What do you think?
Rate this book
Idaho #2
From Hell to Breakfast
Wilhelmina "Bil" Hardy is at loose ends-and in the small college-town of Cowslip, Idaho, that's a mighty short length of rope. After a long struggle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and an even longer struggle with the law, Bil's brother Sam has died. Bil is devastated, but she has no time to grieve. Her sisters, Sarah and Naomi, seem to be dating the same cowboy, but neither knows they're sharing. Her girlfriend Sylvie is having mother troubles. Her role model, lesbian separatist and commune-builder Captain Schwartz, is having ex-husband troubles. And, worst of all, Bil's parents have sold the family home and bought 200 acres on a remote hillside from a notoriously crooked businessman. Bil's mother, Emma, is looking forward to evicting local drug dealer and Sam's erstwhile pot supplier, Jake the Snake, from a run-down shack on the hillside, but someone beats her to it-with a shotgun. Who killed Jake? What's the unwelcome news from Captain Schwartz's ex-husband? Who is pushy preacher George Knox and what does he want? And, most puzzling of all, what do Bil's sisters see in bow-legged two-timer Buck DeWitt? Bil must answer all of these questions and more while trying to keep her relationship with Sylvie from going AWOL. Holy Cowslip It's business as unusual for Bil and her crazy Idaho cadre.
305 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2009
26 people want to read
About the author
Joan Opyr
4 books13 followersJoan Opyr was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and now lives in Idaho with her partner and their two children. She is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where she earned a BA and an MA in English, and she is ABD for her PhD in Old English from The Ohio State University. Though Joan often writes about her adopted home of Idaho, she is a Tarheel through and through and hopes someday to return to the Old North State. In the meantime, she is a nursing student at Lewis-Clark State College because she believes that all writers should have a day job. Otherwise, how could they afford food and shelter?
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Read
June 18, 2020I recently read an unfavorable review of a book that I had enjoyed. The reviewer gave the book 2 stars without saying anything negative about the book—and without having read more than two chapters. It was reading this review, or rather non-review, that spurred me into finishing From Hell to Breakfast, the second book in Joan Opyr’s Idaho Code series. Otherwise, I probably would have stopped about halfway through. There is almost no justification for rating a book you have not finished. It’s not fair to the author or the story.
Because I had enjoyed the first book in the series, my lack of interest in From Hell to Breakfast was surprising until I realized that much of what Opyr was doing in the second novel had already been done in the first—and in the same way. As she did in the first novel, she attempts to write a literary work and a mystery at the same time. It worked for the most part in book 1, but in book 2 the characters and their antics get old and boring. Corssdressers, lesbian separatists, drug dealers are okay once, but not twice. And the major new elements are puzzling at best.
When the story begins, Bil and her girlfriend Sylvie have been together two years. Bil’s brother has finally succumbed to cancer and she is having trouble dealing with his death, which affects her relationship with Sylvie. Not a bad opening, but after that, Opyr has trouble deciding in which direction to go. There are multiple sub-stories, at least two of which should be completely cut out. One is Bil’s newly discovered ability to sing hymns like a professional, despite never having gone to church or taken voice lessons. We also find out about her—and Sylvie’s—latent religious beliefs. Because the story involves a right-wing, bigoted local pastor, the religious tone—which includes a number of well-placed religious metaphors and similes—makes sense. Yet what it reads like to me is that the author herself is having a spiritual crisis and is trying to resolve it through her characters.
Not much of it works. There is simply too much going on. And then there’s the problem of Bil and Sylvie. Their relationship is just too gushy and lovey, and repeated again and again and again. But here’s the thing: Although Sylvie is a pretty good character—smart, cheerful, pretty—it’s hard, if not impossible, to understand what she sees in Bil, who never seems to actually do anything except argue with her family and make stupid decisions. We never see her studying, hear about her goals in life, or even read that she cooks a decent meal. She is just kind of a nothing that everyone seems to love and insist on having her present in even the most unimportant scenes.
In Opyr’s Acknowledgments, she hints that the book gave her a lot of trouble and that it went through many revisions. This is true, of course, for almost every book ever written, but the fact that she stated it in what almost seemed to be an apologetic manner concerned me. I wondered about the fact that it was not published by Val MJcDermid’s Bywater Books, which had published the first one. Was the book rejected by Bywater, forcing Opyr to look elsewhere, or did Opyr choose to move on for other reasons?
