Tag Archives: fiction

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.

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 . . .

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.

Mar25

The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger

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I have a Little Free Library at my office and sometimes books are left there by others that intrigue me. This was one of those. I pulled it out to read it before putting it back to let someone else enjoy it.

The book has two protagonists who we follow through most of the story. Annabel, the banker’s wife of the title, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland and Marina, a journalist, who lives in New York City.

Before moving to Geneva two years prior, Annabel was an artist and gallery owner. Her husband worked as a lawyer but was offered a job working for a private bank, with a large salary bump, in Switzerland. They chose to move there for two years to earn enough money to buy a house near the sea back home in the United States. Annabel was lonely and isolated in Geneva as her husband worked many hours. She isn’t happy with their life there.

Marina was engaged to a man whose father was preparing to announce his candidacy for president. She worked as a journalist for a fluff publication, but wanted to be a hard hitting reporter. She planned to stop working as soon as she married in order to be a supportive wife to a CEO since her husband to be would be taking over the family business from his father.

Both protagonists’ lives changed during the course of the story. Annabel’s when her husband’s plane went down in the Alps. Marina’s when her mentor was murdered.

The parallel story lines run through the book with each woman’s life escalating into danger and each woman under pressure. Both not knowing exactly who to trust and who to be wary of. The story is fast paced and edge of the seat in many of the chapters.

I enjoyed the book and pretty much read it all in one afternoon. I hadn’t read this author before and I’m sure I’ll be seeking out other of her books. If you like suspense and fast-moving drama, this one is for you.

Feb6

Murder in the Family, by Cara Hunter, a Review

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This book was quite clever in its premise and execution. It’s set up like a documentary series about a cold case involving the murder of the stepfather of one of the filmmakers.

The story is set up as a series of production notes, articles about the murder, and interviews on camera with various people who have information about the case. The filmmaker is in the background for most of it, but appears a few times to set the scene for the people on the program.

The other characters are various professionals who have experience as either law enforcement, journalists, or other crime backgrounds.  We have a retired detective inspector, a criminal prosecutor, a journalist, forensic psychologist, crime scene investigator, a retired NYPD detective as well as the producer of the show and the filmmaker with his two sisters.

Newspaper articles, text messages, emails, true crime aficionados in message forums, and dialogue in the documentary make up the majority of the book. There are no chapters per se and this is a fun way for the reader to get the story and try to figure out the clues as well as who may have something to hide.

I loved this book and the way it was presented. It was unique and enjoyable. I did figure out who did it but I usually do. The ride to get to the solution is what I enjoy and this one was an intriguing one. While I did figure out whodunit, I was wrong on the why dun it.  LOL

The presentation of this story was ingenious and original. I really enjoyed it.

BLURB:

It was a case that gripped the nation. In December 2003, Luke Ryder, the stepfather of acclaimed filmmaker Guy Howard (then aged 10), was found dead in the garden of their suburban family home.

Luke Ryder’s murder has never been solved. Guy Howard’s mother and two sisters were in the house at the time of the murder—but all swear they saw nothing. Despite a high-profile police investigation and endless media attention, no suspect was ever charged.

But some murder cases are simply too big to forget…

Now comes the sensational new streaming series Infamous, dedicated to investigating—and perhaps cracking—this famous cold case. Years later a group of experts re-examine the evidence – with shocking results. Does the team know more than they’ve been letting on?

True crime lovers and savvy readers, you can review the evidence and testimony at the same time as the experts. But can you solve the case before they do?

Jan21

London Tales by Tim Walker

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London Tales is a collection of short stories through time that all have a central London theme. There are a range of styles and some are more snippets of action rather than full tales.

I enjoyed the first few stories and I particularly liked the third one about Wat Tyler because it was told from the point of view of the peasants as well as the lords.

The story of Holly and the girl who fell through the ice in 1814  was fun to read during an ice cold day in my town. It made me glad to have heat and warm socks! 

I thought that the build up to the story set during the London Blitz was good, but the ending left me a little disappointed.

There are several other stories in this collection but they were less appealing to me and overall the book was okay, but not as good as I had hoped.

3 Stars

Jan5

Off the Air by Christina Estes, A Review

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Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Jolene Garcia is a reporter for a television station who is sent to a radio station to cover the scene of a death of one of their talk radio hosts. Jolene is ambitious and wants to get the scoop on the story.

When another reporter, one who scooped her on an Emmy award the year before, grabs an interview with the man everyone wants to talk to and the same woman later breaks the news that there might be poison involved, Jolene is on an even more urgent quest to get the story first.

Initially, I liked Jolene as she seemed klutzy and quirky. As the book went on, I started to dislike her. She was definitely ambitious and didn’t hesitate to be unkind or rude when she was stressed or jealous. Her back story explained some of her behavior but her alienation of colleagues and friends was annoying and made her dislikable.

The story itself was great. Lots of mystery and wondering how the talk show host died. A plethora of suspects were woven into the story and made the book fully rounded and a good read.

The obligatory detective friend who gets annoyed at the amateur sleuth and the obligatory bone-headed move by the same amateur sleuth was true to the tropes of the genre.

Overall, I liked the story and it was well worth the read. I just wish the protagonist was a bit more pleasant and a little less jealous and unkind.

Three and a half stars.

Dec1

Cover Love: Twelve Days of Christmas

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This is my upcoming new release blurb and cover.

Just imagine…Imagine if the twelve days of Christmas weren’t about Christmas at all.  What if the Partridge in a pear tree was actually a chef named Otto Partridge who found a pear orchard to pick some fresh pears for his restaurant? Imagine the two turtle doves as a pop duo? What if the eleven pipers piping were bakers on a baking challenge show? And what if the six geese a-laying were sassy birds full of advice for a young girl looking to earn money for a prom dress?

A mixture of stories sure to appeal to a variety of readers. Some are set in historical times, some are modern, some fantasy and some romantic. All of them fun and mostly light-hearted. Something for everyone. And none of them Christmas…except for the last one, which involves the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… the traditional kick off for Christmas festivities.

Jun5

A Murderous Relation and Dark Road to Darjeeling – Both by Deanna Raybourn- Review

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I’ve been meaning to review these books for a while but have had a number of personal family issues that have made reviewing difficult recently.

A very long time ago, I read the first books in the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn and truly enjoyed them but didn’t keep going in the series. I did pick up a couple more of them as the years went on but they were in my pile to be read and I never got to them.

In the meantime, I picked up A Murderous Relation in paperback not too long ago and read it in January. I enjoyed the two main characters, Veronica Speedwell and Stoker. They had a great relationship and the mystery they solved was intriguing and interesting.

Reading this book made me decide to dig out the other books I had by her and I started reading Dark Road to Darjeeling. As I read the first couple of chapters, I was thrown off by the fact that Lady Julie was the daughter of an earl and had siblings with her as they traveled in India. It took me a while to catch on that this was a different heroine than the one in A Murderous Relation.

I am truly not an idiot but having recently read the Murderous book, I wasn’t thinking about those older books with Lady Julia as it had been over 10 years since I read those. The two main characters in each of the book series were so alike and spoke in the same voice that it took me a while to differentiate what series I was reading.

Lady Julia is an aristocrat and the legitimate daughter of an earl. Veronica is the illegitimate child of the Prince of Wales. Veronica is a lepidopterist involved with a man name Stoker who is a jack of all trades and enjoys taxidermy. Lady Julia is a wanna-be detective married to a detective named Brisbane who has a myriad of skills like Stoker. They are both independent-minded women (which I love) and are not cowed or intimidated by strong men.

Both men are alpha types and get frustrated with the female main characters. Both are overly protective (which is right for the era) and have similar character traits.

As I read the first chapters, I kept saying, “Wait, I thought she was illegitimate and had no real relationship with her siblings.”  Eventually, it dawned on me that I was reading about different characters. I laughed and said “Duh,” as I recalled the first books I had read in the Lady Julia series.

But later on, I confess, I got confused again. There was a young boy character in the Darjeeling book who collected creatures, including butterflies. My first thought was, “With her being a lepidopterist, she will be able to relate to him well.” Another duh moment.  Wrong heroine.

I understand the author’s voice is the author’s voice, but I confess, the similarities of the personalities of Lady Julia and Veronica as well as similarities with both Stoker and Brisbane, I spent way too much time mulling over who was who and what series I was reading.

I very much enjoyed both books. The setting in the Himalayas in the Darjeeling book was marvelous and the brothel scenes in the Veronica book were delightful. The plots were intricate and well-done. The flow of the stories was also well done and the pacing was great. I just have to do better as I read them in the future. 🙂

Feb10

Ghost in Trouble by Carolyn Hart- A Review

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I picked this one up at our local library book sale. It’s book three in a series but it can be read as a standalone. I enjoyed the main character and her quirky personality.

Bailey Ruth Raeburn is a ghost. She works for the Department of Good Intentions in Heaven. Her boss is an old railway conductor, Wiggins. In this book, he assigns her to go to her old hometown and save the life of a woman who was one of her enemies in life.

The stage is set for some drama, some humor and a murder mystery.

Bailey Ruth was an older woman when she passed away but has chosen to present herself as her twenty-seven-year-old self. With red hair and quite attractive, she’s a clothes horse who can change her wardrobe at will. The reader is treated to all the costume changes, sometimes three changes in fifteen minutes. It becomes a funny part of the tale as she is supposed to be a heavenly entity and past all the vanities of life but she’s still intent on wearing attractive ensembles.

She’s also a rule breaker and Wiggins has to make appearances to scold her over her behavior.

The relationship between her and the women she’s supposed to save was delightful. They banter a lot and the woman initially thinks she’s lost her mind when Bailey Ruth makes herself known. Eventually, they come to terms with each other and agree to work together to solve the crime that put the woman’s life in danger in the first place.

The story was fun and the mystery was well done. Lots of red herrings included in the tale.  I like it when we, as readers, have plenty of fodder to mull over as we try to solve the case along with the sleuth. I recommend this one as a fun, quick read.