Book Review: West Palm Part 1: The Undertaker's Apprentice by Joss Cordero

This is a quick suspense/mystery seen from the eyes of the creepy psychopath.

West Palm I: The Undertaker's Apprentice
by Joss Cordero

• File Size: 891 KB
• Print Length: 58 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star (June 3, 2013)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00ADMR044

Genre: Mystery
My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0

Book Description
Publication Date: June 3, 2013
The first in a four-part, fast-paced serialized psychological thriller, from a talented author who captures quirky South Florida in the bestselling tradition of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.

Zach often hears his great aunt Emmy’s hauntingly sweet voice singing in his head. His calling has been to make the dead look beautiful. As a security guard at a West Palm funeral parlor, he strolls alone among the corpses, artfully decorating them…Zack knows the spirits of the dead need his help as they transition to the netherworld. But when his bizarre rituals are discovered, he flees. Not deterred, he comes upon a tall, beautiful woman alone on a yacht and knows she needs the kind of help only he can provide...

With its taut pacing and sly humor, Cordero’s West Palm serialization is relentlessly addictive, peopled with a South Florida psychopath, a burnt out police detective turned P.I., and one gorgeous but tough woman, in a city where trash mingles with class.

Review:
Zack is a manic, psychotic ‘nerd’ who obsesses over his “angels” - dead women whom he likes to make beautiful. He is currently working as a security guard for a funeral parlor where he thinks he is helping the spirits of the young women to transition as he decorates the corpses for the holidays. When his boss stumbles upon him lighting the corpses Zack knows he will have to move on...again.

While Zack ponders where he will work next he spots a beautiful young woman on a yacht in the marina. He is sure she is to be one of his angels – even if he has to help the process by delivering the woman to the morgue.

This was an interesting albeit creepy beginning to the mystery. I liked the different perspective of knowing from the beginning who the psychopath is and seeing the scenes from his warped mind and eyes. I particularly enjoyed that this was set in familiar grounds for me since I lived in Palm Beach County for many years. The writing is crisp with an underlying feel of suspense. It was an easy, quick read.

I recommend this to mystery buffs who don’t mind seeing the story from the twisted view of the killer. Also I warn you that you will probably need to plan to get the next novella(s) in the group so you don’t get stopped in the midst of pursuit as happens in this novella. The four book set won't be released until December.

I picked this title up at NetGalley.

Book #Review: Ten Reasons to Stay by Sabrina Jeffries

This is satisfying for a quick, sensual romance. 
Ten Reasons to Stay
by Sabrina Jeffries

• File Size: 559 KB
• Publisher: Pocket Star (May 6, 2013)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B009UVL9L4

Genre: Historical Romance
My Rating: 4.5 of 5.0

Book Description
Publication Date: May 6, 2013
A delightful eNovella from New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries about a young woman who learns that you can’t learn about love from a textbook.
In “Ten Reasons to Stay,” previously published in the anthology The School for Heiresses, lessons go far beyond etiquette and needlepoint. Eliza Crenshawe’s lesson is to look before she leaps. But when she discovers that her new guardian plans to marry her off without so much as a Season, she forgets all that. She flees—on a horse she unwittingly steals (oops!)—from Colin Hunt, a newly minted earl who wants nothing more than for her to go home…or stay forever.

Review:
I have enjoyed many novels by Ms. Jeffries and this one joins the group. It manages a full romance, albeit almost love at first sight, in a short novella.

Eliza has finished most of her lessons at The School for Heiresses. The school didn’t teach lessons on love and she never mastered how to look before leaping. Her father has died and her drunken uncle has become her guardian. Uncle Silas claims that her father left only debts and there is no inheritance. He has whisked Eliza away from town and announced that he has arranged for her to be married immediately.

Eliza dresses like a lad and sneaks off to a neighboring estate to “borrow” a horse. She gets caught by the new lord who has recently returned from India. Colin isn’t very trusting of women since many shun his mixed, Indian and English, blood and his first wife was flighty and untrustworthy.  He doesn’t believe this thieving young imposter even when he finally drags from her a Gothic tale of threatened marriage and missing inheritance. She continues to refuse to tell him her name or let him take her to the magistrate.  Colin locks her in his bedroom while he tries to discover her identity and the truth of her circumstances. Eliza discovers an interesting collection of erotic art while rummaging in his boxes and a provocative bargaining begins.

I appreciated the dialogue between these two cautious individuals. Eliza seeks a life of passion and doesn’t want to be trapped in a loveless marriage. She is afraid that Colin will return her home to that fate. Colin thinks he just wants peace and not a lively, inquisitive woman. The  romance was a bit bold for my tastes but the story was more than just an excuse for virgin introduction into sexual exploration. (I'm curious to pull my copy of the anthology to see if there was any change since the earlier publication.)  I enjoyed the characters and the plot worked well. Ms. Jeffries succeeded in creating a satisfying, entertaining read in a shorter story.

I received this title for an honest review through NetGalley.