Tag Archives: Books

Sep27

Threshold by Murphy St. John- A Review

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I’m reviewing this book for Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT and thank the author for a copy of the book.

Seven people end up in the same place and they don’t know how they got there nor do they know each other and they really can’t figure out where they are.

The book initially reminded me of the television show Lost as the characters were in a place they couldn’t identify and it was jungle-like. They then found an airplane on the ground that happened to have food stored there. I wasn’t sure about the book at this point as it seemed all too familiar.

The main protagonist of the book is a man named Malcolm. Malcolm is a hard one to read. Sometimes I liked him and sometimes I didn’t like him at all. He was definitely not always a character for the reader to want to see succeed in his quest for the elusive second chance.

Eventually, the reader learns that the group is in a kind of purgatory where they’re each given the chance to redeem themselves before they’re relegated to hell. Some of the trials don’t go so well for the subject of the particular redemption.

 A mix of horror, thriller, and mystery, the book drags in some places but moves swiftly in others. Overall, I enjoyed it, but had to skim some parts that didn’t move the story along quickly enough for me.

Some of the characters were just plain nasty and unkind. Others had more redeeming qualities, making the reader want to root for them. Kudos to the author as he definitely has a twisted mind and made his characters go through some things. Each individual was unique and had their own quirks.

The horror isn’t too horrible, so if you’re on the fence about reading the book because of the word horror, don’t let that be the reason you don’t pick this one up.  It’s basically a thriller with some slow parts and a bit of a hell-scape slotted in for fun. Three and a half stars from me.

BLURB:

Malcolm can’t remember being fatally stabbed. If the masked woman, Thalia, is to be believed, he’s now in limbo along with six other strangers who are all guilty of unspeakable crimes.

For atonement, they must each survive a dangerous trial involving an eerie monster in a haunting locale. Succeed and return to life. Fail and it’s straight to hell.

Malcolm could let the others face their trials alone. The monsters wouldn’t sneeze at him otherwise. Unfortunately, he’s grown to like some of these people. While death in limbo guarantees failure, risking his neck to help the others with their trials might be Malcolm’s smartest play. The more allies in his corner come time for his own trial, the better his chances of seeing his family again.

As the trials proceed, Malcolm uncovers a link between their earthly demises. Each of the seven was responsible for the death of another, but the whos and whys are only a piece of the puzzle. He must uncover the identity of his murderer, but with his spicy temper, he might not be able to resist a little revenge. That is, if he can dodge the creature with a vintage camera for a head whose pictures literally set the scene on fire.

Sep16

Booked for Murder- by P.J. Nelson- Review

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It’s been a summer! Didn’t realize I hadn’t posted here since the beginning of July. Life sometimes carries on the crest of a wave!

Booked for Murder, by P.J. Nelson

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

This one had lots of things I love about cozy mysteries. A quirky setting, a bookstore, a murder mystery, set in the south and a feisty heroine. It was a good read and I read it in an afternoon. The characters were fleshed out for the most part and the plot was well executed.

Where the book fell short for me was that it wasn’t memorable. It was such a quick read that when I sat down on two occasions to write a review, I honestly couldn’t remember a lot about what happened in the story. It just didn’t stay with me for long. While I was reading it, I liked it well enough. Sadly, it wasn’t very memorable. It looks like it’s been set up to be a series and I enjoyed it enough to probably read the next one, but I’ll have to refresh my memory to recall what happened in this one.

The writer has excellent skills in characterization and plotting and I wish something had stood out to make the book resonate more and stay with me.

I’m giving it four stars as it was well-written and I think perhaps I have merely read too many books that are similar and it’s a “me” problem as opposed to a problem with the work.

BLURB:

Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she’s left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn’t leave immediately.

But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there’s another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it’s up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

Jul2

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

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I picked this book up way back in December because I was intrigued by the premise, but I kept passing it up to read other things. When I finally picked it up a couple of weeks ago to dive into it, I was surprised to find that I had actually read another book by the same author that I had enjoyed immensely. The other one was called Code Name: Helene and was also fiction based on a true person (and I thought I had a review of it and can’t find it, but I put the blurb at the end here as I highly recommend it too.

