I really enjoyed this anthology. I thought most of the reads were 5 stars. The last one was not in my opinion, but that’s just because it felt like a really unfinished story to me. And when I got to his afterword and he starts talking about his other works and these characters may show up again, I realized that’s why I got that feeling well reading.
5 stars-I really liked this futuristic look at a woman (Honey Beckett) dealing with the funeral of her very rich and tech focused husband, Barney. Honey though she has a ton of money and things at her fingertips has been directed it feels like through her entire relationship and marriage to Barney. And you have her coming to some realizations before and during the funeral. I thought this was really good and as I said in one of my updated, it read up as a great send up to the Musks and Bezos of the world. And that other weird billionaire who thinks he can cheat death.
5 stars-I thought this one was really great! I think that it’s because Mara did a great job of developing the character of Elena. Elena and her husband have a weekly ritual of alone time from their kids and watching something together on the tv. When Elena starts watching the new mini-series her husband chose, she starts to see frightening similarities to something that happened to her in the past. And then you get some really cool twists.
5 stars-I cracked up a bit at this one. It was truly messed up and I loved how it ended. Rachel is very rich and sad due to what she sees as her husband Jake feeling emasculated by her money. She wants to do something that causes Jake to realize how much she does need him and get him back to being fully invested in their marriage So she sets things up to make it appear that she has been kidnapped. Unfortunately for Rachel she’s about to see how much her husband Jake really loves her.
4 stars-I thought the ending was brilliant. Probably because we know that things are not going to end the way that the detective in this case hopes. The main reason why I gave it four stars though is that things shifts away from the delivery woman (Lenora) to the detective and I wish things had swung by to Lenora. She just felt cut out of the story too soon. Lenora delivers packages and keeps to a tight schedule. When she notices something amiss at one of her regulars she feels shaken, and things take a turn for the worst when she finds their dead body in the house. The story works through who could have killed this woman and how they did it.
5 stars-I thought all of the stories deal with deadly ambition in some way. But thought this story of a struggling artist (Hannah) who takes a painting and makes it her own creation was very good. It reminded me of the art version of The Plot. I liked how Brown shows how all of the things that Hannah got after her debut are making her feel shaken for the moment that someone realizes she’s a fraud.
3 stars-This one read as unfinished to me when we get to the ending. It also due to the subject (a so called journalist outing an actor who may be dying of AIDS) had me fuming. Taking place in 1985 we follow Hallie who is trying to become a mainstream journalist. She’s constantly dealing with very little notice given to her work and very little money too. When she’s told about a tip that could set her up for a long time, Hallie decides to run with it. Things don’t go as planned though. And Weaver leaves too many strings unplucked in this one. He mentions future works may address this and I just got annoyed.
- Wealth – a wealth of information; the financial system; a rich character. There’s a very wealthy character in the first book, The Price of Honey.
