Month: January 2017

Review of Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

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Dead to the World
Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood 4
By Charlaine Harris

Star Rating: 
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 310

Date Started: January 19, 2016dead-to-the-world
Date Finished: January 19, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)
When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn’t just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn’t a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It’s Eric the vampire—but now he’s a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever took his memory now wants his life.

Review:
As far as mysteries go, I absolutely loved the various layers and depth to this one. We weren’t just faced with something supernatural, but also something that messed very heavily with humans.

Eric got a more thorough looking at, and it’s hard not to like him the more you get to know him. In many ways, I like him with Sookie better than any of the other contenders for her affections.  Sookie is beginning to change and become a more experienced person and less of an innocent dunce, and it’s quite a nice, welcome change.

This book is very emotionally driven, and I think that’s likely what makes it so riveting and relatable, since most have felt spurned before, though I would like to believe not many would go to the lengths some do in this novel.

charlaineAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
For information on Charlaine Harris, please view her Amazon author page here.

Review of Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

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Club Dead
Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood 3
By Charlaine Harris

Star Rating: 
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 258

Date Started: January 18, 2016clubdead
Date Finished: January 19, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)
Sookie’s boyfriend has been very distant-in another state, distant. Now she’s off to Mississippi to mingle with the underworld at Club Dead-a little haunt where the vampire elite go to chill out. But when she finally finds Bill—caught in an act of betrayal—she’s not sure whether to save him…or sharpen some stakes.

Review:
It was good to see Sookie forced out of her comfort zone and although I didn’t necessarily like what happened with Bill, it was good for her to realize even people that seem perfect can falter.  The new people introduced are interesting and have great depth.

The mystery in this one was very much purely supernatural, and I have no complaints about it.

One thing that does get annoying is Sookie’s constant mention of no one asking her to marry them. She and Bill were only dating a few months, and he’s a vampire. A bit of an unrealistic expectation, but since her only previous relationship experience is reading romance novels, I suppose it’s understandable.

charlaineAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
For information on Charlaine Harris, please view her Amazon author page here.

Review of Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

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Dead Until Dark
Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood 2
By Charlaine Harris

Star Rating: 
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 290

Date Started: January 16, 2016
Date Finished: January 18, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)livingdeadindallas
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn’t enjoy it). The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges – and soon Sookie’s in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that’s easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…

Review:
Finally, in this book we see that Sookie has to honour a commitment she made too lightly in the first book to a certain vampire, which shows that you should not agree to do something continually if you have no desire to do so.

The relationship dynamics in this book series continue to evolve and it was interesting to see Bill and Sookie’s relationship shift throughout.

The human mystery in this novel was far harder to have any grasp on before getting to very far into the rising action. The climax was completely unexpected, and very intriguing, making me anxious to see what other creatures Sookie might encounter in the future, as well as if her supernatural friends will be able to continue keeping her safe.

 

charlaineAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
For information on Charlaine Harris, please view her Amazon author page here.

Review of Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

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Dead Until Dark
Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood 1
By Charlaine Harris

Star Rating: 
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 336

Date Started: January 15, 2016
Date Finished: January 16, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)dead-until-dark
Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She’s quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn’t get out much – not because she’s not pretty, she’s a very cute bubbly blonde, or not interested in a social life – she really is …but Sookie’s got a bit of a disability. She can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill: he’s tall, he’s dark and he’s handsome – and Sookie can’t ‘hear’ a word he’s thinking. He’s exactly the type of guy she’s been waiting all her life for. But Bill has a disability of his own: he’s fussy about his food, he doesn’t like suntans and he’s never around during the day …Yep, Bill’s a vampire. Worse than that, he hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation for trouble – of the murderous kind. And then one of Sookie’s colleagues at the bar is killed, and it’s beginning to look like Sookie might be the next victim …

Review:
In the beginning I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this novel. Sookie is the epitome of a dumb blonde. Between the constant references to what she was wearing to the amounts of times people had to tone down what they were saying because she couldn’t comprehend adult situations I hadn’t been sure I’d ever like her. Luckily, she began to develop as she met Bill.

All of the characters are well developed, and the mystery is slow burning. The mystery made perfect sense although it was hard to pinpoint which person it could possibly be given the large amount of people that seem to dislike the undead.

All in all, I picked up book 2 as soon as I was finished with this one.

charlaineAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
For information on Charlaine Harris, please view her Amazon author page here.

Review of Dead and Gone by Norah McClintock

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Dead and Gone
Mike & Riel Mysteries
By Norah McClintock

Star Rating: 
Genre: YA Mystery

Number of Pages: 224

Date Started: January 12, 2016
Date Finished: January 14, 2016dead-and-gone

Synopsis: (From Amazon)
A shallow grave. Human remains. An unsolved murder from years ago. It looks like the past is coming back to wreak havoc on Mike’s new life. What’s making the usually unshakeable Riel so rattled, and what does a beautiful but manipulative girl have to do with it all?

