"A hitwoman is born in this fun and suspensful read!"
Reviewed by Sharon Galligar Chance
Posted October 5, 2012
Romance Contemporary
++What's a girl to do when she's got bills to pay, a niece to
look after, and a family full of crazies? Well, when you
are Maggie Lee, and times are tough, you become a hitwoman,
of course! Only one problem -- Maggie's new line of work
involves actually "hitting someone," as in murder. That's
where things get a little sticky!
In J.B. Lynn's charmingly hilarious novel, CONFESSIONS OF A
SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN, she takes her readers on a
lively journey along with her main character, the feisty
and funny Maggie Lee, as Maggie learns how to become a
mobster hitwoman.
After tragically loosing her sister and brother in law in a
car accident that leaves her niece Katie in a coma, Maggie
accidentally bumps into a man in the hospital and nearly
clobbers him to death with a chair when she sees him trying
to kill a young, innocent child. That child was the
grandson of one of the top mob bosses in New Jersey. So
when the boss offers Maggie a pile of money to get rid of his
son-in-law (the guy she clobbered with the chair), it's an
offer that Maggie just can't refuse. But she has to learn
the ins and outs of being a mobster hit-lady, and that's
where the handsome Patrick Mulligan comes in! Only one
little hitch -- Patrick is actually a police detective.
Confused -- don't be, because it all works out in the end of
this darkly funny story. J.B. Lynn does an excellent job
keeping the storyline fast and moving along, and her
characters are real and easy to relate to. I personally
loved how Katie's lizard talks to Maggie in the voice of
Alan Rickman (Professor Snape from Harry Potter) and
prefers to be addressed as God, short for Godzilla.
CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN is a fun read
with just the right amount of intrigue and suspense to keep
readers hooked for the duration of the story.
SUMMARY
Maggie Lee is not your average hitwoman. For one thing,
she’s never killed anyone. For another, after hitting her
head in the car accident that killed her sister, her new
best friend is a talking lizard—a picky eater, obsessed with
Wheel of Fortune, that only Maggie can
hear. Maggie, who can barely take care of herself, is
desperate to help her injured and orphaned niece get the
best medical care possible, so she reluctantly accepts a
mobster’s lucrative job offer: major cash to kill his
monstrous son-in-law. Paired with Patrick Mulligan, a
charming murder mentor (who happens to moonlight as a police
detective), Maggie stumbles down her new career path,
contending with self-doubt, three meddling aunts, a
semi-psychic friend predicting her doom, and a day job she
hates. Oh, and let’s not forget about Paul Kowalski, the
sexy beat cop who could throw her ass in jail if he finds
out what she’s up to. Training has never been so
complicated! And, this time, Maggie has to get the job done.
Because if she doesn’t … she’s the mob’s next target.
ExcerptYou just know it's going to be a bad day when you're
stuck at a red light and Death pulls up behind you in a
station wagon.
I'd been using the rearview mirror to touch up my lip
gloss when I spotted him. Okay, maybe he wasn't really
Death, but dressed in a black raincoat with the hood pulled
up covering his face, he sure looked like he could pluck a
scythe out of thin air.
It was one of those days when I kept catching the specter
of Death everywhere. I'd catch a glimpse of him in the
condensation on the bathroom mirror as I stepped out of the
shower, or burnt into my morning toast, or in the pile of
dog shit I narrowly missed stepping in...or didn't.
Death was idling behind me, and I was kinda freaked out.
Which was why, completely forgetting about the damn April
showers that had been falling for three days straight, I
floored my crappy, beat–up,
not–gently–used Honda the second that light
turned green.
Hydroplaning, the car spun out into the intersection,
with me pumping the brakes while wondering if I should have
been steering into the skid or out of it, and berating
myself for not having paid more attention during my high
school Driver's Ed course.
I knew I was gonna die. I could already hear the angels
singing.
Three months before, I'd had the same feeling as another
car slid out of control. I hadn't been driving then; my
sister's idiot husband had been behind the wheel. I'd been
in the backseat, singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to my
three–year–old niece Katie, trying to distract
her from the argument her parents were having in the front
seat. Suddenly the car swerved and squealed, and as we
rolled over onto the driver's side, I distinctly remember
thinking, Dear God, please don't let us die.
