Review: Speak to Our Desire

Title: Speak to Our Desires 

Author: Brenda Clough
Published: May 25, 2011
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Reviewer: Annie

Summary: It’s June 1969 in New York City. The moon is in the second house, Jupiter has aligned with Mars, and private investigator Tim Coates is having his own personal summer of love. A gorgeous blonde girl hires him to find her missing mother. Finally, his life is starting to look like Nero Wolfe’s! But Ellie Quartern and her mom are not your standard damsels in distress. They share an eerie and destructive secret that warps hearts and destroys lives. As Tim digs deeper into their dark private world, he's not in a mystery, but a horror novel. And he discovers that the Rolling Stones were wrong. Even when you get what you want, you just might find that it’s not at all what you need.

Review: The story centers on a detective who is presented with a missing person’s case by a very beautiful woman. He soon finds out the missing person is this woman’s mother and they both have a special ability to read minds and thoughts of others and sometimes influence those thoughts.  The story continues in the search for her mother as well as giving the reader an in depth background of her life leading up until now.  I enjoyed this book for the reason that it is very realistic with the slightest touch of fantasy/sci-fi which is a genre I enjoy.  It was a bit confusing at first since you didn’t know when the story was jumping around different times.  You would be reading in current time and suddenly go back 10 years ago in the next chapter with no warning or reasoning to why you are suddenly learning about the past. A lot of times this bothered me since it never really seemed to tie anything up.  I guess by the end if just gave you a full picture of her life, but up until then I was a little frustrated. This was the only downside, the writing was great and I really felt for both main characters.  To my surprise I also liked the ending and the way everything was wrapped up.  I’d recommend this book to someone who enjoys detective stories, especially ones with a twist (as this one has that!).

-Annie