Review:
From the first page I was hooked. I hadn’t read the other books that started Mike and Riel Mysteries, but that didn’t stop me from getting right into this one. All of the characters were well developed with strong personalities and moral compasses (or lack thereof). Mike, despite his faults, is easy to empathize with, because he doesn’t always consider the big picture when deciding to do things, which is something that everyone has to learn.

While this book is a mystery, I found that there were plenty of clues along the way that would lead a critical thinker to the conclusion, while still having far too much more to read. Despite that, I still read to the end, waiting to see if any of the characters might have a dramatic explosion over the major reveal.

Author Biography: (From Amazon)
Norah McClintock has won an unprecedented five Arthur Ellis Awards for Crime Fiction for Mistaken Identity, The Body in the Basement, Sins of the Father, Scared to Death and Break and Enter. McClintock has also been nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for her non-fiction title Body, Crime, Suspect; No Escape was nominated for the White Pine Award; and Hit and Run was nominated for the Red Maple Award in 2004.

Review of Teen Idol by Meg Cabot

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Teen Idol
By Meg Cabot

Star Rating: 
Genre: YA

Number of Pages: 320

Date Started: January 4, 2016
Date Finished: January 5, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)teen-idol
High school junior Jenny Greenley is so good at keeping secrets that she’s the school newspaper’s anonymous advice columnist. She’s so good at it that, when hotter-than-hot Hollywood star Luke Striker comes to her small town to research a role, Jenny is the one in charge of keeping his identity under wraps. But Luke doesn’t make it easy, and soon everyone – the town, the paparazzi, and the tabloids alike – know his secret . . . and Jenny is caught right in the middle of all the chaos.

Review:
Like so many Meg Cabot books, this novel shows that sometimes it’s easier to get along with everyone and blend in than it is to speak up and be yourself. Jenny was an extremely likeable character, and even the characters that were somewhat annoying grew during the novel, developing into people you could empathize with and care about.

Another amazing lesson that this novel shows is that relationships, even chance meetings between people, can be very touching to all involved. No matter age or occupation, there is always something you can learn from others, and what that something is can often be surprising.

Although this book originally came out in 2004 it seems a bit dated, perhaps because technology has evolved and cell phones have become almost essential to today’s youth. Despite that, the book was still a pleasure to read, and had great morals.

meg-cabotAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
Meg Cabot was born in Indiana during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign, but has been working hard ever since to give herself a happy ending. Her books for both adults and tweens/teens have included multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, selling well over 25 million copies worldwide. Her Princess Diaries series has been published in more than 38 countries and was made into multiple hit films by Disney. Meg’s numerous other award-winning books include the Mediator series and the Heather Wells mystery series. Meg Cabot (her last name rhymes with habit, as in “her books can be habit forming”) currently lives in Key West with her husband.

End of the Year Tidings

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My grand total of books read this year is 44, and of them, several were quite long. It’s a bit shorter than the 55 I read last year, but all in all, I read a lot of quality pieces that I quite enjoyed. As always, what’s important is that one always keeps reading.

2016 heralded a lot of change for me. My husband and I bought a house, and my debut novel Pas de Deux came out in November.

Of course, Pas de Deux didn’t come out all at once… that is to say, there was an e-book, then the paperback became available and now the hardcover is available for sale on Amazon!

Review of The Red Box by Rex Stout

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The Red Box
A Nero Wolf Mystery (4)
By Rex Stout

Star Rating: 
Genre: Thriller/Mystery

Number of Pages: 454

Date Started: December 27, 2016
Date Finished: January 4, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)the-rubber-band-red-box
Murder by chocolate? That’s the premise Nero Wolfe must operate from when a beautiful woman is poisoned after indulging in a box of candy. It’s a case that the great detective—no stranger himself to overindulgence—is loath to take for a variety of reasons, including that it may require that he leave his comfortable brownstone. But he and Archie are compelled by a mystery that mixes high fashion and low motives…and a killer who may have made the deadliest mistake.

Review:
How can you not love the crazy characters in this novel? This story showcases many characters with different personalities and they are all quite in depth. Starting with a trick to get Mr. Wolfe interested, it is impossible not to want to learn more as the story progresses and we learn more about the Frost family.

Once again, I saw the characters as they were on the show A Nero Wolfe Mystery, and again I had an inkling what the end result would be– though I had no idea who the murderer was. Wolfe was absolutely genius in this one, and I didn’t see the ending coming.

rexAuthor Biography:
Rex Todhunter Stout (/staʊt/; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction, particularly the 33 novels and about 40 novellas that featured the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin between 1934 and 1975.