This book, The Frozen River, was based on Martha Ballard, a midwife in the time of the American Revolution and the years following it. Ms. Lawhon came upon her story and the actual lady’s diaries were woven into the premise of the story. Entries were used in each of the chapters which I found to be engrossing. The story is set in 1789.

Ms. Lawton has a gift for beautiful prose. Her work sings. She just makes the characters come alive.

Our heroine midwife has a great marriage and a number of children. She has also experienced the loss of children herself which makes her a compassionate midwife to the women of the community she serves.

The book starts with the discovery of a dead man frozen in the river. The man had previously been accused of rape and was found with bruises on him and marks on his neck. There had also been an altercation between him and others at a dance the evening he died.

Martha Ballard thinks the man was murdered. The new local doctor, who hates the heroine as he thinks she perceives herself as his equal, disagrees with her and says it was an accident. The body is placed in a barn as it is too cold to bury him while the ground is frozen.

There is no shortage of suspects who didn’t like the dead man. The book has our heroine trying to not only solve this mystery, but to try to get justice for the woman who was raped and who is now carrying the child of her rapist.

The story is fraught with tension as well as woven with many passages showing the love and strength of this woman with her family as well as the ladies she helps to bring life into the world.

As in Code Name: Helene, I found myself liking this character very much and rooting for her all the way.

Lots of intrigue both in the story of the rape and murder, but also in the flashbacks to the past of the main character.

Grab a copy of this one if you like family-oriented stories with a dash of mystery and solving crimes. This one is intricate and compelling with a strong heroine who is ready to stand up for women in an age where few did.

BLURB:

Maine, 1789: As a midwife in the town of Hallowell, Martha Ballard knows how to keep a secret. Her neighbors respect her not only for her medical expertise and calm under pressure, but for her discretion in a community governed by rigid Puritan values. So when a man is found under the ice in the Kennebec river, Martha is the first person called to examine the body.

The dead man is Joshua Burgess, recently accused, along with the town judge, Joseph North, of raping the preacher’s wife, Rebecca Foster. The case is set to go to trial in the coming months and Hallowell is churning with rumors. Martha, having tended to Rebecca’s wounds in the aftermath, is both a witness and a confidant of Rebecca’s, and while she feels certain she knows the truth of the night of the assault, she suspects there is more to the murder than meets the eye.

For years, Martha has recounted her every day in a leather-bound journal: deaths and births, the weather, town events, her patients and their treatments. As whispers and prejudices threaten to overflow into something bloodier, and North becomes more desperate to clear his name, Martha’s diary becomes the center of a mystery that risks tearing both her family and her town apart.

In The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon brings to life a brave and compassionate unsung heroine of early American history, who refused to accept anything less than justice on behalf of women no one else would protect.

BLURB for Code Name: Helene

BASED ON THE THRILLING REAL-LIFE STORY OF SOCIALITE SPY NANCY WAKE, comes the newest feat of historical fiction from the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia, featuring the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII.

Told in interweaving timelines organized around the four code names Nancy used during the war, Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding and moving story of enduring love, remarkable sacrifice and unfaltering resolve that chronicles the true exploits of a woman who deserves to be a household name.
It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name.
As LUCIENNE CARLIER Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border. Her success and her remarkable ability to evade capture earns her the nickname THE WHITE MOUSE from the Gestapo. With a five-million-franc bounty on her head, Nancy is forced to escape France and leave Henri behind. When she enters training with the Special Operations Executives in Britain, her new comrades are instructed to call her HÉLÈNE. And finally, with mission in hand, Nancy is airdropped back into France as the deadly MADAM ANDRÉE, where she claims her place as one of the most powerful leaders in the French Resistance, armed with a ferocious wit, her signature red lipstick, and the ability to summon weapons straight from the Allied Forces.
But no one can protect Nancy if the enemy finds out these four women are one and the same, and the closer to liberation France gets, the more exposed she–and the people she loves–become.

Jun30

Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dale, a Review

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The “wickedly funny and gorgeously entertaining” part of the cover is not true in the least. There was not one thing funny in this book. Not one. Makes you wonder if the blurb writer even read the thing or just wrote that as the cover looks fun.

This one ended up in my Little Free Library and looked like it would be entertaining. Alas, not really.

