Here’s the thing: I do not like Hawaii. I’m sorry if I am offending anyone. But I’m a freckle face (before lasers), pale, heat-melting girl. Hot = Bad. I’m the only one in my family who has this problem … they are forever begging me to go tropical. But I’m the mom and Ice Land = Good.

However, when my friend Dee DeTarsio (Goodreads Author) sent me Opium Dreams, she had no idea I felt this way about Hawaii and all those other melt-alicious Islands. (If you read her book, The Kitchen Shrink, she will be your bff too. Well, it will seem like it anyway. We’ve never actually met.) So. I read Opium Dreams. And now I have no idea, zero, why I’d never read any Kiana Davenport before.

Each short story is a small masterpiece. And each one is so completely different from the others that I was a bit skeptical this was the work of a single author. How can one author create such completely unique and captivating voices? Then I realized how: Davenport is the Meryl Streep of authors. Put on a different wig and the transformation is complete – this is what Meryl Streep has said of her characters. I’m thinking Davenport must have a closet full of wigs herself.

I still don’t like Hawaii. But I love this book. Thanks, Dee.