In 1959, Stout received the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon XXXI, the world’s largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

In addition to writing fiction, Stout was a prominent public intellectual for decades. Stout was active in the early years of the American Civil Liberties Union and a founder of the Vanguard Press. He served as head of the Writers’ War Board during World War II, became a radio celebrity through his numerous broadcasts, and was later active in promoting world federalism. He was the long-time president of the Authors Guild, during which he sought to benefit authors by lobbying for reform of the domestic and international copyright laws,[specify] and served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by CBS Radio and photographer uncredited [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Review of Hex on the Beach by Gina LaManna

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Hex on the Beach
The Magic & Mixology Series Book 1
By Gina LaManna

Star Rating: 
Genre: Mystery

Number of Pages: 254

Date Started: December 27, 2016
Date Finished: December 29, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)hex-on
Welcome to The Isle… Lily Locke has never believed in witches and wizards, ghosts and magic, shifters and vampires—especially cute blonde vamps with blood-intolerance issues. A rising star at a hotshot marketing agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, all Lily knows is that she’s a PowerPoint guru, an Excel ninja, and a coffee-maker extraordinaire. Not to mention she’s next in line for a huge promotion. All that changes when Lily’s assistant delivers a strange quiz to her, one titled A Magical Assessment for Normal Folks. With it comes the promise of a land she’s never known existed. A land where Lily not only discovers her biological family for the first time, but a place where she can make a difference, change lives, and step into the role she’s destined to fulfill. But first, Lily must admit she’s a witch. Then, she has to acknowledge that the tall, dark, and mysterious man who offers his help is strictly focused on business…at least, for now. When a body turns up dead and the next target is Lily, she must trust her powers and accept the help of her newfound friends. Otherwise, she’ll never survive the trials of the magical island tucked far, far away in the frigid waters of Lake Superior. Welcome to The Isle.

Review:
I really like the premise of this book, but the characters and the situations really seem more written for YA than an adult crowd. The characters weren’t very well developed and seemed much more like stock teenagers than adults. None of the characters ever demonstrated any interests.

This book felt as if it was a constant state of expedition. What should have been climatic wasn’t really worrisome, and absolutely nothing was solved by the end of the book. There are lots of questions and absolutely no answers, that, of course, leads you to the next novel…

What irks me most is that this book is considered a mystery. Sure, there are mystery elements, but there is no big mystery here; nothing is solved. If this was under Romance and Mystery it might be excused, but this is under Mystery and a mixture of various supernatural creatures– not all of the creatures it is listed as a mystery of actually make an appearance in the novel!

ginaAuthor Biography: (From Amazon)
Gina LaManna is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Magic & Mixology series, the Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries, The Little Things romantic suspense series, and the Misty Newman books. Stop on by and say hello on Facebook!
Link: https://www.facebook.com/authorginalamanna

Review of The Rubber Band by Rex Stout

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The Rubber Band
A Nero Wolf Mystery (3)
By Rex Stout

Star Rating: 
Genre: Thriller/Mystery

Number of Pages: 454

Date Started: December 26, 2016
Date Finished: December 27, 2016

Synopsis: (From Amazon)the-rubber-band-red-box
What do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young woman hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe’s job to look deeper and find the connection. A forty-year-old pact, a five-thousand-mile search, and a million-dollar murder are all linked to an international scandal that could rebound on the great detective and his partner, Archie, with fatal abruptness.

Review:
Having recently binge watched all of A Nero Wolfe Mystery I have to say, it’s quite easy to picture the characters as the actors– and that’s the only good way to picture them, in my book.

There is very little that can be said without giving away a plot. All of the characters were well done. Mr. Wolfe does an excellent job of protecting his client, and offering help but not forcing it on others. I was pleasantly surprised that I figured out the mystery before Mr. Wolfe revealed it, though I didn’t know as fast as he did, and I hadn’t known for sure which individual it was before he revealed it. Quite well done! I can’t wait to read more!

rexAuthor Biography:
Rex Todhunter Stout (/staʊt/; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction, particularly the 33 novels and about 40 novellas that featured the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin between 1934 and 1975.

In 1959, Stout received the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon XXXI, the world’s largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

In addition to writing fiction, Stout was a prominent public intellectual for decades. Stout was active in the early years of the American Civil Liberties Union and a founder of the Vanguard Press. He served as head of the Writers’ War Board during World War II, became a radio celebrity through his numerous broadcasts, and was later active in promoting world federalism. He was the long-time president of the Authors Guild, during which he sought to benefit authors by lobbying for reform of the domestic and international copyright laws,[specify] and served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by CBS Radio and photographer uncredited [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons