Goodreads: 5 Stars Blog rating: 9/10 Stars
This was a very fun murder mystery with minimal gore, almost no swearing, and eccentric characters. It’s available with a Kindle Unimited subscription. Author J.C. Fuller can be found on TikTok and Instagram and she is hilarious! Her videos are some of my favorites. I look forward to reading more in this series!
As I’ve become more involved with the booktok community (slang for the bookish people on TikTok,) I’ve been intrigued with the different reasons people give high ratings. Naturally, we all want high quality writing, but that is very subjective. Sometimes we love a certain plot, sometimes we connect with the characters, sometimes we identify with an event because it mirrors something in our own lives. And sometimes it is all of those things.
Which brings me to A Storm of Infinite Beauty, by Julianne MacLean. I went into this book with high hopes because the previous book I’d read by this author was also excellent. She did not disappoint. Aside from the things I love to see featured in a book, she also touched upon another favorite: a story that is much overdue to be told. (Think Radium Girls and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.) This book is fiction, but it reminds one of the fact that 1. Every person has amazing things that happened to them, 2. Every person has life chapters unknown to many, and 3. Sometimes it takes the right person (or people) to put all the pieces together to create a cohesive biography.
A Storm of Infinite Beauty focuses on the niece (Gwen) of fictional famous actress, Scarlet Fontaine, who is approached by a writer (Peter) about providing information and filling in some holes in his research. He hopes to set the record straight about the enigmatic movie and style icon, who died years ago, and to explore a period in her life that has never been written about before. We are taken back and forth between the present day and the past, meeting pre-fame Scarlet and learning about how her life decisions and a cataclysmic natural disaster created ripple effects that lasted for decades.
I listened to 60% of this book through Kindle Unlimited and read the last 40%. The author has a talented way of putting you right in the story, keeping your attention, and giving you characters who feel like real people. This was a good one. Add it to your reading list. I was very impressed.
9/10 Stars
One of the most satisfying things about reading a book is discovering a new author. One of the most frustrating is reading an excellent book that you’ve shelved for ages, wishing you’d read it sooner. With The Last House On The Street I’m two-for two. But operating on the philosophy that we often read books at the right time in our lives, I’ll be content that I eventually gave it a chance.
There are two timelines, which I understand from fellow readers is consistent with Diane Chamberlain’s books. The first takes place in modern day North Carolina when young widow, Kayla, and her daughter move into a new house in a new development. New except for one older house that has minimal activity except for a light going on here and there. Any sense of security is then shattered when an odd woman shows up at Kayla’s workplace and tells her to move, followed by disturbing notes and events around the house itself.
The second period is in the late Sixties at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Ellie Hockley, the twenty year old daughter of a prominent Southern family, has decided that her life lacks fulfillment. Then she learns about the SCOPE Project–Summer Community Organization and Political Education–designed to help and encourage Black people in poorer neighborhoods to register to vote. Against the wishes of her parents, boyfriend, and best friend, Ellie signs up with the project, convinced that this is the way to make her mark in the world.
The narration switches between Ellie and Kayla, leaving the reader to wonder how their lives will intersect. After all, their experiences are worlds and decades apart, with Ellie canvasing neighborhoods and seeing racism and violence firsthand while Kayla is dealing with her challenges forty years in the future. The dual stories meet in a clever and unique way, keeping me totally engrossed all the way to the end.
Everything about The Last House On The Street is well thought out and interesting. It’s part historical fiction and part suspense. I’ve never read a book quite like it before, but I definitely plan to read more by this author.
9.5/10 Stars
AVAILABLE March 7, 2023
I’ve been trudging through this book for days and finally finished it. A seemingly perfect family. The mother goes missing. The children are bereft. The husband appears indifferent but insists on his innocence. His law training has taught him to say things without saying them and to talk in circles whenever he’s questioned. This goes on for decades.
And that’s mostly what you read—dialogue, usually with no quotation marks—of questions and answers that lead nowhere, putting the reader in the jury box. It sounds smart, but it’s tiresome and doesn’t make for a great reading experience. Even the ending feels vague and anticlimactic. When I turned the last page and saw I was now reading the author’s acknowledgments, my first thought was “that’s it?”
