A former mob enforcer and cleaner has a new identity and no worries, until an unknown body turns up on her lawn.
What I Liked
The initial premise was kind of interesting — a former mob assassin / cleaner who has (mostly) retired finds a dead body on her lawn. A young female detective looks into the murder, and also thinks there is something off about the retired woman too. After that, it is all downhill.
What I Didn’t Like
I hated just about everything in this book. I was going to quit, but the author is an Agatha winner and an Edgar nominee. It can’t be THAT bad, can it? It has to get better? Nope. I was going to quit at the 30% mark.
At that point, we had Lorraine (the retired mobster) running around trying to investigate the crime. Everybody she meets, literally everybody, the first words out of her mouth are insults. Not just men…the family of the dead guy, witnesses she wants info from, the cops. It’s supposedly “wit” according to the promo copy, because she’s old and saying things that turn people off and surprise, they won’t help her. Really? How strange. Despite the fact that she’s supposed to be street wise, really good with planning murders and body disposals, skating by in life unseen and under the radar.
Oh, and every man she meets, they’re obviously sexist pigs who deserve to die. Oh, and did I mention she has a dead husband that seems like she misses him in the first half of the book and the second half she’s joking that he’s dead. Okaaaay. Did I also mention that she’s trying to figure out the case, but she abruptly kills the ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS ANYTHING before finding anything out?
I had some hopes for the female detective. Some, not much. But the dead guy was a PI who was following a shady guy who was a drug dealer just before the PI ends up dead. It’s possible the drug dealer is into shady dealings with two other guys from high school. But other than Lorraine, the drug dealer is the ONLY real suspect. Yet at the 50% mark, Detective Mike has been investigating the case for several days and pauses to think, “What if the drug dealer killed him?”. Like, seriously? What the heck? He is the ONLY suspect at the time. There is virtually NOBODY else with any known motive. Yet she’s super smart and just figured out maybe he was involved? OMG.
I didn’t think this train wreck could get worse until Detective Mike accidentally finds some bad guys by random luck, there’s a farcical series of scenes moving a body, and Lorraine cracks part of the mystery with amazing deductive skills that make NO SENSE AT ALL. She makes a random guess that has nothing to do with any evidence, just “oh, it must be these two people”, one of whom WE HAVE NEVER MET. Oh, and a second mystery? It’s resolved by the person revealing themselves for fun and giggles.
Disclosure
I received a free copy of this book through Amazon First Reads. I am not friends with the author, nor have I interacted with them on social media.
I know, I know, I still have a backlog of over 300 more to do. But I remember when I was writing the first few almost 30 years ago (my first that I have a copy of, at least, was in 1998).
Over the years, I always plan to write one for every book I read, but I didn’t…hence the backlog. 🙂 I need to complete the backlog to update my other stats (read, reviewed, etc.).
I show 39 up until 1999;
From 2000-2007, I added only another 56, and then nothing for 2008-2010…or at least not that I have copies of, still;
From 2011-2019, I only have some for 6 of those years, with 25 more up until 2018 before I added a whopping 53 in 2019;
I added another 84 from 2020-2024; and,
Then only 27 last year.
I’m at 18 already written for this year, of which 6 or 7 are read this year. Shh, I am secretly trying to do 200ish for the year although my official target is much less.
I’m now posting them on my website, Amazon, Indigo, Book Notification and GoodReads, as well as sharing them on social media for X/Twitter, Threads, BlueSky and Meta/FB.
I don’t get a lot of feedback, but I’m hoping to build some interest in book club links over the next five years. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I’m going to write and post them even if nobody but me reads them.
Cheers to me! When I retire, I’m going to try to post a new BR every day until I’m all caught up. I just have to get to retirement. 🙂
A woman is surprised to find out that a local bookstore has a gift for her from her husband, who passed away six months before. He arranged for “A year of books” to help her heal.
What I Liked
The author had me at the initial premise of twelve books to help the surviving spouse heal and live again. Throughout the months, you see her reluctantly start to read again, try new things, and develop a life without him. Their life together is told through flashbacks and you see her come out of her shell with the help of family and new or old friends. She even travels to exotic locales that she always wanted to visit.
While contemporary or romance is not my usual jam, I picked it from an online book club list based on the wonderful premise, and it didn’t disappoint. I read through it in one sitting which let me escape into the book, except for the need for refreshing the tissue box every chapter. There is an intentional small plot hole that gets filled near the end, and I never saw it coming. I might have if I had read it over several days or weeks, but straight-through worked perfectly.
What I Didn’t Like
It is a bit schmaltzy at the end, with the typical rom-com-style “let’s avoid talking about something and just make huge assumptions instead” plot device, but it isn’t egregious. I was expecting a different “solution” at the end, actually 2 or 3 different ones, but mostly liked the one that showed up.
About a month ago, I posted my “H is for Health” post. I was not feeling particularly positive at the time about my overall health, but I would say I’m seeing some minor AND major improvements. Stay with me, it’s a slow climb to the end.
My lower back has generally been behaving itself. My upper back on the right shoulder is a little stiffer than I would like, and I find it hard to make it release on my own. But despite that, I feel like I’m moving better generally. I was out at the store on the weekend, just picking up some stuff, and it is the 2nd or 3rd time in the last two weeks where I just felt myself moving well without a sense of trudging. It’s not all about my back, but more so just my torso.
I’m down 20 pounds in the last six months, and while that might have been a bit worrisome on its own, there’s a reason for it — and no, not particularly tied to things I’m doing well. My body didn’t like the weight and my diabetes was adjusting my internal chemistry for liquids and weight to adjust. Which also jacked my A1C number. I haven’t tested it in a while, things didn’t align for certain lab work timings, so almost two years. My 6.5/6.6 to 7.1/7.2 range just jumped to 10.2. Yeah, that needs to be addressed immediately, so first stop is bumping up my Metformin to adjust (I was on a low dose of 250mg per day, will eventually get to 1000mg for now, and 2000 if need be). My stomach may not like the increased dose to start, but I’ll get there. I also have a new auto-monitor to check blood more regularly which I’ll start this weekend. I feel like there’s a plan, and I haven’t been feeling the effects too much lately, except for increased urination and thirst.
My blood pressure has crept up in recent months, but it is the first number more so than the lower number, so nobody is worried about it too much. Still within manageable levels and if we fix the A1C, some of the other stuff will adjust. All good for now.
I have new prescriptions for my compression socks and liners, and I went to see a foot doctor (I can’t tell if he’s a chiropodist or a podiatrist), and they trimmed my toenails into a good form, we’ll monitor, and I found out why I wasn’t making any headway earlier. I was using a basic cream for athlete’s foot, but that isn’t what the problem is; I don’t know what it is instead, just that the cream won’t solve it. Equally, I was putting moisture on my feet like I was told, and that was apparently only making it worse, not better. If I use a moisturizer, the fungus gets worse; if I use a fungicide, my feet will get dried out and crack more. These are minor inconveniences in the overall scheme of things, some people go for years never bothering with any treatment, but I want to clear it up, so I needed a compounding pharmacy to give me an expensive cream that a) has the fungicide, b) has a moisturizer, and c) has an activation ingredient that lets both work at the same time with the right dosages rather than diluting each other. It took the pharmacy and the doctor two weeks to figure it out and get the right ingredients, and it will take about 2 months to clear it up. In the meantime, the doctor will monitor my toes and let me know if I need to do anything (probably not).
My CPAP is working great, but my sleep is messed up temporarily by a new drug that I’m taking. More on that in a minute. I’m still waiting to be contacted so I can get a new machine, but no news yet.
My hearing is still pending assessment, too many other things going on in the last month.
I went to the dentist on the 23rd of January, ready to go for oral sedation plus an IV. Except the new nurse said the guidelines don’t allow those two together. So they argued for two hours and I went home unserved. Fun times. Went back last week, everything is clarified, back to the old nurse, and I had it done. I was NOT out as much as I would have liked, and the amnesic effect did not happen like the previous time, but I did sleep through most of it in the end. Some bumps, some bruises to the ego, but done. Or half-done. Double root canal, multiple cavities, mouth is WAY better than it was, but I still need some crowns done. I’m curious to see if I can do that without sedation. I know, that doesn’t sound consistent with what I said before about my complete terror in the dental chair.
How much am I still me if I’m a better version of myself?
