Title: First, I Love You
Author: Genevieve Dewey
Publication date: June 29, 2012
Genre: Contemporary Drama with romance subplot
Event organized by: Literati Literature Lovers
If Mario Puzo and Jane Austen crossed the time-space continuum and mated, “First, I Love You” would be their literary baby. Imagine being a detective with a mobster for a father, or a mobster with a straight arrow, good cop for a son. This is a relationship that is tricky on its best day. Add in some well-meaning meddling from a mob princess sister, an arrogant DEA agent, and gangsters running a human trafficking ring and you have a recipe for a book that refuses to follow the rules. Told from the perspective and point of view of each the six main characters this is the first novel in a trilogy about love, loyalty, revenge and redemption.
Omaha Detective Tommy Gates has kept his gangster father at arm’s length his whole life. Mickey Downey has spent the better part of the last two decades trying to find ways to get back the son he lost through Witness Protection. Now Tommy has taken an opportunity to work on a Federal Human Trafficking Joint Task Force in Chicago where his father lives. Tommy’s sister Kiki and his mother Mary see this as an opportunity to build a relationship between the two. Tommy’s new DEA partner James Hoffman sees it as an opportunity to gain leverage over Mickey Downey. Tommy’s other partner, FBI Agent Ginny Sommers wants to keep Tommy’s family as far from the case as possible. When Kiki and James join forces, sparks fly and it sets fire to a maelstrom of unexpected consequences for everyone involved.
One part The Godfather, two parts Emma and a dash of Casablanca mixed together, “First, I Love You” isn’t a detective novel, a gangster novel, a mystery, a romance or a family saga. It’s a little of all of the above.
Title: Second of All
Author: Genevieve Dewey
Publication date: December 31, 2012
Genre: Contemporary Drama with romance subplot
Event organized by: Literati Literature Lovers
“…for there is nothing so perfect as a thing with no ending and no beginning such as a family of souls intertwined…”
This introspective sequel to First, I Love You takes you deeper into a tale of interwoven roles, divided loyalties, and personal conflicts.
Detective Tommy Gates and Agent Ginny Sommers struggle to balance their growing personal relationship with their task of finding his father. Back home, Kiki Downey and James Hoffman are facing their own internal and external pressures. After Mary Gates is led on a different trail by Mickey's Irish kin, they are all given pieces of a puzzle that it will take the whole family to solve. Interlocked within the narrative are glimpses into how Mickey Downey became the man he is today.
Throughout their journeys, past and present, they all must struggle with what loyalties and loves come first, and what comes... second of all.
This introspective sequel to First, I Love You takes you deeper into a tale of interwoven roles, divided loyalties, and personal conflicts.
Detective Tommy Gates and Agent Ginny Sommers struggle to balance their growing personal relationship with their task of finding his father. Back home, Kiki Downey and James Hoffman are facing their own internal and external pressures. After Mary Gates is led on a different trail by Mickey's Irish kin, they are all given pieces of a puzzle that it will take the whole family to solve. Interlocked within the narrative are glimpses into how Mickey Downey became the man he is today.
Throughout their journeys, past and present, they all must struggle with what loyalties and loves come first, and what comes... second of all.
1. Is there a question you'd love someone to ask you, but they haven't? If so, what is it, and how would you answer it?
No, actually. LOL Recently I was asked if I would consider writing anther Downey novel featuring Joe Downey (always an option!) and if Claire Anderson Underwood is connected to the Andersons in Bird Day Battalion (yes, Tom Anderson, Katelyn’s dad, is her brother).
2. Some authors listen to music while writing, others prefer a quiet space. Which is your preference? If you do listen to music, do you have a playlist? Care to share?