All That Is Mine I Carry With Me is one of those books that I can only describe as “horizontal.” The characters are there, the descriptions and potential are there, but the ebb and flow is not. And Dan Larkin, the husband constantly under suspicion with his arrogance and passive aggressive ways, is just infuriating.
7.5/10 Stars
When was the last time you read a book that was so immersive, you felt numb after turning the last page? What about two books in a row? Numb, reeling, in awe, emotionally exhausted in a good way…that is me right now. What makes it even more unusual is that I never even heard of either of these books until very recently.
Whiskey When We’re Dry, an incredible debut novel by John Larison, and The Child Finder, by Rene Denfeld, need to go on your reading list ASAP. Are they sweet, comfortable reads? No. Both deal with unpleasant subjects. But presentation is everything and even unpleasant subjects can be handled in such a deft way that the power lies within the reader’s imagination. That, my bookish friends, is high quality writing.
Each of these stories centers around a female protagonist. Jess Harney in “Whiskey” and Naomi Cottle in “Child.” Both of them are motherless and isolated, forcing them to figure out on their own what it means to be a woman. Both have been through extreme hardship. Both use that hardship in positive ways to help others. Both sacrifice greatly.
Whiskey When We’re Dry is western historical fiction. Left alone on the family homestead in 1880’s Montana, Jessilyn Harney decides to find her last remaining relative, beloved older brother Noah. Dressed as a man and armed with above average shooting skills, she and her trusty mare, Ingrid, set off on an unimaginable adventure. Along the way, Jess encounters people of every sort, good and evil. She must defend herself, but she also learns from what she sees, tucking away that knowledge for the future. The most fascinating secondary characters are the women who come and go throughout Jess’s odyssey. Because of their limited choices, women did what they had to do to survive whether it was marriage, spinsterhood, masquerading as a man, or selling their bodies. Rich and poor, submissive and rebellious, frontier women and city women, Jess encounters them all. Knowledge and wisdom is exchanged. (The weaker sex? I think not.) The jaw-dropping ending will leave you gasping and Jess’s narrative voice is one of the best I’ve ever read.
9.5/10 Stars
The Child Finder is contemporary suspense. Naomi Cottle is a twenty-nine year old survivor of childhood abduction. She is one of the lucky ones, if you can call not knowing her parents and a deep mistrust of men lucky. But she’s alive and her foster home was a loving one. Now she is the “child finder,” a private investigator who makes it her mission to rescue missing children. She’s been hired to locate Madison Culver, who disappeared at age five from the Oregon forest. It’s been three years, so the chances she is alive are slim. Meanwhile, hidden away in an old cabin, live Mr. B and the Snow Girl. Their language is silent. Their relationship is odd. Snow Girl knows something isn’t right. There is friendship and there is terror, two things that cannot coexist forever. Some missing children are found alive and make something of their futures. Some always remain victims. The brilliance of this book is the way it shows both of these scenarios, as well as the fortitude that lies dormant within all of us until it is needed.
9.5/10 Stars
I recommend both of these books most highly. I found myself transported into other times and other worlds. They are undoubtedly raw, but the writing is magnificent. Both deserve accolades and attention.
Where do you go when you want to find pettiness, gossip, mayhem and murder? Look no further than the PBA (Parent Booster Association) in an upscale Connecticut town.
Regrets Only, by Kieran Scott is hilarious. A satirical look at a group of women who represent those committees we’ve pretty much all had to participate in at one time or another. There’s the Type A president, who ruthlessly clutches to her position as though her life depends on it (it does,) who overshadows and overachieves, basking in the glory of her success and leaving baffled and intimidated worker bees in her wake. That is Ainsley Aames Anderson. A triple Type A. Her name says it all.
With someone like Ainsley, you’re either a minion or an enemy. You do not question her. You do not compete with her. You certainly do not defy her. A tough lesson learned by her seemingly faithful entourage, Bee, Dayna, and Lanie. The outliers have a more difficult time. There’s working mother Nina, a successful accountant with more brains than charm, and the town’s prodigal daughter, single mom Paige Lancaster. Paige has returned to her hometown after being let go from a successful job writing crime shows in LA. She’s worldly and strong, the complete opposite of the submissive women who work with, um for, Ainsley. And it doesn’t help that Paige’s first love happens to be Ainsley’s husband.