Time to talk about the major change. The stuff above? Peanuts. Background noise. Fluff almost.
My mental health has changed dramatically in the last six weeks. I mentioned previously that I started an antidepressant in January, called Escitalopram Oxalate. I was optimistic it could take the edge off my stress, which it has, but it is more than that. Much more.
Stepping back for a second, I had wondered going in if I would notice a difference. And my sister-in-law suggested that perhaps I might not notice at first myself, but that I could perhaps ask Jacob and Andrea if they noticed a difference. Jacob hasn’t really, but Andrea has. But I did too.
The first time was a discussion at work. I have a coworker who has “tone” issues, easily recognized by me as I’ve had the same problem in my career at times. I’m “better” but far from perfect. They were semi-unintentionally telling me that I wasn’t doing my job right, that another manager wasn’t doing their job right, and we should do it the way they thought it should be done. Not intentionally malicious, by the way. Just really terrible tone, and a hop, skip and a jump past the line of appropriateness. Normally, that would annoy the f*** out of me, and I would probably react harshly. Not over the top, but clearly with an edge in my voice. Nope. Didn’t interrupt, listened to their view, remained calm the whole time, and responded as if they hadn’t been totally over the line. No issue, didn’t phase me. And I even noticed myself that I wasn’t reacting. Almost like I was stepping outside myself to say, “Hey, dude, wtf? They’re being rude AF, and nothing???”. Weird.
That was a Thursday. On Saturday morning, I went to run some errands. First stop: Staples, to drop off a phone to be sent back to work for Andrea. Waited in line patiently, got to the front of the line, and the person serving me got pulled off to solve some extra problem, leaving me sitting waiting to be served for at least five minutes. Then I went to Shoppers for a prescription, which they couldn’t do, needed compounding, but I had to wait about 10 minutes to find that out, even though it was expected. I tried grabbing lunch at Swiss Chalet, but waited about 8 minutes to be seated only to be told they only had one server on, but it wouldn’t take any longer. That’s straight BS, and I pushed back, politely to say, no, sorry, that’s not true. I’ve been here before with limited servers, I don’t have 90 minutes for what I wanted to be a quick lunch. So I left. Grabbed some take out, went to the compounding pharmacy. Waited about 15 minutes to talk to the pharmacist who was on the phone with a customer who sounded like the customer from h*** who needed a lot of hand-holding, as we all do at times. Finished with them, headed home. It should have taken less than an hour, not including lunch. I was gone almost 2.5h, with barely a ripple for lunch from a drive-through. At no point in that trip was I impatient. Didn’t care. Take your time, I’m not in a rush. Cuz I wasn’t. Nothing phased me.
Fast-forward to the day with the dentist. Andrea and I were there for two hours while they tried to figure out what drugs they could give me. The nurse was trying to convince me to try just the IV, which I had done in December for a cleaning, and it was barely enough. She argued with me and tried to convince me to “try it and see” for almost 30 minutes while I calmly told her the answer was a flat no, not happening. She was arguing with everyone, not just me, but she literally had me in the chair telling me what I should do for about 30 minutes straight. Normally? I think I would have lasted about 5 minutes. Then I would have booked. If I’m the patient / customer and you’re not listening, I’m outta there. But I didn’t. I just calmly kept telling her, I get what you’re saying, but I know myself best, and that ain’t going to work for me. I barely made it through two weeks later with BOTH drugs; one wouldn’t have been close. But, more pointedly, I noticed I wasn’t going nuclear, and asked Andrea afterwards about it too. Did she notice it at the time? Yes, she had noticed, and agreed that I was completely unnaturally calm for me, even though she could tell I was really frustrated. Not “normal” me at all. (As an aside, after two hours, I went out into the waiting room, pulled my hoodie down over my head for 5-10 minutes so I could just shut out the world. I had reached my processing limit, when normally I would have been irate and booking it out of there.)
A better version of me, perhaps, at least for the patient and calm side.. The me I can be when the edge doesn’t take over. I’m not totally sold on that analysis yet.
