Monthly Archives: June 2013

by

Out of Circulation by Miranda James

 

Another good outing in The Cat in The Stacks Mystery series.  I love the main character, Charlie and Diesel, his cat.  In this book, several recurring characters feature prominently, Sean, Laura, Stewart, Azalea and her daughter.  The plot in this one is that Azalea is accused of murder and Charlie is recruited by her concerned daughter to help clear her name.  There is more of Charlie’s work as an archivist involved in this mystery and it is really interesting.  I  have been reading this series out of order because my library only had two of them.  I will definitely order the other two to finish the series.

There is romance in this book, but not the traditional love triangle that you see a lot of in cozy mysteries.  It is also a well done romance and I quite enjoyed that sub plot.  I really can’t see any negatives with this book.  Well written cozy, interesting plot,  great characters, and nothing too far fetched to distract the reader from the mystery.

 

by

Classified as Murder by Miranda James

 

Best cozy I have read in a while!  I think part of it is because it had a lot of differences from other cozies I have been reading .  It was like a breath of fresh air. The biggest difference was a male protagonist.  I haven’t read a cozy with a male protagonist since  The Cat Who…series.  Charlie is great and he is a fully developed character.  You hear his inner thoughts and his doubts and insecurities regarding his relationship with his son as well as his thoughts on the mystery.  The second difference is that there was no romance element, some cozies get so caught up in the love triangles that it takes  away from the mystery.  Love triangles are fine to a point, but I want the focus to be on the mystery.    Finally, it is a book based cozy which have always been my favorites and I have been reading other themes lately.

The mystery plot was well crafted.  I had the mystery solved early, but not really due to any clues in the book, it was just a gut feeling.  This did not detract from my enjoyment of the story.  I am going to read more in this series, in fact I have Out of Circulation checked out from the library already.

 

by

Gone Girl and For Better, For Worse

 

I picked this up from my local library because so many people online have been writing about it.  The title of the book at first made me think that it was a YA novel so that is why I initially had no interest in it, but it is very definitely  adult fiction, a thriller actually.

The story is about a wife who goes unexpectedly missing.   The story is told from the husband’s point of view, from diary pages of the missing wife and  finally from the wife’s current point of view.  The author builds suspense well and although I had some things figured out I definitely did not have everything right.  There is some misdirection and use of an “unreliable narrator” in places, although perhaps I misuse the term since it is more about deliberate deception than a normal unreliable narrator.   The book has a few slow moments but  overall it is a real page turner.  I finished it in one sitting,anxious to get to the end.

The interesting aspect of this book is that none of the main characters are really likable, at all, not even a little bit, and yet the book still engaged me and kept my attention.  I wanted to know how it ended.  This is really unusual for me, I tend to be character-centric and if I don’t find a character I like or can relate to in a book, I generally don’t enjoy it.  That was definitely not the case here.  I don’t want to say much more because I am afraid of giving something away.  This is a time that a book lives up to the hype .

 

Another book I picked up from the library.  I didn’t know anything about it, just grabbed it based on the cover :).

I really enjoyed it.  For Better, For Murder  is the first in a Broken Vows mystery series.  The theme of the this book is not weddings, as I thought from the cover art and title, but rather a high end car dealer.  The lead character, Jolene, inherited the business from her father.  Her estranged husband is a local deputy and her sister Erica is a mental patient, in and out of institutions.  In addition, there are various other townspeople, an employee and customers to round out the cast of characters.  The mystery was well crafted, I didn’t guess the murderer before the reveal.

The writer crafted the story well and created  tension that kept me turning the pages.  The depiction of the issues that face a small business owner were more realistic than often portrayed in cozies.  The romantic subplot was well done and not the usual love triangle, and is the source of the title.   The main character, Jolene, is likable and not over the top in any aspect of her personality.  She has flaws, but that just makes her more realistic.  I will put the next ones in this series on my to-be-read list.

by

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams

 

I read this book for a book club I belong to that is currently following a travel theme.  The book follows Mark Adams as he retraces the steps of Bingham, the explorer/adventurer/professor who “discovered” Machu Picchu, on the 100 year anniversary of the discovery.  This should have been a great travel adventure but there were some issues with the book.  Mark Adams tells his present day story interspersed with Hiram Bingham’s  original tale and then with tales from Pissaro and the Conquistadors.  The switching back and forth is done erratically and is often disruptive.  I can’t tell whether the author did this deliberately to make a statement about how the journeys were interchangeable even after the passage or time or if it was just ….erratic.

Another issue is that the author is not the most descriptive of writers, when I am reading a travel book about some place I will probably never see, I would like the author to “paint pictures with his words” so that I can vicariously “see” his views and experience the trip.  Some of the writing is very flat and leaves you with a let down feel,… okay we got to Machu Picchu, now we’re going someplace else….what?

The main positive of the book is John Leivers, Mark Adam’s Australian born guide.  He seemed like a fascinating person and I would probably have loved a story about him.  There is also information about the controversies surrounding Machu Picchu and antiquities in general that was all very interesting.  It seems to me that the book had an identity crisis.  It tries to be a little bit of everything, a biography of Hiram Bingham, a travelogue, a historical text of Peru, and some ethics essays about antiquities.   In trying to do too much , if succeeds at nothing.   it has interested me enough in Hiram Bingham, that I will look for other books about him.

by

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

My Teaser:

They rose from their seats and the chief walked them to the door.  Sully went toward the lobby while the Chief led Lindsey to the section of the station which had a small block of jail cells.