Things fall apart at the PBA’s annual Parents and Pinot fundraising auction. By the end of the night the PBA president everyone loves to hate is dead. Suspects are everywhere. A surprising amount have access to weapons. Unsurprisingly, the blind adoration of Ainsley’s followers isn’t quite as blind as it once appeared. Using the alternating POVs of Paige, Lanie, Nina, and Dayna, we discover that few things (and people) are what they seem.
I really enjoyed Regrets Only. I’m giving it 9 stars because the ending fell a bit flat, but it’s still worth reading. It’s an honest commentary on suburban society. The seriousness and intensity at which these women view something as basic as a parent organization is extreme, yes, but not entirely untrue. We women can get a lot of things done, but the backroom plotting and politics are as old as time itself.
9/10 Stars
I admit it. I LOVE books and shows with highly intelligent, strong, capable women. I especially love it when those women stay true to their femininity, acting as worthy representatives of girly girls everywhere. Girls (ahem, WOMEN) with the hearts of a lioness.
This got me thinking about books I’ve read recently. Little by little I’ve been making my way through The Country Club Murder series, by Julie Mulhern. This series, and its heroine, Ellison Russell, have shot (pun intended) to the top of my list of favorite mystery series. (Just barely edging out the Her Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bowen. Also great!)
It’s the 1970s. Ellison Russell is a Kansas City artist, socialite, mother, trophy wife…and widow. Cars are sleeker, women are drooling over James Garner in The Rockford Files, and the world continues to modernize. Kansas City, a place that dwells in most of our blind spots, is home to a very elite crowd of men and women. A crowd who holds fiercely to their traditions. They run charities, attend large social functions, golf, play bridge and still manage to have a hierarchy within the hierarchy. They also have their own set of rules. Ellison plays by these rules. She is, after all, the wife of a prominent banker and daughter of a very wealthy couple. But she is also observant to the plights of the underprivileged. And…she has the unfortunate penchant for finding dead bodies. Her mother is not amused.
Ellison is the beating heart of these books (16 in total, I’ve read 8.) She is classy, sharp, unwavering, and very compassionate. She holds her own with her teenage daughter, Grace. She remains unruffled to her mother’s toxic barbs and stoic in the face of stubborn male misogyny. And, at her side throughout these adventures is a dashing homicide detective–the unconventionally named Anarchy Jones. This series is a prickly joy and never boring. We get so invested in Ellison as she juggles one murder after another, along with motherhood, society’s expectations, her mercurial parents, and a budding relationship with Anarchy. It’s superb!
9.5/10 Stars for the series (So far, #7–Shadow Dancing— is my favorite. But it’s best to read them in order.)
So, if I’ve only read half of the Country Club Murder series, WHY am I comparing it to Killers of a Certain Age?
Because Killers was a bummer of a certain book. But it took some thinking for me to figure out why I disliked it so much. Highly intelligent, strong, capable women? Check. Adventure? Check. Multiple things happening at once? Check.
Again, it is the 1970’s. Billie, Helen, Natalie, and Mary Alice are all plucked from obscurity to be part of an elect group of highly-trained assassins. Evolving from WWII Nazi hunters, Resistance members, and Monuments Men, this organization is so secret that its name is never mentioned. And these four women will be its first all-female team. It’s quite an honor. Even assembling them took years. They are multi-lingual, quick thinking, highly physical, and seductive. And, because they are women, they are always underestimated.
Fast forward forty years. The quartet has aged into their sixties and are approaching retirement. Only now, instead of being the hunters, they are the hunted. They need to find out who and why.
It’s a great premise. I had been looking forward to reading this book. It was a Book of the Month selection and a Goodreads awards nominee. But after spending so much time with Ellison Russell in the Country Club series, I had become accustomed to a heroine who had both class and sass. These four lacked class in a big way, hammering continual dents into their likability. They are vulgar and arrogant. They are also interchangeable carbon copies of each other. I didn’t care about any of them. And if I don’t care about any of the main characters, the plot–no matter how clever–becomes superfluous. A huge disappointment.
5/10 Stars
OK, this turned out a bit blurry! Sorry about that…
The facts are these: sometimes I’m in a reading mood, sometimes I’m in a blogging mood. Lately I’ve been in a reading mood! A lot. I will highlight a few from this month’s literary adventures.
Best Thriller: Daisy Darker, by Alice Feeney. Yes, this extremely popular book lives up to the hype, even though it was nothing like what I expected. In true Agatha Christie fashion, a group of dysfunctional relatives gather at Grandma’s house for a weekend. Many go in, but few go out. All seen through the eyes of 13 year old Daisy. Great writing with a surprise ending. Recommended! (Some language.) 4.5/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Classic: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, by R.A. Dick. I only recently discovered that one of my favorite classic films was first a book. And it was great! There are definitely some differences, as to be expected, but I really enjoyed this as original source material. It was fun to watch the movie again after reading it. 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Cozy Mysteries: Send in the Clowns/Watching the Detectives/Cold as Ice, by Julie Mulhern. These are books 4-6 in the Country Club Murders series and they are just as fun as the ones preceding them. If you’re looking for a smart, escapist series, this is a great one! The writing is terrific and you’ll love the main characters, the headstrong Ellison and Detective Anarchy Jones. 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Romantic Comedies: Pumpkin Spice and Not So Nice AND The Accidental Text, both by Becky Monson. They’re clean, there’s depth, and they tug at your heart. Pumpkin Spice and Not So Nice is a companion book to Jennifer Peel’s The Pumpkin and the Patch (which I read last month and loved.) The Accidental Text is about a twenty-something young woman who has recently lost her mother. She texts her mother’s phone number, pouring her heart out, as a way to deal with her grief. What she doesn’t know is that the number has already been given to someone else. I really loved this one. I recommend both books for a combination of clean, light romance with a splash of emotion. 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Clean Romance: Mulberry Hollow, by Denise Hunter. This is an author whose work I want to pursue more. I just finished this book yesterday morning. It’s proof that you can have a romance with attraction, emotion, tension, and a satisfying story without steamy scenes. It could be marketed as a “Christian Romance,” but the Christian aspect is pretty minimal. The main characters, Avery and Wes, felt so real. I loved the privilege of looking into their lives. 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Steamy Romance: Yours Until Dawn, by Teresa Medeiros. To be clear, I don’t go looking for steamy books. Sometimes, like in this case, the steam shows up halfway through the story. But, despite the blush-worthy scenes (which just about hit my steam limit) this is a fantastic historical romance. A young woman is employed to care for a recently blinded soldier. He’s cantankerous, demanding, and stubborn. She is undaunted, but also a bit mysterious. Then there’s a shocking twist I never saw coming (and I’m usually pretty good at predicting twists.) Again, there are some R-rated steamy scenes. I really wish there was a sanitized version because this is one of the best stories I’ve ever read. 5/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Young Adult: Not If I See You First, by Eric Lindstrom. Another blind protagonist, high school junior Parker Grant is snarky, a runner, and bluntly honest. She’s high maintenance and she knows it. She also has a fierce love for those who stood by her in her darkest hours (literally) when she lost her sight at age seven. Navigating a new normal after she is orphaned, Parker must deal with her relatives, the drama of high school, and her own heart. The author does an amazing job writing the character of this complex girl. I was completely immersed in her world. (Some language.) 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
Best Fiction: Take Me With You, by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I love books that pair unlikely adults and kids together. Catherine Ryan Hyde is a master at this kind of story. Here we have a divorced science teacher who goes on a cross-country road trip, grieving for a son who recently died. While getting his RV serviced, he strikes up a conversation with the surly mechanic, a single father of two boys. When the mechanic reveals that he’s off to serve a prison sentence, he pleads with the man to take his sons on the road. It’s unusual, heartfelt, and keeps your attention. I recommend it. 4/5 Stars on Goodreads
The other 4 Star books are also worth your time, but these are the ones that affected me the most. Now, what will November bring? I have a few reads mapped out, but only time will tell!
AVAILABLE June 14, 2022
I’ve never read a book by Julianne MacLean before, but she is an author I will definitely seek out in the future. I absolutely LOVED Beyond the Moonlit Sea. It is nothing like what I expected, but that’s OK. It’s fun to be surprised and intrigued!
The synopsis said it is about a woman named Olivia Hamilton whose husband, Dean, goes missing around the Bermuda Triangle in a plane he was piloting alone. True. It also said there was a woman named Melanie Brown, a student doing a dissertation on why planes disappear in that section of the ocean. Also true. I knew these women’s paths would eventually intertwine–which they do–but not all at like I initially guessed. I like being wrong! Predictability is much less entertaining.
This novel has the mystery, romance, high-quality writing, and momentum of The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave, which is one of the highest compliments I can offer. I could NOT put it down. Many plots have multiple points of view from different characters, but this one did it expertly, allowing the reader to really see inside the minds of Olivia, Dean, and Melanie. We get a glimpse of the three main characters’ motivations and inner turmoil over several years. We’re also reminded that sometimes our circumstances are the results of our own choices and sometimes by the choices of others. Sometimes a tangled combination of both.
Beyond the Moonlit Sea is a winner and one of the best novels I’ve read all year. Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advanced copy.
9.5/10 Stars
AVAILABLE April 5, 2022
Imagine you’re trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. You have no idea what it is supposed to look like. Painstakingly, you continue working. When you’re about 30% done the frustration really starts. What is it supposed to be?
Unfortunately, that is my metaphor for this book.
214 Palmer Street is a book that required a lot of patience. I doubt I would’ve finished it if it wasn’t for my agreement with NetGalley to review it. By one-third completed, I was still full of questions, confused by so many characters, and getting whiplash by the POV format that jumped from one person to another. Finally, finally the pieces started to fit together. But the more they did, the more predictable it became. By then I just didn’t care.
Sarah Aden is seen lurking inside the house of Josh and Cady Caldwell. They’re on vacation. A neighbor is suspicious. Who is this woman and why is she there? We discover Sarah is recovering from a head injury–an assault–and is becoming more and more mistrusting of her husband, Kirk. She’s discovering things about his past that do not add up.
Over time, more characters are added. Each tells their part of their story, pressing the rewind button on tedious scenes you just read. Then there’s the mysterious, unnamed “Her,” who I first assumed was one person and then changed my opinion (correctly.) All of the main characters are terrible people. Even the protagonist, Sarah, was unlikable.
This is my third Karen McQuestion book and, sadly, my least favorite. There’s no real hope, no real solution, no hero. I do not have a lot of experience with the suspense genre, but I know readers need something more than what we get here. I longed for a strong character to be the moral center, but there was none.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy. I wish I enjoyed this one more.
7/10 Stars
“Words are, I suppose, my life.”
Everyone has choices. To be honest or to lie. To live for yourself or for others. To fulfill your own dreams or become part of a legacy. To follow the rules of convention…or not.
And what about the rules of writing a mystery? Reading this book made me think of them for the first time. Are there rules? Who makes them? Can any be broken when the story is everything?
Why is this important? Because in this book “about the creation of a book” the author creates an entirely new set of rules. He is the writer, the character, the sidekick, the filter, and the visionary. In real life, Anthony Horowitz is a novelist and screenwriter. In the book he is too. He, like this alter ego of the same name, worked on shows like Midsomer Murders (great show) and Foyle’s War (in my queue.) But in the book he accompanies a fictional Hawthorne–rumpled, evasive, brilliant, retired detective Daniel Hawthorne–on a murder case he is consulting on for the police. The outcome may or may not be the core of the upcoming novel. Diana Cowper has been strangled. Not very original, except she was murdered six hours after meticulously planning her own funeral.
The relationship between the fictional Horowitz and the detective Hawthorne is mercurial, to say the least. How does an author create a character based on someone when he refuses to divulge personal details? These two bicker like an old married couple, but they admire each other too. And, while the murder’s solution isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, this is more about the journey than the destination. A unique and entertaining journey.
9/10 Stars
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