Hidden

Finished January 3

Hidden by Fern Michaels

This is the first book I've read by Fern Michaels, and I was surprised how badly written it was. She is an established author with a large fan base, which led me to suppose that she was a good writer. I plan to read at least one of her earlier books to try her again to see if this is an outlier for her, but if it isn't, I certainly won't be recommending her to readers. 

This book follows a few characters: brother and sister Cullen and Luna who have broken away from parental expectations to do what they want, for him furniture restoration, for her a cafe and psychic readings. There is a lot of backstory for her, less for him. She met a police officer several years ago when a small child was lost and she helped find her, and developed a crush on him, and has worked with him a few times since, but the relationship never developed on a personal level. This part just seemed odd.With such a strong reaction from her, why did she do nothing to show her feelings. She talks much younger than she is and a lot of the conversations in the book are very stilted. 

There are a wealthy couple, stereotypically evil, but not very smart, who are looking for something that they think may be hidden in a piece of furniture they disposed of. Their actions are not well planned, and they seem to be very flat characters. They hire a detective to search for a woman, and he appears for a while and then is dropped from the plot. 

The woman they are searching for appears and she seems more normal, but still not well-developed. As the storylines come together at the end, a lot of things happen without being documented in the book and it is wrapped up very quickly, especially given all the description and backstory earlier.

Not a winner. This is supposed to be the first book in a new series. Hopefully an editor gets involved before the next one. The cover art seems to have no connection to the plot either.

Black Irish

Finished June 22
Black Irish by Stephan Talty

This mystery novel is set in Buffalo, but some of the plot takes place on the Canadian side of the Falls too. Absalom Kearney has come home to Buffalo to look after her father, the legendary cop John Kearney, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She has become a cop too, one every bit as good as her adoptive father. Kearney adopted her when she was just a toddler and even though she has tried to find out more about the mother who gave her up, she hasn't been able to discover anything except for the neighborhood she lived in, the East Side. She grew up in the County, the bastion of Irish Catholicism in the city. But now something is going on in the County, men are being killed, tortured in horrible ways, and no one is talking. Abby learns of a secret Gaelic Clan, the Clan na Gael, that she thinks is running a parallel investigation to her own and warning people against talking to her. But Abby is smart, quick to make connections, and determined to get to the bottom of things in this case. With a trail leading back to the unrest in Ireland, this case has a deep past and lots of twists and turns. This looks to be the first in a continuing series, and I look forward to seeing more of Abby.