Chandler Jechura

As an American who had a family who came to this country within the past two generations recently, I have always wondered about my family history. What parts of their culture was I missing out on? What parts of their history was I missing? How can I reconcile that with what I was doing here in the states and worrying about my own life?

This is one such theme that is present in the novel Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. We follow Jay Reguero, a 2nd generation Filipino-American who can think of nothing except completing his senior year of high school and attending the U of M in the fall. Until his father tells him that his cousin, Jun, is dead. What Jay’s father and the extended family refuse to admit is that Jun was killed because he was a drug dealer, a victim of the Philippine President Duterte’s violent crackdown on drug crime in the country. Jay doesn’t believe this and soon asks his father to go to the Philippines and live with his extended family to try and find out the truth. But as soon as he arrives, Jay realizes that he is in way over his head, trying to solve a murder of one person in a country with millions of people. What’s more, his Uncle, Jun’s father, is a police officer, and refuses to believe that Jun was an innocent bystander when he was killed. Can Jay find out the truth of what happened to Jun? And will he like what he finds if he does?

There are many different things I liked about this book. One of which is the theme of how national pride can blind you to the country's problems.

This is represented through two characters: Jay and his Uncle Maning.

Jay grew up in the US and doesn’t know much about the Philippines beyond the paragraph or two devoted to it in US history books. Now, as he explores his culture, he understands that turning a blind eye to the country's problems can be as dangerous as not seeing the problems in his own. And, what's more, he shouldn’t judge them just because he has a good life in the US.

Meanwhile Uncle Maning has the opposite problem. He sees what his country is doing and is all too proud for it. He is proud of what the international community has dubbed human rights abuses under their President, and most of his talk is reminiscent of those you would see on FOX news: how the international community is lying, and how dare anyone like Jay come in and judge them. What is more, he puts down Jay’s way of life in the states, as though Jay’s father was a fool for wanting to come to the US and live there, and his children are idiots, Jay included.

All of this makes for a good story that is fraught with tension. We also see other members of Jay’s extended family who are kinder, but just as apathetic to his cause. This makes the reader realize that it is one thing to condemn a country, but it is another to see it for yourself, and that many people just want to afford enough to eat, and they don’t care how they afford it.

The one major weakness is the ending. Of course, Jay manages to find out what happened to his cousin, but it felt forced to me. I won’t say much because of spoilers but it did contain one of his many aunts and uncles. We, the reader, see him travel from one aunt and uncle to the next as a way to both move the story along, get different perspectives on the country, and also furthering the mystery. The downside is, once we got to the last family member, I thought ‘welp we haven’t met this family member yet. What are the chances he or she knows something that is going to bust the case wide open?’ I was right. This felt forced to me, as far as mysteries go.

Still, this is a book that is devoted to re-reading as it is a good exploration of cultures clashing and how judgement, secrets and lies only hurt the ones we love in the grand scheme of things. I give this a four out of five.

I began this book to read something like The Dresden Files as I eagerly waited for Jim Butcher to release the next installment of Harry Dresden. This was a series I was able to pick up in a box set, and I figured it would be a nice change of pace, having a mystery occur in a small town, rather than an end-of-the-world style event I am used to from Butcher. Also, it was written by a woman about an adult female character, which does (for better or worse) take me outside my comfort zone.

This is the story of a woman called Harlow Torrent. She moves back to her small seaside town of Harlot Bay, hoping to cover the Butter festival in her struggling online newspaper. When she goes to interview one of the contestants, she finds him frozen to death, with congealed blood all around him. Oh, and to complicate matters, she is a witch, and she senses that there is more than just a knife used to kill him. Someone used magic on the body, and she has to figure out why.

The strongest element of this book, by far, is Harlow’s family. She lives in a large dilapidated mansion with her mother, several aunts, and cousins. As you can imagine, this enables the reader to see all of the hijinks of a dysfunctional family. For example, all the Aunts and Harlow’s mother are divorced, and their daughters have not married yet, leading to some funny situations where the moms work to set up dates with their respective daughters so they can have grandchildren (after they marry, of course).

They also have different abilities when it comes to magic. Harlow’s ability changes by the day, literally, because she is a Slip witch. One day she can make the garden grow to fantastic proportions with the help of a Growth Spell. The next day, she can only work to heal living things with a healing spell, and so on. Add to that how she can see and communicate with ghosts, and Harlow is a woman who never seems to have a dull moment.

However, this is also one of the negatives of the book. If you are someone who is looking for a series with a defined magic system, with lots of strict rules to follow, then this is not the series for you. Many times the author seemed to be making it up as she went along. (I know that can be the basis of all magic systems for any book, but it especially felt that way here.) This also leads me to question Harlow’s Slip Witch-ness. I fear that this could be used for plot convenience in later installments.

Also, this book seems to be heavy on the family shenanigans, with the murder mystery often taking a back seat. This isn’t a bad thing, as I liked the family dynamic well enough, and these characters have room to grow in later books, but I felt like if you were expecting something along the lines of The Dresden Files, but with a female protagonist, then you would be sorely disappointed.

So, this is a good first installment that is just different enough from The Dresden Files that I think I am going to enjoy the next book. I look forward to traveling to Harlot Bay in the future and seeing what crazy schemes and ideas Harlow’s family is up to next. I give it a three out of five.

Disclaimer: I have seen other reviews comment that Lake may have plagiarized this series with a series of books called The Wicked Witches of the Midwest series by Amanda M. Lee, which contains similar ideas and characters. I cannot comment on this, since I have not read those books.

This was a book I wanted to try because of the full cast, and because it was short. I have had a lot of good luck lately, enjoying Audible’s offerings of full-cast books, and just full-cast stories in general this year. What did I get? It's little more than a subpar thriller, with little mystery.

The major issue for me is that a lot of this stuff surrounds the General and the Army being an antagonist for the story. They are so played up it is almost cartoony how much they try and stop the team from finding out who raped a woman that it is unbelievable. All of the events that happen are ones that in the real world could be used in court, and then, if not, would be a huge problem for the General and her career. Multiple rules regarding protocol and legal council are just ignored, as they try and stop the Zero Tolerance team from completing their mission.

Keep in mind that the team isn’t much better. They steal (sorry, “borrow”) cars, and even helicopters, make threats to enlisted personnel, and discharge their weapons seemingly to defend themselves when they should have no reason to do so, had they been even remotely competent in how to bring whitenesses in. Episodes of NCIS, which does play fast and loose with the protocol of the US military, seem to be experts compared to these guys.

When even a novice like me can see that there is a problem with the way things are handled on both sides, then I know that this is not going to be a fun ride. So what did I like? The voice cast does an excellent job, and the sound effects are top-notch. Sadly that isn’t enough for me to recommend this to anyone. I give it a two out of five.