on pg. 308 annoyed me (confused where two characters were and what they were doing). Overall though, I recommend The Better Part of Darkness for a fun read.

Have you read Kelly Gay’s The Better Part of Darkness? Please share your impression with a comment.

The story Tracy Grant tells with Daughter of the Game has nice depth and wonderful potential. The mysteries to be solved revolve around happenings during Napoleon’s Peninsular War, where a diplomat husband and his wife met. The solving grounds are 1819 England.

Genre: Historical Thriller

My Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Following an apparent kidnapping, the wife must make confessions that might cost her most of what she holds dear in life to save something she holds dearer, her son. Kidnapping, espionage, true love, plot and counter plot all play merrily along as she and her betrayed husband desperately put the son’s safety and recovery above the distracting turmoil of a multitude of relationships being revealed to not be as they appeared. Overall, I liked the book and I’m glad I read it. I do have a couple of problems with it, though.

One is fairly forgivable. One of the plot twists is a bit much; an out of the blue punch that seemed more for shock factor than any real addition to the story. It felt contrived and distracting.

The other will keep me from searching out another of the author’s works purposefully. To me, the dialogue seemed soap opera driven. There were a handful of main characters that engaged in long, drawn out, explicit explanations of attitude, intention and result before and after every piece of action in the story. I had no problem at all setting this book down after 15 or 20 minutes of reading each evening. That’s a fairly criminal reaction to a suspense novel.

The story still wins out for a better than average read, though. I’m sure many appreciate that style of dialogue more than I, and to those folks, I heartily recommend Daughter of the Game. To the rest of you, you could do worse for a beside reader. Then again, you could probably do better, too.

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