Anthony BidulkaBesprekingen

Merry Bell talked her boss into letting her set up a branch office of his PI firm when she left Vancouver and headed back to her home town of Livingsky, Saskatchewan. But even if things weren’t as expensive in the small town she moved to she still couldn’t afford to rent an office and an apartment. Which caused problems. But when she found her new landlord she got her first case only she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. She also didn’t realize how what had been left behind in Vancouver could nip her new life in the bud before it had time to grow. Not that things were going all that well as she stumbled on a conspiracy in good old "Livingsky".

Merry has returned home to Livingsky after a having been working in Vancouver. Her caseload has been light, so she has been working as a security guard. She is happy when a new email hops in her inbox and she quickly has the cousin of quarterback, Dustin Thomson, as a new client. Dustin has gone missing and Merry is hired to help find him. As she looks into the background of the Indigenous celebrity sportsman, looking for any answers to questions the police seem reluctant to share. On a secondary thread, we meet Roger whose wife has a design company located next to Merry’s PI office. Roger is the host of a true crime podcast. Roger/Stella...pronoun he and she...would dearly love to become part of the team at LSI and ever anxious to impress and has started an independent investigation into some anonymous letters Merry received after she first arrived. We see aspects of Merry’s personal challenges with the emotional side of her transition and her feelings of isolation. We also explore Roger’s psyche as he struggles to rationalize his need to be both Stella the podcaster and Roger, the electrician who is also a husband and father. The reader is lead through the layers of the investigation as well as Roger/Stella's anxieties. I had a bit of a problem with the Shared thoughts of more than one character, but it didn't happen too often, nor did it distract from the overall impact of the story. I found this to be a well-written book with some repeat appearances from Merry’s adventures from the first book, although both the first and second book easily stands alone. I particularly liked the dynamic Merry is establishing with her new acquaintances and hopefully she will have more luck in attracting clients going forward.½

A very amusing story since I live in the place that's portrayed as Livingsky. Perhaps irrelevant to readers who are not familiar with this town, there were many moments of hilarity as I read out loud some of the not so much concealed identities: for example Alphabet City, St. Peter's Abbey Hospital, Merry's landlord (!!), etc. The characters are wonderfully idiosyncratic and the situations in which the main character (Merry Bell) found herself a fresh take on the situation of being nearly-homeless, and impoverished.

Not so enjoyable were the plodding passages that slowed the story-pacing. There was too much detail around the landlord persona and not very much backstory about Merry Bell or a seamless narrative involving a murder just as she left Vancouver for the prairies. Somehow this was a rather disjointed aspect of the novel. However, the dénouement was great: a subtle teaser, avoiding the pitfall of a cliffhanger. The next book (From Sweetgrass Bridge) will be very intriguing to see how Ms. Merry manages her budding PI career and navigates her continuing transition as a transgender gal in a potentially challenging local community.½

Merry Bell recently had gender affirming surgery to become a female.

There are two mysteries that take place in Livingsky. Merry was stated as being the murderer of her surgeon. Once she moves from Vancouver back to Livingsky, she is hired by her soon to be landlord to determine who sat fire to an apartment in one of his buildings.

Merry is forced to go back to Vancouver as the main suspect in the surgeon's death. While at the police station, she figured out who the real killer was and help the police catch them. She figured out the major and her assistant were tied to the apartment fire and was an attempt to make Gerald look as bad as his father. They were going to try and force him to sell so they could move forward for a project the major wanted.

Merry is still getting use to being a woman and having people like Roger (a cross dressing true crime podcast) and Gerald Drover (the landlord) who don't care that is a trans-woman is helping.

I really enjoyed Livingsky and will read more in the series.

Good murder mystery novel with a side of drama in the city of Livingsky in Saskatchewan. The author has written the book as inclusive and gently covers a few topics that reflect the reality of todays society. Overall a good read and a setup for a possible sequel or even a series about LSI. Received as part of the LibraryThing early reviewers.

We both enjoyed the novel. Would highly recommend it.

