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Review | The Cat Who Solved Three Murders, by LT Shearer

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Murder! Cats! Art theft! Seriously, take a look at that adorable cover. How could I not fall in love with this book?!

The Cat Who Solved Three Murders is a cozy mystery starring a retired detective, Lulu Lewis, and her talking calico, Conrad. He talks only to Lulu; to everyone else, he simply says “meow.” It’s a unique concept, but one that, I’m afraid, turned me off somewhat. As a cat person, what I love most about cats in books is how the author manages to bring to life all the wonderful ways cats communicate without having to say a word. By giving Conrad human dialogue, I feared that LT Shearer simply created a regular human-like sidekick who just happened to have four legs and a tail.

That being said, Conrad does get his lovely moments of pure kitty cat. He comforts people by sitting on their laps and purring. He delights people by how skillfully he balances on Lulu’s shoulder. And in two delightful scenes, he turns action hero with claws and hisses. (My cats may, of course, argue that any self-respecting cat would’ve skillfully disappeared from sight in those scenes rather than put themselves in such danger, but, ehh, kudos to Conrad the action hero kitty.)

The mystery that Lulu and Conrad tackle is pretty good. The story begins when Lulu is invited to the mansion of a wealthy friend, Julia, for Julia’s husband Bernard’s 60th birthday party. But when Lulu and Conrad (her plus-one, which I thought was cute) arrive, they learn that Julia and Bernard’s home had been burgled. Julia was fortunately out of the house when it happened, but an insurance agent who’d been at the house to assess the value of some paintings had been killed, and Bernard injured. Some of the details around the burglary strike Lulu and Conrad as odd, and when someone is killed at the birthday party, they realize the need to dig deeper.

Like I said, the mystery aspect is pretty solid. The clues aren’t very subtle, so the big reveals are easy enough to figure out, but it’s still fun to see the story unfold. I like that Conrad is the one who discovers a significant clue by the pool, and there was a bit of fun in how Lulu had to come up with an elaborate story for why she’d noticed the clue herself but didn’t mention it till a day later.

Beyond that, as refreshing as I thought it was that this cozy mystery had a professional detective who was actually competent and receptive to the heroine’s contributions, I found it a stretch that Tracey included Lulu on so much of the investigation. It doesn’t matter that Lulu used to be a detective herself; surely, some of the things Tracey shared with her should have been confidential? Tracey treated her more like a partner than a civilian; she included Lulu in suspect interviews, allowed her to see the autopsy results, and just shared information like phone records without a single thought. Even though the author explained that Tracey was young and inexperienced, and even though it clearly worked for the best with this investigation, it still struck me as unprofessional on Tracey’s part, and I feel like that should have been addressed somehow.

And as much as I like Conrad, I do wish he’d been more cat-like. As affectionate and compassionate as he is in some scenes, his personality still came off as disappointingly flat. I do get that cats are often portrayed as jerks in books, so it’s kinda nice that this cat is portrayed as a nice character. But, well, Prozac in Laura Levine’s Jaine Austen mystery series shows more personality in a single scene than Conrad does over multiple chapters.

Conrad’s dialogue does often make him feel like a human stand-in. Even though he reminds Lulu about his cathood multiple times (like when he hears something that she doesn’t, and he reminds her it’s because cats have better hearing), it comes off as unnecessary. Worse, it’s a glaring reminder of how easy it is to forget that Conrad is a cat, not because he’s such a special creature for being able to speak, but because he isn’t quite as compelling as real kitties are. Also, as much as I love cats and appreciate how many characters seem delighted by Conrad’s presence, the whole “that’s a cat!” “he’s on your shoulder!” “he meows!” type of scene actually got old. Even for me, which says a lot, because normally, I love scenes of people gushing over cats. But here, it just happens so often, and in pretty much the same way each and every time, that the novelty and charm eventually wore off.

Still, overall, Conrad is still a pretty cool cat, and I like that he literally saves the day a couple of times. Lulu seems a good series lead, and the mystery itself was fun to read about. This may not have met my (admittedly ridiculous) high hopes of becoming my new favourite mystery series, but it’s a fun mystery nonetheless. And I’m all for more cat detectives in fiction, please and thank you!

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Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | Secret Sex: An Anthology, edited by Russell Smith

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SecretSex“New risky fiction — with no names attached.”

What happens when you take 24 of Canada’s most prominent authors, invite them to write sex scenes, and promise them you’ll never reveal which scene they actually wrote? From the cover design (brilliant, by the way), to the anthology title, to the masquerade book launch, the marketing for Secret Sex turns out to be much sexier than the stories themselves.

To be fair, the editor makes it clear in the foreword that this is not a collection of erotica. Rather, it is a collection of sex stories written by literary fiction authors. So the sexiness is more akin to, say, D.H. Lawrence or Marian Engel than Sierra Simone, Sylvia Day, or even Shonda Rhimes’ take on Bridgerton.

So as someone who usually prefers sexy genre romance to literary fiction, and novels to short stories, I was prepared to flip through a few pages of this, figure out it isn’t my thing, and call it a day. Imagine my surprise then when I not only loved the first story (“Sext”), but actually read this all the way through to the end.

Not all the stories were my cup of tea, of course. As with any anthology, there are some hits and misses, and as with any fiction, especially the kind that features sex, your mileage will vary. I will admit that as a reviewer, not knowing who wrote which story also brings a kind of freedom. I can judge each story without thinking of the writer involved, or other books of theirs I may have enjoyed. Which does make my response to each story more candid than usual.

For me, there was a stretch maybe two-thirds through where the stories started to bore me, and I wondered if maybe I should have stretched this out one story at a time rather than try to read it all in a few days. But then a story (“Content Farm Confidential,” about a content ghostwriter who gets with her finance bro boss) revived my interest with its smart commentary on the sometimes soulless nature of sex and love, and remaining two stories (the voyeuristic “Mirror, Mirror” and the vampire story with Henry James undertones “Portrait of a Lady”) held my attention to the end.

My personal favourites:

  • “Politics of Passion” – an Indigenous man and a white woman meet at a conference on treaty issues. I absolutely adore the incisive political commentary and subversion of stereotypes that come through in sly little bon mot descriptions through an otherwise lighthearted, flirty-sexy story. For example, the woman is “colour challenged. Pigment denied.” The man “has a smile that told of strange and desirable secrets. Therefore, he was Anishinaabe.” (The “therefore” in that last quote sticks the landing.) And finally, no spoilers but the last two lines are the perfect ending. Brilliant piece.
  • “Bite” – vampire BDSM erotica. Sexiest story in the collection, IMHO, and the story most like what I would have expected and hoped from the marketing.
  • “Restoration” – this one was probably the most literary amongst my favourites, but I really liked how the author managed to fit an entire novel’s worth of story arc within a few pages.
  • “Watching You Watching Me” – beautifully sad, about a woman dealing with divorce. I especially love this part: “All flings depend on this foundation of fantastic, the relationship with a phantom other who lives only in our head… But marriage is a fantasy too, the most elaborate one of all… The fantasy of knowing an other, of being known,of knowability itself.”
  • And finally, “Sext” (about two adults sexting, one with perhaps more feelings than the other) and “Cloudburst” (about raining cocks, literally) are both punchy and hilarious snippets of fun. Both are made extra special by their surprisingly emotional gut punch endings.

The rest for me ranged from “not bad” to “meh, had to skim.” The only other standouts for me are “Calliope” (about a disembodied brain jealous of its human friend’s human lover) for the originality of its concept, and “Patience” (a fairly straightforward love story and sex scene) for the way it revealed the narrator’s trans-ness through their description of sex: “She is sucking what I have so much, more than enough to be a cock. When I come, my throat reveals itself the way she revealed the cock I know I have…” The narrator of “Patience” had earlier expressed dislike at being called “beautiful,” and it’s only during sex that it becomes clear why.

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | Second Night Stand, by Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters

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SecondNightStandKarelia Stetz-Waters’ Satisfaction Guaranteed was one of my favourite books in 2021, so when I saw she had a new romance coming out this year, this time co-written with her life partner Fay Stetz-Waters, I immediately wanted to read it.

Second Night Stand is a sexy-sweet romance between two dancers competing on a reality show with a $1M cash prize. Lillian Jackson is a super talented ballet dancer and head of an all-Black ballet company. The company is losing their sponsorship, so she needs to win in order to keep the company going. Izzy “Blue Lenox” Wells is a curvy burlesque dancer who leads a group of gender-diverse and body-diverse performers. She’s purchased a fixer-upper theatre to use as a community gathering and performance space, and needs the cash prize to make necessary repairs.

The romance between Lillian and Izzy is sweet, and just as with Satisfaction Guaranteed, consent and mutual respect play prominent roles in their relationship. I like that they both shared a strong sense of responsibility for the welfare of their respective chosen families, and how they both had to deal with complex relationships with their families of origin. And I especially like how their relationship with each other helped them learn valuable things about other aspects of their lives, and grow both as individuals and as a couple.

Where the book fell flat for me was in the set-up itself: the dance competition. I get a strong sense of why Lillian’s group is a contender at the competition, but I was never quite convinced about how Izzy’s group stayed on for so long. The depiction of their first performance was just messy. The whole point of their group is to provide a space to belong for all peoples, regardless of identities and performance interests, and while that’s a wonderful goal from a community-building aspect, it doesn’t make for a cohesive performance.

The book tries to explain this away by saying that the producers put them on as an amateur sacrificial lamb, so to speak, destined to be knocked off in the first round. Even Lillian, watching the group members perform one after the other, is certain that they’re about to be eliminated. The book, and Lillian, then try to make us believe that Izzy’s performance is so charismatic and captivating that she single-handedly convinces the audience to vote them in to stay. Unfortunately, as likeable as Izzy the person is, whatever magic she worked on-stage to get her group past Round One does not translate well on page. I was unconvinced, and the longer they stayed on, the more convenient it felt, as there was often one competitor or another who messed up so badly they had to be sent home. With a $1M prize at stake? Puh-lease.

I also tend to not be a huge fan of overly detailed descriptions, especially of background characters, so this is a rare instance when I actually wanted to see more of the dance competition. The front runner for the prize is a hip hop group that pretty much all the competitors agree is amazing and tough to beat, but we never actually get to see them dance. I don’t even remember meeting the dancers in this group at all, even though we meet a random assortment of other dancers. For a book centred on a dance competition, there isn’t much of it.

Speaking of competition, there’s also a chapter where the producers try to provoke Lillian, Izzy, and their dancers to trash talk each other, and both groups flat-out refuse to do so. Lillian and Izzy’s attempt quickly turns flirty, so the producer swaps them out with other performers on their respective teams, but then those performers seem incapable of doing anything but compliment each other. And I get it. Manufactured competition is silly, the producer was pushy, and kudos to the characters who refused to call their competitors the B-word, because it’s such a gendered insult.

But honestly, as over-the-top and sometimes mean as those scenes can sometimes play out, not engaging in it at all just feels very killjoy-ish. And however much the performers may respect their competitors’ talents, there is very little sense at all that any of them consider this competition important. Part of that is on Lillian and Izzy for not being open with their respective groups about their real motivations to win the competition. (It’s not just for funsies! It’s to save the ballet company / community theatre!) But even when the truth comes out, the competition takes second place to the characters’ morals and values. Which, okay, good for them. But if the characters themselves don’t care about winning the competition, how am I, as a reader, supposed to care about either of them winning? Despite the real futures at stake, the story takes a very gentle approach to the competition driving the story forward, and that in turn blunts much of what gives the story edge.

Overall, this is a sweet and feel-good romance, with lots of body positivity and love within found families. It’s a bit of a let-down for me after the brilliance that was Satisfaction Guaranteed, but it’s a good story nonetheless, and a fun way to spend a weekend.

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Thank you to Forever for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.