Past Grief Review

Kim Brady, third generation NYPD, returns to the job after her father’s recent suicide and catches a career-making case—a mass shooting in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. There is one eyewitness, Leanne, but she can’t come forward because she’s transgender and she fears coming out. Kim resists her lieutenant’s demands to force Leanne’s cooperation for personal reasons. She’s also being undermined by someone inside the department who is tampering with evidence, threatening the other witness, stalking Leanne.

Kim’s father died under a cloud and her feelings for him are complicated. And as Kim realizes that someone in the department is behind the shooting, her personal feelings clash with her professional mission. That tension stretches her relationship with her fiancé to its breaking point. The mastermind behind the attack presses Kim’s soft spots to gaslight her. Unravelling the elaborate criminal conspiracy forces her to apply the lessons from her father’s experiences.

I found this to be a fast-paced police procedure storyline with short engaging chapters and an action-packed plot that moved quickly and efficiently showcasing the police officers, the good, the bad and sometimes the evil. Every crooked cop makes it harder for good ones to do their jobs. No one hates a crooked crop more than good cops and the determination shown by the good cops in the story to uncover and weed out the bad ones is totally on point.

My only negative is that I found the threat aspect a little unrealistic as Kim had spent her whole career playing by the book and then someone starts threatening her and that changes.  However that didn’t take away from the storyline at all and I am awarding Past Grief 4 stars.

Las Biuty Queens Review

I was provided Las Biuty Queens by Ivan Monalisa Ojeda as an ARC through NetGalley in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own and thanks is extended to the author, publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to do so.

Drawing from his/her own experience as a trans performer, sex worker, and undocumented immigrant, Ivan Monalisa Ojeda chronicles the lives of Latinx queer and trans immigrants in New York City. Whether she is struggling with addiction, clashing with law enforcement, or is being subjected to personal violence, each character choses her own path of defiance, often responding to her fate with irreverent dark humour. What emerges is the portrait of a group of friends who express unquestioning solidarity and love for each other, and of an unfamiliar, glittering and violent, New York City that will draw readers in and swallow them whole.

I always find short stories fascinating when the stories interconnect and it gives the reader the opportunity to really get to know the characters in a variety of settings and this really didn’t disappoint.

In the book we see the characters picking up clients to try to survive whilst also dreaming about being beauty queens and finding love, we see them persecuted and discriminated against by the police as well as hiding in fear from ICE as well as hard hitting topics such as mental illness and addictions.

The reader also gets to see the past through the characters eyes as they think back on the struggles and hard times they had in their home towns from poverty stricken settings, bullying and societal constraints and toxic masculinity.

The author has done something rare that speaks volumes for their talent which is take a topic that should be dark and heavy reading and made it light, witty and engaging. The characters were loveable and I found myself championing them all the way through. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, even if this isn’t your usual type of reading. You will not regret it. A solid 4 stars

Where We Go From Here Review

I was provided Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha as an ARC through NetGalley in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own and thanks is extended to the author, publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to do so.

Ian has just been diagnosed with HIV.

Victor, to his great relief, has tested negative.

Henrique has been living with HIV for the past three years.

When Victor finds himself getting tested for HIV for the first time, he can’t help but question his entire relationship with Henrique, the guy he has-had-been dating. See, Henrique didn’t disclose his positive HIV status to Victor until after they had sex, and even though Henrique insisted on using every possible precaution, Victor is livid.

That’s when Victor meets Ian, a guy who’s also getting tested for HIV. But Ian’s test comes back positive, and his world is about to change forever. Though Victor is loath to think about Henrique, he offers to put the two of them in touch, hoping that perhaps Henrique can help Ian navigate his new life. In the process, the lives of Ian, Victor, and Henrique will become intertwined in a story of friendship, love, and stigma-a story about hitting what you think is rock bottom, but finding the courage and support to keep moving forward.

Set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this utterly engrossing debut by Brazilian author Lucas Rocha calls back to Alex Sanchez’s Rainbow Boys series, bringing attention to how far we’ve come with HIV, while shining a harsh light on just how far we have yet to go.

If you haven’t read this book then it needs to be added to you TBR pile instantly. Where We Go From Here is an incredibly heart-warming story about friendship, the families that can be found and overcoming fears. It is a very important novel that is highly informative about HIV and aims to dispel the stigma that still surrounds it to this day.

The writing style is amazing and although the narrative consists of different point of views from each of the characters it is very easy to follow and adds so much depth to the story. The story is both heart-breaking and light-hearted at times but it is done perfectly in both instances and at exactly the right moments, I laughed, I cried and I hoped and that is a testament to how good an author Rocha is.

There were several things I loved about this book, the first is that it was very educational through the main characters having many conversations around the theme of HIV. I have a lot of experience with HIV through my career and this was executed perfectly and I saw a lot of my clients within the narrative of this novel, it was obviously very well researched and extremely well thought out. The second thing that I loved were the characters themselves and how well you get to know them as a reader and how easily you feel their emotions alongside them.

This is a new favourite of mine and one of the best books I have read so far in 2021 and so for that reason it is a 5 star read for me.

Black Water Sister Review

I was provided Black Water Sister by Zen Cho as an ARC through NetGalley in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own and thanks is extended to the author, publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to do so.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So, when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there’s only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god–and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it.

Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.

I adored this Contemporary Fantasy set in Malaysia that deals with some hard-hitting themes such as abuse, homophobia, racism and rape. I found the characterisation amazing and fell in love with Jessamyn, the narrative was the perfect pace and kept me engaged throughout. There was also a great level of world building which allowed me to perfectly imagine the world and see myself in it.

All in all a great read and I will be searching out more of Zen Cho’s works. A well deserved 4 stars.

Sankofa: Born Equal Only (Book One) Review

I received Sankofa by Ben Tekle Mel as an ARC through NetGalley and I am so glad that I did, so thanks are extended to the author, the publishers and to NetGalley also for allowing me to review this book.

Before I continue let me first say this book contains misogyny, sexual violence and abuse, extreme war and violence with high body counts and an absolutely soul-destroying cliff-hanger ending, but even with all this I absolutely loved it. It is important to say that I was intrigued by the blurb but in my opinion that did not do the book justice.

Sankofa: Born Equal Only is an Afrofuturism adventure that takes on gender injustice from the perspective of rival fraternal twins, Toomi and Ras, born to be the Guardians of Maat, the first Queen to rise to the throne in the kingdom of Axindar in a post-apocalyptic medieval Africa, where the future of our technology shapes the past of our time.

This book is definitely not for the faint hearted or those that get upset easily.  It has a clear underscore of the representation of atrocities carried out in the name of warfare throughout Africa and the rest of the world and creatively and vividly prehends the mistreatment and injustice suffered by so many people throughout history and in the present. There are also elements of gender domination and violence culture that are disturbing to read but also very significant in current times.

One of the things that stood out for me whilst reading this novel was that it is not like other fantasy novels but more like you are listening to an elder telling the tale through spoken word and I loved that aspect.

Another thing that stood out for me was how well the author had constructed the world and getting that other to the reader it really allowed me to jump inside the story and imagine the world for myself and I genuinely think that anyone who reads it could imagine their own little world and still get the same qualities out of the novel. It was a fantastic mix of fantasy and magical, historical, and science fiction.

Overall, this novel impressed me a lot more than I expected. As someone who has majored in English Literature and History, I appreciate the historical aspects explored in the novel such as on slavery, on sexual violence against those deemed worthless. The writer is able to pull on periods of dark history throughout time and really use that to his advantage in this work.

There is definitely a market for this book especially for those that like their reading on the darker side of the spectrum but I would highly recommend for anyone who wanted to try something or new in genre or a new series. This a 4 star read for sure and I cannot wait to read Book Two.