Thoughts on MURDER AT THE WHAM BAM CLUB

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Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are about the same as they’ve been this entire year. That’s about it. But it’s the last Wednesday of July, so that you know what that means. It’s book review time! This month, I decided to try a new cozy mystery series. Murder at the Wham Bam Club by Carolyn Marie Wilkins was released yesterday (the 29th) from Kensington Books. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s get to it!

Murder at the Wham Bam Club follows Nola Ann Jackson as she returns to her hometown after the death of her husband. It’s the 1920s and Nola’s a young psychic just learning how to use her gifts. When she’s asked to help find a missing young woman, Nola finds herself dragged into arson, murder, and mysteries. While everyone else would be happy blaming the missing girl, Nola is determined to find out what’s actually going on in her small town. Whether or not she can do it before the police find and charge the missing girl is the question.

The plot is pretty standard. There are some interesting red herrings. I fully admit that I found some of the romances icky. A 16 year old shacking up with and getting married to a bass player of unknown age after one meeting (not even a date). Gross. I get it in the context of the story and its setting, but it still makes me cringe. Most of the relationships in this book have huge red flags. But the mystery part of the book is entertaining and distracting enough that the story is still enjoyable.

The characters are pretty well fleshed out. I like Nola and her aunt. I thought Lilly and Brenda could’ve used more page time because they both feel a little cookie cutter. Jim has potential. It felt like he was going to prove the rumors wrong, but then he just kind of disappears from the book. Hopefully he gets his redemption in later books. I really like Nola’s bosses at the catering company. They provide a levelheadedness to the book that helps bring Nola back to her senses once in a while. Everyone basically has potential to grow (for better or worse) in future books.

As for the writing, I enjoyed it. But the language is pretty true to its time period, so if words like negroes or a school for “colored girls” bothers you, be aware. I still suggest reading it because it’s a fun mystery, though.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Murder at the Wham Bam Club. I’m not sure I’ll add it to my must-buy series, but I’ll definitely give book two a shot whenever it comes out.

Overall, I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. I do recommend it if you’re into cozy mysteries. Just be aware of the language if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing.

I’d Rather Be Reading

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Hello, hello! How’s everyone this wonderful Wednesday? I have nothing to ramble about that will take more than a sentence or two, so here’s a quick update on life, then I’m going to read. 1. Turned everything into Medicaid last Thursday afternoon, so I’m just waiting on them to do whatever they’re going to do. 2. Dad’s tomatoes are growing! 3. Three doctors appointments between now (22nd as I’m writing this) and the 31st. Two for Dad (eye test and quarterly check up) and one for me (video visit with my pulmonologist). Fun. Anyway, I’ll be back next week with the regularly scheduled book review!

Being Cripple Is Annoying

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Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are usual. Medicaid has decided it’s that time of year to prove I’m still worthy. Poor. Cripple. Whatever. So, I spent most of the day filling out a 20 page form. None of the answers has changed except how much Social Security I get, but I still had to trudge through the entire form anyway. Now, I just need to take a picture of my ID and get copies of my bank statements from April through July. Easy enough, right? But no. My bank just overhauled their system and even though everything was supposed to be up and running on Monday, they don’t have online access to any statements but June. Ugh. If that’s not up today, I’ll have to call them and convince them to email the statements to me. Once I get those, I’ll send everything to my CLASS case manager and she’ll fax it to Medicaid on my behalf so they’ll realize I’m on that particular program and hopefully not argue with my eligibility. If they had told me a week ago (before my bank decided to “improve” things and I could have just downloaded the statements) or waited until October, which is when I usually have to renew, I probably wouldn’t be complaining. I just hate having to call people. And I hate redundant forms. I just hate the whole process of being reminded I’m a poor cripple leeching off of society. Anyway, it’s late and I don’t feel like coming up with something nice to ramble about. Here’s a pretty picture by Yuumei instead of a real post.

Random Shower Thoughts

~ shawnaborman ~ 1 Comment

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? I’m not okay for a plethora of reasons. No one cares. The people who do care can’t do anything. So, let’s move swiftly along! I don’t really have much writerly or bookish stuff to ramble about, so I guess I’ll find something else. Our old shower head broke. Again. It was a fancy Delta with 5 sprays and a lifetime warranty, but every few years the color starts peeling off the hose and the switch to change sprays breaks because, while most of the shower head is metal, that part is just plastic. This was the second or third replacement we’ve had since 2018. It’s just not worth the hassle to get another one. Instead, Dad went looking for all metal shower heads in an oil-rubbed bronze finish (I guess no one likes that finish because it’s pretty difficult to find). That’s when he found The Shower Head Store.

Dad decided to go with the All Metal 3-Spray Dual Shower Head Combo with Hand Held & Rain Shower. And yes, it comes in multiple finishes including oil-rubbed bronze! It’s also a small company that seems to be customer focused still, which is always nice. We did have an issue because they originally sent the single spray head instead of the 3-spray. Dad initially emailed them, but decided to call them after 24-hours because I need the jet spray to get properly cleaned and he didn’t want to wait too long. Anyway, he got in touch with someone named Temar who helped him out and asked for pictures. After the initial phone call, everything was done via email. The shower head was out of stock, but they got it in within a few days and sent it right out. So, customer service and Temar are great. They do however spam you with auto-emails telling you to register your product and review it and whatever, which was the only annoying part of the process since we didn’t even have the right product at the time. Otherwise, accidents happen and they fixed it in a timely manner.

The handheld portion of the shower head is nice and works great for my needs. I require full assistance in the shower, so all of the ability issues I mention from here on out are just random thoughts. It’s not a comprehensive list and every disability is different so my thoughts might not even apply to you. Anyway, the shower head is a little heavy since it’s metal, so if you’re cripple and weight is a concern, you might want to find out if you can handle it before buying. The three sprays are wide (the typical shower head), massage (the single jet), and mist (the stinging bees of doom setting). The first two are exactly what I need. The jet does sting a little from certain angles, but it’s strong and gets the job done. I hate the mist setting. I always hate it. It’s buzzy and stingy and I don’t know what kind of masochist enjoys it so much that they keep including it on shower heads in general. But other than that, no complaints about the sprays. Switching between sprays looks easy enough, but I can’t do it myself because I don’t have the strength or gripping abilities, so I don’t really know if it’s cripple friendly for people with grip issues or not. There’s no trickle valve built in, so if you need to be able to reduce the flow to conserve water while soaping up or whatever, you have to buy an add on. It gets installed between the hose and handle, so the placement is a bit awkward and easy to accidentally activate or deactivate. It’s super easy to press though, so that’s good for cripples with strength issues in their fingers.

The rain part of the shower head is interesting. Tried it. It feels nice. I can’t really use it. But Dad loves it!

So, yeah. It’s a good shower head and works great for us.

Disability Pride Month

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? As I was thinking about what to write for this post, I was faced with a couple of stark reminders of why Medicaid and proper healthcare and assistance for people in times of crises are super important. You know… all that stuff the Republicans are hellbent on getting rid of in order to seemingly help the deficit so some rich people can get tax breaks which will add trillions more to the deficit than they save by gutting social programs. Anyway, I’m starting to rant and that isn’t what this is for.

My first reminder of why these programs are important was the batteries that were installed on my chair today. The old ones were dying pretty quickly and I wouldn’t have been able to afford them out of pocket, so we started the process to get them replaced. When did this process start? A week ago? It couldn’t take that long to just get batteries, right? May 22nd. I started the process on May 22nd and they were finally installed July 1st. Don’t be fooled when people tell you that countries with universal healthcare have ridiculous wait times. Ours are usually worse or about the same. Cutting funding to Medicaid will only make those times worse for the people lucky enough to still be covered. It’s going to make a lot of things worse.

The second reminder is the most important. My friend’s newborn nephew has heart issues and requires surgery. Before they can perform surgery, there’s an infection that has to be taken care of. There’s no telling how long this baby boy will have to be in the hospital. A friend of the family created a GoFundMe for them because the financial burden of having to take time off work, travel back and forth to Seattle, pay for lodging and food, and also worrying about their daughter is already taking its toll. They need help for a situation that no one can ever plan for, but instead of having access to government programs designed to help in these situations, they have to rely on people on the Internet who try their bests to help each other. So, I’m sharing the link to their GoFundMe below in the hopes that some of the kind people on the Internet will see it. Share it on your pages if you’re willing. The wider the audience, the better.

Support Charlies Heart Surgery Journey

Anyway, stay strong and have a good Disability Pride Month despite everything going on in D.C. We matter. We are not burdens. We are not leeches. We deserve to live, not just survive.

Thoughts on A MAGIC DEEP AND DROWNING

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Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Perpetual anxiety is my current state, so let’s just get to the thing we’re here for and skip the emotions. It’s the last Wednesday of June! That means it’s book review time! This month, I decided to go with a fairytale retelling of the Little Mermaid (one of my favorite fairytales), though it’s more rooted in Disney than Hans Christian Andersen, which is fine. I like both. Anyway, A Magic Deep and Drowning by Hester Fox was released yesterday (the 24th) from Graydon House (part of HarperCollins). As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s get to it!

