Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima

 

First line: 
Weather could make or break a search and rescue mission, and the wind would play havoc with the scent trail today.
Series:  Timber Creek K-9 Mystery

Summary:  When Deputy Mattie Wray and her German Shepherd, Robo, are asked to fly out to Washington's Olympic peninsula to join in the search for a missing nine-year-old boy, she can't say no. Even though she's supposed to be getting married to her veterinarian fiance, Cole Walker, at the end of the week. Because there's a lost child and the local police need Robo's air scenting skills. Luckily, Cole has her back, even traveling to Washington to offer his doctoring skills to all the SAR dogs there and their handlers helping to search the dense forest area where they think the boy wandered off into. But Mattie soon starts to suspect his disappearance is the result of something more sinister. Can they find him in time?

My thoughts:  I love this series and a big reason why is the dogs and all their search-and-rescue skills. It's so interesting! I like learning about the difference between ground tracking and air scenting, each dog's speciality, and how their handlers guide them. And Mattie and Robo certainly have their work cut out for them this time trying to track a small child through such a rainy forest setting. This mystery also has good action and suspense. And all of these characters are so great. I've loved seeing Mattie's and Cole's relationship deepen over the course of this series. And Robo is the best! Gathering Mist is another winning read from Margaret Mizushima.

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday...

 
Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's theme is COVERS WITH AN ITEM OF YOUR CHOICE ON THE COVER.

And I decided to go with CLOCKS. Because I just had to change all of mine...again. And could we please choose one time, either Daylight or Standard, and stick with it? I'm so tired of having to change my clocks, both inner and outer, twice a year. But these covers with clocks on them are kind of awesome. 


Hooked by Emily McIntire








The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk




Timekeeper by Tara Sim




The Betrayals by Bridget Collins




The Love Proof by Madeleine Henry




The Watchmaker's Daughter by C.J. Archer




The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton




Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield




The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene



Happy Reading!


Friday, November 1, 2024

Randomness....

Recently finished reading:  The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer.  And I loved it--Lucy, Hugo, Jack and Christopher, Clock Island, and the contest! It was magical. 


"Only brave children get their wishes....Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough. You have to try to make your own wishes come true." --Meg Shaffer



This John Atkinson cartoon totally made me laugh. Check out his website, Wrong Hands, for more clever and humorous art. It'll make your day!




My latest library haul...I know, once again I checked out too many books, and five more holds will probably come in tomorrow, but it's my bookish addiction, and there's no 12-step program for it: 

Murder at King's Crossing by Andrea Penrose
Cat's Paw by Roger Scarlett
The Next Everest by Jim Davidson
Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot
The Hunter's Daughter by Nicola Solvinic
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
 Snowed In by Catherine Walsh
The Novice by Taran Matheru
Miles Bailey Gets Down on One Knee by Jen Atkinson
Chicken Dinner News by Jeff Billington
Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima


And my list of glad things from October:
  • I saw chickadees on my walk this morning...they're my favorite little bird and always make me smile. 
  • Tracker has started again! It's so good...one of my favorite TV shows this season. 
  • I'm also really loving Jelly Roll's new album, especially his song I'm Not Okay.
  • I found some favorite books on sale at my library's used book sale...picked up 5 of them for only 50 cents. Any day with new books in it is a good day!
  • My family got together for a fun game night last weekend; we played Zombie Run (a fast, easy and fun card game) and Mycelia.
  • And my football team won their last 3 games! They are now 8-0. Go BYU!




 

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday....

 
Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's theme is a HALLOWEEN FREEBIE.

I decided to look back over my last ten years of October posts and revisit some of my favorite &  scariest October reads. I've also included a link to my original reviews. Happy reading! 











October 2015:  Dracula by Bram Stoker




October 2016:  Shiver by Alex Nye




October 2017:  Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne




























Happy Reading!

Friday, October 25, 2024

Haiku Reviews...

 

The Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh


Getting hit by a
car has Kelsey rethinking 
her entire life.


Fiction .... 370 pages .... 4.5/5 stars.
(A charming novel about friendship, second chances, journeys, hope, romance, and not letting fear keep you from choosing life.)





Grim and Bear It by Juliette Cross


Aura witch invites
Grim necromancer to join
romance book club ... love follows.


Paranormal romance .... 382 pages .... 3.5/5 stars.
(Clara and Henry were a very cute couple, but there's lots of language and several steamy sex scenes, so beware if that's not your thing.)





The Teacher by Freida McFadden


A troubled student.
Married tachers. Obsession,
love, hate, sex, and death.


Thriller.... 379 pages .... 3/5 stars.
(Fast-paced, with lots of unexpected twists and turns. But very unlikable characters.)





My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine


Amelia knows taxes, but
vampires? Fake dating Reggie is one
surprise after another.


Romance .... 389 pages .... 4/5 stars.
(So cute & funny! I especially loved Reggie's bullet journal excerpts.)




Happy Reading!


Thursday, October 24, 2024

A little bookish fun...

 



Isn't this a cute tee shirt? I bought it for my sister for her birthday because she loves booooooks, too. I also liked this sweatshirt, although I didn't buy it. But it made me smile. 




Happy Reading!


Monday, October 21, 2024

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

 

From the blurb:
"The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present."

My thoughts:  I've read six other books by Riley Sager: I really liked three of them, disliked two, and thought the sixth landed somewhere in the middle. So I didn't know what to expect with this one. But I'm happy to report that I ended up really liking it. Ethan's guilt and grief felt so real, as did his desire to figure out what happened to his friend that long ago night. And Sager does an excellent job of interweaving the past with the present through the different characters' POVs. The way he lets the story unfold builds good suspense and made me want to keep reading. I also really liked the touch of supernatural in it. All in all, this is a fun mystery!

My rating:  4.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!


The other three Riley Sager novels I really liked:

I did post reviews of the other three Sager books that I've read, so you can find them on my blog if you're interested in knowing what I didn't like about them.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Two quick recommendations...

 
Bride by Ali Hazelwood

She's a Vampyre; he's a Were.  They're supposed to be enemies.
She's grown up without love or family. He's never found his mate.
Their arranged marriage is a political alliance. 
They're not supposed to fall in love. 
But then their worlds collide and everything changes. 

This paranormal romance is such a fun read! Misery Lark is a sympathetic and spunky character. And I loved her swoony relationship with Lowe Moreland. There's also great banter and humor.   4.5/5 stars.




Midnight Movie by J.L. Bryan

Ellie Jordan is a ghost trapper. She and her partner, Stacey, are investigating the strange paranormal phenomena happening at a local Drive-In movie theater that's being renovated. Is it being haunted by the ghost of the previous owner? A murdered actress from the old movies that they used to show there? Or something more sinister? This is another fun ghostly mystery with humor, atmosphere and a suspenseful ending. Though it's not as scary as some of his other Ellie Jordan books. Ellie and Stacey and their boyfriends, Jacob and Michael, are great characters. I really like them....and this series.    4/5 stars.


Happy Reading!


Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday...

 
Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.


This week's theme:  BOOKS I WAS ASSIGNED TO READ IN SCHOOL. Here are ten books I had to read in high school, and a brief thought about each one.



1. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.   I liked Hawthorne's writing; and while I thought Pearl was strange, I admired Hester Prynne's quiet strength.

2. A Separate Peace by John Knowles.   So sad! But I've never forgotten Phineas or Gene. 

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.   My favorite of the bunch...mostly because of Scout and Boo Radley.

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.   This was my introduction to Fitzgerald, whose books I still really like. 

5. The Diary of Anne Frank.   I appreciate this book more now as an adult than I ever did at thirteen. Back then I thought it was a little boring.

6. The Princess Bride by William Goldman.   I got to read this one in my ninth grade English class and totally loved it. Such a fun book! All classics should be this fun.

7.  Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.   Another favorite. This book epitomizes summer. (I also really liked reading Something Wicked This Way Comes.)

8. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.   Ugh. I did not like anything about this one.

9.  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.   Another really sad one...but good.

