Lisa Henson
This series is so much fun! I love that our protagonist, Emily Wilson, is a flutist. That's an occupation not often seen in the cozies I've read. The details B. J. Bowen includes about the symphony and its inner workings are wonderful to learn about, because that's something way out of my experience.
And the inner workings of the symphony may be what got Curtis Strange killed here. He was on the Symphony Board, where he got along with exactly no one, and he was a land developer with ethics that were questionable at best. He's shot at the climax of the symphony's Fourth of July performance, when a gunshot or two would sound like just another firework. Many people had reason to dislike him, but who wanted him dead? When part of KC's past rears its head and makes her the prime suspect, Emily knows she's got to find some way to focus the investigation away from her friend.
Bowen's writing style is smooth and easy to read, dare I say, almost lyrical. She creates a world I can easily envision and think I'd like to visit. I love the characters she creates, and I'm glad we get to know more about KC in this story. We get to see a lot more of Emily's beloved dog, Golden, too, and that's always a good thing. And Bowen certainly had me guessing as to the mystery! She set up suspects and then deftly knocked them out of the running, and kept me enthralled right up to the end.
Cozy fans, I highly recommend you pick up Fireworks on the Fourth. Just in time for summer reading!
I am positively enchanted by this series!
In this installment, Maud and Daisy are contacted by a maid who works for an art dealer. She fears the gallery is dealing in forged art and engages the agency's services. They travel to the village of Braemar to investigate, and on the way, Maud literally has a man's dead body drop into her lap.
They don't intend to get involved in the murder investigation. But as they dig into the possible forgeries, there's another murder, this time of the artist who may have been creating the fake works of art. Maud and Daisy realize that all three crimes may be interconnected.
I just love the relationship between Maud and Daisy! They aren't superior and servant, they're friends. And I like Maud, but Daisy seems like someone I would really enjoy hanging out with. I also appreciate the way Travers incorporates Daisy's accent into the story. It isn't written in such a way that it's distracting to read, but it does help me “hear” it in my head. I had to look up a couple of the words she used, and “sweetiewife” may have just added itself to my vocabulary.
The mystery wasn't extremely convoluted, and as I read through the story, the big reveal of the murderer's identity wasn't a tremendous surprise. The village of Braemar is small, and the cast of suspects was limited. But the reveal itself was clever, and it's fun to see our lady detectives learn and work to improve their skills. I certainly don't think I'd have the pluck to set myself out as a private investigator!
The hints of potential romance between Maud and Lord Hamish Urquhart are a treat, too. Maud really twists herself in knots trying to avoid admitting even an inkling of feelings for him, while he's much clearer about his feelings for her. I hope we see more developments between them in future books.
And I loved the detail about Maud learning to work out with Indian clubs! My husband uses them to strengthen his arms and shoulders. I'm glad to know Maud won't be a shrinking violet if she finds herself in a sticky situation. Maybe Daisy should quit poking fun at Maud over them and try them herself.
Kudos to Lydia Travers for an engaging series. Hopefully one day I'll get to see Scotland for myself. Until then, I'll live vicariously through our lady detectives.
I've read a fair bit of World War II fiction. It's usually set somewhere like Germany, France, maybe England, occasionally someplace unfamiliar like the Channel Islands (unfamiliar to me, anyway). Before The Long March Home, I'd never read World War II fiction set in the Philippines.
Jimmy Propfield grew up loving Claire Crockett, before he even knew what love was. She was his best friend, and his circle expanded to include her younger brother Billy, and later Hank Wright. As Jimmy grew older, he realized that maybe he really could envision a future with her. But life intervened – the weight of parental expectations, the thought of living in his hometown of Mobile for always – and he broke things off with Claire. Then, when unspeakable tragedy occurs, Jimmy, his best friend Hank, and Claire's younger brother Billy all enlist in the army, without even saying goodbye.
At first, their tour of duty in the Philippines seems almost like paradise. The island where they're stationed is lush and beautiful, and a good time is easy to come by. But when the Japanese attack following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, paradise rapidly becomes a nightmare. Japan's occupation of the country is unrelenting, and prisoners of war are treated brutally. Jimmy, Hank, and Billy find themselves compelled, along with thousands of other American and Filipino soldiers, to march from one camp to another. The march, later known as the Bataan Death March, was about 65 miles of hard going in tropical conditions. The solders had little to no food and inadequate medical care. Those who couldn't keep up were killed where they stood.
Brotherton and Lee have clearly done their research. The Philippines were pretty much left hung out to dry, with no military support and no supplies, but they held on as long as they could and then some. There are times Jimmy isn't sure he can keep his promise that all three of them will make it home alive, and the descriptions of the struggles he and his friends endure can sometimes make for difficult reading. The book never strays into painting a more lurid picture for shock value, though. The events portrayed are integral to the story.
When Jimmy is describing what they went through, a superior officer basically tells him he's making stuff up and if he keeps at it, he'll be court-martialed. The superior officer simply could not believe that anyone could survive the things he's hearing about because they were so very awful. I understand that this book is based on real events. After this fictional account, I'm interested to read some of the sources the authors recommend.
I've seen some comments out there questioning why this was published by Revell, a Christian publisher, when it describes clearly un-Christian behavior during war. Drinking, swearing, chasing women. I'll agree, it is not typical Christian fiction (if there is such a thing). It isn't sweet and pure and gentle. But it is good, and faith is a clear part of the story. Jimmy wrestles with his pastor father's assumption that Jimmy will follow him into the pastorate – how many Christians have wrestled with God about a call to ministry? And in the throes of war, he sometimes seems to lose faith in God entirely. Would I lose my faith, even momentarily, in such dire straits? I hope I'm never in such a situation to find out. I would also argue that even the most Christlike of us might show our worst when war is raging around us. We as Christians aren't perfect on our best days, and in our humanness, we can lose it when times get tough.
Even in unimaginably difficult circumstances, hope is not lost. There is still kindness and concern for a fellow man. Hank puts himself at great risk to help others. Billy is willing to sacrifice himself to allow his friends to take an unexpected chance to escape. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5 NIV).
If you're a fan of historical fiction, or simply a fan of a very well told story, with characters written with great depth that you can cheer for, hurt for, and cry for, pick up The Long March Home. It's one of those powerful, deeply moving stories that will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.
Everyone in Saxford may be invited to the party, but not everyone in Saxford will be welcomed there. When Kitty Marchant's grandparents owned Farfield Castle, they had an open-door policy. Always willing to lend a helping hand, they were beloved, and people were shocked when they lost the castle and their son Benet refused to help them save their home.
The castle changed hands, and has now changed hands again due to Freya Hardwicke's misfortune. Nate Marchant has bought the former family home, along with novelist and brother-in-law Julian Fisher, and they plan to make it into a writing retreat. So the village may be looking forward to the fete, but several people are unhappy that Farfield Castle won't be available to the public. Local teacher Ella Tyndall would have allowed for that, but her bid for the castle was turned down.
Eve is on the premises to do a write-up on the writers' retreat. As tends to happen, she finds herself in the midst of a murder investigation when Kitty is found dead in the icehouse. The officer in charge of the case can't be trusted to handle it properly, as he's more concerned with this new venture succeeding than actually finding the killer. So Eve, now tasked with writing Kitty's obituary, keeps her eyes and ears open and does a little digging of her own.
Clare Chase gives us a wealth of suspects to chase down along with Eve. Seems like everyone has a secret. Why did Bonnie, Julian's assistant, lie about the necklace Eve saw her wearing – a necklace that clearly upset Kitty? Is Luke, the other reporter on the scene, stalking Kitty? And what is Julian's story? Everything he does seems shifty, somehow – hardly the actions of a loving husband.
Chase isn't in a hurry to show us whodunnit here. She lets the tension build and takes us down some interesting rabbit trails and gives us bits and pieces of people's backstories. The killer's motivation turns out to have some pretty deep roots, indeed.
I also like that we see more of the relationship between Robin and Eve here. Robin isn't directly involved in the story too much. He's off in London, testifying against the people who had him in the witness protection program. But Eve stays in touch with him, and they're in a good spot by the time the story ends.
This is such a delightful series! Eve is a genuinely likeable character, and she knows she walks a fine line. She can ask for a lot of information in her role as an obituary writer, but if she pushes too much, she risks the killer realizing she may know more than she should. And am fascinated with the idea of being an obituary writer. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the obituary is something written by the family. Maybe that's because none of us have been well-known or famous!
Five stars for another enjoyable story that kept me guessing!
Lisa Regan, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This book. I'm not giving away anything. But there were parts of this one that just about broke me. I had to go get the Kleenex.
You'd think a series might drag after five or six books. Ten, surely. Not so with Detective Josie Quinn. Lisa Regan keeps her foot on the gas and keeps writing stories that keep me hanging on the edge of my seat. When I get my hands on each new book in the series, I tear through it in twenty-four hours or less. They're that good.
In each new story, we learn more about someone's history. Often it's Josie. In this case, we learn more about medical examiner Dr. Anya Feist. She was the victim of an abusive husband, and when Sharon Eddy's autopsy reveals a brand on her hip identical to the one Anya's ex-husband Vince gave her, it really rocks Anya's world. Is Vince now a killer?
Josie, Noah, and the team have to cross jurisdictional lines to tee it up with Vince and his family. They've got to work with Sheriff Cyrus Grey, as they're in his backyard, and he often seems more intent on hindering their investigation than helping it. Why?
The story moves fast and keeps you hooked the whole time. There's more than one dead body, more than one brand, more than one suspect, and hurdles at every turn. We also get to see Josie working with twin sister Trinity, as Trinity is approaching the same set of facts from a different angle for her show.
And there's the plot twist that had me absolutely gobsmacked and sobbing.
Tension, suspects aplenty, clues and red herrings, and a team that's really a family to each other. Lisa Regan brings us another masterwork with Close Her Eyes. Five big ol' stars from me. How long do I have to wait for book eighteen?!
Call of the Wilde is the first of Preston Lewis' books that I've read, but it won't be the last!
Here we find H. H. Lomax in a variety of precarious situations. First, he's arrested as a bank robber in Buffalo Gap, Texas. The fine, upstanding lawmen there aim to see H. H. hang for cleaning out their bank (and worse, possibly depriving them of being included on the Texas & Pacific railroad line). Never mind that he didn't do it. These lawmen aren't about to let the truth get in the way of a good hanging. Of Texas, Lomax says, “The only thing I had going for me was that if I died in Texas, Saint Peter'd let me pass the Pearly Gates since I'd already been to hell.”
Through the assistance of one Mandy Mae Minter, daughter of the Buffalo Gap sheriff, Lomax makes his getaway (with an ironic twist, which I won't share – go read the book to find out. It made me snort-laugh when I read it). He reunites with his sister Melissa, who's the star of a traveling theater troupe, when he head to Mormon territory thinking he might find himself a wife or five and settle down. For a brief moment, it looks like Lomax may have found his calling as an actor. But when the troupe's performance gets bumped due to an upcoming performance by the one and only Oscar Wilde, Lomax sets out intent to make Wilde's promoters pay for the money they've cost his family. He has no idea he'll be playing the role of his life. (I didn't say he'd like it; I said it would be the role of his life.)
Lomax finds himself pressed into service as Oscar Wilde's bodyguard after the promoters agree to pay him what he's asking. They'll pay, sure, but they want to recoup their funds (because the promoters are all about money, don'tcha know). And where do they end up going but Leadville, Colorado. The one place Lomax does NOT want to go, because he's wanted there for a murder he has no memory of committing.
Shenanigans ensue.
Y'all, this book had me laughing out loud. It's Terry Pratchett funny, only set in our very own Wild West rather than a fantasy world. It kind of called to mind Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam, “the somewhat true story of a man, his wife, and her alligator,” in that maybe some of it is true, maybe some of it isn't. Let the reader decide.
Preston Lewis writes characters mild and wild and absolutely engaging. Lomax is a rough-hewn, no-nonsense kind of guy, although he can sure talk a line of bull when it's to save his own skin. The lawmen in Buffalo Gap were all about as dumb as stumps, and Mandy Mae, the sheriff's daughter, was an absolute treasure. I hope we see more of her in future Lomax stories, and I hope she never listens when the world tries to tell her she's just a girl!
And let me say, Oscar Wilde is about as much the opposite of Lomax as anyone could possibly be. Lewis' descriptions of Lomax impersonating Wilde had me howling. I don't know much about Wilde myself, but if he was anywhere near how Lewis depicted him, I expect Lomax's speeches as the ersatz Wilde (inferior as far as Wilde himself was concerned, anyway) were far more enjoyable!
Lewis has some fantastic turns of phrase here. Let me share a handful of my favorites:
“Tindle looked at me like I'd put gunpowder in his mother's snuff.”
“...as he was odder than a three-headed duck and ten times as looney as your average politician making a stump speech.”
“I returned to the parlor as Wilde emerged from his quarters, his outfit looking like a rainbow had collided with a freight train.”
And I nearly choked on this one, when Lomax was acting as Wilde's stand-in:
“Then you are Bunthorne, the fool of Patience?” shouted another skeptical man.
I proudly raised my chin and nodded. “I ameth but I prefereth to calleth myself Butt-thorn as I ameth a pain in the ass-thete.”
I love the story. I love the characters. I love the research Lewis has clearly put into his work. Not only does he give us a rip-snortin' good story, he puts it in a realistic setting. Now, I don't know about Mormon women being as ugly as Wilde claimed they were, but Lewis gives apt descriptions of small-town political machinations and the rough and tumble life of a thriving mining town.
If you want a rootin', tootin' good story that's a lot of fun to read, with characters you can cheer for and throw (figurative) rotten tomatoes at, I highly recommend H. H. Lomax. Start at the beginning to get the full effect of Lomax's saga. Read 'em and weep, because you'll laugh so hard, you've got tears rolling down your face.
With A River of Crows, Shanessa Gluhm crafts a masterpiece of lies, betrayal, secrets, and madness. The story sucked me in with the opening drowning scene. Who drowned? Who killed them? I had to know. So I had to keep reading.Sloan's brother Ridge died when they were both young. Their father was charged with and convicted of killing Ridge in a PTSD flashback. Sloan is left to deal with her own grief and anger as well as manage her mother, Caroline, whose mental stability is becoming more and more shaky.
As an adult, Sloan returns to her hometown when she gets word that Caroline has left the mental institution where she'd been for several years. She's dealing with the fallout from her divorce, and Caroline makes caring for her a real challenge. When Caroline insists that Ridge is still alive, Sloan doesn't know what to think, other than that her mother's grip on reality really is slipping. Then she encounters a crow by the river where Ridge's life ended that speaks his name, and everything changes.
Y'all. This book. It is one of my favorite kinds of books – the kind that keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. How is the author going to untangle this knot? What waits on the next page?
Shanessa Gluhm has twists and turns in this tale like the Titan at Six Flags. The story is compelling, and it feels like with every page, some looming, as-yet-unknown danger draws nearer. There are plots within plots, secrets hidden, memories repressed. And then it all comes together in an absolute banger of a conclusion that had me picking my jaw up off the floor.
The crow imagery is used to good effect in the story, and I like the facts that Gluhm weaves throughout the tale. I knew crows were smart. But I didn't know that they hold grudges, or that they hold funerals when one of their own dies, or any of the other tidbits scattered throughout the book.
A River of Crows is a mystery, a family drama, and a nail-biter of a suspenseful story all wrapped up into one. It may be on my list of best books for 2023. It's that good. Shanessa Gluhm has firmly established herself as a must-read author for me. Five stars all the way.
Dr. Gary Watson had to do something to get out of going into the family business, so he became an environmentalist. He's devoted his career to the problem of polluted water in the Nile River. Somewhere along the way, he found himself accused of being a cyber terrorist and ended up on Interpol's most wanted list. What to do? He flees Egypt incognito with his best friend Kharalombos.
And now they're going back. Right at the height of the Arab Spring unrest.
Gary and Kharalombos have their respective reasons for wanting to go back to Egypt. Gary is seeking the only existing draft of his only novel. He left it in his apartment when he previously left Cairo. It should still be there, right? Kharalombos is desperate to meet Nunu, his son from an assignation with the daughter of the Egyptian ruler. But when they arrive in Egypt, nothing goes as planned, and they end up hightailing it out of Egypt (again) in the company of Gudrun, a German woman who runs a girls' camp in Schulenburg, Texas. They figure they can work there at camp and lay low for a while.
This is a zany, charming, insightful, and wildly entertaining ride! McCullough fills her tale with characters both tame and outrageous – from bratty campers and their well-to-do, equally high-maintenance moms, to the mysterious neighbor next door (just what are those boxes in his garage?), to an Irish couple working at camp who may or may not have ties with the IRA. And our hero faces one catastrophe after another. Some of them he brings on himself, as he can't seem to keep from exaggerating his skills and abilities. Some of them are just a case of being in the wrong place at the right time. All are hilarious. And a dead body brings a police investigation to the camp – the last thing someone on Interpol's most wanted list needs, and hardly in keeping with Gary's desire to lay low!
The story makes me think a bit of Lemony Snicket and A Series of Unfortunate Events. But where Unfortunate Events finally made me give up in exasperation because those poor children kept falling into one terrible circumstance after another and I just couldn't bear it anymore, I couldn't put down Confessions of a Knight Errant. McCullough writes with such wit and wry humor that I kept reading to see what shenanigans they'd get up to next (and how they'd get out of them!).
This book may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it was absolutely my shot of whiskey. Give it a read and see if it's for you, too. Five stars for sheer outrageous entertainment!
This was the first of Daryl Wood Gerber's Fairy Garden Mysteries that I've read, but I was able to follow along without too much difficulty. And now I want to read them all!
Courtney Kelly runs a shop called Open Your Imagination, where she sells fairy gardens and fairy doors and the supplies to make them. She's also filling an order for several large fairy gardens that Violet Vickers wants to decorate for her theater foundation tea and art show.
Nicolas, her friend Meaghan's ex-boyfriend, is back in town. He's one of the featured artists at Violet's show, and he manages to get into confrontations with several people in short order. The tension ramps up when Nicolas's brother shows up demanding to know where Nicolas is and threatening to collect on the sizable debt he claims Nicolas owes him. Shortly thereafter, Ziggy, Meaghan's business partner and friend, finds Nicolas dead outside Meaghan's house. Courtney can't sit idly by and not try to help. And the more she digs, the more unsavory things she learns about Nicolas and his family.
Carmel-by-the-Sea is a delightful setting for this story. It feels like the kind of place where one might find fairies. With all of the creative energy, it also sounds like a place I'd love to visit!
Courtney is a likable character. She has a jewel of a helper in her shop in Joss, and Joss's assistance lets Courtney be there when she needs to be for her friends. Violet is a treat, too. I love that she pokes fun at herself about her excessive use of the word “lovely.”
The more Courtney tries to figure out whodunnit, the more suspects she comes up with. Was it Nicolas's brother? Any one of the several women who apparently had a thing going with him? Suspects are considered and ruled out, and then we're back to square one. Gerber did a good job keeping me guessing as to who the real killer was.
I love the fairies! Gerber includes a lot of lore and information about different fairy types and classifications, and the fairies we meet are charming. Fiona, Courtney's fairy, cracked me up with her efforts to figure out which humans could see her and which couldn't. And the ending of the book left me wondering if we'll see Fiona in the next book in the series. I hope so! (Spoiler: No, Fiona isn't dead. Now go read the book and see what happened.)
If you like a clean cozy mystery with interesting characters, a beautiful setting, and a mystery that keeps you guessing, you need to pick up A Flicker of a Doubt. Heck, start at the beginning of the series. I give this five stars, and now I'm off to catch up on the first three!
The Gold Rose tells the stories of three women who are part of a clandestine rescue organization. It takes us through the lives of Charlotte, Pinkie, and Babe, and details for us how they got to where they are today.
The book opens with Charlotte, stranded in a bus station overnight after a disastrous encounter. She has plenty of time to think back over two of the assignments that meant the most to her: Pinkie and Babe. Their stories then unfold through Charlotte's memories.
I can't decide whose story tugs on my heart more. Babe, the daughter of missionaries to China, is divided from her family during the Communist revolution. She is again separated from the family in whose care she was left, sent to another family and compelled to live as a boy. As conditions under Communist rule become more oppressive and her host family falls more in line with the Party, Babe realizes she can't stay, and she strikes out on her own to make a long journey in hopes of being reunited with her parents.
Pinkie is alone on a deserted road, a toddler whose parents are both dead nearby. Angelina, the girlfriend of a Texas oilman, takes Pinkie to raise as her own. But in a cruel twist, Pinkie is kidnapped by a grasping, greedy Roma woman hoping to use Pinkie for her own gain and taken far from the only mother she knows. Can anyone restore Pinkie to Angelina, or is she lost forever?
Jodi Lea Stewart takes us on a vivid journey through pre-communist China into the Revolution, Mexico and South America, and the United States. She creates places and people that you can almost see, almost reach out and touch, and she describes parts of history that I hadn't given much thought to. What was it like to live in China as the Communists came to power? Would I have been able to withstand the pressure to conform, or would I, too, have given in like Babe's host family? If I were Pinkie, going from bad to worse, could I have ever found it in me to trust again?
The tension in each character's story is compelling, and you can't help but love Pinkie and Babe. I could also relate to Charlotte, raised in the South as she was. Her story may not be quite as dramatic and intense as the other two, but she has suffered her own hurts as well. Stewart's portrayal of people deeply affected by trauma, with that trauma impacting how they continue to live and relate to others, is very realistic.
There is heartache and difficulty here, but the story ends on an upswing. The ROSE Organization offers hope where there was none and help even when providing that assistance is challenging. Makes you think that deep down, there are still decent people left who want to make the world a better place. This was an enjoyable read for me, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction.
Maura and Emma Taggart have selflessly cared for victims of yellow fever in San Antonio, Texas. Now that the worst of the threat is past, the fine, upstanding citizens of San Antonio repay them by assaulting Emma and running the sisters out of town. Why? Because they're the hangman's daughters. Their father's profession and reputation has made them pariahs wherever they go. They leave with a group of children orphaned by the epidemic, planning to care for them. The ragtag group finds a haven at an old mission outside of town, where three French nuns and Maura's alcoholic Uncle Max currently reside.
Cutter Calhoun sets out to rescue his brother Jonas from the clutches of a notorious gang. They're almost free when Jonas decides to go back for a stash of stolen loot. As they're fleeing from the gang, one brother is killed and the other is seriously wounded. Maura finds Calhoun when she's out hunting for food for her charges, and brings him back to the mission to nurse him to health – but which brother has she found?
Linda Broday masterfully weaves multiple story arcs together into a fantastic whole. We have Maura and Emma's struggles with the burden of their father's reputation, their care for the orphaned children, Maura's efforts to help Uncle Max find redemption and recovery, and the mystery man Calhoun.
The French nuns are a lot of fun. They are able to communicate with Maura and Emma, but they have no problems playing up their difficulties with the English language when it will benefit their cause! They see God's hand at work in everything, big and small, and they're a treat. The orphaned children are by turns delightful, heart-wrenching, and occasionally exasperating (as children are). They come together to make a marvelous family where there was none before. Max, at first afraid to be too near the children because of his tendency to drink heavily, comes to love them, and they love him, too.
The romance between Maura and Calhoun is an important part of the story, but it isn't all of the story. Broday kept me guessing as to which brother Maura had saved. Sometimes the evidence pointed to US marshal Cutter, and sometimes it pointed to erstwhile outlaw Jonas. I'm not going to tell you which brother survives – read the book if you want to know that. I will tell you that the romance isn't insta, but it's not exactly slow burn, either. The spark flares pretty quickly, and Maura had long given up on the idea that any man could look past her family association and see – and love – her. She sees a good man in Calhoun, whichever one he is, and even though he's likely to move on when he heals, she wants to know love for as long as it's in her grasp. Even with the mystery of Calhoun's identity unsolved, I found myself cheering for them, wanting their relationship to last.
Lucius Taggart shows up, unannounced and uninvited, and he's brusque and fairly awful to Maura and Emma. I saw glimmers of hope that there may be a redemption for Lucius in a future book, at least as far as his family is concerned, if not society. I hope so! The outlaw gang makes several menacing appearances, trying to reclaim what Calhoun stole from them (which, ironically, they stole from others). And Maura not only works to keep her young charges cared for, she jumps in to correct an injustice, even though it means going back to the town that shunned her and her sister.
This story hits everything I enjoy in a good book. Mystery. Romance. Action. Found family. Redemption. And it places it all in a marvelous historical setting, when Texas was still the Wild West. Linda Broday has done an excellent job of researching her story and bringing all the threads together into a well-written whole. I can't wait for the next in the series!
Skyriders is the first in a new series by Polly Holyoke, and if this is the start, I am here for the whole thing!
Kiesandra Torsun (Kie) is living a quiet life with her Uncle Dug, working with her Skysteed N'Rah as a sky courier (and quite good at her job) and helping run the family's orchard. But when the chimerae, monsters who were thought to be wiped out centuries earlier, reappear, all that changes. Uncle Dug always said the chimerae would return, and he trained Kie for that possibility. He tasks her with sharing her training and his manual, chock-full of useful information on how to fight the deadly creatures, to the capital city. He insists she must make someone listen to her, to get the information to the country's Skyforce before they take flight and engage in battle.
Growing up, I loved horses. Black Beauty. The Black Stallion. National Velvet. Summer Pony. Misty of Chincoteague. King of the Wind. Even Brighty of the Grand Canyon. If it had a horse or horse-like creature, I was all about reading it. So the cover of Skyriders made the child in me squee with delight. I mean, look at it! The colors! The horse and rider! The wings!
And the story is worthy of its majestic cover. Kie is a charming protagonist and a reluctant heroine. She doesn't seek out glory. When she is praised for taking down two chimerae herself, she demurs and turns the praise to others instead. She's a level-headed young woman, and she keeps an admirable focus on her goal rather than getting discouraged when things don't go the way she'd hoped.
The other characters are well written, too. Even the side characters have enough backstory to grab your interest. We see an interesting twist with Kie's friend and fellow courier Topar, and a Skyforce cadet's initial unpleasant attitude toward Kie offers a good opportunity for character development. Other than Kie, I think Princess Halla and N'Seella are two of my favorites. The Dowager and her more mature Skysteed, N'Talley, are also a treat. I hope there's room for them all in future stories in the series!
The story's themes are uplifting, things you'd be glad for your kids to read: perseverance, bravery in the face of danger, learning to think outside the box to find a solution, realizing that there is always more strength in working together. The story also emphasizes that even a young person can make a difference. Kie was able to help the Skyforce – indeed, everyone – realize that the smaller, wild Skysteeds could play a vital part in the country's defense even if they didn't have Skyriders. She also worked to convince those in power to change the edict that only nobles could bond with Skyriders, which made a big difference to a lot of people and Skysteeds.
There was nothing about this story that I didn't love. Engaging characters, tension and action, change and growth, and humor, too! Five BIG stars from a horse-loving girl who hasn't ever entirely grown up. I can't wait to see what happens next!
Happy book birthday to Olivia Matthews!
Lyndsay Murray is fresh off solving a murder, at no small risk to herself. She's ready to get back into the groove with her business, Spice Isle Bakery. She and other family members – her parents, her granny – are working hard to build their customer base. But when her mother's former boss, principal Emily Smith, wants the bakery to host her retirement dinner, Lyndsay is prepared to tell her not no, but HAIL, no. To her surprise, her mother – whose relationship with Emily was tense, to put it mildly – is in favor of the bakery hosting the dinner.
There were only five other guests at the dinner. When Emily has convulsions shortly after the dinner began, they all appear to be shocked. Given their acrimonious past, the detectives on the case quickly zero in on Cendella (“Mommy” to Lyndsay) as a person of interest – and apparently their only suspect. And since Emily collapsed shortly after starting her meal, the presumption is that the food was somehow tainted and perhaps the bakery is to blame. Lyndsay realizes she's going to have to get involved and do some investigating of her own, to save both her mother and the bakery.
