The Last Bloom

Yummy

There is something sweet about novelist Jennifer Peer. Much of it has to do with the tone of her first-person narrator, Calli, who is certainly capable but also tender in the way she responds to those she loves. Don’t get me wrong; Calli doesn’t sit around all day knitting heart-shaped doilies. She shimmers with passion for writing, fashion, cuisine, nature walks with her two German shepherds and—put the children to bed—love making, the latter of which is hotly captured.

While on the subject, the foreplay is as frisky and teasing as it is steamy, as flaunted in this passage:

I leaned in and laid one on him so hot and heavy it was his turn to be silent. I pulled back, wiping the corner of my lip before strutting down the hall, a sexy swing to my hips. I looked over my shoulder. His face was priceless, and I was proud of myself.

In this work, Peer allows us to enter the world of her heroine, a best-selling novelist who, though stalked by a monster, never abandons her devotion to her family, friends, and lover. Even while tormented by an ominous mystery, she remains solid, true, and intent on sleuthing her way through a cauldron of danger.

Her fidelity and toughness drew me into the story and carried me through to the last page—a work I devoured in three sittings.

I’m already hungry for the next novel.

Allen Johnson
Author of Athena’s Piano