This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher.

A man obtains an unidentified film from the estate of a collector and is struck blind in the middle of watching it. His ex-lover, detective Lucie Henebelle, who gets him to the hospital, begins investigating the images hidden in the film and a lead indicates that there is a connection to five corpses that were recently uncovered at a construction site. Henebelle joins forces with Inspector Franck Sharko, who is meant to be functioning as a behavioral analyst but who can't seem to stop hitting the streets for investigations himself, to discover the truth behind a case that stretched from Canada to Cairo and spanned over fifty years.

This is a wonderfully disturbing book. Initially I was more invested in the parts involving the film than in the parts involving the bodies, primarily because mutilated corpses are a dime a dozen in crime novels but subliminal marketing techniques are original. But as the plot unfolds and the various threads are linked to each other, the connections feel legitimate and unforced, even if on one occasion somebody does rather conveniently appear out of the blue to tell one of our protagonists all of the useful information they know. Overall, though, this is a well executed thriller that ventures into dark territories of the mind.

(I feel like I should add one caveat: Sharko has schizophrena. He's on medication, but he still has hallucinations, in particular of a woman called Eugenie. Eugenie goes away through means that I doubt are medically recommended. He reflects after she vanishes that he's still a schizophrenic and will be on medication for the rest of my life, which reassures me somewhat that he's not meant to have been magically cured, but I remain a bit cautious until I see if Thilliez continues to address this or if the schizophrenia is simply dropped.)

Overall: B+


Syndrome E will be available April 29.

This review is based on an advance readers copy received from the publisher.

In the last years of the 17th century, Zummo arrives in Florence and receives a commission from Grand Duke Cosimo. Zummo mostly sculpts images of disease and decay, but the Grand Duke has a top secret, completely different commission for him.

The concept was intriguing, but the book never seemed to settle into what it was supposed to be. The story of the commission ends a hundred pages before the book does, nor does Zummo's work - either on the commission or on his usual subjects - ever receive enough attention to make this a book about sculpting wax. Zummo and Faustina's romance is never compelling enough to carry the book on its own. The court intrigue, although it ultimately propels what there is of a plot, doesn't actually seem to be on the page that much. The setting feels underestablished- for example, Faustina and Zummo's affair is underway well before we are told that it's dangerous for a man to be seen leaving the home of an unmarried woman. It would have given us a better understanding of the place and gotten us invested earlier in the risks they were taken if this had been revealed first.

I finished this book, but I'm not overly impressed with it.

Overall Grade: C

Secrecy will be available April 22

I've long been unsure of if Vicki Lewis Thompson's books are as good as those by other romance authors that I follow; in fact I relegated her to the borrow-from-the-library-first list long ago. I usually at least find the books that I read by her funny, though.

Luke's sister, Cynthia, and Giselle's brother, Bryce, have both run off. Cynthia has dropped out of college and wants to be a showgirl at the family's casino. Bryce is shirking his responsibilities as the future alpha of the werewolf pack. Luke and Giselle team up to look for their siblings.

What struck me about this book was how absolutely unnecessary the werewolf aspects were. Obviously somebody has to be a werewolf in order for the book to be in this series, but most of the plot has absolutely nothing to do with the secret of Giselle's species. All it does is provide a little additional justification for Giselle's reluctance to continue the relationship after she goes home, but distaste for long distance relationships and a belief that Luke wouldn't want to leave Vegas would have been just as reasonable considering how easily she ultimately gives up her stance against werewolf/human mating. The werewolf playground under a bar has no role apart from providing a pretty setting. And Luke and Giselle have very little reason to be believable as soul mates apart from sex so good and states of arousal so constant that it must be A Sign. At least nobody thought about having "had a great sexual experience"?

I was particularly disappointed because I really wanted to love this book when I realized that Giselle was the werewolf and Luke was the human. All of the other stories in the series either featured male werewolves with human women or couples that were both werewolves, and I thought it would be a wonderful subversion of the stereotypical alpha male werewolf dynamic for the heroine to be the dominant wolf-type. VLT hinted in this direction a bit with the short story "A Werewolf in Greenwich Village," in which both protagonists were werewolves but the heroine eventually challenged her brother for the alpha-ship of the pack and the hero was more of the supportive beta-wolf type, but I was hoping to see it explored more in a full length book and with a "mixed" couple. Sadly, this wasn't to be either, since Luke in spite of being human showed as many alpha stereotypes as was possible without descending into total alph-hole status.

Let's just say this was one I was happy I borrowed from the library, because I won't be needing my own copy.

Overall Grade: C

This review is based on an advance reader copy received from the publisher.

Monocle acquired his nickname because he has an English literature degree, but in search of some kind of job, he stumbled into the kitchen of The Swan. The Swan's oddball employees include Racist Dave and Camp Charles, but the dominant force is the head chef Bob, who rules with an iron fist and arbitrary sadism. The story is delightfully absurd, but from nearly the beginning there are hints of darker events to come.  I'll admit to being less invested in Monocle's life outside the kitchen, but his history does illuminate some of his behavior, and the book is wickedly enjoyable.