10. The Crucible by Arthur Miller.   Had to read this one then go see the play. Didn't love it, but didn't hate it either.


Happy Reading! 

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Hearts of Darkness by Jana Monroe

 
When Jana Monroe was growing up all she wanted to do was right the wrongs of the world. This desire led her to become one of the few female police officers in Long Beach, California. A few years later, she applied for and got accepted into the FBI where she made a mark as one of only a few women in a male-dominated world. She worked cases in New Mexico and Florida before starting training with the FBI's world-renowned Behaviorial Science Unit. With the BSU, she consulted on more than 850 homicide cases, profiling serial killers and helping to catch murderers. She even coached Jodie Foster on her role as Clarice Starling in the movie The Silence of the Lambs.

Her biography, Hearts of Darkness, was my nonfiction read for this month, and it's such a compelling book! Monroe chronicles her time in the FBI with both honesty and humor. And her writing feels very conversational as she relates her most memorable cases and experiences. And she certainly saw the worst of humanity in her job. But she never stopped working to make a difference. Her resilience and intelligence shines through on every page. She's a remarkable woman. And this book is a mix of memoir and true crime that I found very interesting. 4/5 stars.

Happy Reading!


Thursday, October 10, 2024

October's Bookish Art...

 
Rose Mead -- Molly Reading, 1920

"...we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we are longing for--adventure, excitement, emotion, connection--we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we're struggling with--sometimes questions so deep, we don't even really know we're asking them--we look for answers in stories."          --Katherine Center, The Rom-Commers


 

Monday, October 7, 2024

Death From a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson

 

When an occultist is found dead in a locked room, and the only suspects are an escape artist, a ventriloquist, a clairvoyant and her husband, and a professional medium, the police call in the Great Merlini, a master magician himself, to help them figure out who the murderer is. Because it takes a magician to catch one. And Merlini is very skilled in magic and misdirection. And they're going to need all his skills of deduction when a second magician is murdered just like the first.
"Of course, Inspector," Merlini said, "the really difficult crimes to solve, as you know, are the ones in which anyone might have popped in and done it. But when, as in this case, it seems that no one could possibly have murdered either man, it means that, once we find out how they were done, we will know who did them. The impossible situation, by its very uniqueness, ultimately limits the possibilities." 
Clayton Rawson, a talented magician himself, wrote this mystery in 1938. And it is so much fun! I loved Merlini and how he and Ross Harte, the writer/journalist narrating the story, banter with the police and discuss all the possible ways a murderer could escape a locked room, quoting from the best detective novels and crime fiction afficianados. Their discussion of classic magic tricks was also fun. And while I didn't figure out whodunnit, the clues were there. And the Great Merlini was more than happy to explain them all at the end. I've read several Golden Age mysteries this year, and this is one of my favorites.

Happy Reading!

Friday, October 4, 2024

The Gathering by C.J. Tudor

 "Black clouds bristled on the horizon. The white snow undulated like a vast frozen sea. A storm was coming, something foul on the air. .... They were back. It was about to begin again."



Plot summary:  When a teen's throat is ripped out in Deadhart, Alaska, Detective Barbara Atkins, a homicide detective and doctor of forensic vampyr anthropology, is called in to investigate his murder. But she's walking into a powder keg. And no one is happy to see her. Because Deadhart is a town full of secrets. The citizens want to cull the nearby vampyr Colony. The vampyrs are fueling for a fight and very ready to defend themselves. The current murder resembles one from 25 years ago. The town's fanatical preacher has her own agenda. The nights are getting colder...and longer. And if the boy's murderer wasn't a vampyr, Barbara just might have a psychopath on her hands.

My thoughts:  The Gathering is a compelling mix of police investigation and psychological thriller with a touch of supernatural horror. And it reads fast. I really like the way Tudor writes, and this book is no exception. It's atmospheric and suspenseful. And Tudor has created an interesting world where vampyrs are a segregated but protected species, although one very much feared and disliked by humans. I did feel like there were A LOT of characters (and even more secrets!) to keep track of, some going far back into Deadhart's past, which made it feel a little convoluted at times. But everything gets wrapped up in a satisfying way at the end, which I appreciated. Though once again I could have done without the epilogue. All in all, I'd give this one 4 stars. 