I almost tossed it aside by page 60 something as I did not like the “heroine” at all and there’s a legal conversation where the lawyer who represented both the main character and her husband. This lawyer tells the main character she is representing the husband in their legal separation and that alone almost sent me over the edge. A lawyer cannot ethically represent one client over another client when both have been the client. One client conspiring against the other client with the assistance of their joint counsel never passes muster anywhere.

But I kept reading. to give it a chance. The writer is a good writer whose prose is well done, but the only two characters here who I liked were Sammy, the 6-year-old and Ethan. The book’s premise was a good one, but the execution is what had me disliking the story.

This may be nitpicking but the main character loses the contract to write a book in June. A new person gets the contract that was supposed to go to the main character and by August, the new person has her book launch party and a week later, the book goes into the second printing as it sold so well. That is ludicrous. Writing the book and actually having it on the shelves taking a bit over a month? An illustrated cookbook??! Nope. I’m surprised this got past the editors.

The acts of one character in particular are absolutely a betrayal and unforgiveable, IMHO. The fact that the main character seems to be willing to overlook the betrayal is absolutely stunning. There was a much better option out there for her and why the author even put that character in the book is a mystery to me.

I am rating this 3 stars due to the writer’s talent for prose, but much less for the plot errors and the unlikeable main character.

Jun26

Familia by Lauren E. Rico, a Review

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Thank you to Kensington Publishing for the ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book was wonderful and enjoyable. I inhaled it in a couple of reading sessions.

We first meet Gabby, a fact checker for a magazine who has aspirations of being a writer for the same magazine. The problem is, she is too good at the job she currently holds and is being thwarted in making her dream come true. She is an only child and her parents are deceased.

The magazine editor decides to do a story on people finding relatives through the genealogy websites and asks all the staff to take the DNA test offered by one site to see what gets uncovered.

Isabella is a young, married women living in Puerto Rico. Her mother passed away and left her and a baby sister with their father. The father, in his grief, turns to drink. One night, while he is out at the bar with the baby, he passes out in the street and wakes up to an empty stroller. He can’t forgive himself for losing his daughter and life for the older daughter changes dramatically as her father isn’t there to protect her from the evils of the world as he is too busy drinking and grieving, now both for his lost daughter as well as his wife.

Isabella is able to make a happy marriage but she spends a lot of her life searching for her lost sister.

When Gabby receives the results of her DNA test, she is stunned to see that the company has indicated she has a relative. She can’t believe the test is correct. Isabella gets an email that there is a match for a sibling. While Gabby wants another test since the first one was in error, Isabella is hopeful that this Gabby person is her long-lost sister.

Gabby’s boss wants to send a staff member to Puerto Rico to get the story. Gabby wants to do it herself and, when she’s denied the chance by her boss, she quits her job. Skeptical that this is anything but a mistake, she goes to Puerto Rico anyway and meets Isabella.

The story takes off from there on the lives of these two women, solving mysteries for each, and learning about each other. One is convinced she has found her sister at last and one is convinced there’s been a huge mistake. This makes for some great conflict in the storyline.

The way the author weaves the stories of the two women is brilliant. As well, she has captured Puerto Rico and its beauty and culture and I’m not surprised to learn she spent a lot of time there over the years visiting her grandmother. The island becomes a character itself in the excellent descriptions of various places in the story.

If you enjoy multi-cultural stories with heart, this one is highly recommended.  Five Stars.

BLURB:

What if your most basic beliefs about your life were suddenly revealed to be a lie?

As the fact checker for a popular magazine, Gabby DiMarco believes in absolute, verifiable Truths—until they throw the facts of her own life into question. The genealogy test she took as research for an article has yielded a baffling result: Gabby has a sister—one who’s been desperately trying to find her. Except, as Gabby’s beloved parents would confirm if they were still alive, that’s impossible.

Isabella Ruiz can still picture the face of her baby sister, who disappeared from the streets of San Juan twenty-five years ago. Isabella, an artist, has fought hard for the stable home and loving marriage she has today—yet the longing to find Marianna has never left. At last, she’s found a match, and Gabby has agreed to come to Puerto Rico.

But Gabby, as defensive and cautious as Isabella is impulsive, offers no happy reunion. She insists there’s been a mistake. And Isabella realizes that even if this woman is her sister, she may not want to be.
With nothing—or perhaps so much—in common, Gabby and Isabella set out to find the truth, though it means risking everything they’ve known for an uncertain future—and a past that harbors yet more surprises . . .

Jun17

New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke

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Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

Courtney, 40ish and Ruby, 20ish are roommates.  They have differences. Courtney is quiet, private, loves plants, and had an alcohol problem. Ruby is free-spirited, outgoing, desperately in need of a job, and wants to make her way in the world away from her family. And oh, yeah, Courtney is dead and Ruby is alive. Which makes it hard to communicate with each other, to say the least.

The two of them team up to try to solve the murder of the guy who lived across the hall.

The book was quite clever and part of the fun of solving the mystery of who done it was the mechanics of how they learned to work together once Ruby learned she wasn’t living alone in their apartment.

Courtney helps Ruby with some much needed hidden money as well as assisting her to find employment.

I enjoyed the interactions between the two main characters as well as the mystery itself. And the fact that the author named the deceased Courtney Graves and the 20-year-old Ruby Young was not lost on me. J

There’s clearly another book planned as there’s one overarching plot point that I kept screaming about that will hopefully be resolved in the next book.  I’m not a fan of cliffhangers and I’m glad this book was not one. Yes, there is an overarching plot to tie book two to book one but we got resolution of the mystery of how the neighbor died and who was responsible and that satisfied me.

Can’t wait for the next book as these characters are delightful and fun to read. Dark, yet fun, this is a great read.

This one gets five stars from me.

BLURB:

In this darkly funny supernatural mystery about an unlikely crime-solving duo that launches a commercial, unique, and genre-blending series, death is only the beginning.

Ruby Young’s new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. A malfunctioning buzzer. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost.

Since Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few months ago, she’s kept up her residency, despite being bored out of her (non-tangible) skull and frustrated by her new roommate. When her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake Macintyre, is shot and killed in an apparent mugging gone wrong outside their building, Cordelia is convinced there’s more to it and is determined to bring his killer to justice.

Unfortunately, Cordelia, being dead herself, can’t solve the mystery alone. She has to enlist the help of the obnoxiously perky, living tenant of her apartment. Ruby is twenty, annoying, and has never met a houseplant she couldn’t kill. But she also can do everything Cordelia can’t, from interviewing suspects to researching Jake on the library computers that go up in a puff of smoke if Cordelia gets too close. The roommates form an unlikely friendship as they get closer to the truth about Jake’s death…and maybe other dangerous secrets as well.

May24

Brat- by Gabriel Smith

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I received this book in a drawing from Penguin Press for Little Free Library stewards and thank them for choosing my little library.

Intrigued by the blurb of the book, I dove right in to read it and enjoyed it. It was quirky, odd and a bit out there, but was compelling reading.

The main character is an under thirty-year-old who has recently lost his father and his girlfriend has left him as well.  He has a brother and sister-in-law who are mostly estranged from him. He gets along okay with the brother but not the wife. Several passages with the two of them are fraught with tension.

The protagonist is also a writer who is trying to work on his second book. He moves into the home ostensibly to clear it out to sell it. The house is gloomy and, as the book progresses, it get more creepy and dreary.

Weird things begin to happen as soon as he moves in, starting with his skin coming off in sheets. He finds a manuscript that keeps changing each time he reads it and sees strange people in various places.

He has a good relationship with his grandmother that keeps him somewhat grounded.

It’s an odd, strangely hypnotic journey of a book. Not quite horror, not quite literary, not quite gothic, but a conglomeration of various elements of each genre.

I read it in pretty much one sitting as it was darkly mesmerizing and the pages kept turning. Almost of their own volition. 🙂

BLURB:

We meet our ill-tempered protagonist—the story’s titular “brat”—at a low moment, but not yet at rock bottom. The Gabriel of the novel is mourning the death of his father as well as a recent breakup, and struggling to finish writing his second book. Alone and aimless, he agrees to move back into his parents’ house to clear it out for sale. Here, the clichés end.

Gabriel has trouble delivering on his promise as the moldy, overgrown house deteriorates around him, so does his own health, and large sheets of his skin begin to peel from his body at a terrifying rate. In fragments and figments, Gabriel takes us on a surreal journey into the mysteries of the family home, where he finds unfinished manuscripts written by his parents which seem to mutate every time he picks them up, and a bizarre home video that hints at long-buried secrets.

Strange people and figures emerge—perhaps directly from the novel’s embedded fictions—and despite his compromised state (and his more successful brother’s growing frustration) Gabriel is determined to try to make sense of these hauntings. Part ghost story, part grief story; flirting with the autofictional mode while sitting squarely in the tradition of the gothic, Brat crackles with deadpan humor and delightfully taut prose.

Smith’s arrival heralds the next generation of fiction writers—formally inventive, influenced by the rhythms of the internet, and infused with a particularly Gen Z sense of alienation. Irreverent and boundary-pushing, but not for its own sake, the novel that follows is muscular yet lyrical, riddled with paradox, and told with a truly rare and compelling clarity of voice. Brat is a serious debut that refuses to take itself too seriously.

May9

The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan- A Review

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I read this one back in March of this year. It was an ARC from NetGalley and I thank them for the opportunity to read and review this lovely book.

The story was set during the Blitz in London and follows the lives of three young ladies. One, Julie, is a new under-librarian at Bethnel Green Library. She has moved to London from her small village and has big dreams about her work at the library. She is met with resistance from the head of the library, a man. She is also boarding with a woman whose husband is serving in the war. The other tenant of the house is the man her mother wanted her to marry, but she thought he was too much of a ladies man and flirt to be taken seriously as a husband,

The second girl, Katie, is working at the library until she leaves for university. Her family is very conscious of reputation even though her father is a bit of a cad. Her fiance is at the front and she gets devastating news about him. And she is hiding a big secret from everyone.

The third girl, Sofie, a Jewish refugee, came to London to escape the Nazis. She is on a domestic service visa with a horrible man as her sponsor/employer. She misses her family and is worried about their safety. She visits the library down the street in order to find some relief from the hard work and the worry about her kin.

A Nazi bomb hits the library, damaging some books, but many survive. Katie moves some of the salvaged books to the underground station and starts reading to people who are sheltered there. Eventually, she convinces the board of the library to allow the lending to continue from that location.

Many events occur with the lives of these three women, including issues with family, a theft, a trip to the Isle of Man, and some heartbreaking scenes with Katie.

A great book, written in a simple style that would be easy for teens to read. Some of the subject matter is sensitive, but there is nothing here that would take this book to the level that it isn’t appropriate for anyone over the age of fifteen. As well, it is also suitable for older readers. I enjoyed it immensely. Lots of conflict for all three protagonists and the journey of each is well done and believable.

BLURB:

When the Blitz imperils the heart of a London neighborhood, three young women must use their fighting spirit to save the community’s beloved library in this novel based on true events from the author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.

When the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn’t the bustling hub she is expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. But can she show the men in charge that a woman is up to the task of running the library, especially when a confrontation with her past threatens to derail her?

Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library, although she is only there until she heads off to university in the fall. But after the death of her beau on the front line and amid tumultuous family strife, she finds herself harboring a life-changing secret with no one to turn to for help.

Sofie Baumann, a young Jewish refugee, came to London on a domestic service visa only to find herself working as a maid for a man who treats her abominably. She escapes to the library every chance she can, finding friendship in the literary community and aid in finding her sister, who is still trying to flee occupied Europe.

When a slew of bombs destroys the library, Juliet relocates the stacks to the local Underground station where the city’s residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up. But tragedy after tragedy threatens to unmoor the women and sever the ties of their community. Will Juliet, Kate, and Sofie be able to overcome their own troubles to save the library? Or will the beating heart of their neighborhood be lost forever?

Apr11

Zenith Man by McCracken Poston, Jr.

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I was given this book by Kensington Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

McCracken Poston, Jr. is lawyer who served in the State House for the State of Georgia and lost his bid for Congress. He practices law in Ringgold, Georgia

Alvin Ridley is a local man who lives in Ringgold, Georgia as well. At one time, he owned the Zenith dealership in town. He had always been a bit odd and not many people wanted to deal with him due to his eccentricities.

Ridley had some run-ins with the local sheriff. He’d sued the department and had a vehicle taken by a deputy when a suit ended with Ridley on the losing side.  This turn of events made him distrust law enforcement even more.

In October, 1997, a woman was found dead in Alvin Ripley’s house. He told the police it was his wife and she must have smothered herself during an epilepsy attack when her face turned into her pillow in the midst of the seizure.

