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Yearly Archives: 2017
Cold As Ice–trying to cover mistakes
Cold As Ice
by Julie Mulhern
At 6:30 on a Friday evening, Ellison Russell sensed Disaster, but what about her daughter going on a date to see Benji with a handsome, polite young man from their social group or her attending a cocktail party with her best friend Libba? Who could have foretold the disastrous sequence of events that would occur over the next several days?
As expected, Cold As Ice, Julie Mulhern’s sixth novel in the Country Club Mystery Series is a winner. It jumps right into the current story while catching up readers who are new to the series. With a lot of legitimate suspects, Ellison stays busy following leads as she tries to save a failing bank which is her daughter’s inheritance from Ellison’s licentious, now dead, husband and negotiate landmines in her relationships with her domineering mother and her teenage daughter. Meanwhile two love interests, a lawyer and a detective, provide aid in her investigations while vying for her affections.
All of the investigation occurs in the midst of family chaos and is delivered with a heavy dose of wry humor. Mr. Coffee continues to be the only man Ellison can truly depend on. The setting is decorated with multiple authentic touches of the seventies. It is a book I didn’t want to put down, but I didn’t want it to end either.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Henery Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery, General Fiction (Adult)
Notes: # 6 in The Country Club Murders; works fine as a standalone
Publication: October 17, 2017—Henery Press
Memorable Lines:
“How was your date?” A silly question, since animated songbirds perched on her shoulders and whistled.
Perhaps the expression I allowed into my eyes stilled his tongue. It was one of Mother’s best. It spoke of impending pain and suffering and icy fury.
“Hi.” His voice was as delicious as s’mores made in the fireplace on a snow day. Melty and warm and addictive.
We need to talk. Has anything good ever followed those four words?
Twelve Slays of Christmas–a holiday treat
Twelve Slays of Christmas
by Jacqueline Frost
If you are someone with magical memories of Christmas, you will enjoy being immersed in the first Christmas Tree Farm Mystery. We are taken to a Christmas wonderland where the Whites try to keep the family business, Christmas Tree Farm, open in spite of dwindling tree sales by offering a twelve day tourist Christmas extravaganza in the little town of Mistletoe.
Holly returns home after nine years in the big city when her fiancé dumps her a week before the wedding. Murder threatens what should be a happy season for the tourists and locals. Both Holly and the tree farm are in danger. Sheriff Evan Gray makes a believable love interest as they get acquainted quickly through her investigations of several crises. The plot is interesting, the main characters are likable, and the setting is as Christmasy as you can get in a murder mystery.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Crooked Lane Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #1 in the Christmas Tree Farm Mystery Series
Publication: October 10, 2017—Crooked Lane Books
Memorable Lines:
“I have two cups of Santa’s cinnamon tea, one spicy apple cider, and a peppermint twist hot cocoa,” I said, setting the mugs on the table surrounded by rosy-cheeked women wearing matching holiday sweaters. They leaned forward at the sight of my mother’s specialty drinks. I slipped cinnamon sticks into the tea and cider, then popped a candy cane into the cocoa.
“Everyone’s capable of something they never thought they could be.”
“You have to make things happen, not wait around hoping something might happen to you.”
Fireworks in Paradise–fireworks for TJ and Kyle
Fireworks in Paradise
by Kathi Daley
TJ Jensen transported her sisters, good friend Kyle, grandfather, and his friend Doc, along with a menagerie, across the country to help a family friend for the summer. They are suddenly recalled to the resort the family owns in Paradise Island by a car accident that puts TJ’s father in the ICU.
Fireworks in Paradise is a good cozy mystery that ties in a cold case with vehicle tampering and local politics. Despite personal problems, TJ and her family’s resort host a number of the town’s Fourth of July celebrations. I enjoyed the tale but there are a lot of nuanced relationships that play into the story. The author does a good job of bringing the reader up to date, but there are also a number of new characters incorporated into the eighth novel in this series. Although I enjoyed Fireworks in Paradise, I don’t think this mystery would work as well as a standalone as some of the others in this series.
I do recommend the book and the series, but I have some residual hesitation about a 100% endorsement of this mystery. I found the amount of time TJ spent solving the crime to be unrealistic given other issues she should have been addressing. I know she felt like she could help her father most by finding the saboteur, but having rushed across the country you would think her focus would be spending time with her dad at the hospital or filling in at the resort’s Fourth of July activities for him. In spite of that, I did like the book’s underlying theme of the importance of family and friends.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Henery Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #8 in the TJ Jensen Mystery Series
Publication: October 10, 2017—Henery Press
Memorable Lines:
Love isn’t something you have to dissect and analyze. It’s something that just is.
…you never knew when someone or something in the background of an otherwise unspectacular photo would provide you with just the clue you needed to solve a case.
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions–moral turpitude in 1916?
Miss Kopp”s Midnight Confessions
by Amy Stewart
Amy Stewart has taken the real story of three sisters in the U.S. in 1916 and fleshed it out as a fictional tale based on her research. The rights of women are so limited in this book that is it hard to conceive of it in the twenty-first century.
Constance Kopp is the first female deputy sheriff in New Jersey and one of the first in the U.S. Many of the problems she deals with involve moral issues which can result in very stiff penalties, especially for women. As the U.S. prepares to enter World War I (1917), girls and women are starting to be employed outside the home working long hours under difficult conditions in factories where they are paid much less than men for the same work. One indicator of the status of women’s rights is that the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote was ratified on August 18, 1920.
With this setting in mind, know that there is nothing pedantic about Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions. It is composed of very short chapters that make you want to turn the page and keep reading. It deals with cultural and social issues of the time and demonstrates that there can be flexibility, based on reasonableness and sensitivity, within the law. Deputy Sheriff Constance Kopp encounters young women with various problems; she must view them through the prism of the potential for similar issues in her own family.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Historical Fiction
Notes: #3 in the Kopp Sister Novel Series, but can be read as a standalone
Publication: September 5, 2017—Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Memorable Lines:
Whatever discomforts she might endure, they couldn’t compare to the hardships of a trench in the Argonne. The idea stayed with her, as she grew more accustomed to the tedium of a factory job, the long hours on her feet, her red and swollen fingers, and the dull ache behind her eyes from staring at those spinning threads all day. Her brothers were eager to go overseas and endure far worse. Surely she could bear it for their sake.
She was such a slight, mousy girl, with so little to say, but a steel cable of resolve ran through her. The notions of duty and service and country came as naturally to her as breathing.
Edna had an endless reservoir of determination, and all the high ideals in the world, but she didn’t know how to bluff, or play a trick, or talk her way into a room where she wasn’t invited. She was constitutionally unable to lie or cheat or hide anything—money, jewels, the truth. Minnie could do all of that, and while she didn’t know much about war, she was fairly certain that something in that line might be called for.
Protocol–good debut mystery
Protocol
by Kathleen Valenti
There are exceptions, but generally I love it when a mystery begins with action or intrigue. Protocol, Kathleen Valenti’s debut novel, fits in that category. If you think a novel about the pharmaceutical industry sounds stuffy or boring, think again.
Maggie O’Maley is excited to be starting a new chapter in her life in her first job as a researcher at Rxcellance Pharmaceutical. Socially insecure and intellectually astute, she requires income to support not only herself, but also her aunt and father whose restaurant is undergoing hard times. Unfortunately she gets caught up in a world of violence beginning with appointment reminders she receives on her previously owned cell phone that was not properly wiped of information. Her world spirals out of control as she tries to make good choices for her job and to keep herself alive. A subplot that ties into the main mystery puts her long time best friend Constantine up against Ethan, a new love interest from the research facility.
Protocol is a page turner with lots of suspense and twists. Maggie is a likable character, and I look forward to reading more of her adventures in Kathleen Valenti’s next novel.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Henery Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #1 in the Maggie O’Malley Mystery Series
Publication: September 5, 2017—Henery Press
Memorable Lines:
She imagined furtive glances by coworkers, conversations that stopped as soon as she approached and whispers around the water cooler as innuendo oozed under doors and around cubicle walls.
Maggie fumbled in her pocket and put two quarters into the machine. She punched the combination of keys that would spring Snap, Crackle, and Pop from their coiled prison.
The smell of antiseptic, so familiar, so clean, now seemed deceitful, designed to conceal the smell of putrefaction.
A Festival of Leaves and Some #FREE #Photos
Educators, students, bloggers, I am reblogging this because it not only addresses copyright issues which we all need to be respectful of, but also offers free use the blogger’s pictures. And they are beautiful!
Murder in Montparnasse–an astounding plot
Murder in Montparnasse
by Kerry Greenwood
It is said that one should order soup in a fine restaurant as it is a predictor of the quality of the meal to come. The first chapter of Murder in Montparnasse was my “soup.” I knew upon sampling the book, that the descriptive language was worth savoring on the tongue. The introduction of three major plot threads provided delicious flavors evocative of a mystery worth reading.
Phryne Fisher has her hands full in this fast-paced mystery which focuses on a group of Bert and Cec’s friends from the war who seem to be targeted for death, the disappearance of a young lady, and strange occurrences at a delightful French restaurant. Along the way, various other puzzling circumstances need to be examined. Phryne’s past also becomes important as her time spent in Paris in an art community returns to haunt her. Domestic issues involve the marriage of her Chinese lover and the employment termination of her beloved Mr. Butler. Phryne’s daughters, Jane and Ruth, are pleased to take on detective roles, and Constable Hugh Collins shows his skills in some independent police work. Murder in Montparnasse is an altogether satisfying mystery.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Poisoned Pen Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Notes: #12 in the Phryne Fisher Mystery Series
Publication: September 5, 2017—Poisoned Pen Press
Memorable Lines:
The remedy for anything short of an outbreak of cholera in a French kitchen was “Add more cream!”
The waiter, who had clearly graduated magna cum laude from Cheeky French Waiter School, made a face which suggested that a chef who had dinners to cook ought not to be slugging down cognac at lunch, but he slapped down another glass and the bottle of cognac. He then flounced away, turning an ostentatious back.
Dot always worried about Phryne. There had been raised male voices in the refined parlour, and Dot didn’t like it one bit. Raised male voices, in Dot’s experience, preceded raised male fists. And then Miss Phryne might have to hurt someone.
Dead on the Bayou–great setting, but…
Dead on the Bayou
by June Shaw
Sunny and Eve are identical twin sisters in the cozy mystery Dead on the Bayou. The sisters try to keep their home repair and renovation business going while exonerating themselves and friend Dave Price from murder charges. Sunny is the narrator of this tale and shares with the reader in endless repetition her attraction to Dave and how she stifles it because her twin sister is also attracted to him. Much information about her investigation is also repeated to the point that as a reader I wanted to yell “I know. I was there!”
The plot idea is good. The ending is a surprise, but in a disappointing way. There are no clues to lead Sunny and Eve in that direction at all. The setting is well executed with descriptions of the bayou and Louisiana food. Even better are the descriptions of the living facility where the twins’ mother resides. Accurate details include little groups of chatting ladies, assigned tables with self-assigned seats at early mealtimes, and seniors with walkers who by necessity are totally focused on keeping themselves upright and headed to their destination. Unfortunately the author, June Shaw, keeps returning the twins fruitlessly to this home to investigate even though the residents have little more than rumor to offer and usually are not even available. The twins are not honest, being willing to bend truth and fabricate stories to cover themselves. I found myself looking for diversions each time I finished with a chapter or two. Dead on the Bayou is not a page turner.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press) for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 3/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #2 in the Twin Sisters Mystery Series
Publication: August 22, 2017— Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press)
Memorable Lines:
…she reminded me of my first-grade teacher, who didn’t know about my dyslexia any more than the rest of us did at that time. Every time I read a few words or a group of numbers in class, she gave me that same hard shake of her head and finger wag as though I had been a really bad puppy. She would end this display of negativity toward me by speaking my name with a sharp tone and say, “No, you are wrong. Again.” No wonder I hated my early schooling.
Bless my third-grade teacher, who figured I was dyslexic and had me tested.
Eve must have read my mind since she called me the instant I sat in my truck and pulled out my phone. Maybe that was an occurrence with a lot of people, but over our lifetimes my twin and I so often received the same vibe at the same time that our connection was hard to discount.
The Eye of the North–children’s fantasy adventure
The Eye of the North
by Sinéad O’Hart
The Eye of the North is a fantasy adventure tale intended for children in grades three through seven. The interest level would be appropriate for that range and maybe a little higher, but the reading level is too high for most third graders as it contains some fairly advanced vocabulary. It would make a good read aloud with a parent. The chapters are short. Within each chapter, when the two main characters are apart, the story jumps from one character to the other in a well-defined fashion which keeps the plot moving and the reader involved in the action of both characters.
The main character is Emmeline Widget whose parents are immersed in secret scientific research which endangers both them and their daughter. The storyline follows Emmeline’s adventures through apparent abandonment, solo sea travel, kidnapping, attacks and rescues by extraordinary creatures, and near death experiences. Along the way she meets Thing, a most unusual and self-sufficient boy. She saves his life and he repays her by following her north to lands of snow and ice to rescue her.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Random House (Knopf Books for Young Readers) for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Children’s Fiction
Notes: Age Range: 8-12 years
Grade Level: 3-7
Publication: August 22, 2017— Random House (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Memorable Lines:
Even worse, a roaring river ran right at the end of their property, sweeping past with all the haughtiness of a diamond-encrusted duchess.
…her gaze was caught by a dusty head emerging from a grating in the wall. This head—the color of whose hair was impossible to determine—was swiftly followed by a grubby body dressed in overalls. The fingernails of this creature were clotted with dirt and oil, and his—its?—face was smeared with grease. As Emmeline watched, he slithered out of the hole he’d been hiding in, until all of him—and there wasn’t much—was standing in front of Emmeline with a hand held out in greeting.
“Mornin’,” he said “M’names’s Thing. Who’re you?”
The wind was rummaging through his clothing like a pickpocket looking for a payday.
Murder in Disguise–murder in the golden age of movies
Murder in Disguise
by Mary Miley
Murder in Disguise opens with a murder set in Hollywood in the golden theater/movie days of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. During the course of the murder investigation, we learn about movie production, vaudeville, prohibition, corrupt law enforcement, gangsters, and the plight of orphans and women workers.
Jessie Beckett, working as an assistant script girl, has a knack for noticing things that others don’t, a talent which she attributes to her vaudeville background. This ability enables her to solve crimes, and she solves this one with the help of one of the few honest cops in L.A., Detective Carl Delaney, who is interested in getting to know Jessie better.
Jessie comes from a difficult background, but wants to leave mistakes of the past behind. Will her boyfriend David stick with his promise to do the same? Can the murderer stop with one crime? How does Jessie relate to a deaf and dumb girl left with one of Jessie’s roommates? The action keeps the plot moving; the characters and setting maintain a high interest level. The time period is well researched and the author includes words such as “copacetic” from the period adding to the authenticity. She follows up the novel with an “Acknowledgments” section that adds notes about the era and several interesting YouTube links.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Severn House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Notes: #4 in the Roaring Twenties Mystery Series, but good as a standalone
Publication: August 1, 2017—Severn House
Memorable Lines:
Rumors were passed around like Christmas candy and devoured with the same enthusiasm.
La Grande was one of the largest depots of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line, a great cavern of a place where the footsteps and shouts of a thousand rushing people echoed from the polished floor to the ceiling before being drowned out by the snakelike hiss of steam and the earsplitting squeal of brakes as the monstrous engines pulled into their tracks.
“There’s always another job on the horizon,” my mother used to say. I looked up the street toward home. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the horizon from where I stood.
education pathways 