The Queene's Cure by Karen Harper

The fourth book in Karen Harper’s excellent series involving sleuth Queen Elizabeth I is the best so far and easily the most exciting. The Queene’s Cure has a fast-paced climax against the backdrop of the horrors of the pox in Elizabethan London. What also makes this novel frightening is the brief glimpse into the medical profession in the mid-sixteenth century. Harper mentions in her Author’s Notes that medicine during this era was frequently shocking. With some of the cures mentioned in The Queene’s Cure, it’s a wonder more patients didn’t die from the medicine rather than the disease. Did no one ever question the source of ground unicorn’s horn?

But people, including Elizabeth, were so scared to death of the pox and the plague that they were willing to try anything. Not as lethal as the plague, the pox left its survivors horribly scarred for life.

In The Queene’s Cure, someone leaves a very life-like effigy of Elizabeth in her coach during a visit to the London Royal College of Physicians. The face of the effigy has been scored to imitate pox scars. She sets her Private Privy Council to investigating who put it in her coach and how.

Her Private Privy Council without Meg Milligrew. Her former apothecary Sarah Wilton alias Meg Milligrew has been banished from court for borrowing one of Elizabeth’s gowns without permission and impersonating her Majesty, even forging her signature.

Sarah runs an apothecary with her brutish and often violent husband Ben. She longs to be back in good graces with her Queen and in her court. Until then she must hang out on the fringes of the crowd and in alleyways when Elizabeth appears in public.

The Private Privy Council is finding the investigation frustrating. Then a body of a young woman is found in a fountain in the royal courtyard. She’s first thought to be a pox victim but when the nature of her death is revealed, the mystery takes a very dark turn.

Then Elizabeth nearly dies of the pox. She recovers but soon realizes that her infection was not an act of God. She’s stunned at the measures her enemies will go to remove her from the throne. In pursuing the conspirators, the queen and friends are caught in a rather too-convenient trap.

Harper turns up the action and suspense as Elizabeth nearly meets the same fate as the girl in the fountain. The author also bridges the seemingly impossible gap between amateur sleuth and queen of the realm with no problem. One would think that a monarch of her standing would not be involved in such adventures. However, Harper spins stories that show Elizabeth consistent with everything else that has been written about her. The conundrums and mysteries that face her are those that directly affect her and the ones closest to her, like her life-long companion Kat Ashley, her advisor Lord Cecil, her fool Ned Topside and the mute Gil. Therefore, Elizabeth has a personal and vested interest in solving murders.

The first three novels were exciting but Harper bumps up the action and suspense in The Queene’s Cure. I hope the trend continues.

Thank you, Green Lantern Bar and everyone!

I wanted to write a quick thank you to the Green Lantern bar and everyone who came out last night after the Pride Parade. I enjoyed talking to everyone who stopped by my book-signing table to chat.

If you didn't get a chance to come by last night, you can purchase "Murder at the Green Lantern" from Amazon.com or go to loveyoudivine.com, where you can purchase all of my works. You can get a 10% discount through July 31 using the coupon code: summerblast

The Apothecary's Demise by Ann Sloan

The Apothecary’s Demise is the follow-up novel to Ann Sloan’s Murder on the Boulevard set in pre-World War I Houston. The devastating hurricane that destroyed Galveston thirteen years prior is still fresh on everyone’s mind and Woodrow Wilson is in the White House. Flora Logan, young and head-strong, is heavily involved in the Suffragists’ Movement.

Five years after the events in Murder on the Boulevard, Flora is now running the marble business that she inherited from her father and is working to fulfill the contract to supply marble for the new Rice Hotel, which is set to be a landmark building for its time. She is surprised when a woman approaches her during a Suffragist luncheon and asks her to look into the death of her son, Dr. Henri Mozelle, a local pharmacist. The police have ruled his death as suicide but his mother suspects foul play, in the person of her brand new daughter-in-law.

Flora doesn’t want anything to do with the pharmacist’s suspicious demise but when her housekeeper’s son’s girlfriend, who worked for Dr. Mozelle, disappears, Flora feels she has no choice but to investigate. Besides, she can’t resist a good mystery.

Dr. Mozelle’s mother is convinced that her son’s wife is responsible for his death but soon after the daughter-in-law dies under strange circumstances.

Then much to her chagrin, Flora discovers that she’s not as independent and forward-thinking as she thought she was. Webb Walker, the handsome and dashing partner of the deceased apothecary sweeps her off of her feet, no matter how hard she tries to resist his charms. She realizes she isn’t any less susceptible to a man than the silly women she’s trying to help liberate. Her steady beau, Max Andrews left for New York on a business trip without getting an answer from her to his proposal. Flora finds herself torn between the mysterious, suave Walker and the proper gentleman Andrews.

