Blacktop Wasteland - S.A. Cosby

Wow, just wow. My review isn't going to do justice to S.A. Cosby's recently released Blacktop Wasteland - but just know it's an absolutely fantastic read.

Cosby opens Blacktop Wasteland with a night race on a road in rural Virginia. Bug's driving a Duster that his father left behind when he walked away. The description of time and place is so vivid - I could smell the gas, the rubber, hear the revving of engines, the squeal of tires and the buzz of the night. The settings are also characters in this book.

"Progress had left this part of town behind. A blacktop wasteland haunted by the phantoms of the past."

Beauregard "Bug" Montage is known as the best wheelman on the East Coast. Was. Bug's left the Life - he's gone straight - owns a garage, has a wife and a family. But his debts are mounting, despite his best efforts. He needs money.....and he knows one way to get it. He goes looking for a job - one that needs a wheelman - and he finds one.

There are so many layers to Cosby's story. First off the characters are wonderfully drawn. Bug is an intricate character, one the reader can't help be onside with. The supporting cast - good and bad - are just as well drawn. (I had a soft spot for cousin Kelvin) All of them jump off the page, with detailed lives.

And then there's' the heist. I must say, I can't get enough heist stories. This one is brilliantly imagined and planned. But there's always a snag somewhere. And again, Cosby's plotting is a standout. The danger, action and yes, unforseen twists and turns had me committing a crime. I couldn't help myself....I peeked ahead a few chapters. I know, I know, but the tension was unbearable! I truly couldn't put the book down.

But there's more to this story than just the heist. It's a study of a man whose life has been a struggle and his desire to have a better life for his family. Memories provide a look at Bug's early and formative years.

And that ending? Not what I wanted, but instead what is real. If I had to put a genre label on Blacktop Wasteland, it would be grit lit.

Blacktop Wasteland is one of my favorite reads for 2020. A pedal to the metal, non stop read. See for yourself - read an excerpt of Blacktop Wasteland.

The High Tide Club - Mary Kay Andrews - Review AND Giveaway

Oh, it's not summer without a new book from Mary Kay Andrews. The High Tide Club releases today - and it's so very, very good!  You're going to want to add The High Tide Club to your summer beach reads list. And I have a copy to giveaway to one lucky reader!

Andrews hooks the reader from the first pages with a prologue from 1941. Four young women have just buried a body. I know - not what I expected either! I wanted to know more - who and why? The narrative then flips to present day. Lawyer Brooke Tappenall is called to the island of Talisa. Ninety nine year old Josephine is the last of her family. She owns the majority of the island and has been fighting both developers and the state for years to keep her land. She also wants Brooke to find the heirs of her three childhood friends - all members of the self named High Tide Club. She needs to make amends.

There's the starting point and I'm not going to reveal any more. There are so many wonderful pieces to this story - friendship, loss, love, secrets and more. And of course the mystery of who was buried back in 1941. A back and forth narrative slowly reveals the past. And over the course of 480 delicious pages the past and present meet. Andrews provides some unexpected turns along the way. Some were a surprise. And some were darker than I could have predicted. But my hopes for a happy ending were met by the final pages.

The High Tide Club is told with both humour, warmth and pathos. Andrew's prose are easy and engaging. Mary Kay does 'southern' fiction so well. I loved her descriptions of the island, the ocean and the people. Her characters are always clearly drawn and the reader has no problem knowing who they're cheering on.

I really enjoyed this latest from Mary Kay Andrews. Now to begin the long wait for next year's book!Read an excerpt of The High Tide Club.

"Mary Kay Andrews is The New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House Cookbook, The Weekenders, Beach Town, Save the Date, Ladies’ Night, Christmas Bliss, Spring Fever, Summer Rental, The Fixer Upper, Deep Dish, Blue Christmas, Savannah Breeze, Hissy Fit, Little Bitty Lies, and Savannah Blues. A former journalist for The Atlanta Journal Constitution, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia." You can connect with Mary Kay Andrews on her website || subscribe to her newsletter || like her on Facebook || follow her on Instagram || follow her on Twitter || follow her on Pinterest and find her on Goodreads.

And if you'd like to read The High Tide Club, I have a copy to giveaway courtesy of St. Martin's Press. Enter using the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US only, no PO boxes please. Ends May 19/18.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Dark Road to Mercy - Wiley Cash

Wiley Cash's first novel A Land More Kind Than Home was a New York Times bestseller. It garnered rave reviews, and I remember putting it on my never ending must read list. Well, I never did get to it, but his second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, has just released in trade format - and I jumped at the chance to review it.

Twelve year old Easter and her six year old sister Ruby are now living in a foster home. Their mother has died and their father Wade signed away his parental rights years ago. But it is something in the way the man watching the ballgame Easter is playing that rings a bell.....it is Wade and he wants his girls to come with him. There's another man watching too - Wade has something that belongs to someone else. Pruitt will do whatever it takes to get that something back - and extract vengeance on Wade for an event from both their pasts. Easter, older and wiser beyond her years, makes a decision -and the three are on the run. There's a third man as well - Brady is the girls' court appointed guardian - and he too is on the trail of Wade and the girls.

