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review 2020-07-06 21:14
In the Shadow of the Tower, Dana Girls #3
In the Shadow of the Tower - Leslie McFarlane,Carolyn Keene

On a winter excursion the Danas seek shelter in a cave and happen across Josie Sykes, a girl with a hunched back reading a letter. Startled, the girl lets the wind take the letter and a piece of green paper with it - revealed to be a $1000 bill! A fox takes the paper and vanishes.

 

The Danas do their best to help the distraught Josie find the bill and the letter to no avail. The letter had the only information Josie possessed on her only living family, an uncle. The girls offer to help Josie find a place to stay at Starhurst while she searches for her money and letter and they listen to her tale of woe. Josie has lived most of her life at a home for "crippled children", but was lately accused of theft and ran away because she was afraid they wouldn't believe her explanation for the $1000 bill. She wants to find her uncle, but also a way to live independently.

 

The language around disabled people has changed a great deal in 85 years, Josie is referred to as crippled mostly without malice, it was the appropriate word at the time. The Danas also endeavor to boost Josie up by not allowing her to define herself by her disability or accept the ridiculous judgements she receives from bullies like Lettie Briggs. There's nothing wrong with that side of Josie character. However, when the owner of the fox farm in broad daylight mistakes the teenage girl for a wild animal because of her hunched back and almost shoots her, we begin to have some difficulty.

 

Speaking of difficulty, the plot brings the Danas to their cousin's farm for the Christmas holiday, and, coincidentally, a neighbor has found Josie's letter with the money still inside of it! The issue comes when that neighbor's employer, an artist with a tower studio, has a black housekeeper called Mammy Cleo. Mammy Cleo speaks in dialect, but is shown to be knowledgeable of her employer's work and gives the Dana girls a guided tour of the studio, pointing out paintings of interest. A positive stereotype is still a stereotype, however. McFarlane - or the Stratemeyer Syndicate as they often made very specific instructions in their plot outlines - makes matters worse when we get to superstition and the language used to describe Cleo and other black people who come into the story. The reader is meant to sympathize with the rational Danas as they confront the ignorance and fear displayed by black people confronting Josie's "monstrous" silhouette or the sight of her on horseback. What the hell, McFarlane. What the fuck.

 

The real plot involves art theft and the Danas reuniting Josie with her uncle after Josie runs away. After the worse elements of the book are through, there is some comfort to discover that Josie gets herself a job and makes a career of it on her own, without the help of the Danas.

 

Context is important when reading books from a different era. Language evolves and its important for writers to attempt to tackle difficult subjects, even if they don't succeed. The problems of 'In the Shadow of the Tower' go beyond outmoded language and "cultureal expectations", however. Despite the efforts of the book to provide readers with a mostly positive depiction of a disabled person and the prejudice they face every day, it is undermined by prejudice of a different kind.

 

Dana Girls

 

Next: 'A Three-Cornered Mystery'

 

Previous: 'The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage'

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review 2020-07-05 21:01
The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage, Dana Girls #2
The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage - Leslie McFarlane,Carolyn Keene

The Dana Girls have been invited on an outing by their favorite English teacher, Miss Tisdale. She is shown in her element, engaging her students by reading from 'David Copperfield' and otherwise being an excellent teacher.The girls are excited to meet Miss Tisdale's parents.

 

As Miss Tisdale's car leaves the gates a man tries to flag her down, but is dimissed, and the girls put him out of their minds. When the girl's meet Miss Tisdale's parents, they are charmed by her mother, but her father is ill-tempered and prone to monologues about his poor health. Apparently any great shock could kill him. Soon after this visit, their teacher receives a note in the middle of class, leaves the school and fails to return.

 

Naturally, Mrs. Crandall the headmistress summons Jean and Louise to her office to tell them that Mrs. Tisdale wants to engage them as detectives. Informing the police would mean her husband would find out and that would surely kill him. Mrs. Tisdale had heard all about how the Dana girls had solved the perplexing mystery of the study lamp, after all, so a missing persons case should be no trouble. Mrs. Crandall reluctantly gives permission for this assignment and agrees to help the girls several times even as the case gets more dangerous. This will keep Starhurst School out of the papers.

 

The girls find her car forced off the road in a remote area. Investigating, the girls find a lost toddler and return her to safety. The toddler's babysitter is an unpleasant woman at first, but proves to be a good person. This is a little lesson that crops up in these books often. Unpleasant women are often worth getting to know, unpleasant men almost never, and Lettie Briggs and Ina Mason should never be given a chance.

 

As the plot unspools we have an estranged twin sister, fierce guard dogs, rough sailor types and out-of-season boat rides that get nasty. The Dana's Uncle Ned, captain of the 'Balaska', comes in handy more often than you would think.

