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These Toxic Things cover art

These Toxic Things

By: Rachel Howzell Hall
Narrated by: Susan Dalian
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Summary

A dead woman’s cherished trinkets become pieces to a terrifying puzzle.

Mickie Lambert creates “digital scrapbooks” for clients, ensuring that precious souvenirs aren’t forgotten or lost. When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. A music box, a hair clip, a key chain - twelve mementos in all that must have meant so much to Nadia, who collected them on her flea market scavenges across the country.

But these tokens mean a lot to someone else, too. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone.

It’s becoming a mystery Mickie is driven to solve. Who once owned these odd treasures? How did Nadia really come to possess them? Discovering the truth means crossing paths with a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of a sinister past. One that might, Mickie fears, be inescapably entwined with her own.

©2021 by Rachel Howzell Hall. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Susan Dalian's narration keeps the tension building in this thriller through her spot-on timing.... Dalian creates believable characters, including the spoiled and petulant Mickie, along with her caring parents and convincingly voiced men. The result is a thrilling mystery.” (AudioFile Magazine)

“Deeply moving, Villa’s debut fills a longstanding need in LGBTQ+ literature for more Latinx characters and a love story between two BIPOC characters. A lovely, important book that deserves a wide readership.” (Booklist, starred review)

“This cleverly plotted, surprise-filled novel offers well-drawn and original characters, lively dialogue, and a refreshing take on the serial killer theme. Hall continues to impress.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Fab …. But sad reasons for the three stars

The three stars not more is because it is a great twisty story. But repetitive sentences to describe tingling skin etc get boring .

Plus, I don’t know how to write this …. We are all supposed to consider how we speak , consider racist language more than ever before. So, as a white person. “ white girl wasted “ and “ woke white boys “ ( several times in first chapter of another of the authors books ) white girl wasted and various derogatory terms towards white people is frankly offensive and on the other foot would not be accepted .

Crass speech “ yeah I’ll hit dat again “ seems to be the acceptable way to speak time and time again with only varying ways of wording it .

Seems to be a need to be demeaning about each and every character which is white more so than when any other character is described.

So , yo girrrrrllllfriennndddd . Educate dat so-called fly mouth ‘fore ya’ll start sounding like yo don’t know shiiiiit”. Oh. Sorry, was I sounding rude and derogatory then? Was I type casting then? Oh do forgive me I was attempting for an authentic character. No, ya’ll just trying to have a fun play I am sure , sadly though . This author, I have started one more to see if it was one book and in one chapter the next is the same . I’ll finish it , if I can get through the racism without having to protest somewhere … oh hold on. No, I am not always needing to have my own voice heard . I just wish to listen to a well written story. With only a smidge of vanilla racism . If we go to white bashing even more , I’ll stop reading and be in touch with author or publisher as if it gets worse …..

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