May Book Reviews
contributed by Brace Books
The following book reviews appeared in the print issue of Ponca City Monthly magazine. Get full access to all online articles, videos, and content by becoming a paid subscriber. We offer free and paid subscription plans. Find rack locations to pick up your free print copy here, or subscribe here to get online access plus exclusive content.
The Best Way to Bury Your Husband
By Alexia Casale
Reviewed by Tara Anson
We join Sally in the height of the pandemic. Her society has gone into serious lockdown to try to combat the virus spreading. While many are enjoying getting to stay home from work and leisurely time with their immediate family, others aren’t so fortunate. Some don’t have a loving husband to spend their days with. Some needed those days at the office to escape the abuse they suffered behind the closed doors of home. Sally eventually can no longer take the abuse and, as you might have guessed from the title, kills her husband. As Jim lays in a pile on the kitchen floor, Sally soon realizes the reality of what she’s done and how she will explain this not only to her kids, but everyone else as well. Should she just call the police and turn herself in? She could possibly get away with self defense, but what if she doesn’t and her children lose both their parents?
As Sally begins to explore possibilities of how to cover her tracks, she soon discovers she is not alone, in suffering from abuse and in killing her husband to protect herself and her children! Sally is soon joined by four other women who struck out in a moment of weakness, but now have no regrets and simply need to figure out the best way to bury your husband! As the women strategize, they realize that friendship and laughter is what they need most in life- well, that and knowing how to get away with murder.
Will the ladies find happiness after suffering for so long? Will they remain friends once the pandemic is lifted? Most importantly will they figure out the best way to bury their husbands?
The Princess Protection Program
by Alex London
Reviewed by Lorrie Layton
I absolutely adore fairy tales, especially the Disney versions that have happily-ever-after endings. Many (perhaps most) of the original fairy tales don’t have happily-ever-afters. What if you’re the prince who’s supposed to marry your princess, but you know you don’t love her? What if you’re the princess and you really want to be able to make your own life choices instead of simply doing as your fairy tale expects?
Let me introduce to you the Princess Protection Program. It’s designed as a sanctuary for princesses (and the occasional prince) who need to do something about how her story goes. In that circumstance, the first door she enters will act as a “Door of Opportunity”. Crossing that door’s threshold immediately transports her to Home Educational Academy (HEA – also known as Happily Ever After).
HEA is a school for “wayward fairytale characters,” designed to educate princesses about the real world and how to successfully function in our world upon graduation. It’s run by a Fairy Headmistress, of course. Some of the princesses’ classes include Fashion Essentials, Digital Technology 101, Life Skills, Mathematics, and Modern Government. As long as the princesses stay within the HEA grounds, they are safe from their stories. If they venture outside the grounds, they are susceptible to Uponatimes. Uponatimes roam the world, searching for runaway fairytale characters. Once an Uponatime finds its prey, it captures and eats that princess, returning her to her fairy tale.
We meet Rosamund when she is abruptly (and quite rudely) woken by a prince’s kiss. She runs and arrives at HEA, where she manages to annoy professors by continually asking, “Why?” Most importantly, Rosamund wonders, “What if I return to my fairy tale and make my own choices?”
The Princess Protection Program is a fresh, imaginative, thoughtful, and thoroughly enjoyable novel. Two thumbs up!
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