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Book Review: A is for Archivist by Al-Mohamed

Erin Penn 1 Comment

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The Labyrinth’s Archivist by Day Al-Mohamed

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Walking the Labyrinth and visiting hundreds of other worlds; seeing so many new and wonderful things – that is the provenance of the travelers and traders, the adventurers and heroes. Azulea has never left her home city, let alone the world. Her city, is at the nexus of many worlds with its very own “Hall of Gates” and her family are the Archivists. They are the mapmakers and the tellers of tales. They capture information on all of the byways, passages and secrets of the Labyrinth.

Gifted with a perfect memory, Azulea can recall every story she ever heard from the walkers between worlds. She remembers every trick to opening stubborn gates, and the dangers and delights of hundreds of worlds. But Azulea will never be a part of her family’s legacy. She cannot make the fabled maps of the Archivists because she is blind.

The Archivist’s “Residence” is a waystation among worlds. It is safe, comfortable and with all food and amenities provided. In exchange, of course, for stories of their adventures and information about the Labyrinth, which will then be transcribed for posterity and added to the Great Archive. But now, someone has come to the Residence and is killing off Archivists using strange and unusual poisons from unique worlds whose histories are lost in the darkest, dustiest corners of the Great Archive.

As Archivists die, one by one, Azulea is in a race to find out who the killer is and why they are killing the Archivists, before they decide she is too big a threat to leave alive.

 

MY REVIEW

The MC is queer, BIPoC, and blind. The last bit has the most impact on her ability to investigate her grandmother’s murder. The author is “write what you know” – with her day job being fighting for the rights of the differently abled. She does an incredible job painting a world where the MC can only see light and shadows.

As a novella, all the goodness is here – worldbuilding, family drama (doesn’t help when your family is also your co-workers), second-chance love (FF), murder mystery – but in a short easy read leaving you wanting more. While this is a stand-alone, Ms. Al-Mohamed has several other books to snap up.

Azuela wants to be an Archivist, but her vision issues create a barrier on a job expected to be done without accommodation. The only person who believed in her goal, who not only supported her but pushed her, was her grandmother. When her grandmother falls on some stairs, everyone else is sure it was an accident of old age, only Azuela sees it as murder. Can she bring clarity before someone else dies?

Blog: Two Pieces of News

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From the A to Z Challenge Website

I’ve decided to participate in the A-to-Z Challenge again this year. I am WAY behind on creating materials, so everything is going to be rushed. Nothing inspires quite like Panic. Hopefully at least some of it will be an actual story.

Second piece of news, NaNoWritMo – the non-profit, has failed. They are working on closing their doors in an orderly fashion, giving time for people to download any materials from there. The problem that ended the non-profit wasn’t the child-issues or the AI-backlash, but the loan they took out during COVID because of ongoing shortfalls of donations and other income vs. some very, very reasonable expenses. They just didn’t get the donations they needed for years and years.

I know a million dollar operating budget sounds like a lot, but maintaining even my small website is over a hundred a year and I am not maintaining it for over 100,000 people to talk on and interact with, nor do I have a staff to direct over 800 volunteers. The non-profit had twelve paid staff members – even at minimum wage of $7.25 with some benefits – that would be $300,000 – playing the more reasonable minimum living wage of just $15 an hour (with minor beneifts) ups that to $550k. A professional wage of $22 per hour (or about $44k a year) for 12 people plus benefits is $875k. Why do they need twelve people: (1) volunteer wrangler, (2) weekly newsletter, (3) collecting authors and speakers, (4) bookkeeper, (5) HR, (6) administrative assistant to the board to meet non-profit ruling, (7) website administrator, (8) youth services coordinator / (9) teacher material coordinator, (10) social media person specific for the non-profit – for youtube, tiktok, facebook, etc, (11) grant writer / sponsorship seeker, (12) merchandise seller / coordinator, (13) and so much more.

Rest in peace non-profit. May the reason you started live long and prosper for everyone.
I was one of those who received the weekly newsletter. It included a link to the youtube announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR6NnjgeIIY
One thing which made me thoughtful was the financial issues and the emphasis of the financial shortcomings. This struck me hard as my local NPR station has a 20% income shortfall as it loses grants due too federal cuts; as Sesame Street is on the arts chopping block at the federal level, etc. Wikipedia is another mostly volunteer organization trying not to be owned by corporate groups. Donate and support where you can – but there is going to be a big shrinkage in nonprofits just as we are in need of social-support systems other than the government.

Book Review (SERIES): Ernest Cunningham (the Everyone in My Family series)

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Ernest Cunningham Series by Benjamin Stevenson
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Book 1)
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect (Book 2)
Everyone This Christmas has a Secret (Book 3)

*Links above should take you to Penguin.com.au – the publisher in Australia for the author. That page can direct you to the distributor/retailer of your choice.