In my article entitled “Read the First Book First,” I give my opinion that the first book in a series is the easiest and most fun to write; the characters and settings are fresh and new. Subsequent books have to work around the fact that most of the descriptions and backstories and friendships have already been done. Opyr chooses to rehash these; even her best line from book 1: “I worshiped the water Sylvie Wood walked on,” is cannibalized here. A pity. She even uses the same painting on both book covers.
Unlike the reviewer I mentioned above, I finished the book. Am I glad I did? Well, not especially. Although Opyr got a little better the deeper she went into the story, that only emphasized the difficulty she had in trying to achieve any harmony in the beginning. If I had rated the first half, I would have given it half a star less than the book as a whole. But that still wouldn't have been a very high rating.
Note: I read the first printing of the first Bllue Feather Books printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
Because I had enjoyed the first book in the series, my lack of interest in From Hell to Breakfast was surprising until I realized that much of what Opyr was doing in the second novel had already been done in the first—and in the same way. As she did in the first novel, she attempts to write a literary work and a mystery at the same time. It worked for the most part in book 1, but in book 2 the characters and their antics get old and boring. Corssdressers, lesbian separatists, drug dealers are okay once, but not twice. And the major new elements are puzzling at best.
When the story begins, Bil and her girlfriend Sylvie have been together two years. Bil’s brother has finally succumbed to cancer and she is having trouble dealing with his death, which affects her relationship with Sylvie. Not a bad opening, but after that, Opyr has trouble deciding in which direction to go. There are multiple sub-stories, at least two of which should be completely cut out. One is Bil’s newly discovered ability to sing hymns like a professional, despite never having gone to church or taken voice lessons. We also find out about her—and Sylvie’s—latent religious beliefs. Because the story involves a right-wing, bigoted local pastor, the religious tone—which includes a number of well-placed religious metaphors and similes—makes sense. Yet what it reads like to me is that the author herself is having a spiritual crisis and is trying to resolve it through her characters.
Not much of it works. There is simply too much going on. And then there’s the problem of Bil and Sylvie. Their relationship is just too gushy and lovey, and repeated again and again and again. But here’s the thing: Although Sylvie is a pretty good character—smart, cheerful, pretty—it’s hard, if not impossible, to understand what she sees in Bil, who never seems to actually do anything except argue with her family and make stupid decisions. We never see her studying, hear about her goals in life, or even read that she cooks a decent meal. She is just kind of a nothing that everyone seems to love and insist on having her present in even the most unimportant scenes.
In Opyr’s Acknowledgments, she hints that the book gave her a lot of trouble and that it went through many revisions. This is true, of course, for almost every book ever written, but the fact that she stated it in what almost seemed to be an apologetic manner concerned me. I wondered about the fact that it was not published by Val MJcDermid’s Bywater Books, which had published the first one. Was the book rejected by Bywater, forcing Opyr to look elsewhere, or did Opyr choose to move on for other reasons?
In my article entitled “Read the First Book First,” I give my opinion that the first book in a series is the easiest and most fun to write; the characters and settings are fresh and new. Subsequent books have to work around the fact that most of the descriptions and backstories and friendships have already been done. Opyr chooses to rehash these; even her best line from book 1: “I worshiped the water Sylvie Wood walked on,” is cannibalized here. A pity. She even uses the same painting on both book covers.
Unlike the reviewer I mentioned above, I finished the book. Am I glad I did? Well, not especially. Although Opyr got a little better the deeper she went into the story, that only emphasized the difficulty she had in trying to achieve any harmony in the beginning. If I had rated the first half, I would have given it half a star less than the book as a whole. But that still wouldn't have been a very high rating.
Note: I read the first printing of the first Bllue Feather Books printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
November 19, 2013
A great little character-driven novel. The plot sometimes wavers on the back burner, but the story is really about these unique characters in their small town. It reminded me a lot of a Fannie Flagg novel. The only quibble I had was that every character had the same manner and way of speaking; just by reading the dialogue it wasn't necessarily clear who it was speaking. But the dialogue itself is clever and snappy, so it's a joy to read. Fun little book overall.
August 12, 2010
As funny and touching as its predecessor, Idaho Code, this book is as much about family and friendship as it is about the mystery or the romance plots that drive the action. As Bil tried to find out who killed her late brother's drug supplier, she learns at least as much about herself and about how to build deep friendships as she does about the murder.
July 27, 2009
Funny and well-written lesbian romance with mystery elements set in small town rural Idaho.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews