Been a while since I wrote a post like this! But sometimes I read a book and just want to set down some thoughts about it, and I figure I may as well inflict them on tumblr while I'm at it. Latest book: Plantation Shudders, by Ellen Byron, first in what seems to be a cozy-mystery type series (i.e. people die, but it's not as high-stakes as a thriller).
Partly but not entirely because of the Benjamin January mystery series by Barbara Hambly (which I've posted about several times, at least briefly), books set in or near New Orleans definitely pique my interest, as do mysteries. So I grabbed this in ebook format from the library. But the thing about books set especially on plantations is that, whether or not the author addresses it, I'm aware of the history there and some things I think should be addressed. The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (see this "Books of the Month") does this really well, I think. Plantation Shudders...was missing some of what could have been there. I am almost more annoyed by this because I actually really enjoyed the book otherwise.
[some spoilers below the cut, but I won't tell you who dunnit]
Plantations in Louisiana were run by slave labor - hard slave labor, especially if they were sugar cane plantations, where the life expectancy was abysmal. And even though Byron manages to make it fairly clear that her main character, Maggie*, is offended by racism and by people who still talk about "The War of Northern Aggression," she never says anything directly about slavery. Which is particularly egregious because Maggie is working on her family's ancestral plantation, now a B&B. She thinks fun thoughts about all her quirky ancestors who lived there before her. She never even pauses to consider that they were only able to live there because of their slaves.
I'm not saying that real white people whose families owned slaves need to spend every minute steeped in ancestral guilt. But Maggie does think about family history, including their tie to that specific place, and she also thinks about how historical class differences among white families from that part of Louisiana are sort of still felt in the modern day (she thinks this is silly). She just never addresses the slavery thing. And honestly, there must be some people living in the small fictional town who are descended from slaves, but the only Black relative (and only Black named character, I think) Maggie has is said to have a "Franco-African" father, which I took to mean, "She definitely isn't descended from slaves, her dad is from somewhere else entirely."
Anyway. Otherwise I did, annoyingly, enjoy it: the mystery wasn't too convoluted, but also not immediately guessable; the hassles of dealing with B&B guests were amusingly familiar since my non-summer job is basically hospitality; Maggie's love interest was just as immediately handsome and attractive as they all are** but I enjoyed the way their relationship built.*** Also, he doesn't swoop in and save Maggie at the end; Maggie saves herself and then saves the now incapacitated murderer from an alligator. To make things a little more interesting, Love Interest has a young, autistic kid; not a deep character, but in my inexpert opinion there weren't any issues with his characterization, except for the part where LI tells Maggie his kid likes her because he looked her in the eye, which he won't do for everyone. I grimaced just a little.
And that's my thoughts on this book! If you stuck with them, congrats, I'm impressed. Despite it all, I have requested the next one from the library; maybe Byron will address the whole slave-owning ancestors thing later in the series. Or maybe not. I'll let you all know if I read enough to find out!
*rather than describing her own "lithe" body and nice boobs in a mirror scene, Maggie uses her front camera! a little variation on the norm
**can't we just once have a love interest where the scene where they meet goes something like "his ears stuck out and his teeth were a little crooked" instead of "he was tall and fit and had perfect teeth, yowzers"?
***he is a police detective, which I'll accept in this kind of novel; at least the police chief is an obnoxious character
#MidweekMystery: Wined and Died in New Orleans by Ellen Byron
In the second Vintage Cookbook Mystery, Ricki has to help solve a murder, untangle family secrets, and grow her business, all while living under the threat of a hurricane that could wipe out everything from her home to Bon Vee.
It’s hurricane season in New Orleans and vintage cookbook fan Ricki James-Diaz is trying to shelve her weather-related fears and focus on her business, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, housed in the magnificent Bon Vee Culinary House Museum.
Repairs on the property unearth crates of very old, very valuable French wine, buried by the home’s builder, Jean-Louis Charbonnet. Ricki,…
Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery) by Ellen Byron #Review / #Giveaway - Great Escapes Book Tour @BerkleyMystery
Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery) by Ellen Byron #Review / #Giveaway – Great Escapes Book Tour @BerkleyMystery
Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery)
by Ellen Byron
About Bayou Book Thief
Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – New Orleans Louisiana
Publisher : Berkley (June 7, 2022)
Mass Market Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0593437616
ISBN-13 : 978-0593437612
Digital ASIN : B09FPJHVGK
A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a…
image courtesy of Jill Wellington via pixabay.com
Friday, June 10, 2022
Waxing Moon
Pluto and Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy/sunny and pleasant
Boy, did it rain yesterday! We needed it, and hey, no more pollen on the car. But there were intense bands of it.
Meditation was good, and Charlotte was right there with me. Got some admin work done. Did a library run to drop off/pick up books. The…
Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries.
A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s…
image courtesy of CDD20 via pixabay.com
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
New Moon
Mercury Retrograde
Venus Direct (as of Saturday)
Chinese Lunar New Year – Year of the Water Tiger
Sunny and cold
Time for our Tuesday catch up, so curl up with your favorite beverage and we’ll have a natter.
I have the January wrap-up over on the GDR site. I have a mistake in it – I said I wrote two short stories…
image courtesy of Caoha via pixabay.com
Friday, January 21, 2022
Waning Moon
Venus and Mercury Retrograde
Sunny and very cold
Meditation was fine yesterday, with Charlotte sitting on my lap for most of it, participating. She then went back to the rocking chair in my reading corner to go to sleep. I rarely get to use my reading corner anymore, because Charlotte is usually in it.
I signed up…