This is my first venture into the world of Spice Isle Bakery, but it won't be the last. I absolutely loved this book! Olivia Matthews creates a space that's warm and inviting, like you would expect a bakery to be. I'll own to having pretty much zero knowledge of Grenadian culture – Caribbean culture at all, I should say – but now I want to learn more.
The characters are fantastic. I loved the lovable ones and disliked the detestable ones. Turns out Emily Smith was a real piece of work, and she was mean to everybody, not just Cendella. Like, REALLY mean. But who had she upset so much that they wanted to kill her just when she was about to retire and be out of their hair?
I loved how the family pitched in with the bakery, with investigating, with everything. They pulled together to support each other and work through challenging times. I also liked that their faith was a visible part of the story without being the least bit preachy. And I was delighted by the fact that, after an initial shock, their faithful customers not only came back, but stood up for them when a local festival tried to remove the bakery as a vendor. That made me cheer!
The mystery was intricate enough to keep me guessing, and I really liked the method the killer used. It was one I've never seen in a book before. (Tiny spoiler: the food wasn't poisoned! But y'all probably figured that out already.) There are little sparks of romance between Lyndsay and one of the detectives (he was her high school crush), but she's determined not to give him the time of day as long as he seems determined to cast her mother in the role of a murder suspect. I'm curious to see where things go with them in future books!
And just for that final kiss of perfection, the book has recipes. Y'all know I love a book with recipes. I see hard dough bread and coconut drops in my future.
Hard Dough Homicide is a warm hug of a book that almost perfectly captures what I look for in a cozy mystery. (A bookstore or library is my preferred setting, but a bakery is a close second!) I'm eagerly anticipating more adventures with Lyndsay and her family!
Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.
Parents, how many of us have found ourselves almost wishing, in our children's difficult moments, that they could just be as sweet and loving as they were when they were small? How many of us have thought, if they could just lose this or that undesirable quality, they would be wonderful. If we're honest, all of us, probably, in some moment of deep exasperation.
That's where Ed and Tamsyn find themselves. They work multiple jobs trying to keep afloat in their ratty trailer. Their marriage is struggling. Their teenage daughter Scarlett is causing them no end of grief. And they don't have the bandwidth to deal with her bad behavior.
One night they try to stop her from sneaking out in the middle of the night. Things go horribly wrong, and Scarlett is hit by a car, seriously injured, perhaps never to recover. When a lifeline is extended, literally, Ed and Tamsyn feel like they have no choice but to take it.
VitaNova invites Ed and Tamsyn into what seems like the perfect solution: they'll create a clone of Scarlett and transfer her consciousness into the new body. The new version will be like Scarlett, only better. New home, new daughter, all the luxuries they could want, and they even find renewed interest in each other. Perfection, right?
Sophie (the new version of Scarlett) really does seem like the perfect daughter at first. She's so good at so many things. And she's so well behaved! Ed and Tamsyn, while the idea squicked them out a bit at first (especially Tamsyn), soon appreciate how much better they have it now. So there are cameras all over their new plush apartment. So Sophie has cameras in her eyes. So the VitaNova folks keep tabs on them. That's okay, right?
And then Scarlett wakes up, and things really get twisty.
Evie Green does a good job of making the reader think. How far would we go to keep a loved one (or a simulacrum of them) in our lives? How much would we be willing to sacrifice? And could we ever trust that someone offering all of this to us really had our best interests at heart?
The characters are well drawn. Sophie seems so realistic, so much like a normal, loving daughter, that you don't realize how much of her personality is programmed. Might that cause problems with Scarlett, her “origin source,” back in the picture? Ed and Tamsyn struggle with whether they should accept this new reality, and even when they do, we still see that internal conflict remains. We see Scarlett wrestling with feeling like her parents have replaced her with a “better” version. I can't imagine that – waking up from a coma to find out you now have a twin who's good at everything. How do you not feel like second best in that scenario?! My heart hurt for Scarlett the most.
Green throws a nice twist in about 2/3 of the way through. I wasn't really expecting it, and it changed my perception. It also confirmed some things about VitaNova. I'm not telling what the twist it. Read the book yourself and find out!
Five stars for making me read past my bedtime more than once! Highly recommended for fans of near-future sci-fi with shades of horror and thriller that explores what hasn't happened yet, but maybe could.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that I'm jumping in on this, the third book in the trilogy. I didn't have any real difficulty reading this as a stand-alone work, but I think there's a lot of good story in the first two books that I should go discover. If you haven't read any of the three, start at the beginning with The Henna Artist.
Radha and Pierre are married, living and working in Paris, raising their two daughters. Radha loves her work at the House of Yves with master perfumer Delphine, and hopes to one day become a master perfumer herself. Pierre struggles with his wife's career. It's the 1970s. Women working isn't a given, and he doesn't understand why she can't be content just staying home to be a wife and mother. His mother, Florence, is also a bit of a thorn in Radha's side. She worries that Florence wants to make her girls completely French, to take their Indian heritage away from them.
Radha receives an important assignment at work – her first solo project! Work on the project has her returning to India, where her sister Lakshmi gets her in to visit the courtesans of Agra, to learn their secrets of using scent to seduce and entice. Lakshmi also tells Radha that Niki, the baby Radha gave up for adoption when she was just thirteen years old, knows she is connected to him somehow and is heading for Paris to learn why.
Alka Joshi paints wonderful word pictures of her characters and the settings. And her descriptions of different scents almost made the book like smell-0-vision. I could easily imagine the scents Radha discovered on her trip back to India.
The characters are wonderful and sometimes infuriating. Sometimes my heart just ached for Radha and the burden she carried, the secret she kept from Pierre, and sometimes I wanted to shout, “But how much of this could have been avoided if y'all would just TALK to each other?!” That being said, I've never given a child up for adoption. It's easy for me to say but of course I'd tell my husband about it. But honestly, would I? I don't know.
It took me a minute to really get sucked in to the story, but the more I read, the more I liked. There were some surprises that I didn't expect, and they turned out to be marvelous. This is the kind of book where I felt like I was saying good-bye to friends when I finished. And as an adoptee who's found my own birth family, I could totally relate to Niki. The biggest difference is that I always knew I was adopted, and it was never a big secret. I can't imagine finding out like Niki did.
Betrayal by a trusted friend, women's rights, the sacrifices we make to balance work and life, lost love and family found, this book has it all. It's a five-star read for me.
Stop by my blog to read an excerpt: https://theplainspokenpen.com/book-review-excerpt-and-blog-tour-the-perfumist-of-paris-the-jaipur-trilogy-3-by-alka-joshi/
The story unfolds in two times: 1881, where we see Alexandre Chevalier and his family on an archaeological dig in Turkey, searching for a lost underground city of legend, and the present day, where Madison Greene and her brother Ben, children in the foster care system whose parents are dead, inherit a great country estate and a pile of cash from a long-dead relative. This newfound wealth changes Maddy and Ben's lives, and they have no idea how much their lives will change when they move to Marchwood.
