Heather Seggel

YA FictionYA

Spin

Review by Heather Seggel

Paris Secord—known as DJ ParSec to her growing fan base—is throwing one last pop-up party before taking the world by storm. But then she’s unexpectedly murdered. Her body is found by Paris’ friends, Kya and Fuse, but the two are sworn enemies. But in order to find ParSec’s killer, they’ll have to set their differences aside and work together. Spin is a fast-paced, intricately layered whodunit: Be prepared to stay up late to finish it.

Edgar Award-nominated author Lamar Giles (Overturned) serves up plenty of potential suspects in this thriller, from a demanding ex-boyfriend to ParSec’s older manager who was fired, to a subset of fans whose love sometimes turns into obsession. Fuse and Kya have to bridge uncomfortable class divisions to find common ground; they unite in the belief that the police don’t care about finding their friend’s killer, an assumption that’s proven to be not entirely correct. The generational gap between these tech-savvy kids and their parents—whose 1980s and ’90s rap and R&B records are the classics these teens were raised on and inspired by—tugs at the reader’s heart.

By the time the killer is sussed out, our frenemies have found they have more than their late friend in common. Giles has created a true-to-form mystery that’s utterly modern and occasionally surreal. (The horror movie masks favored by ParSec’s more out-there fans are deeply creepy, just like their behaviors.) Even the title, Spin, is eventually revealed to mean more than it does at first glance, just one more twist in this gripping thriller.

Spin is a fast-paced, intricately layered whodunit: Be prepared to stay up late to finish it.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

The Simple Art of Flying

Review by Heather Seggel

Alastair is an African grey parrot with dreams of a life beyond the pet shop he calls home. Fiercely dedicated to his sister, Aggie, he sometimes fails to notice how his protective instincts can be suffocating, or worse. When the two siblings are separated, Alastair must learn to adapt to change without plucking himself bald. Suddenly, for Alastair, The Simple Art of Flying never seemed so complex.

Debut author Cory Leonardo weaves together multiple character perspectives seamlessly. The widow who buys Alastair can’t understand why he keeps trying to escape when it’s clear some part of him likes her. Young Fritz, who buys Aggie, has his own complicated reasons for wanting to keep something precious alive. The animals at the pet shop have distinct voices and personalities, not unlike the farm animals in Babe, and while some are wise, others are less trustworthy.

There’s a fair amount of heartbreak in this story, but it’s balanced with bursts of slapstick humor, from escaped tarantulas to wild dance breaks with feathered boas. There’s also a clever twist where Alastair, who enjoys tearing paper, discovers poetry and begins composing his own verses based on what he’s currently “reading.” When this angry parrot learns to reconsider his rigid ideas, a new world opens up to him: One where he can finally be happy in the realization that wherever he is, he’s home.

Alastair is an African grey parrot with dreams of a life beyond the pet shop he calls home. Fiercely dedicated to his sister, Aggie, he sometimes fails to notice how his protective instincts can be suffocating, or worse. When the two siblings are separated, Alastair must learn to adapt to change without plucking himself bald. Suddenly, for Alastair, The Simple Art of Flying never seemed so complex.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Planting Stories

Review by Heather Seggel

When Pura Belpré came to America in 1921, she brought with her a love of storytelling that made her something of a legend back home in Puerto Rico. She became a bilingual assistant at the New York Public Library and was surprised to discover not a single collection of Puerto Rican folk tales on the shelves; there was nothing to do but write them down herself. Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré is a book about the celebrated writer and librarian’s stories, and how those stories took root and continue to grow.

Author Anika Aldamuy Denise threads Spanish vocabulary into Planting Stories. There’s no glossary but the words are clear in context: “Families come to hear folktales en inglés y español, to watch Pura’s puppets dance across the stage of her stories.” Paola Escobar’s illustrations contrast the island beauty of Puerto Rico (splashy palm trees and a trolley carrying passengers to the beach) with the density and hustle of New York, also beautiful despite the crowds and air pollution. The arc of Belpré’s life and legacy is shown in a way that recalls the emotionally gripping opening sequence from the movie Up as words and pictures combine powerfully to convey the impact of Belpré’s work.

Planting Stories includes a bibliography and resources for further exploration about Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York, and her most famous stories. Anyone starting here will surely be curious to learn more about this hero librarian and the stories she scattered like seeds for us to discover.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When Pura Belpré came to America in 1921, she brought with her a love of storytelling that made her something of a legend back home in Puerto Rico. She became a bilingual assistant at the New York Public Library and was surprised to discover not a single collection of Puerto Rican folk tales on the shelves; there was nothing to do but write them down herself. Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré is a book about the celebrated writer and librarian’s stories, and how those stories took root and continue to grow.

