Runaway Devil by Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose

Runaway Devil is the true story of a 12-year-old girl, JR, and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, who murdered her parents and younger brother in Medicine Hat, Alberta. JR "would become the youngest Canadian convicted of multiple homicide and one of the youngest females anywhere to commit familicide, the annihilation of one's entire family." In this book, Remington and Zickefoose, both of the Calgary Herald, examine the evidence and reveal how it all came together in a bizarre story of young love gone seriously awry.

I usually follow news stories like this one. It's like a bad traffic accident you just can't look away from. However, I hadn't heard of this horrific crime before I picked up the book. In fact, not knowing about it was the main reason I wanted to read the book.

Overall, I found the story fascinating. The crime, the criminals, the victims, the whole "goth" world. All of this made it a remarkable read. However, parts were rather dry, especially the sections where the authors described photos or contents of social networking sites pages of JR, Jeremy and the others. I can appreciate that this information was crucial to the story and needed to be included, however, it just didn't come across as exciting reading material. I'm sure the authors did the best they could; I honestly can't think of a better way to present it. The book got better, though, and my interest in it picked up dramatically with the questioning and subsequent trials of JR and Jeremy.

Several photos were included to accompany the text. While they were nice to have, I couldn't figure out why a few of them (photo of the old furniture on the deck at Jeremy's trailer, photos of Grant and Jordan) were included. Granted the authors were limited in that they couldn't show the photos of the majority of the players (JR and her family), but the ones mentioned above didn't add anything to the story for me.

The story of Runaway Devil and Souleater (JR and Jeremy's online personas respectively) was incredible. However, I found it hard to believe that JR and Jeremy didn't know each other's ages. While age becomes a taboo subject among adults, I don't think that's the case with teens. JR lied about her age online, but her close friends must have known what her true age was. Don't teenagers talk to each other? JR's parents were against older guys calling the house for her. I would have thought one of them might have said, "Look, she's only 12." before telling them not to call again. Anyway, we just have their word for what they knew and the two of them did not exactly exemplify trustworthiness. We know that at least one of them was lying about who killed Jacob, JR's younger brother.

The other thing that I found hard to fathom about the story was how a 12-year-old was able to manipulate an adult, a 23-year-old adult, to the point where he was willing to kill for her. Jeremy was desperately seeking acceptance from someone. It's kind of sad that he couldn't find that in someone his own age.

Because JR was a juvenile offender under the age of 18, Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act was suppose to provide her with anonymity. However, that act doesn't account for the internet. At least not yet. It took me less than 5 minutes to find JR's full name as well as numerous photos of her online. The authors did what they could to comply with Canada's legal restrictions and detailed their efforts in the author's note at the beginning of the book. Maybe one day the laws will catch up with the changing world.

After JR finishes serving her sentence, what will happen to her? Will she be reformed? I didn't get the impression that she fully understands what she's done. Will she get it when she's older? If not, God help us all. As for her sentence, there's got to be a better way to deal with young offenders who commit horrendous crimes. I'll leave all other comments about the law to the pundits.

Recommended. I don't have children, but I can't imagine having a teenage daughter (or son for that matter) and not being scared or a little uneasy after reading this book.


This review can also be viewed on Edwards Magazine Bookclub website.

For more information about this book, please visit McClelland.com or the Runaway Devil website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Edwards Magazine Bookclub for this review copy.

Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark

In Dying for Mercy, Eliza Blake, co-host of Key to America, attends the party of her good friends, Valentina and Innis Wheelock, who live in the exclusive neighbourhood of Tuxedo Park. At the party, Innis commits suicide by stigmata, but not before he leaves behind some peculiar clues that Eliza and her coworkers must solve in order to unravel the mystery. Suicide by stigmata is admittedly strange, but maybe not for Innis. He and Valentina have recently returned from a holiday in Italy. While they were there, Innis became obsessed with St. Francis of Assisi, who first experienced stigmata. Eliza doesn't know it, but someone is determined to cover up Innis's mystery and will stop at nothing.

I loved this book. Mary Jane Clark's the queen of short chapters squeezing in 151 in 371 pages. It's not just the short chapters that I love, though. Her story telling abilities amaze me. The way she presented this mystery (and others), jumping between characters, had me on the edge of my seat reading well past my bedtime. While she provides plenty of red herrings to keep readers on their toes, she doesn't include extraneous details or irrelevant side stories. Her mysteries are tight, suspenseful and intense.

Unlike a few of her other books, this one wasn't so focused on the behind the scenes workings of the network news, although we do get to see a little of that. This one focused more on Eliza's friendship with the Wheelocks, the bizarre manner of suicide, St. Francis and other religious items. Even though there was quite a bit about religion, it didn't come across as preachy or even religious.

I love learning new things. Even though I was raised in the Catholic faith, my detailed knowledge of it is seriously lacking. The information in this story about the stigmata and other religious material filled in some holes in my education and prodded me to look up a few items on the internet. It was all fascinating stuff.

I've read a couple of other books by Clark. It Only Takes a Moment ( my review) and When Day Breaks( my review). I really enjoyed both of them. I can't wait until her next book is published. Until then there's a large backlist from which I can choose a book to keep my busy.

Highly recommended. For the beach, the hammock or your favourite reading chair.

For more information about this book or to Browse Inside, visit the HarperCollins Canada website. For more information about the author and her other books, please visit Mary Jane Clark's website.

Dying for Mercy Giveaway - Winners

Congratulations to Hannah and Cheryl! Both will be receiving copies of Mary Jane Clark's "Dying for Mercy". They have been notified and their addresses are already on the way to Wiredset.

By the way, I recently finished this book and will be posting my review shortly. I loved it and hope the winners will, too.

Here are the answers to the three questions I asked:
Q) What's the name of the protagonist in "Close to You" and "When Day Breaks"?
A) Eliza Blake.
Q) Her biography says that "Mary support causes close to her heart, including research for a cure or treatment for fragile X syndrome". There's a specific reason why Mary is interested in Fragile X syndrome. What is it?
A) Her son has the syndrome.
Q) Who is Mary Jane Clark's former mother-in-law?
A) Mary Higgins Clark.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by and to everyone who entered. Also, thanks again to Kat at Wiredset for allowing me to host this giveaway.

Girl in a Blue Dress: A Novel by Gaynor Arnold

In Girl in a Blue Dress, Dorothea Gibson is grieving the death of her husband, the One and Only Alfred Gibson, a great novelist, despite the fact that she has been estranged from him for ten years. Not long after she gave birth to her youngest child, she was banished from the family home and spent the next ten years in near seclusion. Now that Alfred has died, she has been slighted again in that she has not been invited to his funeral and has not been adequately provided for in his will. In this novel, she looks back on her life from first meeting Alfred to reuniting with her children after his death.

Gaynor Arnold's inspiration for her novel was the life and marriage of Charles Dickens. Despite that, she maintains that this book is a work of fiction. In the author's note at the beginning of the book she addresses the changes she's made and liberties she's taken.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love books written in the first person and this one, written from Dorothea's point of view, is no exception. While I'm familiar with some of Dickens' stories, I haven't read any of them. Honestly, I didn't know very much about him. Nevertheless, I found this whole story fascinating and even if only bits of it mirror Dickens' own life, it was a intriguing life indeed.

Arnold's first novel is very well-written with an uncomplicated story line that's easy to follow. The only part that was a little confusing, at first, was the beginning where she alternates the narrative between Dodo (the young unmarried Dorothea) and the older Mrs. Dorothea Gibson. The one thing that struck me about this novel was that it relies heavily on dialogue, especially at the beginning. Later on, it evens out a bit, but to me the dialogue was still more prominent. Maybe it just seemed that way because it was written in the first person. Anyway, it's not a bad thing. It's just something I noticed.

As for the characters, I loved both Dorothea and Alfred. Dorothea did everything for her family and got tossed out. Because Alfred was so famous and their separation was not to be public she lived in near isolation until his death. I really felt sorry for her. Alfred was so full of himself as if the whole world revolved around him. I almost laughed out loud anytime he was referred to as "the One and Only". He seemed to be interested in all young women except his wife. I couldn't wait to see what he was going to do next. The story also featured a few notable minor characters that I loved reading about: Wilson, O'Rourke and even Queen Victoria.

I usually don't look up new words, however, in this story I ran across one that looked too interesting to ignore. New Word Alert: insouciance = impertinence, nerve, sauciness, rudeness. After stealing one of Alfred's notebooks, Dorothea says "...I am infused with a new spirit of insouciance."

Favourite quotes:
On page 162, O'Rourke says "Oh, Alfred does things by instinct. It wells up from the depths of his heart and passes by his head entirely, so although he writes what he knows, he doesn't always know what he writes." Another statement from O'Rourke on page 256 in talking to Kitty, daughter of Alfred and Dorothea, "...the Truth has many shades...".

Highly recommended. I'd love to read more of her work.

For more information regarding this book, please visit McClelland.com.

The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson

In The Tenth Gift, Julia's lover, Michael, has given her an ancient book about embroidery, The Needle-Woman's Glorie as a good-bye present. Upon closer inspection, Julia finds not only an inscription, but also tiny hand-written print scattered amongst the beautiful embroidery patterns. It turns out that Catherine Anne Tregenna, Cat for short, a seventeenth century servant, had been using the book as a diary. What a treasure! In the book, Cat recorded her life in the Harris' household, her abduction by pirates and her life as a slave in Morocco. Julia is fascinated by the diary and goes to Africa to authenticate it. Even though they are separated by four hundred years, the stories of these two women share so many details it's as though they've lead parallel lives.

This is a great book; I loved it. It really is a delightful, well-written and easy to read piece of fiction. It's billed as a love story and while that part is quite good, it's the historical parts that drew me in. I was memorized by Cat's story in the 17th century. I had no clue that the Europeans were victims of slavery perpetrated by the Salé pirates from Morocco. Fascinating stuff. The parallel lives concept was very cleverly done and wonderful to follow. I especially loved how the author pulled all of the parallels together in the end. I also liked that the romance sections of the story weren't overly syrupy or over done. Johnson suggests the attraction rather than making it blatant. The treatment of the captives on the ship to Morocco was particularly disturbing to read, but offered variety and contrast to other parts of the book.

As for characters, I liked Julia, but I loved Cat. There was something about her and her story that drew me right in. I was particularly struck by her acceptance of her fate in Morocco. Michael, Julia's former lover, wasn't all that likeable, but I loved reading about Al-Andalusi and Idriss, Cat and Julia's love interests, respectively. Both men were mysterious, dark and, while not always likeable, especially in the case of Al-Andalusi, interesting.

I appreciated the map that was included at the beginning of the book with all of the relevant places marked. I liked having that picture in my head as I read the novel, especially because it concerned an area of the world with which I'm not familiar. Sure, I could look it up on the internet or in an atlas, but those maps are usually filled with irrelevant information. This is much better.

As much as I loved this book, I thought two of the "scenes" were a little over the top: the fact that Julia and Cat had similar writing styles and the scene near the end where Julia is in the attic with the candle. Both came across as contrived and impractical. These are very small parts of the book and didn't undermine the overall story at all.

My favourite quotes from the story are:

History is a very malleable thing usually written by the victors (page 309).

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they have never happened before, like larks that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years (page 3).

The author's note at the back of the book is very informative. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of research that goes into a book, especially one that references historical events. I bet this one was especially daunting because it took place in the 1600s.


I found two other covers for this book on the internet. While I love the Moroccan archway on this edition(pictured above), I really preferred the cover featuring the old weathered book.

This book would be great for book clubs. It's sure to stir up some interesting discussions about the treatment of women in other countries, the similarities between the women's lives as well as many other topics. This edition even has a reading guide at the back of the book with some great questions to get groups started.

Highly Recommended.

A very strange coincidence: I took a break from the book to watch an episode of Law & Order: UK on television. I thought I was seeing things when in the credits I saw the name Catherine Tregenna. It turns out she's a Welsh playwright who just happened to have written the episode we were watching. Spooky.

For more information about this book, please visit the Random House website.

For more information about the author, please visit Jane Johnson's website.

Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark Giveaway!

Kat over at Wiredset has graciously offered me two copies of Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark to giveaway. Isn't that great? I haven't read the book yet, but I have read other ones and loved them. This one looks great!

Book Description:
When death shatters the serenity of the exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, New York, Eliza Blake, cohost of the country's premier morning television show KEY to America, is on the scene. While attending a lavish gala at her friends' newly renovated estate, Pentimento, Eliza's host is found dead—a grotesque suicide that is the first act in a macabre and intricately conceived plan to expose the sins of the past involving some of the town's most revered citizens.

Determined to find out the truth, Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle Murphy, cameraman B.J. D'Elia, and psychiatrist Margo Gonzalez—discover that Pentimento holds the key. Nestled in the park's sprawling architectural masterpieces, picturesque gardeners' cottages, and lush, rolling landscape, the glorious mansion is actually a giant "puzzle house," filled with ingenious clues hidden in its fireplaces, fountains, and frescoes that lead them from one suspicious locale to another—and, one by one, to the victims of a fiendish killer.

As Pentimento gives up its secrets, it becomes clear that no amount of wealth or privilege will keep the residents of Tuxedo Park safe. But just when Eliza unearths one final surprise, she comes face-to-face with a murderer who believes that some puzzles should never be solved.

Trailer for Dying for Mercy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842YdVywo7E


About the Author:

New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark has written 12 novels, all set in the high stakes world of broadcast journalism. She worked at CBS News headquarters in New York City for three decades, her experience there leading her to create KEY, a fictional television network. What her characters can get involved in as they cover their assignments is as varied as the stories on the morning or evening news. Her media thrillers are published in 22 languages.

Fast-moving, unpredictable, and always changing, the television news world offers a never-ending stream of ideas for Clark’s books. Her writing style has been described as “clear and speedy.” Influenced by years of writing television news stories, where every second counts, she gets right to the action in her suspense novels, in which every word is a clue.

The daughter of a FBI agent, Clark grew up in Westwood, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Rhode Island. She is the mother of two grown children and lives in New Jersey and Florida. She spends her time researching her next novel, writing, concocting new plots while walking the beach, decorating ,and supporting causes close to her heart, including research for a cure or treatment for fragile X syndrome.

To be entered in the draw, send me an email at mparke[at]mts[dot]net with the following:
1) Your Full Name. [I'll ask for your mailing address if you win.]
2) The answers to these three questions:

a) What's the name of the protagonist in "Close to You" and "When Day Breaks"?
b) Her biography says that "Mary support causes close to her heart, including research for a cure or treatment for fragile X syndrome" There's a specific reason why Mary is intereted in Fragile X syndrome. What is it?
c) Who is Mary Jane Clark's former mother-in-law?

3) A sentence or two about why you want to read this particular book.

All entries must include these three (3) elements.

The draw is open until midnight (CDT) August 12, 2009. At time, I'll pick two winners from the qualifying entries. Winners will have three days to supply their mailing address. After I've received the addresses, I'll forward them to Kat who will then ship out the books.

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

Secrets abound in The Castaways, a novel about friendships, love, loss and forgiveness. Set on Nantucket Island, these four couples seem to be the closest of friends: Chief and Andrea Kapenash, Addison and Phoebe Wheeler; Tess and Greg MacEvoy; and Jeffrey and Delilah Drake. On Tess and Greg's anniversary, the two head out for a celebration on their sailboat only to meet with disaster; they mysteriously drown. Their friends are devastated and desperately want to know what happened on the sailboat. They also worry endlessly about what's going to happen to the couples' two young children, Finn and Chloe, now that their parents are gone. As the details come together and secrets are uncovered, the other couples must come to terms with the deaths of Tess and Greg.

I devoured and adored this book. From the very first page I was hooked. Told from the various characters perspectives, the story takes the reader through past events that lead up to the deaths and the aftermath. I loved how it unfolded with little tidbits of the mystery scattered throughout the memorizing storyline. It was a very quick read, but I took my time with it because I really didn't want to put it down and I certainly didn't want it to end.

The characters were varied, interesting and believable. I don't think I had a favourite, but I did like some more than others. After some reflection, I realized that I was more drawn towards the men in the book. Addison's anguish was palpable and the Chief (I really felt sorry for him) with his nearly unwavering stiff upper lip was admirable, but I just didn't warm up to Delilah that much. Maybe I didn't I understand her. I think I got a little bit better handle on Andrea, but again I didn't love her. It seemed to me that she thought she was entitled to grieve more than the others. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't like these two; I really did. I loved reading about them all.

If there's one thing that disappointed me (just a little) in this book, it was the ending. I love reading mysteries and got caught up in the mystery part of the story (What really happened to Tess and Greg?) Without giving too much away, I expected the mystery part to come to a round-'em-up-finger-pointing conclusion a la Jessica Fletcher (from the Murder, She Wrote TV series. Needless to say, it didn't. It wasn't that the ending was bad, it just didn't end like I thought it would. Maybe that's a good thing, eh?

The structure of the story very much reminded me of Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos. The writing styles are different, but I think if you liked that book, you might like this one, too.

I'd definitely like to read another book by Elin Hilderbrand.

Highly recommended.

For more information regarding this book, please visit the Hachette Book Group website.