Synopsis

In this prequel to Bitter Vintage, M.L. Grider explores events in the lives of Helen Wu and Amy Dresden prior to their adventure in 1995. While these incidents may seem at first glance unrelated, they all contribute to what makes Amy and Helen who they are.

Some are funny, others tragic, but that all adds up to why Helen quit the LAPD in favor of a gun shop, and Amy gave up her dream of acting to become an antique dealer.

Amazon * DX Varos Publishing

Review

Sometimes I never know what to expect when it comes to short stories…will they keep me entertained, or will I be lost? Because this is a prequel to Bitter Vintage, the stories set up the characters of Helen Wu and Amy Dresden very well. We get to know Helen from a young age and her fascination with guns and killing people. We then follow her career as a police officer and her lamenting that she should be on the SWAT team but is being overlooked because of her small stature. Amy ends up in LA after moving there with a guy. She is tall and blonde and could easily get modeling and acting jobs…if only she would sleep with the director. This is set in the 80s and 90s when such a thing was very common. However, Amy has principles and isn’t planning to do any of that. Her morals make it hard for her to find work other than some part-time jobs.

I enjoyed each short story and did not feel like I was cheated out of missing details. I believe that the author did a fantastic job keeping us entertained with the storyline and characters and sharing more about Helen and Amy.

I have to admit that while reading these, I couldn’t figure out how Helen and Amy were going to meet until the last story; then, it clicked. We don’t see any interaction between the two except for one minor scene near the end, and even that is unremarkable. But we aren’t supposed to dive into their relationship in this book. We are meant to understand who they are as people/characters so that we understand their motivation and desires once we pick up Bitter Vintage.

These stories kept me entertained, and I was so engrossed in one of the stories that I didn’t even notice someone coming up to me to say hi. Now that is entertainment at its best.

I will seek out Bitter Vintage to see where certain aspects of this book take Amy and Helen.

We give this book 5 paws up.

Excerpt

Amy passed through a cattle gate and took that as a good sign. That meant she was getting close to something at least. She slowed to ten miles per hour. About a mile past the gate there was an old, sun-bleached, wooden barn.

At first glance the building looked abandoned, but the scrub grass had been beaten down into tire tracks leading up to the door. It didn’t take Davy Crocket to see someone in a car was coming and going pretty regularly.

As much as she hated admitting she needed help to find her way back to the main road, she had to find someone, anyone, to tell her the way. At least as a woman she could admit she was lost and stop to ask for directions. A man would have driven halfway across Arizona before he stopped.

She parked about twenty feet from the big door. Mostly out of habit she slung her oversized bag over her shoulder and locked her car door before she approached. The main door to the barn was open just wide enough for a person to squeeze through without too much difficulty. Still, she tried knocking first. There was no answer. She stuck her head through the door and called out. Nothing.

After the glaring desert sun, the interior of the barn was almost pitch black. She slipped through the opening and stood there motionless while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Gradually, shapes began to emerge from the shadows. First, sharp-edged white stripes where the sun forced its way between the boards of the walls made an abstraction of shapes in a herringbone pattern. Finally the shapes began to take familiar forms. There were empty stables along the walls, and rusty farm tools scattered all around, making the place seem abandoned.

Except. Thinking at first it was a mirage she blinked and rubbed her big blue eyes. It didn’t make any sense at all. It was so out of place in this rustic setting that Amy had to stare at it almost a full minute before she believed it wasn’t a trick of the light. But one of those stripes of daylight cut through the gold and brown shield and illuminated the logo, u.p.s. all lower case.

What in the name of Schweinepriester was a UPS truck doing out here in the middle of nowhere? The back doors of the brown truck were open. Amy cautiously peered inside. She didn’t know what she expected to find. But instead of piles of boxes to be delivered, the entire twenty-four-foot cargo space was filled with steel fifty-five-gallon drums.

Maybe it was some kind of special food for the livestock, she was after all in a barn, and the driver was off looking for the farmer to take delivery. But there weren’t any animals in the barn. Maybe it was fertilizer, but she hadn’t seen any crops either.

“Find any clues, Daphne? Drop the bag and turn around nice and slow.”

There was no way she was going to drop her bag on the dirt floor. It was a genuine Coach bag, and even though she had bought it from an outlet store for a considerable discount, she still had to shell out two hundred and fifty dollars for it. She turned around very slowly and smiled.

“I’m so glad I finally found someone, I must have turned…” She fell silent when she saw the gun. The guy behind the gun was close to her age, give or take a year. He was dressed in an odd combination of civilian hunting gear and army surplus desert camouflage and some sort of khaki bullet proof vest with silver oak leaves on the collar. His skin was baked a dark brown from months under the desert sun. Amy dropped her expensive bag in the dirt.

“Kick it over here,” he said without moving. As much as she liked her bag, she understood it wasn’t worth her life.

“I didn’t mean to trespass, I—”

“Don’t try and bullshit me about trespassing. You know goddamn-good-and-well you can’t set foot on private property without a warrant.”

“A warrant? What are you—”

“Cute, Them sending in a pretty woman. Probably figured we wouldn’t shoot a chick, huh? Who sent you? The FBI, ATF?”

“Nobody sent me, I’m just lost.”

“Lost my ass. Who do you work for?”

“I don’t work for anybody; as a matter of fact, I just got fired. I must have made a wrong turn in all the dust. I was just looking for someone to give me directions back to the road.”

“Right. How dumb do you think we are? Hot babes like you don’t go randomly wondering around in the desert poking into old barns. Steve and me’ll get the truth out of you as soon as he gets here. In the meantime, hands against the van, feet apart.” He gestured with the gun. She moved around to the side of the van turned her back and put her hands on the hot steel.

About the Author

The Book of Jobs is the second published novel to escape the twisted mind of M.L. Grider. In addition to writing, Grider is a professional photographer. He is busy at work on the next adventure in the Helen Wu series among other wild and warped stories.

Website * Twitter * Facebook

Giveaway

This giveaway is for 3 print or ebook copies.

Print is open to the U.S. only and ebook is open worldwide.

This giveaway ends on November 18, 2022 midnight, pacific time.

Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway