Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy

Sorry folks. I gave it my best shot but life just got in the way. I finished my novel for the National Novel Writing Month one day early, did some more freelance work, and managed a little reading, but posting once a week just slipped past me. However, this still may be my most active period in a long while, so maybe I can ease into more frequent posts :).

Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy

(Acquired: bookstore)


Coyote Dreams, Book Three in the Walker Papers, lives up to the rest of the series with an engaging main character and an approachable writing style. I just can't put these books down. If I could dissect how C.E. Murphy does it, I would do my darndest to replicate the effort. She even manages to carry off an ignorant, bumbling main character in a likeable way. Joanne is nothing but self-depreciating and a disaster on two legs. But the other characters care for her just as much as I do because despite all that, she's well meaning and trying her hardest, or at least as hard as she thinks she can. This one follows the pattern of the others where the enemy is not who she thinks it is, combined with a sense of sympathy and responsibility, but the solution to Coyote Dreams is even more tangled than the previous ones. I really can't say anything more about the book without giving something away, except that I hope the loss she experienced will somehow come around right and I'm frustrated as all heck with the epilogue for all that I understand and it suits the characters. Sigh. I'll just have to see what happens in the next book...and there better darn well be one for all C.E. Murphy is off starting new series.

I have to say, everyone I've introduced to C.E. Murphy has loved the series, so if you haven't given it a try, the odds of loving it are high :).

Other comments about C.E. Murphy's books are in these posts:

Urban Shaman
Thunderbird Falls