I loved Easter's voice from the first line...."Wade disappeared on us when I was nine years old and then he showed up out of nowhere the year I turned twelve." She presents a hard exterior to the world, shielding herself and her sister from further hurt. Small vulnerabilities - wondering if a boy likes her for example, were all the more poignant as she is feeling her way through life without a parent.

Each of the characters in the book has a past - a past that influences the direction their present is taking. Wrongs that need righting, hopes, dreams, what could have been and what could be are entwined in the narratives of the three main characters. And somehow, to all three, this moment in represents redemption.

From the author's notes "....As a six-year-old, you're called a liar when you tell a story that you know isn't true. But if you can keep telling stories and wait just a few more years, people will eventually call you a writer. Even when they know your stories aren't true."

I think Cash is a great storyteller. This Dark Road to Mercy had mystery and suspense elements, but it was the characters themselves that captured me - especially Easter, with Wade a close second. The ending was absolutely perfect. (And I quiet enjoyed the baseball references.) Read an excerpt of This Dark Road to Mystery.


"Wiley Cash is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home. A native of North Carolina, he has held residency positions at Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. He and his wife live in Wilmington, North Carolina. Find out more about Wiley on his website, connect with him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter."

See what others on the TLC book tour thought - full schedule can be found here.

Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past - Sharyn McCrumb - Review AND Giveaway

A Christmas book? Already Luanne? I know, I know, but can I be the first to tell you that there are only eighty days until Christmas! One of my favourite things to do in the days leading up to the twenty fifth is to read holiday tales. So, really, I'm just giving you lots of advance notice.....and a chance to own Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past!

I've found that many novelists publish a holiday story featuring their recurring characters or settings. And that's true with Sharyn McCrumb's first Christmas book. McCrumb also writes what she knows.....

...."My books are like Appalachian quilts," says Sharyn McCrumb. "I take brightly colored scraps of legends, ballads, fragments of rural life, and local tragedy, and I piece them together into a complex whole that tells not only a story, but also a deeper truth about the culture of the mountain South."

Nora Bonesteel has lived her whole life in her family home in the mountains. She has fond memories of years and Christmases gone by. When her newish neighbour comes to call, prattling on about their house being haunted, Nora has an idea what might be going on....

McCrumb also includes a parallel storyline featuring Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Deputy Joe LeDonne, who are reluctant to carry out an arrest warrant on Christmas Eve. When they arrive at the house, they too are in for a bit of a surprise....

McCrumb's description of the settings evokes vivid pictures of time and place. But it is Nora's memories that stayed with me - Christmases gone by that were celebrated in a simpler fashion, without the commercial frenzy. It was about the people, not 'things'. McCrumb's style of writing is comfortable, almost folksy, leaving the reader feel like they're part of the story.

This was an great start to this year's holiday reading! Read an excerpt of Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past. And if you too would like to read this book, I have a copy to giveaway to one randomly chosen reader. Simply leave a comment with your favourite holiday memory to be entered. Open to US and Canada, no PO boxes please. Ends October 18/14.

Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, including the New York Times best sellers The Ballad of Tom Dooley, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and Ghost Riders. Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past, releasing in October 2014 by Abingdon Press, is McCrumb's first Christmas novella in the Ballad series.

Natchez Burning - Greg Iles

I've read everything Greg Iles has ever written - he's an incredibly talented wordsmith. His novels are all quite different but with one similarity - they're addicting reads. (And bestsellers as well)

His latest book Natchez Burning has just released and it's an absolutely fantastic read - easily his best novel yet. It's been a while coming - Iles nearly died in an auto accident five years ago.

Natchez Burning is the fourth book to feature lawyer Penn Cage, now the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi.

Present day - Penn's father, Tom, the town doctor for over fifty years has been accused of murdering a black woman who was his nurse in the 1960's. Tom is known and loved by all of his patients, black and white. And Tom knows his father - there's no way he would have done such a thing. Penn is determined to clear Tom's name - even as Tom refuses to rise to his own defense. Penn's search for answers takes him back to...

"...1964, with three murders. Three stones cast into a pond no one had cared about since the siege of Vicksburg, but which was soon to become the centre of the world's attention. A place most people in the United States like to think was somehow different from the rest of the country, but which was in fact the very incarnation of America's tortured soul. Mississippi."

A splinter group of the Klan, calling themselves the Double Eagles, has been operating in Natchez for over fifty years, manipulating, controlling, killing and conspiring in this southern State. They're driven by hate and greed, with no intention of ever stopping. But Violet's death is the tipping point. Secrets buried and kept for a half century threaten to take down anyone and everyone - black and white.