But the solution to the murders comes from a source that Flora doesn’t expect. Nor does the reader. It’s not an out-of-the-blue answer to the puzzle, but very near to it.

Sloan has done an amazing amount of research on the history of Houston and the activities and events happening in 1913. She does a great job of incorporating those facts into the story as a backdrop to the murder. However, there are many places where the conversations sound encyclopedic and stilted rather than casual talk. It’s interesting to learn what issues the citizens of Houston were facing, debating and addressing, but not in such a ‘teachy’ manner.

Otherwise, Sloan gives the reader a nice cozy mystery with a likeable main character and supporting cast in The Apothecary’s Demise. It’s not just for Houstonians.

Just One Look by Harlan Coben

Wow! This is the first book I’ve read by Harlan Coben and it had more twists than a braiding booth at renaissance faire. People Magazine touts on the back cover that the “only plausible reason for setting this book down is to make sure your front door is locked and double-bolted”. Another valid reason is if you stay up so late reading it that you’re dozing off in your chair. Not that I ever did that. Certainly not twice.

But Just One Look has enough energy and action to keep your pulse racing no matter the time of day or night. I’ve never read a book that kept the twists coming up to the last page.

Grace Lawson is a happily married suburban housewife, with two kids, minivan, idyllic neighborhood. When she picks up a roll of picture developed at a Photomart, she finds an old photograph that looks as if it was taken at least fifteen years prior. The strange thing about the photo is that one of the people in it is her husband. One of the others, a girl, has her face crossed out.

After she shows it to her husband that evening, he drives off in their minivan and disappears with the photo.

As she delves into the mystery, she finds her own past becoming entwined with her present dilemma. Fifteen years ago, Grace was nearly killed in a stampede at a rock concert in Boston. The tragedy shook the nation and Grace became the face of the victims. The media followed her recovery and the trial and conviction of the man accused of firing the shots that instigated the panic. Those ghosts reappear as she investigates her husband’s vanishing.

Coben has an amazing knack to spin several seemingly unrelated stories and tie them all together to one event, the whole crux of the mystery.

I found this to be an exciting, fast-paced page turner of an action thriller. It moves at a breath-taking speed and has surprises on every page.

The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

It’s hard to critique the memoirs of someone who was never purported to be an author or writer. And certainly not those of a person that probably didn’t expect those memoirs to be read more than three hundred years later.

The Memoirs of Catherine the Great, first of all, is a slight misnomer. She wrote three memoirs total during her life and this book is only the first, written during the time from her arrival at the Russian court in 1744 to 1759, which is prior to the death of Empress Elizabeth. The other two are most likely published under different titles.

Secondly, this is not for the casual reader. Although full of intrigue and subterfuge in the Russian court, the names of all the couriers, envoys and members of the royal family are difficult to keep track of. Catherine writes of them as though everyone is already familiar with who’s who at court. But it’s no wonder that Russian historians would find this fascinating. The nearly seventy page preface is a dissertation on Catherine’s memoirs (all three) by the translator/authors Mark Cruse and Hilde Hoogenboom.

The years in which Catherine was married to Peter Fedorovich and before the Empress’ death, her Imperial Majesty Elizabeth kept her distance from the Grand Duke and Duchess, to the point that their children were taken from Catherine to be raised by the Empress’ courtiers. As a result, there is very little of Russian politics in this first memoir. There are passing mentions of conflicts and wars but little details except for a particularly bloody battle that ended in a massacre for both Russia and Prussia.

Catherine writes of her mother, who turned cold and alienated her after first arriving in Russia to become betrothed to Peter. After the marriage, she describes the growing estrangement between her and the Grand Duke. There is continued animosity from the Empress towards Catherine throughout the first memoir until the very end when Catherine begs the Empress to let her return home and end her miserable stay in Russia. Only then does her Imperial Majesty soften in her tone towards the Grand Duchess.

Catherine claims that she never acted in any way that would cause these three people to behave in such a rude manner toward her. Of course, we only have Catherine’s word on that, which can be considered with a grain of salt. One would have to see all sides of the argument to understand what the real environment was like. She does, however, talk about how she treated certain members of the court, who mistreated or acted poorly toward her, with disdain, spreading gossip about them and snubbing them at every opportunity. She may have scoffed at the games the courtiers played but she wasn’t above playing them herself.

Although this book was a hard read, it still offers a great glimpse into the world of the Russian court. I’d be very interested in reading her memoirs where she stages her famous coup. That should make great reading.

Murder at the Green Lantern - Book Signing!