The 1881 timeline was fascinating. I loved the details of the archaeological dig, the chase to find the myths on which the story of the lost city was based, the tension as they explored the location they ultimately found. The horror of the party's encounter with ancient vampires was deliciously spine-tingling, and the aftermath of that encounter heartbreaking. I felt a little bit bad for Alexandre. Were it not for his foolish choice at a party, his entire family wouldn't have been in Turkey. Definitely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Modern day lost a little something by comparison, but the story still kept me engaged. Maddy is a teenager, and a lot of the time, she jolly well acts like one. She's prone to serve attitude, make impetuous decisions, and then regret her life choices. (Wait. Alexandre was a teenager, too....) I can't really fault her for serving attitude to her foster parents, though. They make it clear that they see her and Ben as more of a meal ticket than children to love and raise and care for. Ben is a likeable young man, and Travis really deserves better than what he gets from Maddy. But Boland's writing style just sucks you along into the story, regardless of the itch to smack a character upside the head because she rushes into situations headlong.
Vampires are portrayed quite differently here than they are in many stories, and Alexandre is a lovely character. (Although I'm unaccustomed to vampires that have serious self-restraint when they need to feed. It took a little getting used to.) His relationship with Maddy is, for the most part, sweet, especially when you remember that he was only a teenager when he became a vampire. So he's really a century or more older chronologically, but emotionally, they're pretty close in age.
I've seen this book compared to Twilight. I can see the resemblance, but this was a lot more fun to read than Twilight. Bella was a weak-willed, wishy-washy, almost emotionless heroine. Maddy has spunk. She may do stupid stuff, but no one will ever accuse her of being passive!
Four stars for a delightful bit of brain candy that leaves me wanting to know what happens next! Gotta read books two and three.
How I'll Kill You has an interesting premise: triplet sisters, abandoned at birth, raised in the foster care system. After a childhood full of disappointment, betrayal, and hurt, they learn that they can only rely on each other. When Iris, the oldest, snaps and kills her much older lover, Sissy, the youngest by just minutes, handles the cleanup and makes sure Iris won't be found out. They decide then that they'll never let men hurt them again; rather, they'll take lovers, win them over, and then kill them.
As Iris and Moody leave a growing number of corpses across the country, Sissy ensures no trace is left of her sisters' crimes. She's the one who keeps them off of law enforcement's radar. She's always been the steady one. The sensible one.
Until now.
It's time for Sissy's first kill. She sees him in a diner in Rainwood, Arizona, and she just knows. He's her mark. As her assumed identity of “Jade,” she'll have six months to win him over and make him love her before she bids him the final farewell. None of them counted, though, on Sissy falling in love with him.
This story goes some dark places. It's a pretty scathing indictment of the foster care system, where the girls were either cared for but couldn't stay, treated with indifference, or actively harmed. However they were treated, they came out of the system damaged. The book is also stark in its descriptions of how Sissy handles a cleanup job, so if you're squeamish, be prepared.
But the book has its beautiful parts, too. Love of family is central to the tale, even if that love has been twisted and misguided along the way. Sissy and her sisters love each other and have each other's backs. The relationship between Edison and Sissy is genuine, and Sissy's internal struggle when facing a choice between her sisters and a man she didn't expect to love made me want to hug her. Sissy also finds an unexpected friend in their neighbor Dara, her first real friend outside of her family.
My prosecutor brain couldn't help but think what a nightmare this would be for law enforcement. Three identical siblings – how could you ever prove which one actually committed the crime? Of course, they'd have to get caught first....
How I'll Kill You is a solid four-star read for me. Stop by my blog to read an excerpt: https://theplainspokenpen.com/book-review-and-excerpt-how-ill-kill-you-by-ren-destefano/
Thanks to Berkley and Netgalley for a review copy. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.
A fairy tale retold, but with a twist? Yes, please!
Here we see the story of Sleeping Beauty retold from the point of view of the fairy. Toadling was supposed to be the princess, but she was stolen by the fae and a changeling was left in her place. She was raised by the greenteeth, trained in the ways of their magic. And when she was grown, the fae asked her to return to the human world, to place a spell of protection on the creature who took her place. But as often happens, the spell goes awry, and Toadling remains with the humans, to protect the princess as best as she can.
But as the changeling princess grows, she shows herself adept at casual cruelty to animals and people alike, and Toadling must more often protect others from her. Toadling's magic is weak. The creature – for that is what the “princess” is – is strong, and vicious, and without a shred of empathy. The best thing Toadling can do is to put the princess into an enchanted sleep and guard the castle, lest anyone get some foolish idea about castles and princesses and breaking a spell with true love's kiss. And history passes them by – Toadling, castle, and princess – until one day a knight comes along, drawn by an old, old story.
This is a fantastic reimagining of Sleeping Beauty! The fairy is always evil, come to wreak harm on the innocent human princess. Here, though, Kingfisher flips the whole thing around, and it absolutely works. Toadling is a winsome character, and the knight, though not big on derring-do, is charming in unexpected ways. It works.
It is a novella, not a full-length novel. I don't think I realized that when I started reading. But that's long enough. Would I love more of Toadling's story? Of course. Was this story just right? Absolutely.
The story is gentle, in turns wistful and thought-provoking, touching on topics of love, loss, responsibility, and the deceptive nature of the outer self. It may be one of my favorite books this year. I highly recommend it, and I must read more of T. Kingfisher's books.
Oh, Kimberly Fish, you have done it again! You won me over with Anna and Jack in Comfort Zone, and now you have stolen my heart completely with Gloria and Mason in Sweet Comfort.
Gloria Bachman moved to Comfort, Texas, after retiring from her banking career. She lives fairly independently, and she likes it that way. Though she's a woman of a certain age, she doesn't limit herself to what's expected, and she's excited about her new business venture with her younger friend, Kali Hamilton. They're opening a chocolate shop selling Kali's handmade chocolates. Never mind that grumpy Ted Bodine insists they name the shop after him before he'll agree to lease the shop's new locale to them, Gloria can't wait to get started.
Then Mason Lassiter, a wealthy CEO (who may or may not have killed his wife if you pay any attention to the press), shows up in Comfort. Gloria can't quite figure what he's doing there. She doesn't reckon he'll stay long, and she certainly doesn't reckon she needs to do anything about this unexpected (and unwanted, she tells herself) attraction she feels for him. She doesn't need a man in her life.
When Ted turns up dead in the front yard of one of the Bunco ladies, will the chocolate shop still open? What will happen to the lease? Gloria wants to help the woman who's suspected, but she also wants to look out for her business interests. She uses her skills to start sorting things out.
I'm not sure what's more intriguing – the mystery of who killed Ted and why, or the machinations Gloria goes through to avoid letting any kind of inkling of feelings for Mason develop. She is bound and determined that she will not let herself like him. She can resist him. She thinks she can resist friendship, too. She doesn't want to get in with the Bunco ladies or the Knitters' Club. She's got trust issues, given her past. But Comfort is a little town with a big heart, and Gloria learns that she does have friends, even when she thought she'd been keeping herself closed off.
Kimberly Fish weaves a magical tale. She populates her town with characters mild and wild. The mystery is compelling, and seeing the romance blossom between Gloria and Mason is so much fun! Comfort is the kind of place I'd like to go visit. Maybe one of these days I will. (I hope there really is a chocolate shop there!)
I highly recommend Sweet Comfort for anyone who loves a good mystery, a slow-burn second-chance romance, strong female characters, and a delightful small-town setting. Five stars from me!
Anita Dickason has done it again. She's written a book that keeps me scrolling through the pages well past my bedtime.
We met Tori Winters in Deadly Keepsakes, and I fell in love with her. Tori has unexpectedly inherited a mansion and a pile of cash from the grandmother she never met. Now she's working to turn the mansion into a bed and breakfast, whose name, the Red Door Inn, is a nod to the house's history. Murder's Legacy opens with the renovations grinding to a halt when the secret tunnel collapses, revealing a long-dead body. Some items with the body may offer clues to his identity and who killed him.
Before Tori has a chance to figure out what happened, she's getting hit with cancellations of permits, surprise inspections, and talk from the city that they may condemn the property. (That escalated quickly.) And the local newspaper publishes articles that seem almost prescient, like maybe the reporter has some inside information (where are they getting that, hmm?). Tori knows her property isn't a hazard. She's got the engineering analyses to prove it. And she knows she's got to get to the bottom of this, and fast, or she stands to lose her home and the new business that she and her four friends are working hard to launch.
This is a non-stop thrill ride of a book. Every step Tori takes to unravel the mystery, the killer has the jump on her. Not only is she in harm's way, but the killer won't hesitate to hurt others if it serves their purpose. This really ramps up the tension of the story.
We see Tori tee it up with her nemesis, social queen bee wannabe Myra Swanson. I LOVE that Tori gets the chance to put Myra in her place! You'll have to read the book to find out how and why, but man, I cheered. Myra is a pill and richly deserved the smackdown.
And once again, we see how Tori has surrounded herself with good people. Mia, Cammie, Tina, and Heidi aren't just employees. They're Tori's Girl Gang. Her friends. They have her back, all the time. Mia in particular seems to have a sixth sense about when Tori is chasing herself in mental circles and can help get her back on track. I want a group of friends like them!
There's a hint of potential romance between Tori and David. Will we see their relationship blossom in future books? I hope so!
The historical information at the end of the book is a delight. I learn so much from Dickason's notes. I thought poker chips were poker chips were poker chips. I had no idea they were a whole area of research! Now I want to learn more about them and more about the history that inspired the Tori Winters series.
Anita Dickason has taken the cozy mystery genre and put her own unique spin on it. Murder's Legacy is a fantastic second book in what I hope is a long-running series. Tori and the people in her life already feel like folks I've known a while, and I'm rather fond of them! Action, suspense, legal maneuvering, the power of friendship, a little romance, a little Texas history, this book has it all.
If you're a mystery lover, start with Deadly Keepsakes and then jump right on in to Murder's Legacy. You'll be glad you did!
Another positively charming read from Verity Bright! I loved it, as always. The end.
Hahahaha, no. Y'all know I couldn't stop with just one line, right?
I simply adore Lady Eleanor Swift. She's never been accused of being a proper lady, and I don't think she ever will be. I think Clifford is finally making his peace with that (and honestly, I think he'd be a little disappointed if she did decide to settle down and behave as befits her station in society).
Here we see Eleanor's expectation of a birthday celebration with Hugh dashed when he cancels their plans on her at the last minute. Never one to stay down for long, Eleanor decides to take advantage of an offer to go on a transatlantic cruise to New York. Naturally, Clifford and Gladstone the bulldog come along, and Eleanor brings all of her staff, too! I cannot tell y'all how much I love that she values “the ladies” enough to know that they would appreciate a cruise and to make it happen for them. They may not stay in first class with Eleanor, but they do have a grand old time.
Eleanor soon finds herself embroiled in a mystery after she observes two men arguing and sees one throw the other off the ship after shooting him. She manages to find the murder weapon, and when she recognizes it, she knows she can't turn it over. She also learns that the gun's owner, none other than Hugh, is on board the ship for reasons of his own, and that's why he'd bailed on her birthday celebration.
As her first-class status may allow her to have conversations that the ship's staff cannot, the captain asks her to assist in the investigation. The ship's master-at-arms is visibly unhappy about Eleanor's involvement and does his best to make it difficult for her. What does he have to hide?
The cruise setting adds an element of tension to the story. The mystery has to be solved before they dock in New York, or Hugh may find himself in serious trouble with the law. Swift gives us suspects aplenty and lays out one red herring after another as we follow the clues along with Eleanor. Throw in a storm that puts the Celestiana in grave danger, and you've got a story where the pages practically turn themselves!
When the birthday celebration was called off, I feared this would be another book without Hugh. I was delighted to see that wasn't the case! We learn more about Hugh's backstory here, and he and Eleanor seem to be slowly, slowly learning to open up and trust each other, even with the hard things. There were a few moments when I wondered if their relationship would survive, but so far, it has. I hope we see them growing even closer in the next book.
And the previously mentioned ladies! They are just so much fun. The trip is a once in a lifetime opportunity for them, and they make the most of it. They're also able to help in the investigation, as they can see things on the lower decks that Eleanor really couldn't poke her nose into.
Witty dialogue, characters you love (or love to hate), fascinating descriptions of a cruise on a luxury liner, a mystery that keeps you guessing – Death on Deck is another winner from Verity Bright!
Marva Cope is the fourth in Teddy Jones's Jackson's Pond series. As I'm prone to do, I'm jumping into the series in the middle!
The book starts with Marva moving in with her Aunt Violet in the small town of Jackson's Pond, Texas. We get Marva's story in flashbacks and conversations, over games of Scrabble with Aunt Violet, in Marva's internal thoughts as she takes her walks around town.
Growing up, Marva Cope is a pretty average teenager. Trying to make it through school. Getting her older brother Chance to take her for a drive. But when Chance is killed in a freak accident on their farm, life changes. Marva struggles with his death and with feeling like it was somehow her fault. Her father sinks deeper into depression. Her mother is bitter, and nothing Marva does ever measures up. She heads off to college when she graduates high school and never looks back, and she leaves home a bit of a loner, reliant on herself and not one to ask for or expect help. Life has taught her not to expect much from other people.
Against the advice of her dorm-mate (and the closest thing to a friend Marva has), Marva leaves school and follows a cowboy out on the open road, going where life takes them. When she finds herself a single mother, left high and dry by that cowboy to manage a ranch on her own, she knows something has to change. She is slowly beginning to realize that perhaps other people can have her best interests at heart, and she hopes Violet will take her in, at least until she gets back on her feet.
This is a wonderful story! It seems weird to call it a “coming of age” story, since Marva is in her fifties, but it really is. Life and time formed Marva's perspective, and it took more life and more time to shift that viewpoint. Age is no indicator of maturity or wisdom, and it takes Marva a little extra time to learn some important lessons.
Teddy Jones writes some delightful characters. There are a handful of lesser characters that aren't real likable (and I include Marva's mother in this bunch, because she isn't terribly involved in the story once Marva leaves home), but almost all of the ones I think of as main characters, even with their flaws, have something about them to like. Other than Marva, I think Aunt Violet is my favorite. She's a lot like Marva, very independent and a little unconventional. I love that she's a Scrabble fiend! I would totally sit down and play with her, and I think it would be a heck of a game.
I found it interesting that Marva felt like she didn't remember a lot of things in her life that maybe she should have. I've felt that way before. There are big swaths of life where I know things happened, life went on day to day, but I couldn't give you any details. I like the way Jones has Stacey, Marva's former dorm-mate who she gets reacquainted with, explain that feeling: “I think it's because we don't remember the chronology of our lives, we remember events. I don't only mean events in the typical sense, like a big party, a graduation, a birth, but also interpersonal things that were BIG to us for a reason.” She goes on to say, “Maybe we're all that way. The day-to-day disappears pretty quickly, the things that hurt us last a long time.” That makes sense to me, although I hope the things that help us and heal us make a lasting impression, too.
The ending of the story isn't all tied up neatly with a bow. It's a little bit of an open ending, and it's left to the reader to imagine what may come next for Marva. I'm curious to see what unfolds next in Jackson's Pond! I'm also curious to read the first three books in the series to see whether we learn more about Marva's family or whether the focus is on other residents of the town.
I highly recommend Marva Cope for anyone who loves a good story about a wanderer finding her way home.
Felicity Koerber just can't get away from murder, can she? In the fifth installment in Amber Royer's Bean to Bar Mystery series, Felicity finds herself drawn into a mystery worthy of (and inspired by?) Sherlock Holmes himself. The book's title is a nod to Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, and as usual, a book is involved in the mystery.
Now people don't just come to Felicity's chocolate shop for the delightful confections she sells. She's got murder groupies. Her reputation as a murder magnet is heightened when she's drawn into a mystery surrounding the death of the historic Wobble House's new owner, someone Logan had once arrested. The killer is playing a Holmesian game with Felicity, taunting her with clues and a dare to solve the crime like Moriarty did with Sherlock. And if she can't solve the crime fast enough? Then someone very close to her will die.
I love the literary angle in this book. The Sherlock tie-in is a treat for any mystery lover, and the threat of another death – one that matters to Felicity – adds a lot of tension to her efforts to figure out whodunnit. It was no easy solve for me, either. Royer deftly gives us one suspect after another, only to turn around and show us why that person couldn't possibly be the killer. She kept me guessing!
Felicity is still trying to decide between Arlo and Logan. I honestly don't know which of them I'm rooting for anymore. And even though the deadline she set herself to decide is drawing nigh, I'm not sure Felicity is ready to choose yet, either!
As an added bonus, just this weekend we finally got together with family for a very belated Christmas celebration. One of my gifts was Royer's cookbook, There are Herbs in My Chocolate (affiliate link – you order and you get a cool cookbook, and I make a little money!). This one has been on my list for ages, so I am thrilled to finally have a copy! Maybe I'll try the recipes out and share some here when I read and review her next book.
Delightful characters, chocolates that sound scrumptious, a twisty mystery with literary flair – it's another five-star Royer read for me. Give me more!
I enjoy a good WWII historical fiction novel, but many of them are written from the perspective of women impacted by the war. Not a bad thing, merely an observation. I was excited for the opportunity to read Dead in the Water, WWII fiction told from a perspective I hadn't yet considered: that of a police officer in WWII London, trying to solve a crime while working with the restrictions that came from dealing with foreign military in his country.
The book opens in Vienna, 1939. German soldiers have accosted the Katz family in their home and seized their valuable art collection. Fast forward to London, 1942. DCI Frank Merlin is investigating a murder, a body found in the Thames. He's also tasked with finding missing art that was to be sold, allegedly some of the same art that the Nazis stole from the Katz family several years earlier.
Ellis illustrates how wartime may make uneasy bedfellows and makes points I had never considered. The Americans and the British are allies, but here we see the Americans working to have laws put into place that effectively keep the Brits out of any criminal matters involving American soldiers. We see, painfully, how the Americans brought their prejudice against their own when a prime murder suspect is a Black American soldier. The Americans have no trouble rushing to justice with him, even as Merlin tries to convince his American counterpart that the soldier could not have been the murderer. Watching that storyline unfold is painful, with American bias clearly on display. It had never occurred to me how civilian and military forces might work together when both are from the same country, much less where you have forces from different countries in your own.
The Russians are also in the war, ostensibly as allies. But there are concerns about agents and double agents, and Merlin learns that someone related to him (although not particularly close) has been playing a dangerous game.
I knew dealing in stolen art was big business after wartime, but I didn't think about the possibility that it went on while the war was still raging. The wheeling and dealing that goes on with the efforts of two men to sell and acquire rare art is pretty mind-boggling. Interesting to consider that even those with high net worth might face some financial difficulty due to funds being tied up in other countries.
This story had several threads going at one time, and sometimes it was a bit of a challenge to keep it all straight! But Ellis keeps a good grasp on those threads, and ultimately weaves them together for a satisfying conclusion. I'm glad to make DCI Merlin's acquaintance, and I look forward to reading more from Mark Ellis.
Marlene Bell's Annalisse series gets better with each book! Copper Waters gives us not only an intriguing mystery in an international setting, but also some insight into Annalisse's past.
There's a lot going on for Annalisse Drury. She has turned down a second marriage proposal from Alec Zavos, and she's trying to figure out why she has such a hard time getting to “yes.” Complicating matters is the woman who's shown up with a boy she claims is Alec's son. Then someone from Annalisse's past reaches out to her. Annalisse drops everything and leaves Alec behind to go halfway around the world, hoping to reconnect with an old friend and see her elusive mother as she puts some space between herself and Alec. Alec won't let her go alone, though; he sends their mutual friend, Bill Drake, along. Annalisse has no idea how glad she'll be of Bill's presence before this jaunt comes to an end.
Once in Temuka, Annalisse is hoping to see a real working sheep station. Her friend Ethan is back at his family's holding, and she's expecting a tour and some time talking to him. Things get off on a strange foot, though, when an older man is run over and killed after driving Annalisse and Bill from the airport. The police don't seem intent on digging too deep to find out what happened, and the atmosphere at Woolcombe Station is tense, to say the least. When the station manager also ends up dead, Annalisse and Bill start pushing for answers.
This book has it all. Strained family relationships. A politician on the take. Mysterious deaths and inadequate explanations. It was a compelling read, and more than once I was on the edge of my seat, hoping that Annalisse's investigation wasn't going to get her in over her head! Bell's writing style is easy to read, and the pages kept turning well past my bedtime.
The mystery is engaging, too. There were several possibilities for who the killer could be. I didn't land on the right person until the reveal slapped me in the face. I can see how this person could be overlooked as a murderer.
And Annalisse might not have gotten to see her biological mother face to face, but she does learn more about her family. I'm fascinated to see what more we learn about her roots in future books.
And maybe, just maybe, the next time Alec proposes, Annalisse will say yes. I think this story went a long way toward getting them to see how much they mean to each other and how they're so much better together than apart. It was fun getting to know more of Bill's backstory, too. He's one of my favorite characters after reading this book.
Another international adventure, another mystery solved, and a little more of Annalisse's family known to her. Copper Waters is a heck of a good read, and Marlene Bell makes this series better with each book in it. Five sheep from me.