I like to listen to music when writing sometimes, other times, not at all. It just depends on my mood. I listen to whatever music fits the tone of the scene. When I edit I need absolute silence. When I write for Kiki & James I tend to listen to a lot of pop/dance music. When I write Mary & Mickey I vacillate between the old school Ella Fitzgerald style jazz and Irish music. When writing Mickey in Mobster mode it’s Alabama 3 and Macklemore, oddly enough. Ha! Tommy and Ginny’s theme songs in my mind have always been Some Nights, Kryptonite, and Too Close.
3. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
When I have a scene clear in my head but I am having trouble finding the right words to describe it, I like to open a can of Pringles and drink whiskey to help loosen my thoughts. Not too much though, I’m trying to tell a story not get fat and drunk. Hee!
4. Which of your characters would you like to meet in person and why?
Mickey Downey. He is, hands down, the most fun to write character I have in my head. He’s so many incongruent things at once and I think it would be fun to have a philosophical debate with him. Over a glass of whiskey in a jam jar, naturally.
5. If your book were made into a movie, who do you picture playing each characters part?
Hmmn, I’ve been asked this before and it’s still tough to answer. I think I wouldn’t mind someone like Jason Isaacs for Mickey because he can play both that ruthless and cold aspect and a softer, gentler aspect he has with Mary and young Tommy. James, I wouldn’t mind Taylor Kinney, he’s soft on the eyes and would have the arrogance down for sure. I often picture the blond FBI agent from Criminal Minds when I think of Ginny, but I haven’t really watched the show to know if the personalities match. Kiki and Tommy are tough. I really don’t have anyone in mind for Kiki, just so long as she is beautiful and spunky. I could see Jay Ryan from Beauty and the Beast playing Tommy. Mary, hmmnn, in my mind she has a heart shaped face like Ginnifer Goodwin, but will auburn hair, of course.
Genevieve Dewey is the author of The Downey Trilogy (First, I Love You & Second of All) and the short stories Bird Day Battalion & V-Day Aversion. She is a wife, mother, sister, friend and Anthropologist. She was raised mostly in Nebraska, partly in Arizona. She has a Master’s in Anthropology and worked as an Applied Anthropologist for years (even ran her own research company for a while) before deciding to be a stay at home mom. She loves passionate (rational) debates, reading, and libraries… oh, and Chicago and high-heels and chocolate and target practice and gangster flicks and anything with the FBI in it and run-on sentences. She lives in Nebraska with her three brilliantly diabolical children and one incredibly funny husband.
This review is for the first book First, I Love You, the copy was provided for an honest review.
Sometimes when I sit down to read a book I think to myself this is never going to work there is no way I am going to be able to stay awake and read this story. I thought that would be the case with First, I Love You. This book is not told from on person's point of view or two people's points of view... but a total of six different people. At first I couldn't figure out what all these people have in common you have Tommy Gates a detective, his mother Mary Gates, his father Michael "Mickey" Downey, half sister and daughter to Mickey Downey Kiki, and two FBI agents Ginny and James. I was like say what now??? I thought for sure that this was going to be a story about how a father abandoned his son who he had with his mistress Mary Gates who also happened to be a gangster and her son turned into a detective to bust his own father. But I was surprised to find that this story was so much more than that. This story had a bit of everything, gangsters, special agents, a daughter who appears to be a mod daughter/princess, a human trafficking ring, a son searching for a way to connect with the father that he never had in his life but never stopped loving him, and the best part? You don't get to see one love interest story develop here but three!!! In any other book I would have had to buy three different books just to get the three stories I got in this one it was like a three for one special. I don't want to give anything away about the book (since I have a tendency to start rambling and then give away too much...) but let me say that this story intrigued me enough to WANT to read the second book. I've never seen anything done like this book before and I thoroughly enjoyed it unable to put it down and reading the entire night until I was done with it. The story may have been told from multiple points of view but all the characters were connected to one another and it made the story work. I look forward to reading the second book and learning where these characters go with their stories and especially what happens with Mary and Mickey, I give it four stars!
(10) set digital copy of First, I Love You and Second of All
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