Grade: A-

Awwwwright, giggity-giggity! A Charlaine Harris book! I buy practically every CH book that comes out and this one I snapped up back in March, but it was only yesterday that I only got to read it. It wasn’t because of school or my ever-growing TBR (though that’s true too), but because I was bored silly by the cover. Sweet little countryside, some bees, a field of white flowers. Boring (maybe one of them ya-ya sisterhood women’s books that make me want to gouge my eyes out). Didn’t really think about it again until I came across it while looking for my highlighter (it was under my desk) and saw this. Yo, that’s a hand. AND THOSE AREN’T BEES! They’re flies! I was so unnerved by the sight of that tiny little hand so innocuously placed there (have y’all noticed this in all of CH’s covers? There’s always a tiny clue to an important plot point) that I found myself sticking in my book bag to read during class before dashing off to school. I started it during my Personal Narrative class (sorry, Professor Armantrout) and finished it during Victorian Poetry (sorry, Professor Loose). [Ed. note: Could be why you’re not doing so hot in school, asshole!] From cover to cover, I was absolutely riveted [Ed. note: You’re bucking for cover quote whoredom, aren’t you?] by the set-up, the super characterization of heroine, and the creepy Southern atmosphere. While I was never sure of the time period of the story— typewriters, African American characters referred to as “blacks”, white folks be nervous around black folk— I was nevertheless fascinated by the old-schoolness of it. Anyway, it was like Peyton Place except skankier… oh, and it’s kind of scary.

The Plot: Catherine Linton has been in a haze of pain and denial ever since her beloved parents died six months ago in a terrible car accident. She is unconvinced that it was an accident and believes her parents must have been murdered, but has no evidence to back up her theories. Now she has returned to her hometown of Lowfield, Mississippi, and what should she find on her first day back? Oh, just the bloody, broken, and beaten body of her father’s long-time nurse Leona. Catherine, who works on the society pages of the town’s weekly periodical, suspects that the murder of the woman has something to do with her parents’ death. The sheriff doesn’t believe her and is more inclined to think that Catherine did it. Upon further investigation, Catherine finds out that Leona had a little sideline of her own: blackmailing the townsfolk, which means pretty much everyone in town has motive for killing the woman. This, of course, includes Randall, her boss at the newspaper and the man she’s starting to fall in love with…

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Grade: A-

And here’s yet another adventure from the brother and sister psychic detective team who like each other a little too much. Yay! No, perverts, they still don’t have sex in this one, but our heroine Harper Connelly does look at her brother Tolliver a little inappropriately this time and the seeds of quasi-incest love have been planted in her lightning-fried brain. She’s even begun to tell people that she and Tolliver are not brother and sister, but BFF. This change in Harper is facilitated by someone who mistakenly identifies them as lovers and asks if they have children together. Ewww! But this totally freaks out Harper and she is understandably unable to tell Tolliver why she can’t look him in the eye. Tolliver appears oblivious to Harper’s pre-incestuous crises, but since we don’t get anything from Tolliver’s point of view, we can’t possibly know what he’s thinking. Speaking of Tolliver, we get another affirmation of his utter irresistability to women when yet another woman throws herself at him like a crazy person. For realz, yo, Charlaine describes him as a sullen, black-haired pockmarked dude (the sullen and black-haired part sounds hot, but nay on the pockmarks). Does that sound hot to you? Is Ms. Harris just setting the stage for Harper inevitably throwing herself at the altar of Tolliver worship? Eww and ooh at the same time.
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Grade: A-

I’m a sicko. What drew me to this book is the supposedly tooclose relationship between the heroine Harper Connelly and her step-brother, Tolliver Lang. Yes, yes, I’m a pervert. You tell me there’s Jerry Springer action in a book and I’m on it. What can I say, I love the salacious shit. I will tell you, dear readers, that even though Harper is a little too dependent on her brother, nothing lewd and gross happens between them (damn!). In fact, there was hardly any sexual tension between them (as it should be), and I found myself enjoying this book more than I thought I would. First of all, Charlaine Harris is a top-notch writer, as you Sookie Stackhouse fans know. This particular series is a little more somber and a little “graver” (ha ha ha) than Sookie’s series, but damn, I dug it. Harper is an awesome heroine: she’s smarter than she looks, clever, quick on her feet, and she doesn’t mind kicking a little ass. Tolliver is an excellent foil for her; he looks after her, is quite protective of her, but is more of Harper’s sidekick than her partner. The plot itself is pretty tight. Though not necessarily devoid of cliches, the story unfolds in a little town in Arkansas that is seemingly perfect, but actually has some serious Peyton Place shit going on. It’s your basic “small town with secrets” storyline, but Charlaine Harris makes it all seem new and Harper doing her Nancy Drew-crossed-with-Miss Cleo routine gives it an added twist. Harris is quite adept at writing the sleuthing scenes as well as the big-reveals, so none of it was too cheesy. I was also pleasantly surprised at Harris’s handling of Harper’s love interest. Harper seems to be the kind of gal who has a boy in every port and doesn’t mind loving and leaving them. There isn’t a lot of whingeing and hand-wringing on her part; she’s just very grown-up about it. All and all, I was thrilled with how much I loved this book.
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