Book Review and Giveaway: Side Effects are Minimal, by Laura Essay {ends 12/26}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

“This is not everything.” Landon Sims slapped the test results onto the high lab table in front of Phil.

“What do you mean it’s not everything? Do you realize who I am?” Phil gazed over the rim of his readers. 

“We all do, Dr. Westcott. That’s why I expected a hell of a lot more.”

“I began this research when you were still in diapers.” Phil jumped from the chair as his cheeks flushed. “I traveled to the poppy farms of Turkey and blistered my hands so that others might know the pain relief of morphine. I made sacrifices of biblical nature.”

Phil held out the palms of his hands in the same manner as seen in depictions of Jesus Christ. Landon threw his sport coat on the chair in response to the absurd display. Phil’s vanity had risen to a new height.

Claire Hewitt is determined to prove that a teen’s opioid overdose death is not because of choices made by the teen or her family. Her passion to prove her point is driven by more than her client’s story.

Official synopsis:

When ambitious attorney Claire Hewitt is asked to represent the Satoris, one of Philadelphia’s most prominent families, in a lawsuit over the death of their daughter, she is thrust into an opioid nightmare with deadly impact—and not for the first time. Claire’s guilt for not saving her sister, Molly, has not subsided in the twenty years since Molly’s almost certainly opioid-related death. Now, with this new assignment, her guilt comes full circle. Who was really at fault in Molly’s death? And who is at fault now?

What begins as a quest for truth becomes infinitely more complicated as Claire struggles to balance her desire for justice with the Satoris’ thirst for revenge. She knows she needs to expose the greed that transforms legal opioid production into illicit fabrications and the neglect that is the breaking point between physicians and their patients. But there are powerful people who will seemingly stop at nothing to prevent these truths from seeing the light of day, and she is sabotaged at every turn. Can she push past the obstacles in her way to build a winning case?

As the newest partner—and a woman—at the law firm, Claire needs to win a major case for a prominent Philadelphia family. What no one else knows is that Claire has essentially been in their shoes. Claire and the attorney assisting her, Alex, need to prove that the death of the Satoris’ daughter is caused by the pharmaceutical company and doctors prescribing opioids to win the case, and maybe help to finally ease some of Claire’s guilt over her sister’s death decades earlier.

The case seems obvious to Claire and the newer attorney assisting her, but soon adjacent crimes begin occurring that warn Claire and Alex that there may be parties with a lot at stake who need their case to lose, or not even make it to court.

The author’s notes at the end of the book about their research regarding the opioid epidemic also contributed to the impact of the story. While the characters were fictional, the drug and court parts of the book could very well be real. The novel earned 5 out of 5 stars and gave an excellent depiction of full-bodied characters and a real crisis. The book could be easily recommended to those who enjoy contemporary fiction and hard-hitting medical stories about realistic situations. 

{click here to purchase via my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a wife and mother to two theatre kids. She enjoys hanging out with friends and family, and learning about the experiences of others. See more of what she’s up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Side Effects are Minimal!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Thursday, December 26th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified via email the next day and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Side Effects are Minimal, by Laura Essay

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Lightborne, by Hesse Phillips

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

It takes the landlord and the chamberlain working in furious tandem to lug the Inn-in-the-Wall’s only strongbox up to Frizer and Marlowe’s room. At the door they drop their load and proceed to shove it across the floor to the window, a piece of metal screeching at the base all the way. At last, the box comes to rest: an iron-clad, age-blackened, toadish thing, armoured in the scraps of perhaps a dozen predecessors.

Panting, the landlord hands Marlowe a heavy-looking key. ‘You lose it, you pay,’ is all he manages to say.

As soon as they are gone, Marlowe begins emptying papers out of his bag and stacking them inside the box, taking his time as always, flipping through pages he has no doubt thumbed a thousand times before. Meanwhile, Frizer sits upon the sagging cot, holding a letter which Marlowe had dropped onto the floor beside his head first thing this morning. The paperbolt with which it is sealed is heartbreakingly amateurish, as if Marlowe had grown bored or frustrated halfway through making it.

‘This Baines fellow,’ Frizer says. ‘Will I have to talk to him?’

‘No!’ Marlowe says, barely glancing up from a bound manuscript. ‘He may try to pull ye aside, but do not let him. Meet with him in a public place, hand him the message and be gone.’

‘I thought you said there was no danger.’

‘To you, no. Perfectly safe.’

Christopher Marlowe and Ingram Frizer were thrown together during what would end up being Marlowe’s last days. 

Official synopsis:

A thrilling reimagining of the last days of one of the most famed Elizabethan playwrights—Christopher Marlowe—and of a love that flourishes within the margins.

Christopher Marlowe: playwright, poet, lover. In the plague-stricken streets of Elizabethan England, Kit flirts with danger, leaving a trail of enemies and old flames in his wake. His plays are a roaring success; he seems destined for greatness.

But in the spring of 1593, the queen's eyes are everywhere and the air is laced with paranoia. Marlowe receives an unwelcome visit from his one-time mentor, Richard Baines, a man who knows all of Marlowe’s secrets and is hell-bent on his destruction.

When Marlowe is arrested on charges of treason, heresy, and sodomy—all of which are punishable by death—he is released on bail with the help of Sir Thomas Walsingham. Kit presumes Walsingham to be his friend; in fact, the spymaster has hired an assassin to take care of Kit, fearing that his own sins may come to light.

Now, with the queen's spies and the vengeful Baines closing in on the playwright, Marlowe's last friend in the world is Ingram Frizer, a total stranger who is obsessed with Kit's plays, and who will, within ten days' time, first become Marlowe's lover—and then his killer. Richly atmospheric, emotionally devastating, and heartrendingly imagined, Lightborne is a masterful reimagining of the last days of one of England's most famous literary figures.

Christopher Marlowe was charged with treason, heresy, and sodomy - any one of which could cost him his life. But many other men were living the same lifestyle with little to no consequences. It seemed to come down to politics, and the law came for many men Marlowe associated with, eventually. The author shows in a sincere way how the gradual convictions of one after another of those he knew took a little more of Marlowe’s heart and soul each time.

While under house arrest, Marlowe trusts an old contact, now the spymaster, to be doing what’s best for him. A man he never spent time with before, Ingram Frizer, is assigned to spend all his time monitoring Marlowe to make sure he doesn’t run. Emotions are high, and no ones’ intentions seem to be as they are stated. How much help are those in Marlowe’s circle lending him or others at risk, or are they all just defending their own interests?

Overall, the book clearly illustrated Marlowe’s increasing panic and paranoia, alongside the comfort and building relationship between him and Frizer. The story earned 3 out of 5 stars and would be a great read for those who enjoy realistic sounding stories of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and their contemporaries.

{click here to purchase via my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a wife, mother, and stereotypical Gen-X-er. Find her posts about life and other books on her blog, SweetlyBSquared.com.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a advance reader copy of Lightborne!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Monday, December 23rd, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified via email the next day, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Lightborne, by Hesse Phillips

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Book Review: The Woman at the Wheel, by Penny Haw

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

“I wondered if it would ever be possible for a woman to work alongside a man and be considered his equal partner.”

“Are you thinking of becoming an engineer and working with Carl?” she said, her eyes twinkling.

“No, of course not,” I replied, accepting how implausible it would seem to anyone to think of me as Carl’s partner in the workshop. Did that prohibit me from revealing how I shared his dream, though? If not, what was it that stopped me from telling Ava how important the motorwagen was to me, not just as Carl’s wife but as Bertha, the woman who was intrigued by ingenuity and the business thereof and who worked alongside Carl in the workshop whenever possible?

Bertha Benz was a wife and mother, and potentially a brilliant inventor who recognized the impossibility of a woman being recognized for her contributions. Sometimes it seemed even she herself didn’t believe how capable she might be.

Official synopsis:

"Unfortunately, only a girl again."

From a young age, Cäcilie Bertha Ringer is fascinated by her father's work as a master builder in Pforzheim, Germany. But those five words, which he wrote next to her name in the family Bible, haunt Bertha.

Years later, Bertha meets Carl Benz and falls in love―with him and his extraordinary dream of building a horseless carriage. Bertha has such faith in him that she invests her dowry in his plans, a dicey move since they alone believe in the machine. When Carl's partners threaten to withdraw their support, he's ready to cut ties. Bertha knows the decision would ruin everything. Ignoring the cynics, she takes matters into her own hands, secretly planning a scheme that will either hasten the family's passage to absolute derision or prove their genius. What Bertha doesn't know is that Carl is on the cusp of making a deal with their nemesis. She's not only risking her marriage and their life's work, but is also up against the patriarchy, Carl's own self-doubt, and the clock.

Like so many other women, Bertha lived largely in her husband's shadow, but her contributions are now celebrated in this inspiring story of perseverance, resilience, and love.

Not a lot of facts are known about Bertha Benz and her daily life with her famous husband, Carl Benz. The author of this historical fiction does a stellar job filling in the blanks of how spunky Bertha must have been, knowing about her substantial contributions to her husband’s invention, her shared passion for his motorwagen project, and their relationship.

The note of a truly enjoyable historical fiction might be the inability to separate the history from the fiction. Several of the side-stories of personal situations or social events lent this quality to the story of the life of Bertha Benz with Carl Benz. A few pieces of correspondence are featured through the story that give support to the facts of their life, and some relationships just fit with who the characters may have been when they weren’t being documented.

Overall, the story was so interesting and earned 4 out of 5 stars. It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without cars now, and reading the skepticism they encountered during its development was eye-opening. The book could be recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction, especially from the mid-1800s, and learning the stories of a powerful and inspiring woman.

{click here to purchase via my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a wife and mother who enjoys reading, writing, and taking care of her family. Check out more of what they’re all up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

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