FictionMysteryCozy Mystery

Death Comes to Bath

Review by Heather Seggel

It seems that Major Sir Robert and Lady Lucy Kurland need only drop in on a new city for a death to occur. Thankfully they’ve become so adept at sleuthing they can almost schedule it alongside their travel itinerary. In Death Comes to Bath, the sixth in Catherine Lloyd’s series, Robert has had a medical setback, so the pair, along with Lucy’s sister, travels to “take the waters” in England’s famed Roman baths. After befriending an older gentleman, the pair is dismayed when he drowns, and foul play is apparent. Lloyd balances period history (Robert was injured in the Battle of Waterloo), a tense romantic subplot and some extravagant vacation shopping while respecting the grave nature of the crime. Class divisions—and the way money can help one surmount them—make for a rich suspect pool. It may be cruel to hope Robert and Lucy keep visiting new cities, given what tends to happen, but watching this duo in action is a joy.

In Death Comes to Bath, the sixth in Catherine Lloyd’s series, Robert has had a medical setback, so the pair, along with Lucy’s sister, travels to “take the waters” in England’s famed Roman baths. After befriending an older gentleman, the pair is dismayed when he drowns, and foul play is apparent.
MysteryCozy Mystery

Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors

Review by Heather Seggel

Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors is Christopher Fowler’s 16th tale of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and this time we’re off to London in the swinging ’60s. Even in their youth, detectives Bryant and May had a habit of doing things their own way, and a simple assignment—keep a man alive for a weekend and get him to court to testify on Monday morning—takes several hard left turns. There’s slapstick comedy and swift wordplay (the duo’s word games are briefly upstaged by Bryant dangling upside down from a trellis during a window escape) as well as food for thought. Standout moments include exchanges between hippies in love with the idea of freedom and the elders who fought in World War II but don’t see their own definition of “freedom” in loose morals and patchouli fumes. If this is your first outing with Bryant and May, you’ll want to read them all.

Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors is Christopher Fowler’s 16th tale of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and this time we’re off to London in the swinging ’60s. Even in their youth, detectives Bryant and May had a habit of doing things their own way, and a simple assignment—keep a man alive for a weekend and get him to court to testify on Monday morning—takes several hard left turns.
FictionMysteryCozy Mystery

A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary

Review by Heather Seggel

Jarrett Creek, Texas, exemplifies small-town living. Neighbors look out for one another, or so you’d think. When a beloved local baking wizard, Loretta Singletary, turns up missing, police Chief Samuel Craddock realizes he missed several changes in his friend’s appearance that may have been clues. A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary is an old-fashioned story with a modern problem at its center. Terry Shames’ latest book finds the town divided over church involvement in a goat rodeo when Loretta goes missing. The discovery that she was considering online matchmaking services is mildly scandalous, and Craddock must explore the world of online dating in order to begin the investigation. The tension ratchets up when a body is found and linked back to the same dating sites, and the search for Loretta intensifies. The resolution to this tale is a bit offbeat, but the setting is lush and absorbing, and the tension builds perfectly along the way.

Jarrett Creek, Texas, exemplifies small-town living. Neighbors look out for one another, or so you’d think. When a beloved local baking wizard, Loretta Singletary, turns up missing, police Chief Samuel Craddock realizes he missed several changes in his friend’s appearance that may have been clues.
YA FictionYA

This Is What It Feels Like

Review by Heather Seggel

Dia, Jules and Hanna, the three members of the band Fairground, may have been high school students when their music was getting noticed, but Hanna’s addiction and Dia’s unplanned pregnancy broke up the act along with their friendship. When a big music contest announces a $15,000 prize for the winning act, they consider reuniting in order to enter. Hanna’s sober now, but a return to the scene could be triggering. Dia is haunted by ghosts of what could have been with her child’s dad. And Jules might be in love with a near-perfect girl, but she’s distracted by her overblown expectations.

Author Rebecca Barrow (You Don’t Know Me but I Know You) uses the contest’s tight timeline to force her characters to reckon with the past, which unfolds in flashbacks. Each young woman has her own issues at home, work and school, and the future and its uncertainty hang over each of them. It’s a pleasure to follow them as they navigate the old hurts and grudges and try to make a new start together.

This Is What It Feels Like is a punched-up power chord of a book. Readers will be reminded that it’s possible for friends to grow apart, find their way back together and be stronger than before.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

This Is What It Feels Like is a punched-up power chord of a book. Readers will be reminded that it’s possible for friends to grow apart, find their way back together and be stronger than before.

Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

A Shot in the Dark

Review by Heather Seggel

Top Pick in Cozies, November 2018

In the 1950s, Brighton, England, was bucolic and lovely—if you disregard the hooligans, Teddy Boys and other criminal mischief- makers lurking about. In A Shot in the Dark, author Lynne Truss of Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003) fame introduces Inspector Steine, a police captain who wants nothing more than for crime to simply relocate itself so he can enjoy his ice cream in peace. When a well-known theater critic is gunned down just before he’s supposed to share crucial evidence in an old case, earnest Constable Twitten is determined to buck departmental tradition and actually solve a crime. This farcical tale is packed with interwoven plotlines, clues strewn about like confetti and a comically oblivious chief inspector. It reads like a stage comedy, and in fact Truss has written four seasons’ worth of Inspector Steine dramas for BBC Radio. There are no dark and stormy nights here, just gorgeous seaside views marred by occasional corpses. The ’60s are coming, but for now, women are still largely ignored; this turns out to be its own kind of liberation, since who would suspect them? Sharp and witty, A Shot in the Dark is a good time.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

 

In the 1950s, Brighton, England, was bucolic and lovely—if you disregard the hooligans, Teddy Boys and other criminal mischief- makers lurking about.

Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

Silver Anniversary Murder

Review by Heather Seggel

The town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, is in an introspective mood at the start of Silver Anniversary Murder. A quarrelsome couple is renewing their vows, and everyone’s invited. Lucy Stone reaches out to her best friend, Beth, to reminisce about her own wedding day, only to learn that Beth has died. But was it suicide, or did one of Beth’s four ex-husbands help her off that balcony? To find out, Lucy goes back to New York City and reflects on her own past while searching for clues. This is bestselling author Leslie Meier’s 25th Lucy Stone mystery, but the small-town hospitality of Tinker’s Cove welcomes all readers, new and old alike. Lucy is observant by nature, and her reporter’s instincts are both an asset and a liability; anyone with something to hide had better do it well, or else keep Lucy out of the way. The resolution to this mystery takes a few unexpectedly dark turns, but Lucy lands on her feet. After all, it’s hardly her first time to be embroiled in matters of life and death.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

 

The town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, is in an introspective mood at the start of Silver Anniversary Murder.

Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

Bird, Bath, and Beyond

Review by Heather Seggel

E.J. Copperman’s second entry in the Agent to the Paws series, Bird, Bath, and Beyond, finds animal talent agent Kay Powell on the set of a TV show with a parrot whose owner has the flu. When the show’s (human) star turns up dead, the parrot is surprisingly talkative, and since he’s Kay’s client, she’s drawn into the search for a killer. The well-populated story zips along—Kay’s parents visit, the show’s cast and crew are all suspects, and the human-animal banter is snappy. Glimpses of show business at its best and worst (the hard work, the giant egos) and the ways animals are used on film give this clever tale a realistic feel. So far, Kay is two for two when it comes to adopting her animal clients. As the series evolves, what kind of zoo will she end up with? For cozy fans, it will be fun to find out.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

E.J. Copperman’s second entry in the Agent to the Paws series, Bird, Bath, and Beyond, finds animal talent agent Kay Powell on the set of a TV show with a parrot whose owner has the flu.

YA FictionYALGBTQ Fiction

Pulp

Review by Heather Seggel

High school senior Abby’s home life in Washington, D.C., is a mess best left untouched, and her love life? Ugh. She’s still reeling from her breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Linh, and trying to figure out how they can go back to being friends. Little things like her college applications have been forgotten altogether. When she must improvise her senior creative writing project on the fly, she randomly lands on 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. As she starts researching in order to write her own modern novel in the same style, she becomes obsessed with one pseudonymous author (known as Marian Love) and decides to find her real identity.

Abby’s story in the present dovetails with another tale set in 1955, when closeted teen Janet Jones finds one of those same novels. In the 1950s, those pulpy novels are required to have tragic endings or a spontaneous renunciation of same-sex love, and it seems as though Janet’s own story is headed that way. The best friend she’s in love with isn’t prepared to lose everything, and running away seems like the only option.

Author Robin Talley (Lies We Tell Ourselves) contrasts Abby’s life in present-day D.C., where she’s comfortably out to her friends and busy protesting Trump-era policies, with Janet’s in 1955, when even a rumor of homosexuality is grounds for investigation under the pretext of exposing Communists. This comparison makes Pulp both a mystery and a history lesson, and it’s quite moving. Talley’s afterword highlights some of the real history—complete with lists of real lesbian pulp fiction authors and their published titles—that underlies Janet’s fictional story. It’s remarkable how far gay rights and U.S. culture have come, but Talley notes that you can still be fired or evicted for being gay in 28 states today.

Pulp neatly moves between two similar girls’ very different worlds and offers a pointed reminder that history is never that far behind us.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book essay from Robin Talley on Pulp.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

High school senior Abby’s home life in Washington, D.C., is a mess best left untouched, and her love life? Ugh. She’s still reeling from her breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Linh, and trying to figure out how they can go back to being friends. Little things like her college applications have been forgotten altogether. When she must improvise her senior creative writing project on the fly, she randomly lands on 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. As she starts researching in order to write her own modern novel in the same style, she becomes obsessed with one pseudonymous author (known as Marian Love) and decides to find her real identity.

NonfictionMemoir

Getting better with age

Review by Heather Seggel

Meredith Maran had been married to the woman of her dreams, living in a gentrifying Oakland, California, neighborhood and making a decent living as an author (of more than a dozen books) and freelance writer. But when her marriage slowly turned toxic and she suffered other personal and financial setbacks, Maran opted for the mother of all do-overs—moving to Los Angeles and taking a job at a clothing company where, at age 60, she became both employee and honorary mom to her younger co-workers. The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention offers a bracing look at the joys and challenges of starting over as an older woman.

Maran starts out couch-surfing in L.A. and struggling to connect, but her writing career has given her a rich network of contacts that she mines like a pro for companionship and wise counsel. Once a fervent political activist, she now spends time in La-La Land supplementing companywide workout days with personal training sessions and exploring the world of nips, tucks and waxing fore and aft. Despite her hopes for reconciliation with her wife, their marriage ends in divorce and Maran begins exploring the world of online dating.

The copywriting job she moves south for borders on L.A. cliché, from nude weigh-ins with body-fat calipers to the rocket science employed to estimate driving distance from the office to anywhere else in town. These are some of the book’s funniest scenes, but the friends she makes at work become part of her tribe as well.

The observations here are sharp and witty; used to living under “the whip of freelance insecurity,” Maran awkwardly relaxes into a far better funded existence. No longer struggling to build a family, career or marriage, she delights in the freedom to have more fun, noting, “I’m not building anything anymore, except bone density if I’m lucky.”

The New Old Me is a smart, funny testament to the value of friendships old and new, and the ways they help us adapt to the inevitability of change.

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Meredith Maran had been married to the woman of her dreams, living in a gentrifying Oakland, California, neighborhood and making a decent living as an author (of more than a dozen books) and freelance writer. But when her marriage slowly turned toxic and she suffered other personal and financial setbacks, Maran opted for the mother of all do-overs—moving to Los Angeles and taking a job at a clothing company where, at age 60, she became both employee and honorary mom to her younger co-workers. The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention offers a bracing look at the joys and challenges of starting over as an older woman.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

A unique family’s cross-country journey

Review by Heather Seggel

The Someday Birds is a raw, funny road trip story that reminds us that even the most literal-minded people can occasionally be sucker-punched by a miracle.

Autistic 12-year-old Charlie struggles to connect with his older sister and younger twin brothers; facial cues never tell him enough to go on. His grandmother is caring for the children while their dad recovers from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Afghanistan. But when their grandmother must travel to Virginia with their father for treatment, the kids organize a cross-country road trip. On this trip, Charlie is inspired to seek out birds he and his dad hoped to see together.

Author Sally Pla puts readers directly inside Charlie’s mind: His inability to understand jokes that rely on wordplay, his tendency to jump and flap his arms when he’s nervous and his need for ritualized hand-washing lose their strangeness as readers recognize his good heart. If Charlie’s siblings roll their eyes at his need to stop and look for birds, they also love him and share in the victories when Charlie steps outside his comfort zone. He bonds easily with animals, for instance, and his low-key demeanor may help Ludmila, their road-trip chaperone, open up about her past and why she was visiting his dad in the hospital.

Moments that border on magic realism and the emotional toll of two different wars would seem to indicate heavy reading, but The Someday Birds leavens things with a three-legged dog who’s along for the ride, as well as Charlie’s Zagat-like reviews of the chicken nuggets at every stop across the United States. Hop in the RV with this ragtag group and enjoy the ride.

The Someday Birds is a raw, funny road trip story that reminds us that even the most literal-minded people can occasionally be sucker-punched by a miracle.

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