The story and writing were fine, but I did find it to be a bit slow at times. The mystery often takes a backseat to Merry’s struggle to get her business up and running, to finding housing, to making friends, etc. It’s as much a character piece as it is a mystery story. I was expecting at least one confrontation with one of the small-city-Saskatchewan denizens over Merry being a trans-woman, but everyone she outed herself to was accepting of her. Certainly a future to hope for.½

Livingsky by Anthony Bidulka

The story moves at a fast pace with a very likable lead. Merry is transgender I felt she was represented in a positive way. The supporting characters were unique and original as well.

The plot was compelling, detail oriented, with mystery, secrets, twist and turns. I could not put it down.

Overall I found Livingsky quite enjoyable, truly a good read. I highly recommend to those who enjoy Mystery/Suspense. I look forward to more by Anthony Bidulka .

The book is well-written. We get to know Merry Bell, a transgender woman who is struggling to earn enough money. Having left Vancouver, where life was far too expensive, she moves to Livingsky, her old home town, to start her own PI agency.
She now finds out life isn’t that cheap in Livingsky either. After struggling for about ten days, she gets her first case.
In the meantime we learn a lot more about her; her body is changed, but she does not know how to ‘behave’ like a woman, what sort of clothes to buy, how to use make-up. Her office neighbor helps her with her make-up.
It seems Merry has not been in her home town since she left. She does not know who are the important people in town and some areas have changed, for the worse or for the better. So the husband of her office neighbor helps her getting her bearings.
In the end she solves two cases: her first case as a PI in Livingsky and the case of her murdered surgeon in Vancouver. The third ‘case’, which is more of a nuisance than a real case, has a nice twist at the end of the story.
As I said, it is a well- written story. I liked the transgender parts very much. But the pace was too slow, far too slow.
It is also a pity that we know so little about Merry’s life in Livingsky as a child. She was a boy then. Is that the reason she does not go to visit family there? Or is there no family left in Livingsky?
Notwithstanding the slowness of the story, I am looking forward to another part of the Merry Bell series (I do hope it is or will become a series).

Going to Beautiful by Anthony Bildulka begins with a mystery: how did famed fashion designer Eddie Kravets die? Seeking closure, his distraught husband, Jake Hardy, travels to Beautiful, Saskatchewan, a place Eddie referred to in an end-of-life directive. Jake finds himself a fish out of water, lost in a dying prairie town without a clue why he's there. But slowly Beautiful reveals itself to him, creating opportunities for resolution, recovery, and healing.

I really enjoyed this novel. It's twisty, but gently so, and the characters are endearing. The novel is also LGBTQ+ positive. If you're looking for a book that wants to charm you, Going to Beautiful is a strong contender.

Merry Bell, after years away and after gender-affirming surgery, decides to return to her hometown of Livingsky, Saskatchewan, where the cost of living is lower than exorbitant Vancouver. Because of her experience as a private investigator, she decides to start her own private investigating business in Livingsky. Her first case comes from her potential landlord, Gerald Drover, who wants her to uncover who started a fire in one of his rental properties. That investigation brings her into contact with shady characters from both sides of the tracks that divide the city. To complicate matters, Merry herself is considered a suspect in the murder of the Vancouver doctor who performed her surgeries.

Merry is an engaging character. It is impossible not to like her. I loved one character’s description of her as “’brave and wonderful.’” Her Louboutin designer boots are a perfect symbol for her attitude. She has flaws which make her realistic, though I did find that at times she is not totally convincing as an investigator. She never considered that she’d have to have two months’ deposit in order to rent an apartment? She doesn’t investigate Peter Wells before meeting with him? Only afterwards does she “take a deep dive into the life of Peter Wells”? She has a tendency to make assumptions, often incorrect ones. And she is always being surprised by the unexpected: “He was not what Merry expected” and “Merry was jerked out of her wah-wah-poor-me stupor by the unexpected question” and “The house was nothing like what Merry expected” and “This was not going as expected” and “She hadn’t expected to hear back from him so soon” and “This was not at all what Merry expected to hear” and “The door was opened by the last person she expected to see.”

The book gives readers an understanding of the struggles of a transgender woman: “the prices she’d paid, physically, financially, emotionally . . . all the surgeries – genital, facial feminization, tracheal shaping, implant.” Of course, a transgender woman would be worried about sex: “’Imagine, if you can, waking up one day to find that the sexual organs you’d always hoped for, the ones you should have been born with, are suddenly right where they were always supposed to be. It’s like having a brand new toy you have no idea how to play with, and there’s no one around to show you. . . . Finding partners is not an easy thing, especially partners who know and care about what you’re going through.’” Then there are the concerns like clothing, hair, and make-up. Initially I wondered why Merry didn’t reconnect with any family or friends in her hometown, but then it makes sense that such reconnections might not be easy: people might not be accepting of her.

There are other interesting characters. I especially enjoyed Gerald Drover, the happy gopher. The description of him when he first appears is so perfectly detailed: “He was very tall, six-and-a-half feet at least, and slender as a streetlight. He wore a Heavy Metal band t-shirt, skinny jeans that still required the assistance of a belt to say up, one of those wallets with a chain that hooked onto a belt loop, and crusty cowboy boots that’d seen one too many rodeos. . . . Atop Drover’s perfectly oblong head was a full-on mullet, ginger red. His cheeks were puffy, his chin pronounced, his ears and nose super-sized. . . . The eyes were like nothing she’d seen before, the colour of an aquamarine sea sprinkled with specks of sand, rimmed with lashes so thick Merry wondered if he was some kind of mutant with double sets on each lid. Like many of his other features, Drover’s lips were far too big for his long, narrow face, but they were so pleasantly plump and cherry-pink they looked like a chewy chunk of double bubble.” And he has the over-sized personality to match that physical appearance.

It’s been a while since I’ve visited Saskatoon but I think Livingsky is modeled on that city. I certainly remember walks along the South Saskatchewan River. Isn’t Alphabet City an actual area of Saskatoon? But the Holodomor memorial described reminds me of the one in Regina. I imagine using a fictional setting allows the author more freedom so he can change details to suit his purposes. I must say I do love the name chosen – a reference to the slogan “Land of the Living Skies” which I believe appears on Saskatchewan license plates?

The book has something for almost everyone. There’s mystery, though the killer of the Vancouver doctor is obvious almost from the beginning. There’s humour, often at Merry’s expense. I love that she’s not above laughing at herself. And there are also hints at a possible romance, or two, for Merry.

Like several of the chapters, the book ends with a teaser so I’m assuming that this is the first in a series featuring Merry Bell. I will certainly look out for the second installment.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).½

Going to Beautiful is a story of loss, mourning, and awakening to a new and completely unimagined life. Jake and his partner Eddie are living the life. Both have ridden the reality-television road to fame and fortune. Eddie in a design competition show, Jake with books and shows featuring stylish and exciting cooking from around the world. But then Eddie dies, a death that could be a murder, suicide, or an accident. The same forces that lifted them up now magnify his grief as he is suspected by some. He’s lost his joy in cooking and is in despair. However, he has tasks to complete, spreading Eddie’s ashes at the places they visited. The last world on the list is beautiful, something Jake thought was descriptive, but his son pointed out it might be a noun, not an adjective. And so it was.

He and his neighbor and friend, Baz, an elegant transwoman who may be seventy-eight on paper but remains young at heart and spirit head out to Beautiful, Saskatchewan. Jake hopes to find answers there and he does, but far more answers than he was looking for.

Going to Beautiful is a new take on an old trope, the displaced urban sophisticates marooned among the salt-of-the-earth farmers. But Jake is no Paris Hilton and Baz is no Eva Gabor. From a broken down car to a missing brother-in-law, events conspire to keep Jake and Baz in Beautiful where they are soon drawn into the fabric of life. Beautiful could be one of those twee villages where everybody is an eccentric, but they face real problems and are united by the anxiety of the last residents of a dying town.

This is not a cute novel, though the description might make it seem so. The problems and mysteries of Beautiful are real. Jake comes to understand Eddie in a deeper way when he sees where he came from and meets his family. There is plenty of joy and kindness in Beautiful, but there is a grim side to surviving on the cold, northern prairie. That is what makes this such a beautiful novel.

I received an ARC of Going to Beautiful from the publisher through LibraryThing.

Going to Beautiful at Stonehouse Publishing
Anthony Bidulka author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/going-to-beautiful-by-ant...

Jake Hardy and his husband Eddie Kravets seemingly have it all. The perfect life...successful careers, Jake, a celebrity chef and Eddie, a well-known fashion designer, a strong marriage, and of course, a faithful dog. Their son, Connor is grown, successful, and attentive. Jake and Eddie live in a trendy part of Toronto with a beloved next neighbor, Baz, who is basically family.

Then, the unthinkable happens. Eddie is dead. Standing on the balcony one minute, plunged to his death the next. Was he pushed, did he slip, or was it intentional?

In his grief, Jake intends to fulfill Eddie wishes laid out in the document I'm Dead, Now What? that both partners filled out to be a guide for after death. Eddie named three places for his ashes to be spread. Two are familiar, one is a mystery. Beautiful. With that, Jake and Connor set out to solve the puzzle.

Beautiful just happens to be the town in Saskatchewan of Eddies' birth. Although, Eddie never really spoke about his upbringing, Jake and Baz intend to complete the task. They are Going to Beautiful. What they soon discover is that secrets are plenty, townsfolk are welcoming, and the land is truly beautiful.

Going to Beautiful is a heartwarming story full of both joy and sorrow, tragedy and beauty, and grief mixed with unconditional love. The characters are real...the reader will want to meet them, get to know them, and share in the loss while pressing on. A truly inspirational story that will have you laughing out loud one minute and fighting back tears the next. So happy I found this author!

I give it 4 1/2 stars.

Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers, Stonehouse Publishing, and Anthony Bidulka for the ARC.½

It's been a long time since I've loved a book I've won with Early Reviewers so much! I loved learning about this part of the world, and the beautiful landscape was almost a character. Speaking of characters, I loved every single one of them. This is part mystery, part love story, part ode to grief. Just absolutely fantastic. I had never heard of this author and now I'm going to have to go seek out ALL of his books.

Going to Beautiful by Anthony Bidulka is the queer semi-gothic mystery/prairie adventure we deserve (whether we knew we wanted it or not).

The characters of Going to Beautiful are effortlessly queer in the best way possible: it is not the sum of their identities, but just a natural part of who they are - and rarely the emphasis. All of the characters, queer and straight - and yes, there are straight characters! - are colorful and memorable, well rounded and full of personality. The amazing and diverse cast of characters is easily the strongest part of the Bidulka's novel.

Beyond the characters, both main and side, is the plot. Bidulka does a fantastic job of leading the reader along, hinting at mysteries as yet unrevealed and unsolved, dropping clues to keep you engaged until the mystery is divulged - only for another mystery to pop up and take its place. This keeps the plot moving forward, avoiding any sense of stagnation or going in circles despite the entire book occurring in just two settings.

The setting is also wonderfully described and Bidulka makes good use of the main location: the Canadian prairie town of Beautiful. Often the town itself feels like a character, which is one mark of good writing (or so I have heard). Even when Beautiful is just background scenery, Bidulka ensures that the scenery is beautifully described.

A strong and heady mix of humor, suspense, and queer catharsis, Going to Beautiful by Anthony Bidulka is a fantastic novel full of life and color. An easy 5 out of 5 in my book, and highly recommended.

Jake Hardy has it all – until suddenly, he doesn’t. One night his beloved husband, a brilliant fashion designer, plunged to his death from their Toronto apartment balcony in an inexplicable accident. All the light has gone out of Hardy’s life. So has his ability to create the spectacular dining experiences that have made him a sought-after chef and entrepreneur. His business falters. He has barely the energy to care for his dog, and his adult son and next-door neighbor are worried.

A bit of light dawns when Hardy finds a draft of a document that he had already acted on: a handwritten list of places where his husband Eddie had wanted his ashes scattered. But there is one place that didn't make it to the final version: Beautiful.

Eddie never talked about his childhood in Beautiful, Saskatchewan. City-dweller Hardy has no idea what to expect when he goes there, with the support of his elderly neighbor, Baz, who has no intention of relinquishing her extravagant style even when they arrive in the bleak, snow-covered prairie crossroads that appears to be a ghost town. No luxury hotel. However, they find a meal and company at a Chinese restaurant that remains open, a bed in a nearly-empty convent tended by a single nun, and to their surprise, discover that while Beautiful is clearly dying, it still hosts a warm, welcoming community of Ukrainian-Canadians. Hardy and Baz develop a new appreciation of the austere beauty of the prairie, and uncover some long-buried secrets that will change Hardy’s life.

GOING TO BEAUTIFUL is a tender love letter to the prairie landscape, to the Ukrainian farmers who settled on land that reminded them of their breadbasket homeland, and to the remnants of towns that are vanishing. (It’s especially poignant to read at a time when Ukraine is bravely fighting for its very existence in the face of a genocidal war.) Bidulka opens with a hot spark of tragedy, then warms readers with a cast of charming characters and gentle humor, while also peering into the darkness that shrouds secrets, even in places named Beautiful.

It's an usual and delightful journey for readers, guided by a writer who knows exactly where he's going.

This is my first time reading an Anthony Bidulka book, though a couple of friends have raved about his Russell Quant series. Having been impressed with Going to Beautiful, I think I’ll be checking out his other offerings.

Jake Hardy, a celebrity chef, is left reeling after the sudden death of his husband of thirty years, Eddie Kravets. After a difficult year, Jake finds himself travelling to Beautiful, Saskatchewan, where it seems that Eddie was born. Accompanied by his friend and neighbour Baz, “a transgender bon vivant socialite,” Jake sets out to find Eddie’s family and to learn why Eddie never spoke of his family or hometown. Beautiful turns out to be a small town near Saskatoon with close-knit residents mostly of Ukrainian descent. From these residents, Jake learns about Eddie’s family but he also discovers dark secrets kept hidden for decades.

From the beginning I was charmed by Jake, the narrator. His voice and sense of humour are so appealing. He is suffering with the flu but describes himself as being “felled by the plague, the severity of which had heretofore been unknown to mankind.” To elicit sympathy and extort some mint chocolate ice cream, he leaves an “impressive pile of decongestants (oral and nasal), antihistamines, analgesics, antipyretics, cough suppressants, and expectorants” for Eddie to see. Awakened by a doorbell, he rages, “How dare Eddie allow someone to use the doorbell when I was on my deathbed? I cursed the ruckus and made a mental note to begin divorce proceedings as soon as I was better.” Jake is immediately relatable: if the reader is not like Jake, he/she will know someone like him.

Jake is not the only delightful character. Baz (Sebastienne Venkata Santhosh Kumar Sengupta) is a woman I’d love to meet. Not only is she the type of loyal and trustworthy friend everyone needs, but her idiosyncrasies endear her to the reader. How wonderful it is that the protagonist (55 years old) and his sidekick (78 years of age) are older people. The various inhabitants of Beautiful are unique and well-developed so the reader knows what to expect whenever one reappears. Gwen, for instance, will be having a drink and her conversation will be smattered with off-colour jokes and profanities.

Bidulka perfectly captures small-town life. Having grown up in a small town, I know how well everyone knows everyone, how quickly news and gossip spread, and how townspeople will come together to lend a helping hand. I couldn’t help but get nostalgic when I read about the three types of cookies Jake is served during a visit to a farm. And I’m craving some chokecherry jam!

The author’s love of the prairies resonates in his descriptions, and his pride in his Ukrainian heritage is palpable. I grew up in a town where most people were of Kashubian descent so my first language was Kashubian. Bidulka includes snippets of Ukrainian in the novel, and I was amazed by how similar Ukrainian and Kashubian are; I easily recognized phrases like Yak cya mahyesh? and Xto tahm? and words like vdoma, sveenya, dobrey, and dyakuyu.

This book has something for almost everyone. There’s more than one mystery about Eddie, there’s romance (a wonderfully unconventional relationship), and there’s ample humour. I particularly loved the gentle, subtle humour: a gathering of men is “like a low-budget, male version of The View”; designer gloves and scarves not intended for cold prairie winters “weren’t worth the tissue paper they’d been nestled in when we bought them”; and a convent on first appearance might be from The Sound of Music or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or the Bates Motel. A flirtatious farmer elicits a response from Jake: “Old MacDonald had more than a farm, he had moves.” And there’s Jake Hardy’s tongue-in-cheek comment: “I was someone looking for a quiet place to meet with Judah Kravchenko, not one of the Hardy Boys.”

Though my review is overwhelmingly positive, I must point out that the book is not perfect. I question the inclusion of Sister Genowefa’s story; that subplot seems unnecessary. What could have been included is a resident who was not so welcoming and open-minded. “Beauty can disguise a great many ugly things,” but homophobia and transphobia don’t exist in Beautiful? Though it makes for a satisfying ending, the epilogue does wrap things up very neatly, almost too neatly. However, I don’t mind if these objections are dismissed as caviling.

I loved the affirmative messages in the novel: it applauds people taking time “to celebrate the abundance of life and practice gratitude”; it recommends that one “lead with joy and joy will follow”; and it reminds us that “no matter how dark a soul, no matter how tortured, everyone deserves love.” The world is not totally devoid of hope and goodness.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read. I highly recommend it.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

A bit slow going at first, but once it picked up speed, it read fairly quickly. I like Russell Quant and now I want to visit Saskatoon.

While on sabbatical to recover from the events of the previous book, Russell Quant receives a voicemail from Jane Cross, another PI, asking him for help. He returns to Saskatchewan only to find that she has been murdered.

Since this installment dates from 2012, I assume it is the last in the series and serves a fitting, if at times rather dark, close to a series which focussed on beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes and eating and drinking fine foods and beverages in exotic locales½

Nayan (Neil) Gupta was killed on a trip to Dubai to acquire carpets for a Saskatoon museum. The police report says it was a street robbery that went wrong, but his father believes Neil was a victim of gay-bashing and asks Russell to investigate.

I think this series is starting to run out of steam and there may be a reason this appears to be the penultimate one.½

Flying back to Saskatoon from Hawaii, the passenger sitting next to Russell Quant tells him he has a treasure map. On their arrival, the passenger is murdered and when he gets home Russell finds the treasure map has been slipped into his jacket pocket. How can he not try to find the treasure?

The treasure hunt was great fun, actually more fun than the murder mystery itself.½

PI Russell Quant is approached by a woman who wants him to find her son, who had disappeared 20 years previously after being sent to a reformatory as a teenage delinquent.

Lots of twists and turns. Some of them I didn't see coming, some I did. It's been a while since I read the earlier books in the series, so my memory of some of the events referred to is a bit vague, which probably argues that I should read the rest of the series fairly soon.

This book was a strange read, but strange in a good way. Part literary fiction about small town life in Saskatchewan and part mystery. The characters were vibrant and well rounded, and above all, interesting. Many twists and surprises, which I don't want to give away, fill the novel.

I think this is in that group of mysteries known as "cozy" mysteries. More humor than detection, improbable scenarios, much nonsense. It isn't my cup of tea.

I found the humor predictable, the characters just annoying. I couldn't particularly like any of them. I also had a time keeping them straight - as in remembering who was who. Clearly this book is for somebody else and I hope this copy finds another reader who enjoys it.

A light amusing read with a likeable protagonist in the form of Russell Quant, private eye. There seem to be complaints that this isn’t a gay romance, but I never thought it was or should be, least not in the first book. Fast-paced entertainment. The ending for me, unfortunately, didn’t come as a surprise.