I didn't think that three months later. In this moment I
was resigned to my fate.
But then, miraculously, my little Honda gained traction,
and I achieved a semblance of control over the vehicle. I
wasn't in the clear, though. Squinting at the rearview
mirror, I could see that Death had followed me through the
rain–soaked intersection.
And I could still hear the singing of the angels, but it
wasn't a heavenly sound.
It was loud. It was annoying.
From the floor of the passenger seat, I snatched up the
bag of crickets that I'd bought for Godzilla. They were
making an unholy racket. I shook it hard. That shut the
little fuckers up.
When I first became responsible for Godzilla's care, I
tried giving him freeze–dried crickets. But that damn
lizard, he's got a discerning palate and insists on the live
version, which is a pain in the ass because I hate bugs.
Really hate ‘em. Just looking at them gives me that awful
creepy–crawly feeling, but I'd pledged to Katie that
I'd take good care of the only pet she'd ever been allowed.
There was no way of knowing whether she even knew I'd
made her that promise. She'd been in a coma, a "persistent
vegetative state," as the doctors liked to call it, ever
since the car accident. Her parents had died on impact,
according to police. I'd walked away unharmed...except for
the fact that I can now talk to a lizard.
"Call me God," he'd insisted the first time I'd thought
to feed him.
He'd never spoken to me before. I mean animals, or
reptiles or amphibians, or whatever the hell he is, don't
talk. I know that. I haven't gone totally around the bend.
But the thing is, ever since the car accident, we can
converse. And we do. A lot.
Maybe I've got brain damage, or maybe it's the emotional
trauma of having my sister die and almost losing Katie, but
I swear that I've turned into
Doctor–freakin–Dolittle.
Of course, I haven't told anyone about my newfound
ability. They'd lock me up in a funny farm like my mom. Or
run a bunch of tests. Or run a bunch of tests and then lock
me up. And if they did that, I wouldn't be able to visit
Katie. And she'd be left all alone there, lying in a
hospital bed, with only the witches to look after her.
My three aunts aren't really witches. I'm not so
delusional as to think they've got magical powers. They're
just extraordinarily evil in their own "helpfully"
meddlesome way.
So I keep the secret conversations with God to myself.
To the rest of the world, it probably appears that I'm
coping pretty well. I wash my clothes, bring the newspaper
in, and have even gone back to work in hell (also known as
an insurance company call center).
My piddly paycheck isn't going to make much of a dent in
the pile of hospital bills that are piling up faster than a
Colorado snowfall, but it's a decent cover. It's not like I
can go around putting HITWOMAN on my tax return.
Death, or at least the driver in the station wagon,
coasted past as I turned my blinker on to signal my turn
into Apple Blossom Estates. There's no such thing as apple
blossoms. Three months before, God, licking his lizard lips
after chowing down on a cricket, had pointed out that even
he knew that. But it sounds fancy right? Or at least like
the over–promising prose of a condo developer's
advertising. It's not. It's just a fancy name for a brain
injury rehab, or as they like to call it, a "premium care
facility."
Parking in the visitors' lot, I left the bag o' bugs to
their chirping (which sounded suspiciously like Madonna's
"Like a Prayer") and headed inside. It was time to tell my
boss that I was ready to kill a man.
But you're probably wondering how a nice girl like me
got a job like this....
You just know it's going to be a bad day when you're
stuck at a red light and Death pulls up behind you in a
station wagon.
I'd been using the rearview mirror to touch up my lip
gloss when I spotted him. Okay, maybe he wasn't really
Death, but dressed in a black raincoat with the hood pulled
up covering his face, he sure looked like he could pluck a
scythe out of thin air.
It was one of those days when I kept catching the
specter of Death everywhere. I'd catch a glimpse of him in
the condensation on the bathroom mirror as I stepped out of
the shower, or burnt into my morning toast, or in the pile
of dog shit I narrowly missed stepping in...or didn't.
Death was idling behind me, and I was kinda freaked out.
Which was why, completely forgetting about the damn April
showers that had been falling for three days straight, I
floored my crappy, beat–up,
not–gently–used Honda the second that light
turned green.
Hydroplaning, the car spun out into the intersection,
with me pumping the brakes while wondering if I should have
been steering into the skid or out of it, and berating
myself for not having paid more attention during my high
school Driver's Ed course.
I knew I was gonna die. I could already hear the angels
singing.
Three months before, I'd had the same feeling as another
car slid out of control. I hadn't been driving then; my
sister's idiot husband had been behind the wheel. I'd been
in the backseat, singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to my
three–year–old niece Katie, trying to distract
her from the argument her parents were having in the front
seat. Suddenly the car swerved and squealed, and as we
rolled over onto the driver's side, I distinctly remember
thinking, Dear God, please don't let us die.
I didn't think that three months later. In this moment I
was resigned to my fate.
But then, miraculously, my little Honda gained traction,
and I achieved a semblance of control over the vehicle. I
wasn't in the clear, though. Squinting at the rearview
mirror, I could see that Death had followed me through the
rain–soaked intersection.
And I could still hear the singing of the angels, but it
wasn't a heavenly sound.
It was loud. It was annoying.
From the floor of the passenger seat, I snatched up the
bag of crickets that I'd bought for Godzilla. They were
making an unholy racket. I shook it hard. That shut the
little fuckers up.
When I first became responsible for Godzilla's care, I
tried giving him freeze–dried crickets. But that damn
lizard, he's got a discerning palate and insists on the live
version, which is a pain in the ass because I hate bugs.
Really hate ‘em. Just looking at them gives me that awful
creepy–crawly feeling, but I'd pledged to Katie that
I'd take good care of the only pet she'd ever been allowed.
There was no way of knowing whether she even knew I'd
made her that promise. She'd been in a coma, a "persistent
vegetative state," as the doctors liked to call it, ever
since the car accident. Her parents had died on impact,
according to police. I'd walked away unharmed...except for
the fact that I can now talk to a lizard.
"Call me God," he'd insisted the first time I'd thought
to feed him.
He'd never spoken to me before. I mean animals, or
reptiles or amphibians, or whatever the hell he is, don't
talk. I know that. I haven't gone totally around the bend.
But the thing is, ever since the car accident, we can
converse. And we do. A lot.
Maybe I've got brain damage, or maybe it's the emotional
trauma of having my sister die and almost losing Katie, but
I swear that I've turned into
Doctor–freakin–Dolittle.
Of course, I haven't told anyone about my newfound
ability. They'd lock me up in a funny farm like my mom. Or
run a bunch of tests. Or run a bunch of tests and then lock
me up. And if they did that, I wouldn't be able to visit
Katie. And she'd be left all alone there, lying in a
hospital bed, with only the witches to look after her.
My three aunts aren't really witches. I'm not so
delusional as to think they've got magical powers. They're
just extraordinarily evil in their own "helpfully"
meddlesome way.
So I keep the secret conversations with God to myself. To
the rest of the world, it probably appears that I'm coping
pretty well. I wash my clothes, bring the newspaper in, and
have even gone back to work in hell (also known as an
insurance company call center).
My piddly paycheck isn't going to make much of a dent in
the pile of hospital bills that are piling up faster than a
Colorado snowfall, but it's a decent cover. It's not like I
can go around putting HITWOMAN on my tax return.
Death, or at least the driver in the station wagon,
coasted past as I turned my blinker on to signal my turn
into Apple Blossom Estates. There's no such thing as apple
blossoms. Three months before, God, licking his lizard lips
after chowing down on a cricket, had pointed out that even
he knew that. But it sounds fancy right? Or at least like
the over–promising prose of a condo developer's
advertising. It's not. It's just a fancy name for a brain
injury rehab, or as they like to call it, a "premium care
facility."
Parking in the visitors' lot, I left the bag o' bugs to
their chirping (which sounded suspiciously like Madonna's
"Like a Prayer") and headed inside. It was time to tell my
boss that I was ready to kill a man.
But you're probably wondering how a nice girl like me got
a job like this....
What do you think about this review?
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