J.S. Fields

Author & Scientist

Review: Can’t Find My Way Home by Gwynn Garfinkle

Genre: science fiction: urban paranormal

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis bisexual/pansexual (not defined)

Warnings: none

 

Review

Junior soap opera actress Joanna Bergman is having a moderately decent life. She’s got a job, she’s got friends, she has reasonable coworkers. Sure, sometimes she is haunted by her past, in which she was a part of bombing of a New York draft board in 1971 and her best friend died, but that’s water under the bridge. Right?

Nope. Having finally achieved a measure of stability, Joanna becomes haunted by the ghost of her dead best friend, Cynthia Foster. Joanna was supposed to have accompanied Cynthia on that fateful day, and cancelled last minute. They both should have died. Now, Cynthia’s ghost forces Joanna to relive a million possible future in which Joanna chose a different path–until Joanna can finally come to terms with her past.

Although not my usual read, CAN’T FIND MY WAY HOME was an interesting alternate timeline paranormal adventure. It shone particularly well in the scenes where Joanna must come to terms with her attraction to Cynthia, and in the scenes that reinforce the choices Joanna has already made.

“Oh, come on. It’d be fun.” She stroked my upper arm. Her voice became a caress. “Your skin is awfully soft.”

What was this? More of Cyn’s non-monogamy line? Or perhaps just another way to know me, too well. Or maybe just so she could say she’d done it with a woman. Whatever it was, I didn’t want that kind of involvement with Cyn. We were close, and it was sometimes messy, but it would get messier and more tangled if we crossed that line.

Generally, the plot gives us an interesting period piece that ravels together the Vietnam war and budding sexuality. It’s the little moments in between the plot, however, where the book really shines. Every life sequence Joanna lives, every what if, balances heartbreak and joy. These scenes are the meat of the book, and what will keep the reader turning pages.

“Wait,” Can said. She reached up and cupped my cheek. Her hand was cool against my feverish face. Illuminated by the streetlight, her face was grave. Her gaze burned into mine. “We did it,” she whispered. She pressed her lops dryly to mine. In that moment everything seemed unreal, and everything seemed possible.

“You’ll catch the flu,” I said.

Oh, how she smiled. “No, I won’t. I’m fucking invincible.” She grabbed my hand, and we headed for her place. Halfway there we started to run. I was suddenly full of energy, the flu forgotten. We were running, her hand in mine. We were so alive.

You can join Joanna on a trip through parallel universes by buying the book here.

 

Review: The Harbinger by Mary Eicher

Genre: urban paranormal

Pairings: f/f

Queer Representation: cis lesbian

Warnings: child rape threats late in the book (a few lines from a baddie trying to be scary)

Review

‘Stunningly beautiful’ attorney Artemis Andronikos is hiking with her twin brother when he falls to his knees and clutches his head, claiming to hear loud bells. Three days later her brother dies, along with a host of other people, all of whom have heard the same bells, exactly three days prior.

Nosy reporter Lucy Breem is determined to solve the mystery of the bells and tracks down Artemis. Intrigued by Lucy’s hypotheses, Artemis agrees to help her investigate the bells and their potential significance as death harbingers. Meanwhile, the bells spread, people collectively lose their minds, and strange new religions spring up. Also children become clairvoyant and there may be angels…I’m not super clear on that part.

The premise of this book was interesting, even if the execution left something to be desired. Based in the principles of continuing human evolution, the internal head-bells are discovered to be an early warning system of impending death, potentially giving people a chance to get their affairs in order. People, of course, are notoriously bad at this, and things spin wildly out of control. Cults pop up. Entrepreneurs try to make a buck. As more and more people are affected by the bells, the situation becomes exponentially worse–though timely, as the book has a lot of the same human ridiculousness that we are witnessing right now with COVID.

Thus, the plot is inventive and dynamic. The characters are alright–the two main women are moderately three-dimensional, though Lucy’s daughter is definitely the stand-out character. The main villain is an archetype but that makes him easy to hate, which is useful in a book like this. The other POV characters mostly serve to drag out what would otherwise be a tight plot, and there’s far too much head-hopping, especially early on, to really hold reader attention.

The plot technically concludes about 50 or so pages before the book does, which is always frustrating. This could have been helped by a heavier editing pen, and in fact there were numerous scenes that rehashed early scenes from a different POV, which made the narrative drag. Some editorial tightening could have easily removed these issues and made for a much more dynamic book.

One of the reasons I didn’t really connect with Artemis and Lucy came from the writing of the romance/love scenes, which, to me, bordered on silly, dime-novel romance tropes (which are fine, in dime-novel romances):

It was a side of Artemis she hadn’t seen before, but she wasn’t all that surprised. She already had decided the astonishing woman had depths yet to be plumbed. And Lucy couldn’t deny a growing desire to plumb them.

Plumbing in this sense makes me think of plunging a toilet or snaking a drain (since we’re going down into depths), and I don’t really want that associated with boinking a woman. There’s also a strange combination of too many adjectives per sentence, and not very descriptive adjectives happening:

Seeing her, Lucy couldn’t turn away. Artemis was standing in a relaxed contra-post pose. She was stunningly beautiful in the slanted yellow sunlight. Her slender body was perfectly proportioned, and she looked like the product of a Michelangelo or Polyclitus.

—

Artemis had a similar reaction watching Lucy’s attractive body gradually emerge from her clothes. It made her juices flow and she felt an urgent need to dive into the cool water of the pool.