A Magic Deep and Drowning follows Clara, a young woman from a well to do family who wants nothing more than to escape her cold, abusive parents. An arranged marriage offers that escape, but the appearance of a mysterious and attractive young man has her questioning everything. Throw in a flood and tensions between beings of the land and the kingdom of the sea and Clara gets thrown into the middle of a deal gone wrong. The problem… she’s the last sacrifice needed to fulfill the deal her ancestors made. How can she save herself and her homeland?

So, the plot is great with a lot of potential. My biggest issue with this book is that Clara is presented as the protagonist. The heroine. But she never actually does anything aside from pine for some dude that she’s known a whole hour. Love at first sight, I know. It’s a fairytale. Fine. But every time she says she’s going to do something or every time she has to make a difficult decision, someone or something else does it for her. Don’t want to sleep with your new husband? Magical flood! And it just keeps going from there. She gets herself into trouble and is saved every time. Even when she specifically says she’s going to do something to help herself be the hero, everyone else jumps in to fix it for her. It’s annoying and super unsatisfying. Like… let her do the thing! But no. The damsel can’t do anything. Ugh.

The characters are fine in the beginning, but become annoying about halfway through the book. I think if Maurits and Helma had actually let Clara do something for herself, I would’ve liked them a lot better. I definitely would’ve liked Clara better. She was decent, but she wasn’t allowed to actually grow despite what the narration says. The sea queen was probably the most interesting character. She was powerful, but flawed. I’m still not entirely sure how Thade did what he did while the queen just kind of let it happen. The whole “he honed his powers so much that he could do it” thing is not convincing at all given her powers. But yeah. Most of the characters had potential that wasn’t really brought to fruition.

A random thing that bothers me: the author’s note. You know how sometimes an author will leave a little note explaining something about the book or the research or whatever? There’s one of those. It starts off talking about the mythology used in the book, which is awesome because it’s a subject I’m interested in. Then the note goes on to explain what the book is supposed to be about. An allegory for climate change? You don’t say. I always find notes like that condescending and/or desperate. Either the writer doesn’t trust the reader to be smart enough to “get it” or they don’t trust their writing enough to convey the thoughts they desperately want to share. Either way, it’s ick.

As far as the writing goes, I enjoyed it. It was lyrical and had lovely imagery. The writing was basically what made the story worth finishing.

Ultimately, I wanted to like A Magic Deep and Drowning more than I did. It was just too annoying for me.

Overall, I gave it 2 out of 5 stars. I waffled between 2.5 and 2, but the more I think about it, the less I enjoyed it. If you like pretty writing and don’t mind a useless heroine, check it out. Otherwise, you’re not missing much.

Happy (early) Juneteenth!

~ shawnaborman ~ 2 Comments

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are about the same as usual. A thin veneer of normalcy covering a deep and enduring sense of impending doom. But let’s celebrate something good! Tomorrow (the 19th) is Juneteenth!

Juneteenth is the celebration of the end of slavery in the US. It took about three years after the Emancipation Proclamation for it to be fully enforced, with Kentucky and Delaware being the last to free slaves in December of 1865. So, why Juneteenth instead of December something? Because the earliest observations of the holiday were in Texas, which enforced the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19th of 1865. It’s been celebrated in some form ever since 1866. When black southerners were forced to spread across America in order to, you know, live… (the south was not/is not a great place to be for a lot of people), they took the celebration with them. So, even though it began here in Texas, all of the states eventually adopted the holiday in some form or another. It also became the first new federal holiday since 1983 (MLK Day) when Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law in 2021. Happy Juneteenth!

Perks of Plotting

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are about the same as usual. The dumpster fire is at a constant simmer with random public flare ups whenever the administration wants to distract us from whatever evil they’re working on that particular day. Trying to destroy the budget? Oops, the public is getting interested. Let’s turn the protests in LA into riots and activate the Coast Guard then immediately send in the Marines! Ugh. Anyway. I’m not here to rant. I’m just here to talk about writing. If you’ve been following along, you should know I tend to be a pantser when it comes to writing. I hate outlining. It feels too restrictive to me. But apparently plotting has some perks! So, I’m going to ramble about that today.

I’ve been feeling like writing lately, so I decided to pull out the Unnamed Cozy Mystery (UCM) and try getting back into it. Since I’m usually a pantser, my main concern was that I wouldn’t have any clue where I was planning to go with it, but I had approached this novel differently when I started it. I did a beat sheet for it (go read Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder or any of the Save the Cat! Writes a… Novel interpretations if you don’t know what that is). It’s a vague and messy beat sheet, but it’s mine and I understand it. And boy howdy did it save me a lot of stress. I wrote 1,100 words on Monday with no problem other than the usual “did I use that super common word that I use every day right?” or “is that one word or is it hyphenated?” etc. crap.

My favorite part is that I even included page numbers of where specific stuff is supposed to be given the length I’m aiming for in this novel. But that sounds super restrictive! It’s not, though. It’s just a reminder that those beats will most likely fall somewhere around that point. It doesn’t have to be perfect. If it’s too far off, the book length either needs to be rethought or my pacing is too wonky. This is just the first draft, so it’s not something I’m adjusting for right now, but if I ever finish the book, it’ll help me make decisions during the editing process. For now, it’s all just helpful reminders of what direction I was planning on going when I came up with the story.

As far as the actual story goes, I have a few beats that are super clear because those were the triggering ideas for this book, but most of them are like “Rainn and her cohorts track down loose ends and question suspects, crossing people off their list left and right. Meanwhile, renovations begin on the hotel and outbuildings.” which is meant to take up about 80 pages. This makes the pantser in me happy because it allows the story to grow organically with pretty minimal directions.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the structure I built for writing this story despite preferring to wing it most of the time. Let’s see if I can keep it up. Have you tried a beat sheet before? How detailed do you get? As always, feel free to share your thoughts and questions here or on my social media pages!

Happy Pride Month!

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are okay. That book review I was supposed to do today has been pushed back because there are issues. I don’t know. That’s between the author and publisher. When/If it gets a new release date, the marketing people are supposed to let me know so I can review it then. So, that means I have nothing to ramble about today. But I do want to say happy Pride month to everyone! I’ve seen a lot more hatred than usual on social media this year. It’s gross and disheartening. The MAGAts are out there, loud and proud. Stay safe and remember you’re loved and worthy of living your best life despite what they would have you believe. I’ll try to remember it too. Happy Pride!

Thoughts on THE WHISPERWOOD LEGACY

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Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? I’m not going to complain. After all, it’s the last Wednesday of May and you know what that means. Book review time! This month, I decided to go with some dark fairy tale vibes. The Whisperwood Legacy by Jo Schulte was released yesterday (May 27th) from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing!

The Whisperwood Legacy follows Frankie through the turbulent time after her grandmother abruptly closes the family amusement park, the main source of the family’s income. Frankie spends most of her time carrying groceries and other necessities to her grandmother after the rest of the family basically disowns the old woman unless they need something from her. After a scene at an unwanted celebration, her grandmother disappears and things start going very wrong at the park, but Frankie and the rest of her family are trapped there along with the mysterious new groundskeeper. It’s up to her to figure out what’s going on and fix it before everyone dies.

The plot is interesting and there was a lot of potential with it. The story is built around fairy tale magic and family legacies and all that fun stuff. It sounds like it will be great. But the pacing is off. There are tiny hints of maybe magical things, but then the blatant magical stuff is just plopped on the page without any natural growth towards it. It’s abrupt and jarring and a bit unsatisfying. Also, there’s this big reveal that Frankie knows exactly what’s happening with the park even though she’s clueless about other things, but there’s zero foreshadowing to clue in the reader, so it totally feels like an afterthought. I was afraid I just missed something, but other people complained about it as well. Things are just awkwardly timed or have little to no build up. It’s meh.

As far as the characters go, Jem is pretty much the only decent person, but he just feels like a caricature of the “ideal dude.” Everyone else is disgusting and I wanted them all to die. If mommy/grandma was such a horrible person (which she was), then cut ties with her and get a job instead of relying on her money. Don’t just sit around wishing her dead, then get pissed when you’re left out of the not-will. And Frankie isn’t much better than the rest of her family, despite the fact that she pretends to be. The book itself was meh, but the characters ruined any chance I had of actually enjoying anything about it.

The writing was fine. It relied far too heavily on pop culture references that are already becoming dated, which I don’t particularly care for, but I guess some people like that kind of thing.

Ultimately, I was not a fan of The Whisperwood Legacy. I was originally just glad to be done with it, but the more I think about it, the more I actively dislike it.

Overall, I gave it 2 out of 5 stars. More like 1.5, but I rounded up. If you’re super into everything fairy tales, check it out. Otherwise, you’re not missing anything.