Overall Grade: B+

Chop Chop will be available April 17

This review is based on an advance copy received from the publisher.

On Christmas morning, Holly Judge wakes up late with the phrase "Something followed them home from Russia" gnawing at her. She thinks maybe she will find time to write again at last, but after she is left at home with her adopted daughter Tatiana while her husband goes to pick up his parents from the airport, nothing about the day goes as planned.

It's hard to say much about this book without spoiling it, as the day unfolds and the reader is left to puzzle out if there is something supernatural happening, if Tatiana is suffering from some kind of more mundane breakdown, or if it's Holly's perception that can't be trusted. At the end, there were still some details I was unsure how we were supposed to interpret, or if there was meant to be a right answer, but after the reveal on the last page I decided the author did "play fair." This is a book that will keep you wondering right to the end.

Overall: A

Mind of Winter will be available March 25.

This review is based on an ARC received from the publisher. Normally, that's the only ARC related thing I would say, since it's a given that an ARC is not a final copy and it's likely to be of lesser quality than a finished book. I'd never let any physical or copy-editing issues in an ARC affect my review, but I feel the need to mention that my ARC fell apart as I was reading it.

I feel the need to mention it because I can't think of a better way to sum up my opinion of this book to say that it was falling apart as I was reading it and I still finished it.

James, having just graduated from Oxford, moves to London with the intention of becoming a poet. He finds an aristocrat roommate who introduces him to new aspects of the world. Then he suddenly stops writing to his sister, Charlotte, who comes to find him. This book is atmospheric, gothic horror, intriguing even before the paranormal aspects of the story are out in the open. I'd recommend it not only for fantasy fans but for anybody interested in dark 19th century fiction.

Overall: A


The Quick will be available June 17

The protagonist of Ancillary Justice, Breq, used to be a spaceship, or more precisely both the AI of the ship and the hive-mind of the corpse soldiers it carried. Now she only has one human body left, which she intends to use for vengeance. While she searches for a weapon that she'll need to carry out her plan, she rescues an old crew member, Seivarden.

Everybody seems to be focusing on the exclusive use of "she" in Breq's non-gendered society in this book. (As far as I can tell, there do appear to be two sexes. Members of other cultures use "he" to refer to some Radchaai, and a brief, vague discussion of reproduction suggests that Radchaai do it the same way as other cultures that do differentiate between genders. They just don't seem to find it linguistically or socially relevant.) I was surprised to find out how little that seemed to figure into the point, other than as a way generally to start stretching the reader's brain into funny directions. At first it bothered me that I wasn't sure how I was supposed to be picturing characters, but after a while I remembered that half the time when I read a book I keep realizing I'm picturing a character with different colored hair or a different height than what the author has explicitly told me, so visualizing characters wrongly is nothing new and I should just take my best guess and stop worrying about it.

So gender isn't as big a part of this story as I expected after I kept hearing it compared to The Left Hand of Darkness, possibly because unlike that book both of our protagonists have their roots in the same gender neutral culture, although their experiences have been very different. Mostly, this is a story about identity. Breq used to be very much not human-shaped, when she was a ship called The Justice of Toren and many squads of human-shaped corpse soldiers. Now, she has one human-shaped body, but the question remains of what she is and how it relates to what she was, and whether or not she is or was human. Secondary themes explore the imperial Roman style Radchaii culture, it's relationship to other human cultures and non-human aliens, and the class differences within it.

This isn't a hundred percent the book that I was expecting, but it was a fascinating and intriguing world. I'll be looking forward to the next ones.

Overall Grade: A

This review is based on an advance copy received from the publisher.

A King's Ransom picks up after the crusade years covered in Penman's previous book, Lionheart, to follow Richard I and his family during his captivity and final wars with the king of France. It's an epic story in itself, let alone as part of the larger series about the dynasty, and when Angevins are involved history is usually larger than life. But although the story is engaging, I found it to be a bit lacking in characterization. Although Richard is the protagonist of this book, he shares the spotlight with several of his family and companions- in fact, there are several chapters wrapping up their stories after his death. There were very few members of this cast of characters whom I felt I'd come to know as people. Although Penman does suggest Richard suffered from PTSD following his captivity (without using that anachronistic term or any others that wouldn't have fit a late twelfth century mindset), I didn't take away a sense of what "made him tick." Queen Eleanor feels more completely developed than most (which is probably not a surprise considering that in any interpretation she steals whatever scene she is in), as does her daughter/Richard's sister Joanna. All in all I would consider this to be an engaging retelling of history, but it is less perfect than it could be because of the lack of psychological insight into the king of the title.

Overall grade: B+

A King's Ransom will be released March 4

Tom has been Conrad's servant and friend for ten years. So far neither of them has admitted that their desires go beyond that, but when the Captain begins to suspect, they decide that if they are going to be condemned anyway, there's no point in refraining from the crime. And that's only the beginning....

This is my favorite of Alex Beecroft's shorter works that I've read so far. It packs a lot of action into a story that I read in under forty-five minutes. Although our heroes each have some doubts about making the first move, neither do they dither until the end about confessing their feelings. And there are pirates. The pirates are lots of fun.

Overall grade: A