I’d have much preferred to ‘watch’ them get undressed and see their reactions so I could experience them too, instead of reading about them like a reporter was giving me highlights of a show I’m not allowed to see. An unfortunately, ‘beautiful’ and ‘attractive’ don’t really tell me anything about either character. It’s so much more fun in these kinds of scenes to see what the characters notice about each other, specifically, so you learn what they are into. Maybe Artemis likes tattoos. Maybe Lucy likes freckles across the bridge of a nose, or chin dimples. That’s what I want to know.

Another issue was the narrative’s reliance on telling us what was happening, instead of showing. Most of what should have been excellent action scenes were not shown, but told about in summary, which completely destroyed any potential tension. Also also Artemis sets the would-be mass murdered free at the end, who had endangered Lucy’s daughters life half a dozen times, and literally wtf with that? There’s compassion, and then there’s failure to protect.

This is another of those books that had a lot of potential, but needed a strong editorial hand to trim the fat from the meat, and really let the plot live to its potential. Still, if you’re after an f/f contemporary paranormal from an indie press, you could do far worse. I was entertained, but not enough to continue with the series.

You can see if you hear the harbinger bells by buying the book here.

 

Review – Into the Mystic (f/f anthology)

Genre: paranormal

Pairing: f/f (including trans)

Rating: 3.5, averaged across overall

Review

 

Argh, so hard to review and rate! Some of these stories blew me away, some were sort of meh. That’s probably how most anthologies go though. I’ve decided to review each story individually, to give potential readers the most information.

Reborn
3.5 stars
This one started strong, if not a bit heavy on the purple prose. I was invested in the characters and the story almost straight away, but by about halfway through, I got sort of lost in the plot. I like the idea of the forbidden romance, the white witch, the familiars, but this felt more like a synopsis to a full novel than a short story. I’d be curious to read a longer version of this, but as a short story it left me more confused than satisfied.

Zero Hour
4 stars
I don’t generally read shifter stuff. I don’t get the fascination with humans turning into animals at all, yet this story grabbed me from the start and held on. Simone was realistic and her pain palpable. I actually cared about her history, and the shifter lore here, and that is not something I’ve ever said before. Nice work on this one.

Dove in the Window
5 stars. 6 stars. HOW MANY STARS AM I ALLOWED TO GIVE?!?!
Best. Story. In. The. Book. I love me some dark fantasy, and this one was right up my alley. It’s just the right balance of creepy and lovely, the side characters are well drawn, and the world thick and full. The ‘Dumb Supper’ chilled me, Death was amazing, and Cissy is just about perfect. Fantastic read. Now excuse me while I go look up everything else this author has ever written, and buy it.

Bottom of the River
4 stars
An interesting idea, this one, although the end execution slipped a little. Anja’s life is straight out of a fairy tale, having been promised in trade to the river spirit for the usual riches and such, and then never handed over. The tension in the first part built well, but in the end I was a little disappointed that Aleit didn’t have just a little darkness to her. But this was well written overall, and I enjoyed reading it.

If You Want to Walk
2 stars
This one I just wasn’t into. Chess does far too much naval gazing and the narrative is very slow to start. Some places lacked adequate description, others had too much, and none of the characters popped. The romance line was interesting at first, but when it turned into solid internal monologue, I was no longer invested. The constant head hopping also confused me for most of the narrative, as I couldn’t keep whose POV I was in straight. I think this story had good bones, and maybe just got lost somewhere in execution.

A Tended Garden
3 stars
There was nothing technically wrong with this one at all, it just didn’t click for me. For a reader interested in witches and ritual and character development without much plot, I think this would be a perfect piece.

Romancing the Healer
3.5 stars
As previously discussed, I don’t tend to read shifter stories. This one was well executed, and I love the trans love interest, but had a hard time connecting with any of the characters. Sex scene was nicely done!

Midnight Kisses
1 star
It was surprising to find a story of this quality in with the rest of the relatively nicely done shorts. The dialogue was stilted and unnatural, the backstory provided more through info dump than interwoven, and there were redundant words everywhere. I found instances of word redundancy in almost every paragraph for the first two pages, which is the point where I wanted to throw my tablet across the room. The piece read more like a first draft than a final work and made me a bit wary about the stories to follow it, especially since the book had started off so strongly.

Like a Bell Through the Night
3.5 stars
Look, any story that contains the phrase “The phone number of a busty lesbian dominatrix who hosted tasteful orgies out of her Brooklyn apartment” has my full attention. Unfortunately, the story didn’t keep me hooked. I think this is another story that I would like a lot in full narrative form, but in a short was sort of confusing and seemed too long in some places, too curt in others. The flashbacks were fun, and the imagery presented throughout was lovely, but the middle and end of the story just felt muddled and hard to really latch onto.

The Imp In The Rock
5 stars
HOT. So, there wasn’t a ton of substance to this one and I don’t care. The description was great, the sex scenes were fantastic, and really, what else does one need? Next time I head to the ocean I am looking for blue women, especially those near rocks who are wearing nothing. This is another author I now have to go binge read the rest of their writing.

Smile Like You Mean It
4 stars
Oooh, dark fantasy. Yes please! This one was creepy through the first half, and I ate it up. Perfect settings, descriptions, characters, the whole package. The story fell off about halfway through, unfortunately, when the Split-Mouthed Woman does a very quick about face in tone. I would have enjoyed her staying more morally ambiguous till about halfway through, or having actually killed more people. Still, the end was lovely and it was an easy read. More of this, please!

 

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