Review: Merry Mary - Ashley Farley

"Miracles come in all shapes and sizes.  You were Mary's miracle, not the other way around."

Title: Merry Mary

Author: Ashely Farley

ISBN: 97810986167225

Publication Date: October 15, 2015

Publisher: Smashwords Edition

Source: NetGalley

Investigative journalist Scottie Darden is photographing the homeless for her Lost Souls series when she makes a discovery that could change her life forever. Under a makeshift tent in subzero temperatures in a downtown city park, she finds a woman's dead body with her infant child. Without her cell phone to call for help, Scottie makes the split-second decision to take the baby home. Her initial instinct is to provide the baby with food and shelter until her family can be located. But as her fondness for the baby grows, she finds herself facing a life on the run or worse—prison time for abduction.

~*~

Merry Mary is a quick read, being that it's only an 89 page novella.  However, Farley still packs quite a whallop of emotion into the too short story.  I spent the story torn between shaking some sense into Scottie, and being in complete accord with the insanity her biological clock insisted was 'right'.

Further, I really loved the tight knit family bonds Merry Mary portrayed, both with Scottie and her parents, and Scottie and her brother.  Everything about them felt true to life, and very believable.  Scottie's husband, Brad, was probably the only person in the novella I didn't like - he came off as immature and lame, which I imagine was the idea of his portrayal.

Definitely a well thought out novella, with characters I want to see more of in more of Farley's writing.  I eagerly look forward to the next story of hers that I get the opportunity to step into.

-Digital ARC provided by NetGalley, in exchange for a review

Review: Art in the Blood - Bonnie MacBird

"Pack your bags, Watson; we leave for the Continent in less than ninety minutes."

Title: Art in the Blood

Author: Bonnie MacBird

ISBN: 9780008130831

Publication Date: October 6, 2015

Publisher: Collins Crime Club

Source: edelweiss

It’s 1888. A perfumed letter featuring a doubly encoded message arrives at 221B Baker street London, a snowy December, 1888. A disastrous Ripper investigation has left 35-year-old Sherlock Holmes in a deep depression and back on cocaine. The newly married Watson is summoned urgently to 221B to rouse his friend. Nothing works until the arrival of an intriguing encoded letter from a beautiful French singer, Mlle. Emmeline La Victoire. 

~*~

I rather enjoyed MacBird's addition to the Holmes repertoire.  As it has been a couple of years since I've read the original Conan Doyle Holmes stories, I was quite happy with the tone and language in Art in the Blood.  It felt authentic, and as though it could fit right in.

Watson and Holmes felt like dear friends whom I hadn't seen, but could just pick right back up with.  And the interactions between the two of them were wonderfully done, that perfect blend of nostalgia and new.

Admittedly, the crime did have more of a modern feel than I recall from the Victorian era Holmes stories; however, it is still a fun adventure through a world which has become increasingly popular thanks to Robert Downey Jr and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

-Digital ARC provided by edelweiss, in exchange for a review.

Review: Dumplin' - Julie Murphy

"I'm fat.  It's not a cuss word.  It's not an insult.  At least it's not when I say it."

Title: Dumplin'

Author: Julie Murphy

ISBN: 9780062327185

Publication Date: September 15, 2015

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Source: edelweiss

From Goodreads:

Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed "Dumplin'" by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American-beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked . . . until Will takes a job at Harpy's, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn't surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she'll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

Review: The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

"The circus arrives without warning."

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

ISBN: 9780385534635

Publication Date: September 13, 2011

Publisher: Doubleday

Source: ARC from publisher

With those few words you are welcomed to Le Cirque des Reves, The Circus of Dreams; and circus of dreams it is, though the title barely does justice to this compelling debut novel.

Set within the turn of the nineteenth century, The Night Circus follows an ethereal circus of black-and-white striped tents as it tours the world. Twisted within the acrobats, contortionists, carousel, and Ice Garden are two young illusionists bound to one another in a contest that neither knows the rules to.