Happy Reading!


Other books by C.J. Tudor that I've enjoyed:

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Randomness....

Recently finished reading:  Calamity by Constance Fay.



This space opera is an appealing combination of science fiction, adventure & romance.
It reminded me a lot of Jessie Mihalik's Hunt the Stars and Polaris Rising.  4.5 stars.


My library haul for October:

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
One by One and The Teacher by Frieda McFadden
Death From a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson
Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
Bride by Ali Hazelwood
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
The Gathering by C.J. Tudor
Always Practice Safe Hex by Juliette Cross
Hearts of Darkness by Jana Monroe
The Devil Came Down the Mountain by Christopher Bond


And my list of glad things that brought me some joy and happiness last month:
  • All the beautiful changing fall leaves; I love the autumn colors and the cooler weather! 
  • My work schedule changed--which means I have fewer hours, but I now have Fridays off, something I'm really enjoying. Four day work weeks kind of rock.
  • I found a new favorite song:  Surviving by Kaz Hawkins. If you like songs with a bluesy sound check her out!
  • My favorite college football team, BYU, is 5-0 so far this season. Nice for them to be on a winning streak; here's hoping they can keep it up.
  • And I'm loving ABCs new show High Potential. It's so nice to have something new to watch on TV that is both smart and funny. 




Sunday, September 29, 2024

The Spirit Girls by Dawn Merriman

 
First line:  I should be afraid, but I'm not.

Plot summary:  Rylan Flynn can talk to ghosts. She and her friend, Mickey, film some of her encounters for their YouTube show Beyond the Dead Investigations. But mostly Rylan tries to help the ghosts crossover. But when the ghost of a young woman leads Rylan to her dead body in the woods near her aunt's house, Rylan finds herself caught up in a murder investigation. Something Detective Ford Pierce is not thrilled about. 

My thoughts:  This is a fast and fun paranormal mystery; it's a little short, and not too scary, and I really liked it. From the ghosts in her home to her penchant for filling her house and garage up with found 'treasures', Rylan is an interesting and likable character. And her longtime crush on Ford hints at the possibility of some romance in future books. It's a very promising start to this new ghostly series. And I look forward to reading more books about Rylan Flynn and the ghosts in her life. 

My rating: 4/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The Suicide House by Charlie Donlea

 
First line:  I killed my brother with a penny. 

Plot summary:  In the summer of 2019, two students from Westmont Preparatory were killed in the abandoned house near the campus. It's rumored they were part of the Man in the Mirror secret society. One of their teachers was accused of their murders. A year later, both a newspaper reporter and a podcaster are digging into their murders, and the suicides that have followed. But the students of Westmont and their advisors are keeping secrets. Then Dr. Lane Phillips, a renown forensic psychologist, and Rory Moore, a cold case savant, get pulled in to help. And all those dark secrets start to come out.  

My thoughts:  There are a lot of layers to this mystery, with multiple character POVs interspersed with journal entries written by the murderer, and lots of shifts between the past and present. All of which slowed the pacing for me, especially at the beginning. Once I settled into the flow of the story, the pacing picked up. And I found the ending compelling. Though I have to admit, I didn't like this one nearly as much as I did Donlea's previous novel, Some Choose Darkness. Probably because with so many characters, and so much of the storyline taking place in the past, Rory's role isn't as prominent. And she's the character I like the most. But this mystery is still a good read. 

My rating:  3.5/5 stars. 

Happy Reading!

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday...

 
Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's theme:  BOOKS ON MY FALL 2024 TO READ LIST. 

Easy topic, right? 
My hardest thing was chiseling my list down to just these ten eleven books. 


Middle of the Night by Riley Sager




The Gathering by C.J. Tudor




My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine




Grave Expectations by Alice Bell




The Next Everest by Jim Davidson




The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig




The Hunter's Daughter by Nicola Solvinic




The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer




Cold Light of Day by Elizabeth Goddard




Novice by Taran Matheru




Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn




Happy Reading!