 

'The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage' is the second book of the Dana Girls series, but the first three were published simultaneously in 1934 and were written at the same time by the reluctant Leslie McFarlane. Still, it's another overstuffed, fun mystery story.

 

Dana Girls

 

Next: 'In the Shadow of the Tower'

 

Previous: 'By the Light of the Study Lamp'

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text 2020-07-02 22:06
Reading progress update: I've read 115 out of 215 pages.
In the Shadow of the Tower - Leslie McFarlane,Carolyn Keene

Oh no. I enjoyed the first two - reviews to come, naturally - but the plot here involves a black community that is superstitious to the point of endangering themselves and the wealthy white people they work for. Leslie McFarlane also doesn't seem to be able to write about black people without describing their "rolling eyes" and "great, shiny faces". This was written at about the same time as 'The Mark on the Door'. McFarlane (perhaps at the Stratemeyer Syndicate's behest as their plot outlines were sometimes incredibly detailed and weirdly specific) wrote novels with a distinctly racist vibe in this period.

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review 2020-04-19 08:28
7 Miles High (Easy Street #1) by: Leslie Pike
7 Miles High (Easy Street #1) - Leslie Pike

 

 

 

Parker and Natalie bring into focus the beauty that is Leslie Pike. 7 Miles High is a lively, saucy, sizzling, colorful, captivating firework. Personality becomes a living, breathing thing, that touches all the feelings of the heart. From laugh out loud to down and dirty romance, Pike turns unpredictability into a fabulously, intoxicating work of art.

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review 2020-04-05 17:24
I'll Be Watching You by Leslie A. Kelly
I'll Be Watching You - Leslie Kelly

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

 

Reece Winchester is an award winning director and when he spies a woman on a security camera feed, he's immediately drawn to her.

Jessica Jensen loves her sister and when she pops into an art gallery to pitch her sister's work and they agree to set-up a meeting, she is ecstatic. When Jess finds out that her sister's art show might all have been an elaborate plan orchestrated by Reece, she is wary but still drawn to him.

As these two try to build a future, their pasts are creeping in more and more.

 

You feel it, too. I know you do,” he growled.

 

The first in the Hollywood Heat series, I'll Be Watching You, was full of intensity, plot threads, and shadowy characters. The beginning was gripping with Reece having his house burned down with arson suspected. The reader learns early that Reece was a popular childhood actor, along with his siblings. His older sister died from a possible suicide when she was sixteen and his twin brother Rowan and younger brother Raine work in law enforcement and security protection now. There is instantly a feeling of darkness and deep hidden secrets about this family's past. Some details are scattered through in the first half but important information is saved until the end, which I think helped keep the mysterious grim tone but also clogged the story with numerous red-herrings.

 

While Reece had a powerful enigmatic presence, Jess held her own in the story with her vibrancy. She has her own complicated background with losing both parents young, entering the foster care system, and eventually being adopted by a loving family that gave her a bestfriend and sister. Jess also has an ex-boyfriend that can't handle that they broke up and has been stalking her, more added danger to the story. Jess is in college, as an aspiring screen writer and gets an offer for an internship at Reece's production company. At this point, she has met him, learned of how he orchestrated it all after seeing her on a security camera, and massively distrusts him because of how the whole thing went down. She also has her college professor telling her not to trust Reece at all, which has her wondering why there is bad blood between Reece and the former director and now professor.

 

Reece Winchester didn't just want to keep her.

He loved her.

 

If you're keeping track, Jess has a stalker ex-boyfriend and a possible shady professor feeding her lies while Reece has a possible crazed fan that burnt down his house and mystery surrounding his sister's death, now let me add Reece's sister's ex-boyfriend who has possible bad blood with Reece and his brothers and Reece and Jess getting shot at and thinking it might be an employee Reece just fired. There are shady character red-herrings galore, probably too much. I think part of the issue is that this is a first in a series and some of these red-herrings and plot points are going to play out in preceding books that star Reece's brothers; their sister's death is the thread that is going to tie this series together. All of this pushed the romance to the sidelines too much for me. There are great glimpses at Jess and Reece's banter and chemistry but ultimately, their relationship felt more lusty and I didn't completely buy their love. Reece also more than toes the line with being too controlling, Jess calling him on it and Reece giving a pretty good apology for how he set-up their first meeting, saves this toeing a bit.

 

There are multiple povs that give the reader insight into characters and help add emotion to the atmosphere but there were also times where it felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen. I couldn't completely believe in this couple's love but the story and writing was engrossing. If you like dirty secrets and revelations held close to the vest, I'll Be Watching You would be a good introduction to a series that looks to be full of such intrigue.

 

All because of the beautiful stranger he'd spied through a camera. One he would never have seen if not for the fire, pre-dawn flight, and his presence here in the gallery this morning, at the perfect moment.

He couldn't have planned the scene better if he'd tried.

It was as if it were meant to be.

 

 

 

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