Island on Fire by Sophie Schiller

Island on Fire by Sophie Schiller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Island on Fire is an historical reimagining that is both fascinating and suspenseful!

It is the end of April 1902, and Emilie Dujon, the daughter of a coffee and cocoa planter on the island of Martinique, has her whole life planned out. She's happily engaged to marry a successful sugar plantation owner, Lucien Montplaisir, and the wedding invitations have all been sent out. It is hoped the marriage will pump much-needed money into her family's plantation, just in the nick of time. All in looking up for the Dujons until Mont Pelée, the long-dormant volcano looming nearby, begins to smoke and spew ash, rock, and sulfurous gases down over the region.

At this same time, an important and hotly contested election is underway in the closest city, Saint-Pierre, a beautiful port town known as 'the Paris of the West Indies.' The governor and his supporters are determined to get the voters to the polls and secure the status quo. But to do so, the populace must remain calm and remain in the city. To assuage their fears that Mount Pelée is about to erupt, he forms a scientific committee to travel to Pelée's summit, study the conditions there, and return with their recommendations. What he actually wants is for the committee to back up his opinion that all is well.

On an evening at the theatre with Lucien, Emilie inadvertently discovers he is cheating on her. She had recently begun to doubt the wisdom of her engagement to him, and this only cements her desire to break the engagement. But when she approaches her parents with her decision, they will hear none of it. Her confrontation with Lucien only angers him and confirms that he means to take her family's plantation for his own once they are wed.

When the scientific committee stops at the plantation seeking a guide up the mountain's slope, she decides to get away from her troubles for a while and feed her curiosity about the wakening volcano by joining their party. One member of the committee is the newly-arrived French lieutenant, Denis Rémy. He and aide-de-camp lightheartedly pass the time as they travel up the mountain vying for Emilie's attention. But when he saves her from a deadly snake, it is Rémy that earns her gratitude and admiration.

When the committee sees the volcano is likely to erupt at any moment, they rush back to confer with the governor. Despite their observations and warnings, he still maintains there is no imminent danger. As conditions worsen, the residents of the villages closest to the volcano's blasts of heat, rock, and ash begin to pack Saint-Pierre's streets.

Emilie's situation grows even direr when Lucien discovers her having dinner with Rémy in a town restaurant, a discovery that ignites into a very public fight between the two men. Emilie, desperate to escape Lucien's grasp, impulsively consults a powerful island herbalist, one known to be knowledgeable in the ways of voodoo. But once she's indebted to the evil man, things really take a turn for the worse.

As the tremors, ash, and rock spewing from Mount Pelée increase, the governor locks the city down. He forbids anyone to leave and requires all public servants to remain at their posts as if nothing were wrong. With food becoming scarce and water despoiling, the city edges closer and closer to boiling over into mass panic and chaos.

ISLAND ON FIRE is a historical fiction novel based on the 1902 eruption of Martinique's Mount Pelée, the most deadly volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The heat, ash, and flying debris destroyed the port city of Saint-Pierre and took the lives of approximately 30,000 individuals in only minutes. The story is a fascinating reimagining that is both suspenseful and absorbing. The romantic side plot of Emilie, Lucien, and Denis Rémy was well incorporated, well-told, and ultimately, very satisfying. The voodoo subplot was thrilling and horrifying; I couldn't stop reading. By the end, I was thoroughly entertained, had learned a lot about Martinique's history, culture, and geography, and found myself checking out travel options to the interesting island. I recommend ISLAND ON FIRE to readers of historical fiction, those interested in tales set in the West Indies, and armchair travelers to the French Antilles.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a copy of the work from the author through France Book Tours.

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The Incomplete Artist (Ashley Westgard, #2) by Philip Wyeth

The Incomplete Artist by Philip Wyeth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ash’s elegant first date at an art auction with her new crush turns into a baffling murder investigation.

Dressed to the nines, Homicide Detective Ashley Westgard of the Jacksonville Police Corps is off-duty and enjoying an elegant first date with her newest romantic interest, wealthy patron of the arts, Thomas Templeton. She had met Tommy the week before while attending a tedious but high-profile law enforcement charity event at the invitation of the JPC’s top brass. She had seemed to have found a kindred spirit among the city’s upper crust at the event’s open bar. When he hadn’t fallen at her feet in adoration and lust as most other men did, she was intrigued.

For this initial outing, Ash found herself once again on his turf, rubbing elbows with his friends and acquaintances at the exclusive Muir Gallery. The event, hosted by the Movement 24 artistic school, was to be an evening of cocktails and conversation, culminating in an art auction of works by M-24 members. Since the revolution of 2024, more and more human activities had been relinquished to robots, including art. Movement 24 supported art created solely by human hands without the use of robots, and, naturally, there were strong opinions on both sides of the argument.

When the auction begins, the bidding quickly becomes competitive and heated with winners and losers both in the audience and among the artists. Pieces go for an eye-popping number of credits, and even Ash’s date scores the win of a sculpture he’d admired that evening. But when M-24’s most celebrated artist and vocal proponents is found murdered, Ash must exchange her strappy silver high heels for her silver detective’s shield and take control of the crime scene: one with over a hundred potential suspects.

