Tag: books

#BookReview Mother of Valor by Gary Corbin

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Mother of ValorAbout the Book

Val’s toughest adversary yet is someone she hardly knows: her mother.

As part of a prostitution sting operation, rookie cop Val Dawes uncovers a national sex trafficking ring operating out of Clayton, one with ties to a violent shadowy right-wing splinter group. Her investigation reveals the group may be planning a violent attack in a matter of days.

Just when the investigation heats up, her estranged mother, who left without a trace a decade before, suddenly reappears on the scene, with a nine-year-old brother Val never knew she had. Manipulative and cunning, her mother divides Val’s attention and loyalties, seemingly intent on disrupting both Val’s promising career and her rekindled relationship with her father.

As Val the group’s violent plans near, Val tries to safeguard her family, leading to shocking discoveries about why her mother returned – and why she left in the first place.

Can Val keep her community safe without destroying her family?

Format: ebook (440 pages)                   Publisher: Double Diamond Publishing
Publication date: 6th December 2022 Genre: Crime

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My Review

I’ve read a quite a few of Gary Corbin’s novels including the book that preceded this one, A Better of Valor, the third in his crime series featuring rookie cop Valorie Daws. Mother of Valor can definitely be read as a standalone because the author includes key details of previous events in Val’s life. In fact, certain plot lines in the book relate back to her childhood experiences.

For Val, her mother is the woman who abandoned her and her brother, Chad, the woman who failed to believe Val’s version of an event that took place when she was thirteen, and the woman who has made no effort to contact them since. In fact, Val wonders if her mother is even still alive. It turns out to be much more complicated than that. The reader learns, well before Val does, that there is something much more sinister about Val’s mother than just the fact she abandoned her husband and children. It injects a real sense of tension and unease into the story.

Val’s family history becomes entwined with the investigation into the activities of far right extremist groups who exist in a shadowy world and are prepared to manipulate others to achieve their aims.  As the book progresses, the reader knows Val is about to learn some unpleasant truths about her mother and at the same find herself on the front line in some dangerous situations – and faced with some difficult choices.

Although courageous, resilient and highly competent in her professional life, Val’s past experiences have left her vulnerable in other respects, fearful of physical relationships. Up until now, that is, because she is in the first tentative stages of a relationship with Gil Kryzinski, her former partner/boss. Gil is a wonderful character and I loved the tender, undemanding way he approaches their relationship.

In case you think this is all getting a bit lovey-dovey, I can reassure you Mother of Valor has an exciting, fast-moving plot involving political intrigue, corruption and some really ruthless, unhinged individuals. It all feels scarily realistic and contemporary. And there are some breathless ‘race against time’ scenes towards the end of the book in which Val and her police colleagues confront the individuals behind a despicable plot that threatens many lives.

If you’re looking for a skilfully crafted police procedural with a strong female character, then Mother of Valor will tick all your boxes.

My thanks to the author for my digital review copy.

In three words: Gripping, pacy, chilling

Gary CorbinAbout the Author

Gary is an award-winning author, editor, and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR.

Lying in Judgment, his Amazon.com best-selling legal thriller, was released in early 2016, was selected as Bookworks.com “Book of the Week” in July 2016, and is one of six novels worldwide featured in the Literary Lightbox “Indie Spotlight” for Autumn/Winter 2016-17. His current series, the Valorie Dawes Thrillers, consists of three published books, the most recent, A Better Part of Valor, was released on September 21, 2021. The fourth book in the series, Mother of Valor, will release in November, 2022.

Gary is a member of PDX Playwrights, the Willamette Writers Group, the Northwest Independent Editors Guild, the Portland Area Theater Alliance, and the Bar Noir Writers Workshop, and participates in workshops and conferences in the Portland, Oregon area.

A homebrewer as well as a maker of wine, mead, cider, and soft drinks, Gary is a member of the Oregon Brew Crew and a BJCP National Beer Judge. He loves to ski, cook, and garden, and hopes someday to train his dogs to obey. And when that doesn’t work, there’s always Renegade’s Paradise. (Photo/bio: Author website)

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#BookReview The Night Ship by Jess Kidd

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The Night ShipAbout the Book

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.

1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a teenager struggling with a dark past and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.

Format: Hardback (384 pages)         Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 11th August 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The story unfolds in alternating chapters moving between 1629 aboard the Batavia, and 1989 on Beacon Island (also known as Batavia’s graveyard) off the cost of Western Australia. Initially I imagined I would be more drawn to Mayken’s story than to Gil’s. As I expected, the author does a brilliant job of conjuring up the awful realities of daily life onboard a ship travelling thousands of miles on a voyage likely to take many months. The conditions for the more privileged passengers, including Mayken and her nursemaid Imke, are bad enough but lower down in the ship, what Mayken comes to know as ‘the Below World’, there is horrendous squalor, overcrowding and disease. Meanwhile the captain and officers feast in the Great Cabin enjoying fine food and wine.  As I said, I expected to be captivated by Mayken’s story – and I was – but gradually I became totally invested in Gil’s story too. It’s the story of a lonely, sensitive boy transported to a small island where he knows no-one except for his gruff grandfather and the way of life is completely new to him.

You might not expect two children, separated by over three hundred years, to have much in common but the really clever thing about The Night Ship is the way the author creates subtle connections between them that are like little echoes reverberating down through the centuries.

Both Mayken and Gil have lost their mothers in circumstances they are either encouraged or unwilling to talk about. Mayken is travelling across the world to live with her father. Gil does not know his father and has been taken in, rather reluctantly, by his grandfather.  Mayken’s desire to explore the lower decks of the Batavia involves her disguising herself as a boy whilst Gil is fascinated by the contents of his late grandmother’s wardrobe.  Both children are told stories of a fantastical monster whose appearance may presage death. Mayken, who loves a ghoulish story, becomes convinced this monster, named Bullebak, is stalking the bowels of the ship and must be captured and destroyed.  Gil is told a similar story about a mythical creature, a bunyip. While Mayken finds companionship from amongst the Batavia’s crew, in particularly the lovely Holdfast, Gil forms a bond with a companion quite different in nature, the ‘invariably pissed off looking’ Enkidu.

The real literary magic happens in chapters 33 and 34 when the two stories connect in the most brilliant way, as if a door has been opened between the 20th century and the 17th century.  It’s clever. I repeat, it’s clever.

Normally the mention of magical realism in relation to a book would have me running a mile but I had no difficulty in accepting that a tragedy such as the sinking of the Batavia with the loss of so many lives might leave traces in the place where it happened; and I don’t just mean the physical finds being discovered by the team of scientists working on Beacon Island. In the final pages, that more supernatural connection between the two children happens again and it’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

In The Night Ship, the author has taken a true story and used it to create something magical. I loved it.

I received a proof copy courtesy of Canogate via Readers First.

In three words: Haunting, immersive, enthralling

Try something similar: The White Hare by Jane Johnson

Jess KiddAbout the Author

Jess was brought up in London as part of a large family from County Mayo. She is the author of three acclaimed novels for adults, Himself, The Hoarder and Things in Jars. In 2017, Kidd won the Costa Short Story Award and in 2020 she was picked by The Times as one of the best emerging Irish writers. (Photo: Author website)

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