This is from Book, Line, And Sinker by Jenn McKinlay.

by

The Hole in the Middle by Kate Hilton

 

I usually don’t include spoilers in any reviews but I couldn’t think of a way to discuss this book without discussing something that happens at the end so be warned….MINOR  SPOILER……

 

This book was an Amazon freebie. I will say that it was a well written book which often is not the case with Amazon free books. The book has a cheerful cover and I started it thinking, chick lit/women’s fiction light kind of thing…no, not exactly. Everyone is miserable and stressed out.  The main character’s life is an essay on everything that can go wrong with a dual working couple’s life.  Sophie, her husband, her children, her mother, her co-workers, basically everyone is miserable.  There is no humor to soften the misery.  This is a very realistic portrayal of failure in a marriage, a family, a life.  

So, if that part of the book is the doughy part of the doughnut, then the feminist manifesto parts are probably the sprinkles on top, which only leaves the chocolate frosting.  That is where the light read, chick lit piece comes into play. *** SPOILER*** The uber rich fairy godmother type who swoops in at the end and makes everything better after admitting she meddled around with questionable results back in the beginning.    

I’m really torn about this book.  I’m not so sure that the three parts  work so well together, but the writer does write well.  I think it is just so depressing in the beginning, it doesn’t achieve that angsty kind of misery balanced by humor that other chick lits seem to excel at.  Then, the mood shift at the end seems almost jarring in contrast, like reading two separate books.  Maybe it just wasn’t the book for me.  I thought I was getting a light, escapist read and this is not that, for most of the book.

 

 

 

 

by

Evans Above by Rhys Bowen

 

 

I just read Evans Above the first book in the Constable Evans series by Rhys Bowen.  This book has been in my TBR pile forever, no really I mean it, at least two years.  I don’t know why I never seemed to get around to it but now I am so glad that I did.  I loved the setting, a small Scottish Village and the ancillary characters are done quite well.  The murder plot was well crafted and I did not solve it until close to the end.   There was quite a bit of action, both related to the original crime and in addition to it.   In addition, there is quite an interesting love triangle brewing in the village between the Constable and two very different ladies.  This was a fun cozy read and I am sure the series is going to prove to be great.  Anyone who likes British cozies with small village settings will probably enjoy this.

by

Marian Keyes and Lucy Arlington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a meme from Midnightbookgirl.com.    My entries are below:

 

 

 

 

I will start this brief review  by saying that for me Marian Keyes can do no wrong.  I love her books and her sense of humor.  This book was no exception.  The characters were funny and engaging.  The mystery was well thought out, with red herrings, some quite clever.  The book is ostensibly about a missing “rock star”, I’ll use that term loosely since he is a former boy band member.  What the book is really about is depression, both having depression and others reactions to it.  I found it to be an honest and refreshing treatment of the subject.  Too often women’s fiction about depression takes itself so seriously that the books themselves are depressing and having been there I can tell you that is the last thing you need.  The dialogue, both inner and actual, reveals truths about depression with an accuracy that can only be expressed by someone who has been there.  Overall, an  interesting mystery plot, enjoyable characters, laugh out loud humor all add up to a highly recommended read.

I really, really tried to like this book.  I enjoyed the first in the series.  The theme of a literary agency is one that is really interesting (I like book related themes). .  In the first book, the main character was likable and I found that I could relate to her, a single working mother with college aged child.  This book was the second in the series, I ordered it from the library right  after I finished the first one.  This outing had several issues, first the culprit is obvious almost  from the first ten pages, so obvious that you keep thinking it must be a red herring but it isn’t .  Lila, the protagonist, rather than being a character I can relate to from the first book, is almost hysterical, jumping to conclusions and racing around like a chicken with her head cut off.  Then she veers off into hand wringing guilt, that only seems attention seeking to me.  The reveal was a let down because there was no mystery to it.  The subplot about the co-op just seems contrived and unnecessary, as though it was just thrown in as an excuse to get rid of the co-op in future books in the series.  Very disappointed in this outing in what I thought was going to be  a great series.

by

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

 

I checked this book out of my local library after reading about it on various book blogs.  I am so glad that I did!  On the face of it, the story is about a man walking to visit a dying friend, but the book is about so much more than that.  The book speaks to the mundane life, how many, dare I say most people, live life going through the motions, not appreciating the small moments, the small joys in their life.  Harold, through walking sees things he never noticed driving along in his car.  He meets and talks to people he never would have talked to in his “normal” life.  Through his journey he connects with others and they with him, after a lifetime of  seeming disconnectedness.

The conclusion is beautifully drawn and brings closure to a wonderful story.  Characters, not just Harold, show growth over the course of the story.  The major theme of this story is faith, not in the sense of religious faith but just in the sense of belief in something.  It also deals with friendship, loyalty, grief, death, and the fear of aging.

Some have criticized this book for moving too slowly, but I feel that is the point, a message, not to be trite, but “slow down and smell the roses”.  You need to appreciate each of the small moments, that is what life is made up of, don’t discount them as unimportant.  Yes, there are big moments in life, weddings, graduations, funerals, but those are rare occasions.  Wonderful book.

by

Sick Again

I can’t believe I am sick again. Several of my students are sick though so I guess it was inevitable.   Stopped and saw Doctor after work.  Came home drank a pot of tea, now off to bed with books, tissues and water bottle.  At least it is a rainy weekend, so I am not missing much outside.