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

Knives Out and Clue meet Agatha Christie and The Thursday Murder Club in this “utterly original” (Jane Harper), “not to be missed” (Karin Slaughter), fiendishly clever blend of classic and modern murder mystery.

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.

I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have. Who was it?

Let’s get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE: My brother, my stepsister, my wife, my father, my mother, my sister-in-law, my uncle, ,y stepfather, my aunt …

Me

MY REVIEW for EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

This book opens with a Prologue. If you have been following me any length of time, you know I have FEELINGS about prologues. This one is done right! (if you just want to look at the prologue, some booksellers provide a 10% view – so that part should be visible, but, let me warn you, if you like mysteries and snark, you will be hooked.)

As an editor the acknowledgements from the real author (Benjamin Stevenson) to his editor – not the POV Ernest Cunningham to his also fictional editor – made me go, whoa, because, yeah, keeping track of those pages for the deaths would have been a THING. In the prologue, the page numbers of every death is provided – not an easy task to keep track of – especially when paperback and hardback books often have slightly different formatting.

Anyway, the book. “Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone” – yep – title pretty much says it all. Toxic close-knit, caring trauma-bonded family with a main character full of inappropriate snarky comments, presently serving his time as the family’s pariah, but the family reunion put together by his aunt demands ALL OF US MANDATORY (this means you). He remained close to one not-quite-on-the-outs-but-sliding-that-way stepsister and they start the reunion with family bingo “Family member is late” “someone gets a broken bone” etc.

Snark and murder mystery. Snow and ash. Family dynamics and money. What’s not to love?

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT

From the bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a fiendishly fun locked room (train) murder mystery in the spirt of Murder on the Orient Express. With Ernest Cunningham, “Stevenson has brought a modern-day Poirot to the mystery scene” (Michelle Carpenter).

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty: the debut writer (me!), the forensic science writer, the blockbuster writer, the legal thriller writer, the literary writer, the psychological suspense writer …

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

MY REVIEW for EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT

Did I like Everyone on this Train is a Suspect more than the first book? Well, yes I did. Is it because I have attended a lot more book conventions (over a dozen) than I have gone to ski resorts (which is zero) or family reunions (which is not zero but not a dozen), … possibly.

I still love the gimmick of telling the reader things. Last time, it was on which page deaths would be revealed, this time it was the beat structure of the book (how many words need to happen in each section) and how many times the murderer’s name was used. Mixed with the cozy talking through the non-existent fourth wall, the overall package just works. The voice of the book is delightful.

Ernie challenge when boarding the train is how to write a FICTION book after what was basically a memoir of death; his advance has a rapidly approaching deadline, like an engine bearing down on him. This focus is quickly superseded by the petty politics of guests at the convention (not something I have experienced in my writer and con community), because procrastination is king. Then the guest of honor had a very, very bad morning, and everyone on the train is a suspect. (Fortunately for Ernie, who now has inspiration for his next book … but everyone wonders if he decided to be his own muse.)

The story is definitely a train I would ride … I just might be in the forward carriages though.

 

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET

Benjamin Stevenson returns with a Christmas addition to his bestselling, “deviously good fun” (Nita Prose). Unwrap all the Christmas staples: presents, family, an impossible murder or two, and a deadly advent calendar of clues. If Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club kissed under the mistletoe.

My name’s Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I’d hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong.

So here I am, backstage at the show of world-famous magician Rylan Blaze, whose benefactor has just been murdered. My suspects are all professional tricksters, masters of the art of misdirection: THE MAGICIAN, THE ASSISTANT, THE EXECUTIVE, THE HYPNOTIST, THE IDENTICAL TWIN, THE COUNSELLOR, THE TECH.

My clues are even more abstract: A suspect covered in blood, without a memory of how it got there. A murder committed without setting foot inside the room where it happens. And an advent calendar. Because, you know, it’s Christmas.

If I can see through the illusions, I know I can solve it.

After all, a good murder is just like a magic trick, isn’t it?

MY REVIEW for EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET

Another awesome cozy mystery thriller … I know “cozy thriller” shouldn’t go together, but since the POV narrator gives stuff away throughout the story, diffusing tension, the mystery doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat, but burrowed in your blanket turning pages.

Again, the prologue opening is hilarious and sets up the gimmick for the book well. This one, being Christmas, is an advent calendar, which is a bit kinder on the editor than previous editions (the first book of the series, listing the page of each killing, had to be brutal during final formatting for all the different books – hardback, mass market paperback, trade paperback, UK, USA, Australia, etc).

The beginning paragraph is a perfect hook, and the rest of the story keeps a reader hooked.

All three books were checked out through my local library. I had to wait a little for the final one because I requested it early (only four months after publication) and several other people wanted to read it too. Support your local library!