Where to start? Each and every character Iles brings to the page is fully developed and the reader can't help but become engaged (or disgusted) with every player. I've been a fan of Penn Cage from the first book, but found other favourites in Natchez Burning. I quiet enjoyed Tom, described as Atticus Finch with a medical degree. Iles explores the relationship between Penn and his father, as every belief he holds about Tom is put to the test in Natchez Burning. But my favourite was Henry, the newspaper reporter who has been pursuing the Double Eagles for many years.

"Fate doesn't let men choose their wars. Or even their battles, sometimes. But one resolute man can sometime accomplish remarkable things against overwhelming odds."

Although Penn is the main voice of this novel, other characters are given a turn and we see the past and present from many differing views. Natchez Burning does not shy away from the violence that is the truth of this time and place. Gentle readers, there are some disturbing scenes and descriptions that may not be for you. Iles based his novel on actual events that occurred in Ferriday, Louisiana. Read the article from Stanley Nelson here. Or visit the Civil Rights Cold Case Project.

I loved the cover as well. Those heavy grey clouds hanging over the town, with the red simmering and a small glimmer from that one cloud. Kudos to the art department on this one. It perfectly captures the story within.

And that story is powerful, gripping, thrilling, sweeping and simply spectacular - 800+ pages that flew by for this reader. Absolutely, positively recommended.  Natchez Burning is the first of a trilogy. I'll be waiting and watching for the second book - The Bone Tree. Read an excerpt of Natchez Burning.

"Greg Iles spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and studied the American novel under acclaimed southern writer Willie Morris at the University of Mississippi. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, was the first of thirteen New York Times bestsellers, and his new trilogy continues the story of Penn Cage, protagonist of The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, and #1 New York Times bestseller The Devil's Punchbowl. Iles's novels have been made into films and published in more than thirty-five countries. He is a member of the lit-rock group the Rock Bottom Remainders and lives in Natchez with his two teenage children." You can find Greg Iles on Twitter and on Facebook.

See what others on the TLC book tour thought - full schedule can be found here.

A Far Piece to Canaan - Sam Halpern

A Far Piece to Canaan is not my usual reading fare. But I was extremely curious to read it, as Sam Halpern is the father of Justin Halpern - author of Sh*t My Dad Says. Could the same dad with the somewhat foul mouth and no filter really write a book befitting such a bucolic cover?

Surprisingly, yes.

English Professor Samuel Zelinsky's wife Nora has just died of cancer. Before her death, she made Sam promise to return to the hills of Kentucky where he spent part of his youth. Sam has never really talked about those years, growing up as the son of sharecroppers, but somehow Nora knew he had unfinished business. And Sam honours that promise.

As Sam tours through his childhood haunts, the narrative switches back to 1945 and we meet ten year old Sam and his soon to be best friend Fred Cody Mulligan. Halpern does an admirable job in bringing this time and space to life. His descriptive prose bring to life the croak of frogs, the sweetness of an apple and the coolness of a mountain stream. But not everything is idealic - there is something evil lurking around the bottomless Blue Hole. Local superstition says it's the devil, but the boys find evidence that the evil is human. This event is the catalyst for what transpires, shapes and changes the lives of Sam, Fred and their two friends. For me, A Far Piece to Canaan had a very 'Stand By Me' feel to it.

We are transported back and forth from past to present as Sam tries to come to terms with his actions in the past and make reparations in the present.

About halfway through the book, I wondered about there really being Jewish sharecroppers in Kentucky in the 1940s. It was only as I searched our more about the author that I discovered that this was truly Sam Halpern's life. He was that Jewish sharecropper's kid in Kentucky. (Read the full interview here at Tablet Magazine.) And upon discovering that I looked at the book with a different set of eyes in the second half.

For Halpern is writing what he knows, what he lived and what he remembers. "Like every novel, it’s a mixture of fact and fiction. Much of the description of central Kentucky and the life of the sharecroppers are real." It is this 'insider' knowledge that gave the book such a real feel.

 I enjoyed the character of Sam and his description of day to day life. The supporting cast of characters were just as well drawn. I did have a bit of problem accepting the reason the boys 'won't tell', as well as Sam's relationship with Ben and the need to keep it a secret.

Some of the vernacular used was easy to decipher. Hit'll for It will I got, wudn't for would not, but some words I had to guess at. Hun'ney for honey? It is only used by one ten year old boy talking to the other and seemed a bit odd. It seemed a bit hit or miss, with some words that would be easily contracted being spelled out fully such as old (ole) and just (jes'). Minor quibble.

For this reader, the best part of the book was set in the past. I found the 'redemption' part of the story in the last few chapters didn't hold my interest as well (I thought it was a bit too saccharine)

All in all, an admirable debut. And much different than I expected! Read an excerpt of A Far Piece to Canaan.

Sam Halpern is the legendary father of Justin Halpern, author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says. A professor of nuclear medicine, he lives in southern California.

You can find Sam Halpern on Facebook.

See what others on the TLC Book tour thought. Full schedule can be found here.