Happy Friday! #Readalong Review! And Some Summer Talk!

 Well as Mother Nature is wont to do, last week we had temperatures in the mid-80s and sunshine galore.  This weekend, the official start of the summer season, the skies are a uniform cloudy grey and the temperature is 46!!! 46!!! literally, 40 degrees Fahrenheit colder than this time last week. 

It's really harshing my budding pool lifestyle. 

My little pool which my daughter makes fun of because it's only 33 inches deep, but hey, it's easy for me to maintain and big enough to swim a little and float a lot!  Alas, this 3-day weekend it is going to stay covered, as temps won't even hit 70. 

When it was summer weather, I spend a few afternoons floating in my pool and reading Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh.  This is the 7th book in the PsyChangeling series that we are reading this year.  You can find out more about the read-along and join us here. 

As I have said before, I treating enjoy Nalini Singh's ability to keep raising the stakes in these paranormal romances. Once again, I had my doubts as the book was nearing the climax that Dev Santos and Katya Haas would find their HEA.  During this book, I found that I didn't care as much or root for this couple like I had in the previous book which was the love story between  Mercy and Riley.  For me, I think this was because Mercy was a strong, passionate woman who wasn't a virgin like the Psy, and because she was an equal match to Riley. Yes, Katya, survived and made it to Dev, but she is very fragile and since she has amnesia is one-dimensional. 

In Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh takes us back to the beginning of Silence and tells the story of one family's exodus to become part of the fallen. This is done through letters a mother writes to her son. I liked this method of storytelling.  Additionally, we learn more about how Judd's special set of skills can work for the good.

I would have liked to have a better understanding of what Dev's affinity with metal meant and how it developed as he grew up. I wanted more of his backstory. 

Next up is the story of the human cop Max Shannon, I have been hoping he would get his own book from the first time he walked on the scene!  

Have a great weekend even if the weather stinks! It's a great excuse to kick back and enjoy a good book! 

Starting A Garden This Year? #TheBeginnersGuidetoGrowingGreatVegetables #NetGalley

 

Off and on over the years, I've had gardens at our homes. Above is this year's situation, one raised bed of vegetables and then containers with flowers and herbs. My gardening style is winging it.  I really don't know what I'm doing.  With that in mind, I decided to check out this book via #NetGalley: (I received an ARC of this book, all the opinions are mine!) 

Doesn't this cover call to you? If you have Kindle Unlimited you can get this book as part of your subscription.  You will be inspired by the gorgeous photography throughout the book. The Beginners' Guide to Growing Great Vegetables i is packed with easy-to-access information to help anyone become a gardener.  It includes explanations of planting zones, microclimates, how to kill pests with beer, and a month-by-month guide to starting a garden.  It also includes instructions and tips for planting raised beds as well as containers and discusses using edibles as ornamentals.  Why not have some beautiful kale in your front yard?  It's pretty and tasty!   

The book is filled with wonderful graphics to show you everything from how to lay out a garden, to DIY soil testing, and how to build a hoop house. In the past, I have purchased gardening books that I have opened and thumbed through and put aside because I felt overwhelmed by the content. This book is different, it's very beginner-focused focusing on why you will want to do certain things and when you will want to do them in order to grow vegetables in your backyard, front yard, or even on a balcony.  

5 Stars- Comprehensive guide with a monthly planner! 

Cozy Mystery Book Club Meets Tomorrow! Join Us on YouTube!

 Happy Monday, is this work week ending in a three-day weekend for you?  If you ask me everyone should have a three-day weekend every week.  Let's make 4 days works weeks a thing!  I'm kicking off this week with a review of the Cozy Mystery Book Club's book of the month.  This month we chose from a selection of bookish cozies and the winner was Maggie Blackburn's (aka Mollie Cox Bryan) book Little Bookshop of Murder. 

I liked this book more than I thought I would at first blush. I thought that the author does a good job of showing Summer's grieving process.  The murder victim in this book is Summer's mom who we do not get to meet, we only learn of her via other people's memories. The killer in this book is pretty easy to figure out, so if being wholly surprised by who did it is important to you, then you might be disappointed. 

Maggie Blackburn takes a big risk in this book by making the protagonist a scholar who has no use for popular fiction, especially romance and mystery which she thinks is complete dreck.  Readers might be put off by Summer's disdain for the very books they love to read. However,  Summer's life in academia isn't all it is cracked up to be, and the bookstore she inherited isn't the terrible navel-gazing place she made it out to be in her youth. I enjoyed Summer slowly having to eat her words and realize that romance and mystery books are quality reads.

Some readers prefer cozy mysteries that don't have a romance component.  While this book talks about romance novels, there is not a romance plot in this book. If you love a unique cozy companion, this book features a bird named Mr. Darcy!

You can join us for the Book Club Live Stream tomorrow May 25th at 7pm EST! I'll be in the comments sharing my two cents! 

#TheSundayPost for May 23rd! What's Going On?

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.  See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

Purple Irises began blooming earlier this week!  The hubs bought a bunch of vegetable and flower starts for the garden.  The raised bed is planted, the big planter is filled with herbs and I have filled all the containers from last year with flowers.  So I bought a few more containers, some for the front porch and a couple for extra tomato plants in the back yard. 

Upcoming this week I'll be reviewing this month's Cozy Mystery Book Club selection. Little Bookshop of Murder by Maggie Blackburn (aka Mollie Cox Bryan) 

You can join us for the live stream on Tuesday via YouTube.  Here is the link join us! 

How beautiful is this cover! 

And Friday I'll be sharing a review for Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh --I've been hoping that Dev Santos who we meet a couple books ago would get getting his own book! I was sure he'd make a great main character! You can join the Read-Along by clicking here! 

I'm not feeling this cover, it's a little too action movie starring Steven Sagal -esque! I have every confidence that the book is better than the cover! 

If Culinary Cozies Are Your Coconut Jam

 Then you are going to enjoy the stuffing out of Arsenic and Adobo the first book in the new Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mysteries series by Mia Manansala.  This is Mia's first book and it's had a great debut, popping up on a bunch of best new book lists. 

This book tells the tale of Lila Macapagal a twenty-five-year-old who has moved back home to help the family business and forget about a terrible ex-boyfriend.  She is also a first-generation Filipino American who spends her free time concocting recipes using traditional Filipino cuisine and giving it her own spin.  Not long after arriving home Lila has new ex-boyfriend problems when an old high school sweetheart keels over in Tita Rosies' restaurant!

Lila is quickly accused of killer her ex-boyfriend and the restaurant, which was already behind on the rent payments is shut down. The clock is ticking; will Lila find the killer and save her family's restaurant?  

My local coffee shop has a new seasonal drink...Ube Iced Latte!  IFYKYK!

I listened to the audio of this book which was read by Danice Cabanela who does a wonderful job of acting out the numerous characters in this first book. It was a very entertaining listen and a nice distraction while running.  I did struggle to keep track of the characters in the book because there were quite a few and it is a little harder for me to keep track when I listen instead of having a book a can flip back through easily. 

Mia Manansala really excels in her food descriptions.  My mouth was watering!  This book is a culinary delight.  I liked getting to know some of the residents of Shady Palms, IL and it was a treat to be invited into Tita Rosie's home. I enjoyed the touch of romance, the diverse cast of first-generation Asian Americans, and it did my little heart good to read about the way Lila's family expressed their love for each other through food. 

4 Stars for this cozy!  I think the second book will build upon this one and I am looking forward to seeing Lila and her friends and family again soon! 

Talk About Spooky Atmospheres, Wowza!

 A small island off the coast of Ireland complete with deserted homes, castle ruins, and a boggy cemetery. Does this sound like the perfect place to have your wedding? Maybe, maybe not --but it is an excellent setting for a spooky thriller and a bit of murder.  The book creeps on slowly introducing you to bits and pieces of the wedding party.  There is a handful of point of view characters including the bride, the groom, the best man, and the wedding planner as well as a few more characters. We learn slowly, like the storm moving in from the ocean, about traumatic events in some of the characters' pasts.  

As you read you can imagine that this book would look great on the screen, I did some googling and it looks like a miniseries is in the works, but still likely years off.  If you like locked room mysteries this is a locked tiny island mystery.  The multiple POV chapters help the pacing but overall it's a slow burn or a slow sink into the bog, you may not know you are stuck too deep to put the book down until it's too late.  Sure you can predict some of the backstories and twists in the book, but that is part of the appeal.  You the reader will want to know how is it going to come together, is anything connected, is someone dead or not, who is dead and why. 

So many pages lead up to the murder and few pages are devoted to the aftermath, I would have liked to have a little more on what happened when the police would have arrived.

Overall 4 stars, when this is a show, I'll be sure to watch it! 

I Took A Vacation to Ireland Over The Weekend!

 The weather was gloomy Friday and Saturday, so I turned to reading and found myself quickly in the midst of murders and ghosts in Ireland. 

The first book I read, on my imaginary trip to the Emerald Isle, was Death in D Minor by Alexis Gordon.  This book is the second book in Dr. Gordon's  Gethsemane Brown Mysteries series and right off the bat, I found this book to be even better than the first. It is available free on Kindle Unlimited, or like me, you can probably find it at your local public library.  

One of the most enjoyable parts of this series is the focus on Fine Arts. In this book in addition to Gethsemane's classical music background. we learn about textile artwork and schoolgirl samplers. This isn't your average murder mystery: there is also an international art fraud ring!  

Here are some examples of schoolgirl samplers from the website Colonial Sense

Cleverly, this murder mystery takes place in a different town than the first book so we meet a whole new crop of shady characters.  We also get to meet one of Gethsemane's family members and Inspector O'Reilly and Frankie the math teacher are back.  Will there be a romance with either of them?  If not I don't mind because I do find their characters enjoyable on their own merits.  This second book cemented my affection for Dr. Gethsemane Brown. She is bold, tenacious, and unflappable. Plus she can see ghosts! 

5 stars for the second book in this series!  It's like a fine arts seminar wrapped in a murder mystery!  I loved it! 

The second book I am reading from Ireland is The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I'm about 60% finished as of Sunday afternoon so I am going to dive back into it and I'll share a review on Wednesday! 

#TheSundayPost My Belated Mother's Day!

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.  See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

Last Sunday we celebrated Oldest Son's birthday with his favorite pizza, so I opted to request any Mother's Day celebration for me to be moved this Sunday. Since I recently went to Love's Sweet Arrow and purchased a nice stack of books for myself, I don't really need any presents for Mother's Day.  Instead, I'm expecting my family to put up my pool. 

 I was planning to get a pool last summer to celebrate being done with cancer treatment and the momentous occasion of being alive for half a century; however, the global pandemic caused a run on pop-up pools and also ruined my plans to have old lady backyard pool parties. 

I bought a pool and all the supplies necessary for it, about five minutes after President Biden signed the stimulus bill and now tomorrow is the day my wonderful family can get that pool set up!  The forecast is calling for temperature in the 80s later this week...and I can't wait to float in my pool with a book in my hand! 

How are things by you?  I hope you had a good week! Comment below and share any fun summer plans you have coming up! 

What I'll be reviewing this week:

What's A Kitchen Witch? Magic in the Kitchen and a Cozy Review!

 What is a kitchen witch? It can be a handcrafted doll that is used as a good luck charm in Scandanavian kitchens or it can be someone who practices magic centered on the craft of cooking and all things related to food.  One can be a kitchen witch who practices in the Wiccan tradition. In my opinion, if you cook with love and talk to your plants, and have a green thumb and secret recipes for delicious cookies that you won't share- I probably think you are a kitchen witch. 

In paranormal fiction, various types of witchcraft are as popular (i.e. Harry Potter)  as vampires and werewolves.  Of course, I don't think vampires or werewolves exist, but paganism and Wiccan practices have been around for millennia and only got a bad wrap when men took over religions.  Under the cozy mystery umbrella is the subgenre of paranormal cozies.  Paranormal cozies are chock full of many different types of witches!  

One Poison Pie by Lynn Cahoon is a series featuring Mia who is a kitchen witch and is working on starting up a catering business, only to have a murder pop up right before her first catering gig! This magical cozy is light on the magic and heavy on the sleuthing and traditional cozy themes, so if you haven't read a magical cozy yet, this could be the perfect foray to see if you like it. 

I enjoyed the fresh tone of the book, Mia has common sense and a dogged determination to get her fledgling business off the ground.  She also has a terrible ex, a grandmother who holds secrets and a potential new boyfriend. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Two Wicked Desserts,  which I will be reviewing next month thanks to a copy from Net Galley. 

Solid 4 Stars!  A series I will continue!

As you know from reading my blog, I'm an aspiring cozy writer myself.  I love the idea of a kitchen witch protagonist and I have been doing research and have an idea I am working on, I also have an 80% complete rough draft for another cozy mystery series idea.  What I need to do is focus, finish one of these books and then go from there! 

This is a beautiful book filled with recipes and rituals to be more connected to the Earth. 

Let's Hope This Warm Up Is Here To Stay! Plus! NEW Cozy Series Book- Farm to Trouble!

Prolific cozy mystery writer Amanda Flower is out with a new series.  I was drawn to this series by the fresh look of the cover and the fun title. I'm excited to say this is the book of the month for June's Cozy Mystery Book Club. I am reading it early because this is when I was able to borrow it from my library! 

This is the story of Shiloh Bellamy who grew up on a farm in Northwestern Michigan and then moved to California where she built a career as a television producer.  Now she is back in her hometown to help her very taciturn father save their farm which has gone fallow (i.e. weeds no crops).  First, she finds out the family home is in terrible shape and then she stumbles across a dead body.

I had trouble reconciling Shiloh's career as a television producer, a tough job that requires the ability to lead as well as sell people on ideas and meet tough deadlines, with her passivity and lack of self-confidence in the book.  Far too often people berate her, far too often she is running here and there chasing after things other people want her to do.  Her personality didn't match a successful 38-year-old television producer. 

The person who is killed is a terrible person, that is always a plus in my book when it comes to cozy mysteries. However, in this book, Shiloh has more than a couple of unpleasant friends and family.  I didn't enjoy spending time with them as the book progressed. 

Cozies are so much about plucky MCs and Community.  I love reading about protagonists who aren't afraid to ask questions or speak up for themselves and in this book Shiloh doesn't advocate for herself and is surrounded by people who are family who mistreat her and acquaintances who call her a murderer and a killer from the moment of the murder. 

This is a three-star read for me. 

*****

Can you believe it is already just about mid-May?  My oldest has finished his Junior year of college and second son is finishing his first year of college finals this week, and my youngest child is at an AP test right now.  We can taste summertime! However, the weather has been more like the Ides of March than the cusp of summer for the past week. My weather app says we should start seeing 70s by next week; but, that is what the app said last week and all we got were the mid-50s.  Not Cool Mother Nature!  --Well really, it is cool, that's the problem!  

Time files!