For the technical side for a second, the drug category is SSRI — Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) which are considered the first thing you try, relatively safe, and non-addictive. They aren’t designed to treat an immediate problem, and take 4-8 weeks to fully take hold. I just happened to start seeing some benefits at the 3w mark. According to a Dr. Google/AI summary, the SSRIs “block the reabsorption of serotonin into neurons, and increased serotonin levels improve communication between brain cells, regulating mood and “turning down the volume” on anxious thoughts.” The med literature calls it induced apathy. In short, I just don’t care! 🙂
More seriously, I would describe it almost like I get to CHOOSE how to react to caring about something a bit more. There IS a downside. The edge that got toned down also took some of my internal edge away. Which means if I’m being a giant lazy ass, I don’t have the edge built in to force myself to do stuff. For example, I have a D&D group on Tuesdays, but my social introversion is low on energy at the moment with work, health, Jacob’s stuff, and planning retirement, so I’ve been unable to push through the block to join the group.
Other projects are going a bit better. I was worried it was making me apathetic across a broad group of hobbies (a legit risk to the SSRIs), but I did a bunch of stuff on my website and book reviews, a hyper focus session on the weekend, and all good. I’m still obsessing about stupid stuff, so I’m still me. 🙂
But the biggest example of a change was on this past weekend. Frequently, particularly in the winter, I dread going out to run errands. If I can pull up in front of a store and Andrea can go in while I wait, awesome. If I have to park and then trudge in my boots through the parking lot, go through the store, meh. Anyway, I did the dental surgery on Friday, was feeling better generally, even just cuz it was over and wasn’t a complete nightmare (not perfect, but livable) and had to pick up Andrea from the hair salon, then off to Shoppers for some prescription changes (I spend way too much time at the pharmacy!). We got to the store, and I didn’t even think about having Andrea go in. I just parked and said, “I’ve got it, be back soon”. Two prescriptions later, some stuff for Jacob and me, I’m heading back out and thinking a bit about me, my changes, my meds, etc. And something was different. My upper body was moving well. My brain was relatively quiet. I was ticking things off my to do list.
I realized that I was feeling happy. Not content, not mild joy or appreciative of things, not amused. My brain was chirping away, my feet weren’t trudging. I’m not sure I know this feeling well. Outside of big moments like weddings or births, or seeing Jacob enjoy seeing mountains in BC, I wouldn’t say happiness is the normal feeling. I feel lots of things all day long, maybe happy about certain things. But happy just to “be”? That’s relatively new. I don’t know if I’m describing it quite right. It feels like I’m saying my life sucks normally or something, but it’s not that at all. I am far from “absence of stress or care”, but the normal feeling that I’ve had for most of my adult life of carrying too much at times seems lifted. If grief is understood metaphorically as throwing a blanket over emotions, these meds are metaphorically doing the opposite. And if you asked me two months ago if I did get to this stage, I think I would have said I would have cried if I was feeling it. Instead, I was just bubbly. Weird.
I’m six weeks in, and feel like I’m finally able to catch sight of that better version of me that I’ve often dreamed of, set goals for, encouraged, pursued. Oh sure, the insomnia is kicking my butt along with initial dizziness and a host of other things, but I’ll figure it out. So far? It’s a success.
I’ve even had someone at work who I don’t know well comment that I seemed amazingly calm lately in the face of overwhelming change. Yep. It’s drugs. I’m on drugs.
My reading challenge for 2026 is 63 books, which would be a little over five a month. So far, I’m on track, at least for fiction. In January, I reviewed 17 books, but only 5 of those were new reads this past month.
On the other hand, my TBR pile exploded with book suggestions from 40 different book clubs, so my pile didn’t exactly go down. 🙂 Against my reading challenge “bingo” card (see the link below), I’m going to code:
All Systems Red as “Rebel” for the Murderbot hacking his governance module;
Newbie Werewolf as “Fantasy creatures”, for obvious reasons;
The Last Starfighter as a “childhood favourite”, I loved that movie back in ’84 when it was released, a long time treasured movie, and the book holds up well;
The Compound as “Infrequent genre”, as it is a little too contemporary or pop-culture for my normal tastes; and,
The Games Gods Play as “Fantasy Adventure”, although the setting is relatively modern.
I’ve updated the reading challenge with my latest TBR list, although it’s getting out of control. I have over 800 books on my Kindle. Say what? How is that possible? Oh, right, I’m a Book Goblin (credit: Elizabeth Wheatley) and I’m hoarding!
