by Wendy Hawkin | Jun 23, 2019 | Book Review, Canadian writers, urban fantasy
I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been binge-reading Kelley Armstrong’s Cainsville series. I’m impressed. I decided to try it, as I love her Rockton series and I had the chance to meet her at Creative Ink in March. This series is exciting and devilish and very clever. It’s also the closest series I’ve read to my own Hollystone Mysteries. Elements are similar. We’re definitely in the realm of sexy urban fantasy with a twist of murder. It’s also mythic and arises from Celtic folklore. Faeries. Where I write of the Irish Sidhe (shee), Kelley writes of the Welsh Tylwyth Teg, the Cŵn Annwn, and something called the Sluagh. Same powerful and mysterious Celtic beings. Two different islands.
Right off the top, let me say that the one thing lacking is a Pronunciation Guide. It’s frustrating having to guess at the proper way to say a Gaelic word, even in your mind. Welsh is as tricksy as the fae. The author mentions that Cŵn Annwn is sounded as Coon Anoon, but as for the others, I know my inner voice is mispronouncing. In Book 5, when the Sluagh appear, I thought it could have been pronounced slow or slew with a silent gh, but no. The word is apparently spoken as sloo-ah. (I had to google it.) I’ve been pronouncing Tylwyth Teg as till-oo-ith teg. I know that w creates an oo sound. But that might be wrong too. Thus, the need for a guide.
Two of these fae factions have their own kings. For the Cŵn Annwn, it’s Arawn, King of the Underworld. He presides over spectral hounds and directs The Wild Hunt. Gwynn ap Nudd is King of the Tylwyth Teg AKA King of Faerie. These are creatures associated with the Welsh Mabinogion tales and early Arthurian legends.
The spooky town is brilliant. Cainsville. Located just outside Chicago, Illinois, it’s in seemingly sleepy small town America. Most people know the biblical story of Cain and Abel, who were the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the farmer, and Abel, the shepherd, both made sacrifices. God favored Abel’s and rejected Cain’s. Jealous and bitter, Cain killed his brother and was then cast out. Apparently, he made it as far as Cainsville. If you’ve read Beowulf, you’ll know that Cain is the father of all monsters, including Grendel, the beast our Anglo-Saxon superhero comes to slay. Since the Beowulf poet was Christian, those monsters involved anything pagan, including faeries. In Irish myth, the fey have been called “fallen angels”—they who fell from God’s grace along with Satan. Knowing this, opens up the series and the town to all kinds of shenanigans.
In Book 1 (Omens) we are introduced to Olivia Taylor-Jones (born as Eden Larsen.) She’s a heroic misfit like all of Kelley Armstrong’s leads. A strong woman with mystical skills because, of course, she has fey blood. Almost all the characters are fey in some way. Liv sees and interprets omens. As Liv, it’s hard to sympathize with her. She’s grown up pampered and proud in a wealthy Chicago family, studied Ivy League Victorian literature, specializing in Sherlock Holmes, and has a mansion and a mother to return to when she’s done slumming it in Cainsville. The twist is, Olivia began life as Eden Larsen. When her serial-killer parents were convicted for ritually murdering four couples, little Eden was adopted by the Taylor-Jones. In Omens, Liv’s secret is exposed and she becomes fixated on learning the truth. Are my parents really serial killers or were they framed? This thread weaves through all five books.
To uncover the truth, Liv connects with the handsome attorney who defended her parents. If he wasn’t so emotionally stunted, she’d be sleeping with him in Book 1. Like his namesake, Gabriel Walsh, is indeed Olivia’s angel. And, one can only hope, her someday lover. Walsh (which is Irish for those fellas from Wales) is an intellectual white-collar bad boy and self-made man, whose mother was an abusive drug addict.
Just to stir the pot, in Omens, Kelley throws in two other potential mates for Olivia. Young Ricky Gallagher, heir to the Satan’s Saints motorcycle gang, and James Morgan. James is a man of Olivia’s class, a politician who has her life as a senate wife all mapped out. Fortunately, she’s far too edgy for that life and knows it. She’s more interested in the blond, leathered biker.
Omens is tame. In Visions, Olivia takes a ride on Ricky’s motorcycle and … Well, it’s “grass, gas, or ass.” The sex scenes are inventive. When I met Kelley Armstrong, I thought, “Wow. She wrote those sex scenes!” Then I look at myself and wonder how many people think the same thing about me. Sex is an expectation of the Urban Fantasy genre and Kelley writes it well. Very well.
I liked the story in Book 2 (Visions) but I’ll be honest. I skimmed the descriptions of Olivia’s visions. Not because the writing was bad. It’s not. Kelley Armstrong is a fantastic writer. But the visions are so horrific and vivid—reminiscent of Stephen King—I didn’t want them in my head, especially at bedtime.
In Book 3 (Deceptions) the story deepens as the old Welsh rivalry between raven-haired Gwynn ap Nudd and the golden boy Arawn is revealed. They both love Mathilda. But who will she choose? This question forms one of the major series questions. Arawn is Ricky Gallagher, thundering the highways on his motorcycle rather than through the fields on his horse. Still he’s on the hunt. Naturally, Gabriel is Gwynn—dark, mysterious, grave. Both are willing to do anything for Mathilda, our Olivia. The author clearly explains that these characters are not reincarnations. They do not follow a fated pattern, and they have free will.
SPOILER: In the myth, Mathilda chooses Gwynn and the couple betray Arawn. But not so here. In Visions, Olivia chooses Ricky Gallagher and by Deceptions, she is officially his girlfriend, having been to the clubhouse and been somewhat accepted by Ricky’s father. Still, she has moments where she dreams of being with Gabriel. Ah, the old love triangle arises.
A second major story question revolves around Olivia’s birth parents: Todd and Pamela Larsen. Did they really ritually kill four couples, and if so, why? In Omens, Gabriel and Olivia solve one of the crimes. So that leaves six murders still unaccounted for. In Deceptions, we discover more about Todd and Pamela, possible motives, triggers, and liaisons, and a new story emerges about Eden Larsen AKA Olivia Taylor-Jones.
This series is addictive because of all the unanswered questions. Kelley Armstrong is clever with the cliffhangers and even more clever at weaving action and emotion.
The fourth book is Betrayals. This one really stopped me in my tracks. More horrific visions involving the savage murder of young fae girls. I couldn’t handle it. I wanted to read every word but I just couldn’t do it. I’m very visual and I found it too graphic. I ended up skimming most of this book because I just wanted to know who Olivia chose … Ricky or Gabriel? Because by then I’d decided who I wanted her to choose. It’s a hard choice for the reader. Ricky and Gabriel are two very different men from two very different worlds, but both are handsome knights who’d give their life for their beloved.
I read every word of Book 5 (Rituals). Kelley does an amazing job of tying everything up in this, the final book. The addition of the third fey strain—the horrid unforgiveable Sluagh, who steal souls and turn them into blood-crazed birds—really ups the stakes.
Was I satisfied with the ending? Yes. Was everything explained? Yes. This is an epic series: part horror, part romance, and all thriller. I hope it gets optioned for the screen.
by Wendy Hawkin | Apr 12, 2019 | Canadian writers, news-events
Do you ever wonder how many writers are in your community?
This is a perfect way to find out. Join us in celebrating the new White Pines Collection.
I will be reading a brief, family-safe scene from To Render a Raven (I know they’re hard to find in my books.) Books will be available to borrow!
I love that the library is supporting local authors. Come and celebrate along with us. Please let me know if you can come or RSVP with the library.
by Wendy Hawkin | Apr 7, 2019 | Book Review, Canadian writers, murder mystery
Photo from radish fiction.com
I had the pleasure of meeting Kelley Armstrong last weekend at Creative Ink. She is one of the most talented and generous writers I’ve met yet. I learned so much in her three-hour master class that I’m still considering. The discussion there actually prompted a complete revision of the next book I’m writing. In a good way. I also went to a panel she joined on “Elevator Pitches” — sell your book in the time it takes to travel between floors. I wrote one for the book I’m currently working on and pitched it to her when we met for our “blue pencil” appointment. She took out one word and liked the rest. When she read the first scene of my draft, she gave me nothing but positive comments and solid suggestions for how to improve. This is what a writer needs.
I started reading her “Cainsville” series two weeks ago and am surprised by similarities between it and my Hollystone mysteries series. Both are urban fantasy. Both are murder mystery. Both are written for adults—she writes some seriously edgy scenes! Both feature faeries and Celtic myth. I started with Book Two, so now I must go back and read Book One. They’re written as stand-alone novels, so I had no problem following along. I’m just hooked now and want to know more. I want to see how the characters progress from beginning to end.
My review of Kelley’s latest Rockton book appeared last week in the Ottawa Review of Books. You can click the link or read it here.
Who is The Watcher in the Woods?
Book Four in Kelley Armstrong’s Casey Duncan crime series follows fresh on the heels of Book Three; in fact, it’s so fresh the bodies are still decomposing in the woods. Without divulging too many spoilers, one of the men who pursued the serial killer in the last story is shot in the back. A bullet is lodged near Kenny’s spine and there are no surgeons in Rockton—just a butcher who was once a psychiatrist.
Intent on saving Kenny’s life, Detective Casey Duncan and Sheriff Eric Dalton fly secretly to Vancouver to appeal to the best neurosurgeon they know: Casey’s older sister. They must sneak her into town for security reasons. Of course, in a town the size of Rockton, it’s hard to sneak anybody anywhere. The introduction of April as a major character opens up Casey’s family history and peels more layers from her backstory. But the sisters’ relationship is tenuous as April is about as gifted and gregarious as “House.”
Rockton is a town built on secrets. Imagine living in a place in the middle of the Yukon wilderness. A place that is not on a map or visible by plane or satellite or hooked up to the Internet. A place hidden from the world. Imagine that everyone who lives there, all two hundred of you, have been brought here for a reason. Refuge. You’re either a victim of crime or a criminal yourself. The butcher may have murdered his entire family. The madam who runs the bordello may have ripped off the elderly for their life savings. Your neighbour may have been a hit man for the mob. It’s an idyllic prison, of sorts. Even our fearless detective is hiding out for a reason: she is a killer. Not a “line of duty” kind of killer—a “woman who went looking for a man with a gun in her pocket” kind of killer.
Into that mix, throw a man who claims to be a U.S. Federal Marshal in search of a fugitive. Let him track down the hidden town, watch from the woods, then come in bold-faced and search among the townspeople for his target. Idealism turns to chaos. Everyone is certain the marshal is there to drag him or her back to face justice. The marshal claims the person he is seeking appears normal but is criminally insane—a description that fits several of Rockton’s residents. But he won’t reveal who he’s hunting. Now, what would happen if the marshal was found murdered? If indeed he is a marshal. How difficult would it be to determine who shot him?
With a police force of three, a volunteer militia, and an unreliable council who deals out its own brand of justice, anything can happen. In the previous book, the leader of the council was removed. I won’t tell you how that happened. But, the new leader is adversarial and just as sketchy as his predecessor.
The romantic sub-plot takes a back seat in this book. Now that Casey and Eric have settled into their relationship, Casey focuses on protecting her newly-adopted town from itself. She suspects everyone of murdering the U.S. Marshal, except her boyfriend. Even her estranged sister, who appeared in Rockton at the same time as the man, is suspect.
And then there are the hostiles—residents who’ve left Rockton to take up residence in the wilderness. Intriguing and terrifying, these shadow-creatures are something between reavers and zombies. With just a hint of humanity, they appear when least expected. In this book, Armstrong throws in a delicious twist that makes us wonder how they evolved—or rather devolved. Fodder for another sequel? Please.
Armstrong’s clean, tight, present-tense narration propels this crime thriller through rock-strewn paths to the big reveal. With a town like Rockton, and so much more to learn about Casey Duncan and her partner, Eric Dalton, this series could go on indefinitely.
from the Ottawa Review of Books, March 2019
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 2, 2019 | Book Review, Canadian writers, Ireland
In the prologue of this historical novel, Anne Emery reveals that the title is derived from a Latin phrase inscribed on the Four Courts in Dublin, fiat justitia ruat caelum. Transcribed in English it means “let justice be done though the heavens fall.” It’s a fitting title for a book starring a Catholic priest and a lawyer, both who are consumed by righting wrongs in Northern Ireland.
This book is set in Belfast 1995. Though the IRA has called a ceasefire, it’s still an uneasy time. Centuries of violence and hatred have left a legacy of vengeance that is unforgettable, and for some, unforgivable. Everyone has been affected in some way; most have lost family members, through death and imprisonment. It is a difficult conversation and I applaud Anne Emery for her courage. This could not have been an easy book to research and to write, and is, at times, not easy to read.
Much of the story is based on historical events, and be forewarned: the tale is told by Republican characters from a Republican point-of-view. Though we sometimes hear that horrible crimes were committed by both sides, most events depicted were perpetrated by Orangemen—Protestants loyal to Britain who wanted to keep their border (their wall) and a divided Ireland. The brutal beatings in Loyalist prisons. The Catholic Republican martyrs who died in Kesh while enduring hunger strikes to make their point. These were Nationalists who wanted the British out of Ireland, the border gone, and a free self-determining Republic that included the entire island, all thirty-two counties.
This is a timely book release, given the looming threat imposed by Brexit. If the right deal is not struck between the EU and Britain by the March 29 deadline, the physical partition between north and south, that fell after the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998, could rise again with British troops and all the anguish that divides a people.
It is this highly charged emotional backdrop that fuels the question: can justice be done?
The two main characters in this story are both determined to right past wrongs and see justice done. This book is part of a series, the Collins-Burke Mysteries and is actually Book Ten. Having not read any of the others—which are set in Nova Scotia where Collins and Burke live—I read it as a stand-alone. The characters are developed well enough, and we see them working away from home, navigating a hostile environment.