The Incomplete Artist is author Philip Wyeth’s 2nd novel in his Ashley Westgard futuristic police detective series that debuted in 2020. In this entry, Ash has been taken out of her comfort zone of knocking heads and taking names and dropped into the realm of this future world’s high-fliers and social scions of the burgeoning Jacksonville art scene. She’s also the hopeful pursuer in her current relationship rather than the pursued. All of which leads to some introspection on her part about what she really wants out of life.

She remains justifiably suspicious of the motives of the JPC administration after the successful resolution of the case in book one. Still, I was glad to see her relationship with her immediate boss, Chief of Detectives Gabriela Paraquez, strengthen and perhaps start to solidify into something she can trust. Paraquez steps back and allows Ash to manage the complicated crime scene on her own. I liked her interactions with her other coworkers, too, as she conducted her investigation.

The murder case is baffling, with a massive number of potential suspects and witnesses on the scene when the victim is discovered. I felt how insurmountable the task of just securing the crime scene would have been, considering the number of attendees and the complication of everyone being part of the perceived elite and those that left the event before the discovery was made.

This story is quite different from the previous one. While in that one, Ash’s introduction was virtually a “smash and grab” of the reader, the tone of this story is more cerebral and thought-provoking. Ash’s investigation is also a journey through the philosophy of art with characters discussing its history and motivations, its wants and needs, past, present, and future.

The hard-riding, hard-driving, hard-drinking, and hard-partying Ashley Westgard from the debut novel has been set down among the rich and richer and is clearly out of her element. She is somewhat dazzled and seduced by these unfamiliar surroundings, almost hooked and feeling uncertain and off-kilter. And Thomas Templeton seems to be the perfect foil for Ash: their banter is delicious. But the work itself has its own magic for Ash, and she kicks the glamour to the curb and gets back to business, which is where the book shines – a character-driven, police procedural in a futuristic society.

I recommend The Incomplete Artist to those who enjoyed Ash’s debut story in Hot Ash and the Oasis Defect, readers who would like a mystery set in the world of art or with a futuristic setting.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.

Read my original review on Reedsy Discovery!

Engage at Dawn: Seize and Destroy (Engage at Dawn, #2) by Edward M. Hochsmann

Engage at Dawn: Seize and Destroy by Edward Hochsmann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once, again the US Coast Guard Cutter Kauai and her crew is called upon to save the day, and perhaps this time, even the planet itself.

When the sentry-survey vessel observing the developing planet 331-3 (Earth) finally headed to the nearest Confed maintenance base for repairs, other observers with less honorable intentions schemed to take advantage of its absence to grab up now available resources that could easily be turned for a profit.

The crew of the sentry vessel had included in the incident report of their unscheduled stop on the planet that during their initial arrival, they had inadvertently destroyed the sea-going ship of a criminal organization involved in the smuggling of cocaine. That small mention is what had caught the eye of the unscrupulous Raviktos, the Chief Operating Executive of Kmaet'aqe, one of the largest corporations in the Confederation of the Six Systems. He could make a profit from cocaine, but it had to be done quickly and in just the right manner, for discovery by Confed could result in the ultimate of penalties.

Things go perfectly at first, but when a rival drug gang gets involved, they take the planetside alien representatives hostage along with some highly critical advanced technology. Raviktos' illegal operations are revealed to those tasked with looking for just this type of thing. Once again, the crew of the USCG Cutter Kauai is called upon to save the day, perhaps even the planet.

Engage at Dawn: Seize and Destroy is the second full-length book in author Edward M. Hochsmann's thrilling SciFi action-adventure series, Engage at Dawn. I was delighted to be 'reunited' with the Kauai's crew, catch up with returning characters, and get to know some new favorites. One of the many things that this author does well is write great dialogue. I laughed out loud several times during exchanges between characters.

I liked that the author populated his story with a wide range and variety of crew members: male and female, married and single, differing ages, races, cultures, experiences, grades, and even branches of service! Like any working group or family, they don't always see eye-to-eye and have their disputes and disagreements. But together, they work out their differences in the background to continue to perform as a highly professional and well-coordinated entity. (And I always learn something new when reading the adventures of these crew members.)

A new aspect to this series that appears in this book is the developing romantic relationship between the Kauai's XO, Lieutenant Benjamin Wyporek and the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Dr. Victoria Carpenter. Their story provided some sweet, tender, and anxious moments.

The romance, however, is a subplot. The major focus of the story is the thrilling action and adventure of Kauai's mission to take possession of the captured alien technology. Once the Kauai is underway, the action is non-stop, and things get intense! Operations on board the Kauai ring true to life and made my engagement in the story that much stronger. This was hold-your-breath, edge-of-your-seat stuff! Hochsmann's action sequences are superb, making Seize and Destroy downright great entertainment.

Although this novel could easily be read and enjoyed as a standalone, it would be a shame for the reader to miss out on the excellent first book in the series, Engage at Dawn: First Contact. I recommend this book and series to readers that enjoy military SciFi action-adventure stories, military romances, or fictional stories featuring the United States Coast Guard.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.


See my original Reedsy Discovery review!