Come join me at the Green Lantern Bar in Washington, DC June 12, 2010 after the Pride Parade. I'll be signing my latest release "Murder at the Green Lantern" available now at Amazon.com.

Leash of Faith released by loveyoudivine Alterotica on April 2!

Brian lives according the tenets of duty, submission and brotherly love. But not exactly in the way his parishioners expect from their pastor...

Buy it today from Amazon.com!

http://www.amazon.com/Leash-of-Faith-ebook/dp/B003F778VE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270429182&sr=1-1

Blurb:

Brian is the new, energetic and popular pastor of a church in southern Louisiana. His elderly parishioners dote on him as if he were one of their grandchildren. What’s the problem? He’s gay and so far into the closet that the skeletons are complaining of over-crowding. And he has a slave boy whom he has to keep secret. That’s not so easy in a small town where everyone knows everybody else. And the parishioners are used to their pastors having an open door policy! How can the Master Pastor maintain his lifestyle in a such a close-knit community and not get run out of town?


Excerpt:
Darkness had fallen by the time he arrived at the state park, one they had frequented before. He paid the overnight fee to the ranger at the gate and found to his delight their favorite campsite was unoccupied. Not only that, but since it was a Sunday night, the park wasn’t busy and no one was too close to their site.
Brian heard the chirping of crickets, croaking of frogs and other night noises as he got out of the car. There were low sounds from the other campers as well. He went through the motions of setting up camp by erecting the tent and unpacking ice chests. He backed the car into the site such that the trunk faced the woods that surrounded the camping area. When he was satisfied that everything was in place, he popped open the trunk. Jody lay there in the darkness, smiling up at him with his eyes. The ball gag made it difficult to make many facial expressions. Brian threw him over his shoulder and walked a short distance into the trees, just a few yards from the campsite.
“Ah, here’s our favorite tree, slave,” Brian said, setting Jody on his feet and propping him against the trunk. The tree was dead but still had a sturdy trunk, with its branches and twigs reaching into the night, crooked and twisted like pubic hairs after being washed and blow-dried.
“You’re such a hopeless romantic, Master,” Jody said when Brian removed the gag. Pastor Brian retied Jody to the tree with his feet several inches off the ground.
“You were awesome today,” Brian said looking up at him.
“If I may say so, sir, you were a little rude to Vera White this afternoon.”
“That old biddy comes in right when I had you on the table, so deep inside you my dick was pressing against your Adam’s apple. The Lord will forgive me if I was a bit testy.”
Jody chuckled. “Your testes not withstanding, I think calling her a cadaverous old prune who could call Methuselah ‘sonny’ was a little too much.”
“At least, I focused on her good points.”
“Master.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll apologize and give her a double portion of wine at communion next Sunday. Anyway, you were good today, too.” Brian’s voice softened. “And I promised you a reward.” He leaned over and tickled the head of Jody’s cock with his tongue. At once, it rose to life and pointed at Brian, begging to be used. Brian swallowed him whole.
Jody let out a loud moan of ecstasy, then clamped his mouth shut. If he made too much noise, he could potentially alert the other campers, who might come to investigate. Pastor Brian could always hide in the trees, leaving him to explain his compromising position. But the fear of discovery just added to the sense of excitement and arousal of outdoor bondage and sex in the open.
He bit his lip, only allowing a soft grunt to be heard. However, Master was making it difficult to be quiet. The tip of his tongue ran up and down his shaft, to his balls. Jody felt the head of his cock press against the back of Brian’s throat.
That sensation of pleasure was all it took to ignite his climax. With a low growl emitted through clenched teeth, he came with such force he felt like a fire hose. Brian kept his mouth firmly clamped around his dick until he was completely drained.
Sweat ran down Jody’s temples, chest and spine. “Thank you, sir,” he panted.
Brian stepped back with a smile. “My pleasure.”
“Did you bring the bug spray? I feel mosquitoes.”
“Duh,” Brian said. “Do you think I’m forgetful?” He produced a small bottle with a spray nozzle from his back pocket with a flourish. He sprayed Jody’s cock and balls until liquid dripped from them.
“That’s great, sir, but that isn’t the only part they’re biting.”
“I know but right now this is your most vulnerable area,” Brian said with importance. “If one mosquito taps a vein there, she’ll explode and you could bleed to death.”
“You’re so smart, Master,” Jody said, chuckling.
Brian gave him a grin that was visible even in the gloom. He sprayed more insect repellant on his feet and was working his way up Jody’s legs when the bottle ran dry. “Crap. I need to grab some more. Be right back so don’t go away.” He laughed at his joke as he ran back toward the car. As he reached the campsite, a voice from another camper called out to him.
“Pastor? We thought we recognized your car.”