#47// smokin’ nun, true crime junkie, makeup god
wildly entertaining books
Dear Reader,
A month of surprises. We were scheduled to go on a hike on the rainiest, gloomiest day. But decided to pick up frozen yogurt for breakfast from a new place first. We ended up ‘hiking’ through the shopping center until late afternoon and gave up on nature altogether. Capitalism and window displays do get you! Well, it was infinitely more comfortable (and I hate to admit, very pleasurable) than walking in the rain on a trail. Nasty surprises like buying ‘honey’ mango which turned out to be the sour-est mango I’ve tasted in my life also sprung up. Talking about things that stole my heart recently, I’ve been on a roll with audiobooks—
Read
Some books deserve to be called delicious and Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy (Audio book narrator: Mara Wilson) is one among them. This is a hardboiled mystery featuring a gold toothed, foul mouthed, heavily tattooed queer, punk nun who smokes contraband cigarettes confiscated from her students. I first came across this book at a bookshop display where a bookseller had stuck a note soaking in high praise. On another bookshop visit, I was staring at the gorgeous cover when my husband read the blurb and said it’s just my kind of a read. I wasn’t sure. After a few more instances where the book kept appearing before me, I decided to give it a try. Dear Readers, Scorched Grace is exactly my kind of a book. Wildly entertaining and fast paced.
Imagine a private school St Sebastian’s that unexpectedly becomes the target of an arson spree (and maybe murder). These unlawful events shake up the order of the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and the peaceful neighbouring community. Sister Holiday, the unconventional but devout nun who takes music lessons at St Sebastian’s is dissatisfied with the police’s lackadaisical attitude. Her mystery solving antenna tingles and she longs to get to the root of this havoc in the peaceful New Orleans community.
Even with the mystery at large, I was constantly thinking ‘what’s the nun’s story?’ I couldn’t get enough of family secrets, sexism, monologues about penance and sin, and the politics of organized religion in a male dominated framework. After three quarters into the book, I didn’t really care if the mystery would be solved because Sister Holiday’s backstory, served to us in teasingly stingy bites, was equally as fascinating as her murder solving obsession. The flash back shows us a punk rock horny guitarist from Brooklyn, immersed in drugs, music, irresponsible life, sex and bad love decisions. It was dramatic to piece together the old Holiday and the new Holiday and what ignited the transformation of one into the other.
The novel’s sardonic wit and acerbic surprises (Hail Marys surround Sister Holiday’s swear words. “His limps splayed in the devasting choreography of a stomped roach” describe a man fallen from a building), make it nothing short of delicious. It is sad, but also a punchy whodunnit. And also a ‘who is she’. Douaihy’s exuberant crime story makes me absolutely thrilled that this is the first in a series of Sister Holiday mysteries.
Death of a Bookseller by Alice J Slater (Audiobook narrator : Emma Noakes and Victoria Blunt) had me in a chokehold. Set in a struggling bookstore in London, this novel follows true crime junkie Roach, a longtime employee who envisages a close, deep friendship with the newly appointed children’s bookseller Laura. Roach is reserved and harbours a disdain towards pumpkin spice latte girls and tote-wielding girls, but is fascinated by the bubbly, girly, social butterfly Laura who writes true crime poetry. In an attempt to get closer to Laura, Roach becomes obsessed with Laura’s family history, poetry zines, and everything else.
The book could’ve been shorter, but on audio it was creepy and obsessive. Slater always delivers a quick distraction, be it a poetry reading or a debate on true crime being voyeuristic or plagiarism allegations or a break-in. The story leaves you intoxicated with the all-night drinking sessions but also makes the hair on your neck stand up expecting something sinister. There are so many moments where my heart literally stopped. One is when Roach wakes up after a nap (rest is a spoiler). Another time is when the narration switches to good girl Laura’s POV (and she kills a snail)—Do you remember how it felt when the POV shifts from serial killer Joe Goldberg to lady love Guinevere Beck in YOU Season 1? Those were my exact vibes. Very nice artistic choice to shift POVs.
This novel is an ode to book selling, auditing, display arrangements, and workplace politics, which any bookworm would love to feast on. The two main characters circle one another in a recipe for a disaster. (That ending made me cough “of course!”). The atmosphere stunningly wraps around you. It quickly moves from cozy bookshop comfort to a fearful night to a listen-to-your-intuition and then erratically switches between all three, while also serving deeper themes like victimhood, class divide and ethics of storytelling. Thrilling, nasty, obsessive with bookshop vibes and several pub crawls. So yeah, overall, very good.
I had a ball of a time with The God of Good Looks by Breanne McIvor (Narrated by Varia Williams and Alexis Rodney, ARC from Libro FM). A young Trinidadian woman finds herself the face of a scandal with her affair with a married government official and it ruins her career prospects. She gets a new lease on life after some shaky modelling gigs when entrepreneur and makeup god Obadiah Cortland hires her for his beauty magazine.
The novel (and audiobook narration) was engaging ; about corporate culture, the influence that wives of powerful men yield, the make-up industry, and beauty standards that fester on the insecurities of the female mind. It also gives us much more about the Trinidadian society at large—classism, tenant woes at different neighbourhoods, corruption and patriarchy. At its heart The God of Good Looks tries to understand mother-daughter bonds, daughter-kind of estranged father bonds, brother-sister bonds and has the faint whiff of a love story. I loved the banter between the tyrannical, rough Obadiah and the headstrong, ambitious Bianca. I absolutely enjoyed the Trinidad experience, from the glamorous world of make-up to Carnival to lavish parties to photo shoots to the high life. Perhaps my favourite parts were the behind-the-scenes of the making of a beauty magazine, from brainstorming ideas to making a cohesive storyboard to marketing tactics to scouting photographers. As for the romance, Obadiah was quite unlikeable (a conscious choice according to the author), so I wasn’t convinced. There are a fair bit of red flags, but then this is the beauty industry, so weight and physical beauty are definitely mainstream discussion. I arched my eyebrows at how men had to swoop in to save Bianca in a story that she was maneuvering with confidence. But don’t let that keep you away from this vibrant, fun Caribbean book.
Amazing links
You have a new memory. The internet thinks we don’t know (Slate —via
)Inside the delirious world of superfake handbags (NY Times)
From the archives : best books of summer 2022 (get started on these already!!)
New to audiobooks?
My favorite audiobook haunts are Scribd (Use my code for two months free subscription), LibroFM (My code), and Libby app (to borrow books for free if you are a member at a participating library)
I hope you are well. If you enjoyed any of these recs (or newsletters), write back to me. I love hearing from you. Be sure to stay hydrated and wear sunscreen.
Love love until next time,
Resh x
I’ve been seeing Death of a Bookseller EVERYWHERE and your review was inspired me to read it - thanks Resh!
LOVED Scorched Grace!