Westside has more thick, juicy layers than a weighty feast at a New York deli.

Let's lift the crusty bread on this one........

Gilda Carr dabbles in tiny mysteries and she likes it that way. The smaller, the quicker, the better. It's September of 1921 in Washington Square and she's headed to Manhattan. Edith Copeland, wife of Galen Copeland who owns a shipping firm on the river, has hired her to find a missing ladies leather glove. The gloves were an unexpected gift from her husband and she lost one while shopping. Sounds like a doable for petite Gilda Carr.

While on the hunt, Gilda spots what seems to be an exact match in a small shop in Thieves' Market on the Eastside. She slips the single glove into her bag as she walks toward the door. The owner is on to her and he is just about breathing down her neck as she hits the sidewalk. In hot pursuit the owner is joined by others as Gilda barely makes it to the gates of the Westside. The men stop in their tracks. No one enters into the darkness of the Westside unless you're looking for trouble. No one except the likes of Gilda with that glove. And that single glove is the makings for some big time crime in New York City.

Westside grabbed me by the collar from the get-go with the main character of Gilda Carr. The dialogue was crisp and biting and the atmosphere was nicely sullied with bits of reality here. W.M. Akers lines this story with the impact of gang life with boys not out of short pants carrying bloody sticks. It's also the Prohibition Era with bootlegging and booze wars happening around every corner. We have dedicated police and those on the take. There are businessmen with smut on their sleeves and a city divided into sunlight and darkness.

It was all there in Westside. But then W.M. Ayers couldn't quite put down his shovel. There were just too many incidents and too many characters on the loose. More is just more. It seemed that Gilda Carr had taken too, too many bites out of the Big Apple. Some fine-tuning and editing should have pared down the last chapters. I still have hope for Gilda Carr if there is another book in this series. Just take the essence of the beginning of the book and hold it steady in the next.

I received a copy of Westside through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Harper Collins and to W.M. Akers for the opportunity.

Clever, unique, and a very brisk read - think Gangs of New York meets Annihilation, and filtered through the gentle, witty prose of a Jane Austen. In a 1920s New York City split in half at Broadway by a magical reclaiming of the titular Westside (by wild and powerful magics), a twisty mystery that spirals out of control takes a private detective on a wild ride after she accepts a case searching for the missing half of a pair of gloves, given by an absentee husband to his long-suffering wife. Between the vivid prose and wildly inventive plot, this is a worthwhile and quick read!

This was just too slow for my tastes. The premise was decent enough but I suspect a better knowledge of New York would've helped my understanding. I suspect a lot of readers will like it, though.

WESTSIDE is a fantastic dose of the world of Neil Gaiman, with a pinch of GANGS OF NEW YORK, a dollop of Charles Dicken's pickpocketing street urchins, and the tough cops and New York society of Caleb Carr. In this alternative history of Prohibition New York, the city is split in two by a guarded fence but that doesn't deter a quirky private detective from solving her "tiny mystery" cases on both the East and Westside. Very few souls venture into the Westside but that is where Gilda feels most at home even though she is as comfortable in her mother's Eastside society as she is with her father's rough beat cops and the low lives, bootleggers and street gangs of the Westside. While solving the tiny mystery of a missing glove she stumbles into something much darker and the middle of an all-out war for control of both sides of New York. The many characters, similar yet invented New York and the rapid pace of the various storylines can be confusing but Gilda's clever wit and street charm will quickly win you over. A solid 3 1/2 stars. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

I enjoyed this cross between historical fiction and fantasy. While there was a bit of a lull in the middle the end wrapped up nicely. I do hope that this will be a series. I would like to see how the characters develop.

As a fan of historical fiction, I thought I would enjoy Westside, but that was not the case. The story world setting is just not plausible in my mind. It's just a bit too far out to really connect with reality of the time and place. I skimmed through parts of it because I didn't care enough about the outcome to commit my time to this story. Overall it's an average read that I know many readers will enjoy. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

My typical preference is YA paranormal/supernatural fantasy, but this one caught my eye due to the 'tiny mysteries' element - what a fun and unusual concept - and the magical strange New York. I was delighted by the narrator in the beginning, but ultimately DNF at 20%. I was having trouble completely grasping the the concept of this reimagined New York and couldn't quite put myself in the story's world. And while the narrator at first amused me, I couldn't click with her completely and didn't quite like her either (however, I did wonder if it is a case of the protagonist maturing as the story progresses, but didn't feel invested enough to find out).

So this book is not my usual cup of tea, but was unique enough to catch my eye; but I believe it started at a disadvantage since it's not something I typically find myself interested in. Who would like this book? I'd recommend it to period mystery fans, especially those that like a magical element and quirky female characters.

A lot certainly happens in this novel. Lots of people fight, die, disappear, reappear, argue; there are lots of locations, with clever worldbuilding that is, I think, the strongest part of the novel. The problem is that the plot is not particularly engrossing. I found myself bored, my mind wandering off even while my eyes continued to read. That is never a good sign for me.
Neither the protagonist nor her conflicts were very interesting, unfortunately. There were some pacing issues, as well, that made some scene confusing and muddled. This is also the fault of not having strongly defined characters. In some scenes where the dialogue was not clearly marked, it was tough to know who was speaking, and that is always because the characters do not have clear "voices".
As I said, the worldbuilding was strong, and mainly why I kept reading. Still, I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend it to others.