While working in Belfast on a farm equipment case, Monty Collins gets caught up in trying to solve the 1992 murder of a Republican, which has left the man’s family destitute. Because his death has been deemed an accident—Eamon Flannigan was drunk and fell off a bridge so the story goes—his family can claim no financial compensation. Out of the goodness of his heart and his pocketbook, Monty becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened out there on the bridge that night. If he can pin Flannigan’s murder on someone, he can, at least, save this family from financial ruin. The same night near the same bridge, an IRA gunman was executed by an Ulster man.
Meanwhile, Father Brennan Burke is living with his cousin Ronan’s family in Andersontown, a Republican community southwest of Belfast. Ronan Burke is a leading man in the IRA—the man his supporters would hail as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) if ever they had the chance to create a new, peaceful Ireland. He’s tough and he’s loved. He’s also a prime target who travels with bodyguards, and the ghosts of his past, and his son’s, arise to haunt him. Ronan is investigating an unsolved bombing from 1974 that killed many civilians—one of whom was Father Burke’s best mate. The suspects are all dead but one—a man who’s just returned to Belfast, and the Burkes are intent on bringing him to justice.
Emery’s writing is impeccable, sophisticated and polished; the accents subtle enough to set the reader in Belfast without sounding staged or overdone. Though politically complex, Emery has a way of making this war accessible, even understandable. The gritty details are difficult to read. She sets us down in the thick of it, with all the graffiti, the ruins, the prison beatings, and massacres. At times, you can almost smell the smoke of the bombs, feel the despair, taste the blood. And in the end, when the heavens fall and come crashing down around Father Brennan, his realizations link all the puzzle pieces together. For at the heart of this book is a political murder mystery rife with red herrings.
As reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books, February 2019
The Four Courts, Dublin, courtesy of libraryireland.com
by Wendy Hawkin | Dec 3, 2018 | Book Review, Canadian writers
Vicious bikers. The Irish mob. A family of squatters. A clever police detective. Death Count 26.
Some landscapes summon evil and once there, it lingers. Ragged Lake was a German POW camp during World War II, and then a mill town owned by O’Hearn Forest Products. Now, in its death throws, it’s transformed into something you don’t ever want to encounter, except perhaps in fiction.
Ron Corbett is a rare breed: journalist and poet. His detailed knowledge of war, of crime, of people and their nightmarish capabilities, fuses with a talent for sensory language and visceral description to lift the story off the page. Like a shotgun blast. This is a crime novel and something else—a genre called “rural noir”—a black day in the country and no picnic. Corbett writes in omniscient third-person mixing viewpoints to create a fast-paced, plot-driven, page-turner. The characters don’t change—there’s no time for that.
It begins with a triple murder. Special Forces soldier Guillaume Roy, his woman, Lucy Whiteduck, and their little girl, Cassandra, are murdered in the ramshackle cabin they built on the shore of Ragged Lake. They are squatters on O’Hearn land and keep to themselves as much as possible. Much of the backstory is revealed through the journal Lucy leaves with an old Cree woman three days before her murder: her not-so-idyllic childhood living in the Five Mile lumber camp run by O’Hearn, where her Cree father was foreman; her intimate connections with the Irish mob from Corktown; her therapy sessions; her relationship with Roy, and their escape into the wilderness. There, by the shore of Ragged Lake, for a moment, Lucy experiences peace: “Love. Work. Family. The fine high rise of that. Those were our days.”
Burley police detective, Frank Yakabuski comes to investigate the murders with two young Ident officers. Yakabuski discovers that the Popeyes are operating a giant methamphetamine lab in the defunct survival school. He figures the squatters found the lab and were executed by the bikers. Perhaps. But that, as the cliché goes, is only the tip of the exploding iceberg.
Ottawa author, Ron Corbett says: “If you’re a writer, whether fiction or non-fiction, unless you’re writing about a place that you’re familiar with and that’s important to you, I don’t know why you’re doing it.” Corbett has spent his life travelling and writing about the Ottawa Valley and Algonquin Highlands. Because he’s created a “fictionalized Northern Divide” all the time I was reading, I kept wondering where I was. Now I know. Ragged Lake lies on the southern border of Algonquin Park—one of my favourite places in the world. In 2000, Corbett camped there and wrote a newspaper feature based on his experiences. The author is most known for The Last Guide, his autobiography of Frank Kuiack, Algonquin Park’s last remaining fishing guide. In Ragged Lake, Corbett takes his experiences as a journalist and spins them into fiction.
photo from http://algonquinadventures.com
Corbett is also well acquainted with war stories, having written First Soldiers Downabout Canada’s deployment to Afghanistan. Both Detective Yakabuski and Special Ops Guillaume Roy bear the grisly scars of war and military training. Sometimes it’s hard to read. Roy’s experience in Bosnia, for example, is almost too real.
Toronto publisher, ECW, uses the acronym “Extreme Cutting-Edge Writing” and that’s what you’ll find here. Grisly, raw, evocative fiction based on experience and a sense of place…and what a place.
As reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books, December 2018
