This Sunday, we have some Lightning Reviews! These reviews are shorter than our standard reviews. They work well for novellas or when you finish a book and realize you might not have much to say! In this edition, we have a biography of Agatha Christie, a fun-sounding contemporary romance, and the first book in a romantic suspense series.
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
author: Laura Thomspon
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life is a relatively new release and yet it reads like a biography from the 1970’s or 1980’s. There’s a lot of fat shaming. The Edwardian period is heavily sentimentalized. Several parts of the story are imagined in a dreamy, poetic manner. The author sides with Christie on all fronts, minimizing her racism and anti-Semitism (as was typical of her era, Christie disliked Italians as well, which is also minimized) and justifying some of her more selfish actions.
However, this biography is quite comprehensive and weirdly addictive. Christie was in many ways very conventional in her attitudes and yet she did a lot of amazing things. In WWI she was a nurse who assisted with surgeries and became very matter-of-fact about cleaning up (including tossing amputated parts into the incinerator). In WWII she worked in a pharmacy and pestered her boss for information about poisons. She was in London during the Blitz. She went on a round-the-world tour with her first husband and learned to surf, and accompanied her second husband on his archeological digs in Egypt and the Middle East. She also disappeared for two weeks, creating a real-life mystery and uproar. The author tries to imagine what might have been going on in Christie’s head and it makes about as much sense as anyone else’s guess.
I would only recommend this to die-hard Christie fans, and I’m curious if any readers can recommend a better bio of this flawed but extremely entertaining and influential author.
– Carrie S
Nonfiction
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Close to the Bone
author: Kendra Elliot
Close to the Bone by Kendra Elliot is the first in a romantic suspense novella duology and features a creepy cold case on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest.
Cate Wilde is a FBI Special Agent who is taking some time off after being shot on the job. She’s staying with her grandmother on Widow’s Island, where she grew up, when a skeleton of a young woman is found on nearby Ruby Island. Cate and her childhood friend, police officer Tessa Black, team up to try and identify the remains. They might belong to a young woman who disappeared a few years ago or possibly to Cate and Tessa’s high school friend who vanished one night when they were all supposed to sneak out and meet each other, a case that haunts them both.
There’s a nice gothic quality to the mystery in this book, but the romance angle doesn’t appear until the end, and even then feels forced. Cate and the local doctor and coroner, Henry, develop some feelings for each other, but it feels like an after thought.
The ending to the mystery is pretty satisfying and it sets up nicely for the sequel, A Bone to Pick by Melinda Leigh. As straight suspense I’d give this novella an A, but it fails to hit its mark with the romance angle.
– Elyse
Mystery/Thriller, Novella, Romantic Suspense, Romance
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Heartstrings
author: Belinda Williams
If you were to put a holiday novella under a box, propped up by stick that had a string tied around it in order to form a great Elyse-trap, Heartstrings would be the book you’d want to choose.
This novella features:
- A sexy British actor who plays villains in every movie.
- A young woman who is obsessed with Wonder Woman and Gal Gadot.
- Sex in a heated pool.
You don’t need to read any of the other Hollywood Hearts books to get Heartstrings, but they’re good and I recommend them, especially Heartthrob.
Now, a lot of celebrity romances feature heroes who are like, “I’m People’s sexiest man alive. I don’t have feels, but my dick is telling me I should follow around this lady even though she’s normal and plain and not like the models I date! I must put my penis in her! WHY?!”
I mean…
This series features heroes who are, like, actual, normal human beings who just happen to have weird jobs.
In this book Bennett Moss, sexy British villain actor and Elyse-bait, hires Bella Valenti to throw a Christmas party for him, his mom and his niece. His niece lost her father (Bennett’s brother) earlier in the year and since her mother passed when she was young, Bennett and his mom are her only family. Bennett wants this to be the bestest Christmas ever for Kelsie.
The problem is Bella knows Kelsie is a little warrior who idolizes Wonder Woman and wants a production while Ben’s idea of a perfect party for three is really his not moving on with his own grief and it’s gonna make Kelsie sad.
So we have a hero who is a celebrity (a trope I find really interesting), who normally plays a villain (please see my Pinterest board dedicated to sexy British villains) and who in real life has a heart of gold and just wants to make Christmas special for his niece. That is like all the things I love so hard. Added to that is some seriously emotional conflict that’s resolved in a satisfying way. For such a short book, I was impressed by the depth of feeling it had.
Heartstrings was the perfect holiday novella for me, and I think it will appeal to a lot of readers.
– Elyse
Contemporary Romance, Novella, Romance
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I’ve read Janet Morgan’s Agatha Christie: A Biography, first published in 1984. It was an official biography of Christie, having been authorised by her daughter after her death, and Morgan had access to family/friends and Christie’s personal papers. It’s a slow read with a lot of minutia in places, but I enjoyed it.
(Also, I don’t remember any fat shaming!)
I’ve long meant to read Christie’s own autobiography. Anybody tried that one?
Dang, really had my hopes up that the second one was f/f
Closing my eyes, imagining Jason Issacs, and CLICK!
My personal theory is that British actors are so good at playing villains because a Shakespearean background helps you learn to sell melodramatic bs.
Georgina, I’ve read Christie’s autobiography, though it’s been a while. But I remember being completely pulled into it and enjoying it a lot. There are some things she doesn’t talk about, like the days she went missing. But it’s got a lot of insight into her career, which I loved. Pair it with John Curran’s “Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks” and you’ll have all the behind-the-scenes scoop on how she wrote.
@Herberta that’s certainly nicer than my theory, which was colonialism.
I’ve read Agatha Christie’s autobiography which was quite interesting. However, the most book that provides psychological insight into her first marriage, divorce and disappearance is a thinly disguised autobiographical novel, “Unfinished Portrait” published in 1934, after she had remarried. It was published under her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott. It is written from a first person point of view about a woman who marries, has a daughter, and whose husband divorces her for another woman. It is very sad and painful .
The following article describes her Westmacott books in more detail: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3667318/Priceless-clues-to-the-real-Agatha-Christie.html
please see my Pinterest board dedicated to sexy British villains
Imma need a link to that board, pls and thx.
Thank you, Theresa and Marie, for the suggestions! Adding some things to my TBR pile.