The community was shocked to learn he even had a wife as they’d never seen her.  This was yet another strange thing about the loner, Alvin Ridley. Many years prior, his wife’s family accused him of keeping her a prisoner in their home, but a judge found the allegations untrue when the wife testified about their lives.

With Ridley charged with murder, McCracken Poston agreed to help Ridley because it didn’t seem anyone else would take on the case. Poston wasn’t sure about Ridley, but he was determined to try to assist the man.

And then the real story begins. The tribulations of Poston as he tried to represent this man who had many odd habits and lived in a place that was roach infested and filthy. It took a long while for Ridley to trust his lawyer and actually let him into his house.

Inside was a plethora of evidence that would help his client and Poston had a difficult time getting the man to even let him look at it, much less copy it for purposes of trial discovery.

This was a story of redemption for both the attorney and his client. It was a wild tale with a lot of ups and downs. From the roaches brought to court in the suitcase full of evidence that Ridley didn’t want to let go of, to the expert witness that Poston hired who was an expert in pretty much nothing, to the marital issues Poston had during the run up to the trial. This was a great book with a deep friendship that developed at the heart of it. Ridley was eventually diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and once the community learned of this, his life changed for the better. Both lawyer and client owe each other a debt of gratitude for changing each other’s lives for the better.  Highly recommend for the legal drama as well as the heartwarming outcome.

BLURB:

Was this small-town TV repair man “a harmless eccentric or a bizarre killer” (Atlanta Journal Constitution). For the first time, Alvin Ridley’s own defense attorney reveals the inside story of his case and trial in an extraordinary tale of friendship and an idealistic young attorney’s quest to clear his client’s name—and, in the process, rebuild his own life.

In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley’s house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had. 

McCracken Poston had been a state representative before he lost his bid for U.S. Congress and returned to his law career. Alvin Ridley was a local character who once sold and serviced Zenith televisions. Though reclusive and an outsider, the “Zenith Man,” as Poston knew him, hardly seemed capable of murder. 

Alvin was a difficult client, storing evidence in a cockroach-infested suitcase, unwilling to reveal key facts to his defender. Gradually, Poston pieced together the full story behind Virginia and Alvin’s curious marriage and her cause of death—which was completely overlooked by law enforcement. Calling on medical experts, testimony from Alvin himself, and a wealth of surprising evidence gleaned from Alvin’s  junk-strewn house, Poston presented a groundbreaking defense that allowed Alvin to return to his peculiar lifestyle, a free man.

Years after his trial, Alvin was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a revelation that sheds light on much of his lifelong personal battle—and shows how easily those who don’t fit societal norms can be castigated and misunderstood. Part true crime, part courtroom drama, and full of local color, Zenith Man is also the moving story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men that changed—and perhaps saved—the lives of both.

Apr3

The Dying Five – Book Two- by Jennifer Wright-Berryman- a Review

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I was given an e-book of this title in exchange for an unbiased review. This is reviewed for Rosie’s Book Review Team.

While there was a lot to like about this book, I had a few problems with some of it. I’m going to rate this one a three star. It’s got a great premise—dying people who solve murder mysteries. It has some great quirky characters and moves along at a good pace.

The few issues I had were perhaps personal to me and would probably not matter to many readers. 

Some wrong word usage threw me out of the story in a few places. There were way too many characters to try to keep straight and that was exacerbated by a lot of them having names that started with “J”. One character’s name really bothered me because it was Frances. And he was a man. Traditionally, men named Francis are spelled with and “i” and females with an “e” —my mom was named Frances so I’m hyper aware of the spelling difference. But that’s just me. And that’s not all that important to the grand scheme of things.

There was some head hopping as well as things mentioned that the point-of-view character could not have known. But the biggest thing that bothered me was the crime solvers became criminals themselves. And one part of the story really bothered me. A character was left tied to a chair with a gag for three days. Imagine how that would go. *shudder* The whodunit was kind of out of left field as well which was disappointing.

So, overall, I think it was a good plot, an interesting take on crime solving, and the intricacies of why the murder took place were well done. It was intriguing and the issues I had were probably just nitpicking, but they are things that threw me out of the world the author was building. A solid three stars for me–that might very well be a four for another reader.