The North Sea Killer by Dale E. Manolakas; The Mantis Corruption The Mantis Gland Series Book 3 by Adam Andrews Johnson

 The North Sea Killer by Dale E Manolakas 

Dale E. Manolakas’ The North Sea Killer is a short but tight thriller about a rich aristocrat with a very dangerous side. 

Edward Kenworthy is the second son of the Duke of Belford, a prominent British family. Besides being a wealthy playboy, he is a serial killer and his latest conquest is Chloe Bridgeport, an American senator’s daughter. When she goes missing, the trail appears right at Edward’s doorstep and his collection of dead bodies and other activities won’t be hidden for long.

There isn’t a moment in this book that is wasted because of its short length and tense plot. It tells a fascinating Psychological Crime Thriller from beginning to end that takes multiple view points of the murders, the coverups, the investigation, the arrest and trial of Edward’s colleague and cohort, Greg Sterling, the estate gamekeeper’s son, and the eventual accusations and evidence mounting against Edward. 

Edward makes for a charismatic but terrifying killer. He is reminiscent of the type of villain found in old Alfred Hitchcock films who hides his sinister intent underneath a veneer of wealth and privilege. He is the center of a very wide circle of the elite and famous, people who get drunk, take drugs, sleep around, and run wild. 

One of his favorite places to scout for potential victims is the International Edinburgh Festival because it fits both aspects of his personality. It’s a public place to go where he can see and be seen among the fashionable and idle rich elite. It’s also somewhere he can find young female victims far from home, easily attracted to his charm, and who may not be reported missing for while if ever. This location selection reveals that Edward spends just as much time maintaining this entitled surface as he does killing women. It is the surface that allows him to do such nefarious things without getting caught. 

After all, Edward could always call a solicitor, one of his father's contacts, crooked and prestigious law enforcement officers, one of the estate’s many employees, or a partygoer and an alibi is provided, money is thrown around, bribes are offered and taken, threats are made, a witness is paid off, a case is dropped, a body is hidden, and Edward is home free and clear. These are resources that Greg doesn’t have so it’s no surprise that when the law comes, they come for him and try him as the killer instead of Edward. Greg is made the fall guy and Edward is all too willing to throw him under the bus so he can continue his private activities. 

To be fair, no one looks particularly good in this book. Many characters reveal a duplicitous nature underneath their surface. Chloe’s friend, Shannon Kelly is a distraught key witness but she is also an aspiring actress who is willing to use her friend’s death as a launchpad to her own career. Her father, Senator Jeffrey Bridgeport, is clearly grieving and wants to see justice done but also knows that he can get sympathy votes that will take him far into politics, perhaps to the White House.

 The prosecution and defense attorneys, Thomas J. Dodd and Penelope Thompson respectively use the case to raise their own standards and those of causes that are important to them. Then there’s Edward’s father, The Duke of Belford, who becomes aware of his son’s violent tendencies, has his own speculation, and has to weigh whether he wants to protect his family name and legacy or provide evidence against his son and give Edward’s victim the justice that she deserves. 

The North Sea Killer is a tense thriller that peeks into various minds in a murder and its aftermath the investigators, the witnesses, the allies, the attorneys, the judge, the court staff, the jury, the observers, the friends, the family members, the victims, and the murderers. 

The Mantis Corruption (The Mantis Gland Series Book 3) by Adam Andrews Johnson 

Now we return to Teshon City and its world of Shifts, people with extraordinary abilities provided by the Mantis Gland and their sworn enemies, The Messiahs, a theocratic powerful religious cult that force Shifts into isolation, imprisonment, and extinction while killing them and feasting on their glands. The first volume, The Mantis Variant introduced us to this Science Fiction world and its protagonists Ilya, a Shift with the ability of flight, Dozi, a human runaway and their new family The Mystic, who has healing abilities, Theolon Mystic’s husband, and Lahari, their Shift daughter. The second volume. The Mantis Equilibrium introduces us to some new characters like Nanyani and Tachma, new Shifts and Auntie Peg, the eccentric leader of the Anti-Messiah resistance. It also makes the series darker by raising the stakes, putting the characters in more violent and destructive situations, and killing off an important cast member.

If possible the third volume, The Mantis Corruption gets even darker by giving us characters with stronger and more chilling powers and severe graphic body modification. It also expands the concept even farther by taking place mostly outside of Teshon City and putting the regular cast in supporting roles towards the end. 

West of Teshon City are the wastelands of Xin. Sumi and Harakin are among the many who were forced into the military from the time that they were children. They are also the only non-humans in their regiment and have abilities that help their destructive commanders. Harakin can manifest light and can create photon blades that emerge from her hands as weapons. Sumi can transport people and objects from one place to another.North of them the village of Kestapoli where a woman named Tisa can create figures out of shadows that do her bidding resides. She encounters a new companion Olona, an organic mechanic who builds prosthetic body parts. The four characters end up ostracized and isolated from the oppressive regimes that surround them. They have to go on the run and into hiding. If only there was a resistance group made up of humans and Shifts, that fight these regimes perhaps in Teshon City. Meanwhile, at Gunge there is a colony that could serve as a warning for the avaricious and cruel Messiah. They absorbed the Mantis Glands and also everything else from the Shifts including their bodies.

This is the volume that is larger, larger in setting, larger in powers, larger in scope, and larger in conflicts and consequences. Instead of focusing on the core characters in and around Teshon City, it focuses on some new characters in new places.

We get to see more of the world that surrounds the entire series and the people who reside in these different locations. Xin for example is a savage militarized wasteland whose residents have to fight for survival. Kestapoli by contrast appears more picaresque, almost reminiscent of a Medieval village but many of its residents are just as cruel and intolerant towards Shifts as the Xinian military are. This focus on surrounding communities reveals that the conflict against the Shifts is a universal one that is seen in several countries, villages, cities, and cultures.

Along with the expansion, this volume emphasizes the darker aspects particularly with the character’s physical and psychological states. The book is very upfront with how child soldiers are formed with the violence, regimentation, and forced executions faced by Sumi and Harakin. Their superiors are intentionally cruel and sadistic as one would expect a militaristic society to be. 

However, there is something just as threatening, maybe even more so from the people of Kestapoli. It doesn’t take much to turn this seemingly normal peaceful community into a bloodthirsty volatile mob that will turn on their own as Tisa discovers with her bigoted parents. We expect nothing resembling empathy or loyalty from Xin so we are not disappointed when none is shown. But the rejection from Tisa’s family hits the soul because these are people who should have loved her but instead do not accept her as she is.

The darkness is also felt in the more physical attributes. In previous books, the Shift’s powers were amazing and would probably be ones that Readers wouldn’t mind having. Who wouldn’t want to fly from one place to another or use superior strength to lift heavy objects? On a hot day wouldn’t it be fun to use your ice giving powers to cool yourself off or use fire on a cold day? Yes the Shifts have the potential to be dangerous but when they are used as weapons, it’s accidentally as Nanyani shows in the last book.

In this volume, the Shift abilities are not only strong but powerful and potentially destructive, facts acknowledged by those who lead them. Sumi and Harakin are forced to use their powers to kill in very graphic ways. In one chilling chapter, Sumi observes various prisoners and obeys her commander’s orders to kill them. She does so by using her transportation abilities to move their hearts and other organs from their bodies and crush them while the remaining body parts explode. Shifts are born with these abilities and can’t always help or control what they do with them but there are those who will exploit those abilities for their own ambitions.

By far the most graphic, stomach churning, and unforgettable aspects of the book are the Gunges. They are creatures from nightmares, are no longer human, and have metamorphosed into complete monsters in body and personality. Some have extra arms and legs growing out from their torsos. Others are covered with eyes that belonged to their victims. Others’ throats retain different voices of those that they absorbed going from low bass to high soprano in one conversation. One character has absorbed so many Mantis Glands that he is a large misshapen gelatinous blob of various body parts merged into one form that can barely move. It’s not a place to let the imagination dwell too much if they don’t want to have trouble sleeping afterwards. 

The expansion and the darkness cover the book so much that when the plot returns to Teshon City and the original characters, the book changes. The original characters and setting are missed and it's great to see them back again. It’s also wonderful that Sumi, Harakin, Olona, and Tisa are in a place with a diverse group of friends and allies that welcome and accept them. 

However there are some concerns. Among them is that the meeting between old and new characters happens so late in the book. We have gotten so used to this new environment that returning to the old one is almost jarring and abrupt. Yes, we expected the groups to meet. That was a given but when it happens it does almost as an anticlimactic afterthought instead of a natural progression. Perhaps they could have just given this book to the newcomers and have them meet the older characters at the very end, during the last couple of chapters. That way their new acquaintanceship can be fully explored in Part Four.

The other issue concerning the meeting of worlds is what happens to the action afterwards. The meeting is abrupt but so are some of the following chapters which deal with many of the fights and battles. The conflicts are anticlimactic and move too fast. This is especially egregious when some of the characters that confront and vie against each other have been around since the beginning. The confrontations have little build up and require more resolution and follow through to make a more gradual approach. Instead it feels like, “That’s all after three books? That’s all there is? What happens in the next two books?” 

The expanded universe, new characters and the darker atmosphere are the best aspects of this volume and the reunion with older characters is a nice return, but the third book probably needed more work to make this volume stand out from the previous two.

Desulti: An Epic Fantasy by Ross Hightower and Deb Heim; Fascinating Feminist Fantasy Focuses on Fascism and Infighting.

 Desulti: An Epic Fantasy by Ross Hightower and Deb Heim; Fascinating Feminist Fantasy Focuses on Fascism and Infighting.

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Sometimes when groups get together for a common purpose, it is assumed that they will be on the same page and work together. That isn't always the case. There might still be animosity because of where people come from, ethnicity, political beliefs, separate biases, socio-economic background, or any other reason. They often have to ask themselves if the cause or threat that brought them together were removed, would they still have any other common ground? Would they defend each other? Would they think about one another's circumstances? Would they even be friends and allies or sworn enemies?

That is the central conflict surrounding Ross Hightower and Deb Heim’s Epic Fantasy novel, Desulti. 

Before I begin to summarize the novel, I would like to commend Hightower and Helm for their brilliant clever way of getting the Readers up to speed with the previous novel, Argren Blue. Because Desulti is a prequel to the authors’ Spirit Song trilogy and is itself the second volume in the prequel trilogy, Readers are bound to be lost. No matter, Hightower and Helm offer a very interesting twist on summarizing Argren Blue. In the Introduction, a monk tells his young protege the events of the previous volume as a story. 

The monk gives an oral history lesson to the boy about how Tove, the main protagonist, fled the Inquisition that imprisoned and scarred her and met the Desulti, an organization of women who obtained power through wealth. The Desulti use that vast wealth and their team of warriors, the Murtair, to protect, shelter, and defend other women. After she is helped by a Desulti, Tove decides to seek sanctuary with the organization and possibly join.

This introduction shows how important oral history and storytelling often is in an agrarian Medieval-like Fantasy setting. When many forms of communication do not exist or are sparse, news, history, myth, and legend are often orally repeated. The opening prepares us for the society that we are going to encounter.

Desulti picks up where Argren Blue left off with Tove asking for sanctuary. She is given it and decides to join. Unfortunately, she is faced with a huge stumbling block. The Desulti are a presence within the Empire and Tove was part of the Oss’stera, a group of rebels against that same Empire. Most importantly, she is an Alle’oss or l’osse, the lower caste. Most Desulti are part of Volloch, the upper caste and look down on the Alle’oss. Despite this prejudice, Tove is accepted into the Desulti but does not receive a warm welcome by many. She is the butt of several pranks, given grunt work as an assignment, stereotyped, gossipped about, and is the focus of several rumors meant to undermine her reputation. Most seriously, she is despised by Lyssa, the Chief Executive of the Desulti and Nessa, the Murtair Leader. The pranks and prejudice increase particularly as Tove and her new allies discover a hidden conspiracy within the Desulti that could put the entire group in jeopardy.

Desulti is a fantasy novel with a theme that is all too real in our modern life: a theme of prejudice. People will use any means to put themselves and others into separate groups: race, politics, country of origin, religion, class, anything. It becomes us vs. them and anyone could be considered a “them.” As long as someone is different, an Other, someone else will find a means to hate them and express that hatred. That is what the focus is on in this book.

Tove is determined to prove herself within this group that she sought sanctuary from. She aspires to become a Murtair because she sees women defending themselves and achieving power. For someone who has faced arrest, torture, sexual assault, physical attacks that left her scarred, and emotional attacks that left her traumatized that objective is tantalizing. She is willing to face the most demeaning jobs and her judgemental colleagues if it means that she can excel within the Desulti.

Tove makes some powerful enemies, most notably Lyssa. Tove's arrival could not have come at a worse time for her. She has her own ambitions for what she wants to turn the Desulti into and won't let anyone stand in the way of that goal, especially a newcomer that represents a social caste that she has no loyalty towards. 

Lyssa has the makings of a cult leader or Fascist dictator. She tramples on the Desulti’s values, particularly their goal to protect all women from sexual assault and marginalization. They aspire to be independently wealthy as warriors, priestesses, merchants, and tradeswomen. While they influence the Empire, they try to keep an unbiased approach that advises but doesn't allow the Emperor to seize power over them. 

Lyssa however wants the Desulti to be a central Imperial power. She is willing to move operations to the Capitol City and become an official advisor to the Emperor. She has biases about who should join the Desulti and wants all members to be similar to herself, all Volloch, all uniform, all Imperial loyalists, and all devoted to Lyssa and her goals. 

She wants to deprive the Desulti of the independence that they fought so hard for for her own personal gain. She doesn't like the Emperor but loves control more than she loves the Desulti. Since she can't get power for herself as a woman in a male dominated society, she wants to be the influence behind the throne and sway Imperial rule in her favor. As power hungry as the Emperor is, he wants to let her create a tyranny of conformity and prejudice. 

Lyssa also connives and claws her way to authority within the Desulti. She manipulates by using member's vulnerabilities. She delights in degrading and humiliating Tove though pretends to be a detached leader. She resorts to kidnapping and emotional blackmail to gain allyship. She is someone who pays lip service to solidarity and loyalty but is completely self-centered. She breaks any law or vow to push herself up and forward. 

Tove's presence upsets Lyssa’s ambitions by her mere presence. She gives a fresh outlook to the other Desulti where they recognize that an Alle’oss has a lot to offer coming from a different background, having a different perspective, and therefore carrying a different voice than the others. They recognize that Tove being there carries real value.

Tove makes some strong allies within the Desulti. Soifre, the Chief Financial Officer, has the same prejudices against the Alle’oss as Lyssa and many of their colleagues. However, she is pragmatic enough to see the advantages of recommending Tove for membership. She also has the foresight to see that opening their organization to Alle’oss means new members, more money, stronger voices, and more influence.

Cianna is appointed Tove’s counselor and often provides important information to Tove and other women. She also becomes an informant when she reveals what she knows about the conspiracy spearheaded by Lyssa.

Brie is a Desulti who lured Tove to them and becomes a staunch ally and friend of hers. Most importantly, her sister, Danu bonds with Tove to the point of becoming a love interest. Towards the end, Tove and Danu become committed lovers, practically a married couple. They are aware that Tove’s destiny could constantly put her in danger and Danu will constantly be anxious about her safety. However, they are willing to face this truth together.

One of the most powerful moments in the book is when Tove and other members of the Desulti confess that they come from different parts of the Empire, have their own reasons to join the Desulti, and had to deal with various struggles before signing up and great sacrifices that they have made since. They realize that despite the differences that they had before they arrived, they are now Desulti. They are brought together for a single purpose. The differences are miniscule because they have a common ground to work hard and gain independence and solidarity. It brings a tear to the eye when they all chant, “I am (Alle’oss etc.) and I am Desulti and I'm proud!” 

Desulti is the type of book that gives Readers an Epic Fantasy setting but tells a story that resonates in real life. We all feel like outsiders for some reason. Sometimes we are oppressed because of those differences by people who can seem more powerful. The point is to organize and recognize those similar issues. To unite for not only a common purpose but to give voice to the individual experiences and concerns. To make sure that diverse voices are represented within the main purpose.

 For example equal rights for women is a common purpose for Feminists and Women's Rights activists, but they must also look at individual struggles from all women including women of color, immigrants, working class women, women from different religions and politics, lesbians, and trans women. They have their own individual experiences and issues but they contribute to the main goal of receiving equality for women to earn their own money, receive equal pay, and have the right to make decisions about their own bodies.

It's important to belong to a group but just as important to be oneself within that group. That way true change can finally happen for everyone.

Classics Corner: Spite Fences by Trudy Krisher; A Powerful Book About Fences Built From Racism, Spite, and Hatred

Classics Corner: Spite Fences by Trudy Krisher; A Powerful Book About Fences Built From Racism, Spite, and Hatred

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book that features one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Spite, Wrath)


Spoilers: We all build walls and fences around ourselves. Some build them for protection to keep people inside. Others build them to keep others out.

Sometimes, the worst fences are the ones that surround the human heart. They are built because we don't know certain people, we don't want to know them. They are built not by hammers, drills, and nails but with other tools. Tools like assumptions, prejudice, spite, meanness, and hatred. Those fences are the strongest ones and they take forever to come down, if they ever do.

That is the situation faced by Magnolia "Maggie" Pugh, the young protagonist of Trudy Krisher's powerful novel, Spite Fences. Her family is considered "poor white trash" in their small town of Kinship, Georgia during the early 1960's. Many in town disregard her family because of their poverty. She has to deal with an abusive mother, unemployed father, and Gardenia, a sister who is propped up to become a beauty queen.

The Pughs also have to contend with their neighbors, the Boggses. Maggie's mother looks down on the Boggses, saying that if her family is poor, then at least they have standards. She thinks that the Boggses are a wild uncouth bunch of hooligans and with good reason. Their son, Virgil, is a sadist who plays malicious pranks on people including the Pugh sisters. Maggie's mother demands that her father put a fence around their home to block out the presence of their neighbors.


Besides the literal fence between the Pugh and Boggs homes, the figurative fences are stronger during the Jim Crow era. Maggie is looking for work as a housekeeper to help support her family. She is referred to the home of George Hardy, a mathematics professor who's new in town. At first, Maggie doesn't see George. She cleans his house as the two pass notes back and forth to each other. It comes as a surprise that her employer is an African-American man.

Maggie tries to continue working for George, whom she grows to like and respect, while hiding it from the town, particularly her mother. She also becomes swept up in the Civil Rights Movement as the African-American community of Kinship plans a display of civil disobedience. Maggie has to rely on her open mindedness, new found friendships with the African-American community, and her talents as a photographer to break through those fences and speak out.

Spite Fences is an extremely strong character and theme driven book. At the center of this storm lies Maggie. She is similar to Scout Finch, from To Kill A Mockingbird, a young prepubescent white girl breaking through the color barrier to question the societal standards that surrounds her. She is extremely timid and conditioned, particularly by her mother, not to express her strongest emotions. She buries a lot underneath, including being an eyewitness to a violent hate crime and not speaking out about the circumstances.

It is only after she befriends George and several other African-Americans around town, putting faces to names that she has grown up near but never knew on a personal basis that she realizes that she can no longer stand on the sidelines out of fear. Seeing how others live, worship, and work. She recognizes that struggle and is able to put herself forward.

Maggie is an amateur photographer and George is able to use that talent to bond with her. He offers her his issues of National Geographic so she can study photographs of other countries. He encourages her to use her talents around town and to look inside others to capture these moments. He also discusses deep topics such as fears with Maggie, so she can look inside the people around her and see beyond their outward appearances.

Maggie's photography becomes a key in breaking down the fences. She takes pictures of her new friends and herself in happy situations that unfortunately get revealed to the White community of Kinship. Even though things don't turn out well, Maggie is able to take pictures of the oppression that African-Americans face and the means they use to challenge them. These pictures not only bring faces to their struggle, but gives Maggie an opportunity to improve her situation.

Spite Fences is about the fences that are built out of cruelty and hatred. However, with love, friendship, human concern, and recognizing our talents, light can be shown through those fences. Maybe those fences can even come down.