Looking for someone to listen to while you work or work around the house?

 

It was a Saturday afternoon in January, I had loads of laundry to wash and fold---a sink full of dishes and I didn't feel like listening to music or a podcast.  What to do?  I clicked on my Libby App and scrolled to find an audiobook that was available and looked decent.   

What I found was The Liar's Wife by Kiersten Modglin.  I listened at 2.0 speed and finished the book by dinnertime. It's an easy listen, there aren't a ton of characters so it's easy to keep people straight when you listen to while you work. 

A couple of things that are done in the book that I really liked. The main character Palmer has just given birth and as the book begins you aren't sure if she is dealing with normal post-pregnancy worries and attachment to her new baby or if her husband is truly up to no good. Up until a certain plot point I was not sure if she was a reliable or completely unreliable narrator.  I am not going to tell you which it is, I don't want to spoil you. 

At the very end of the book is a plot twist that you will either love or roll your eyes.  

Mother of the Bride Murder ARC from Net Galley!

 Here is the tagline from the publisher: "As part-time Tinker’s Cove, Maine reporter Lucy Stone says “oui” to her daughter’s surprise wedding invitation in France, she must also make a different kind of vow—to catch a killer!"

If you've read my blog before,  you know I enjoy the Lucy Stone cozy mystery series. I've read many of the books over the last five years and I was delighted that Kensington and Net Galley provided me with an ARC for Mother of the Bride Murder which will be published April 25th. 

I am of the opinion that sometimes you connect with a cozy sleuth and sometimes you don't and that is A-OK.  I connect with Lucy Stone even though I don't always agree with her.  We live in Lucy's head in these books and so we really get to know her thoughts and opinions. After reading many of her adventures, I find that the reason I will read this series as long as Leslie Meier writes them is that Lucy and the Tinker Cove crew feel like real people. They are written with depth and the dialogue sounds just like you might have in your own daily life. 

Reading this book I was worried about Lucy's relationship with Toby more than I was about the actual murder. I'm glad that by the end of it, they were in a good place.  However because of what happens, now I'm pretty concerned that Molly is never going to want to move back to Maine.  I miss the days when Molly lived nearby. She's a great daughter-in-law. 

I was also reminded in this book that Elizabeth is my least favorite of the daughters, she always seems to be too interested in wealth. See, the characters are normal everyday middle-class-ish people you probably know. I could write a really long post going on about everything in the book like I was telling you about my neighbor, that's how Lucy feels after you read some of this series.

My rating for this book is 4. It's a good solid book, I liked that much of the drama involving the Stone family could have been avoided if Marie and Hugo had been upfront with their guests. I do prefer when the whole book takes place in Tinker's Cove. 

If you haven't read any of this series, you can read this book, you don't have to know all about the other books. 

My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

Looking for a listen for your commute, or while you are cleaning the house, or walking the dog?  My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni is the first book in a series. The story is one you've likely heard before, Tracy the main character becomes a detective after her sister disappears and works for years to try and find out more about the case. In this instance her sister's body was never found and even though a man (who had been recently released from prison for rape prior to her sister's disappearance) was tried and convicted; Tracy doesn't think the evidence adds up. 

When the sister's body was found, then Tracy has an excuse to try and revisit the case. The sheriff in the small town tries to stop her from doing it. 

If you like courtroom drama and police procedurals you may enjoy this book and the rest of the series. I picked it up because it was on the top of the list of free with membership thrillers. I thought it was decent but I was left at the end thinking most of what happens in this book could have been avoided if some people hadn't decided other people needed protecting. 

Overall, it was a pretty good book and if you listen or read it and you like Tracy, the good news is that there are a bunch more books and I imagine moving forward they are cases she wasn't intimately involved with and that may lead to better twists and turns! 

3.5 stars

Welcome to February! The Sunday Post

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news 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 your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

I'm looking forward to participating in a group chat today to discuss the Night Rebel series organized by Anne from Books Are My Heart! 

Books I'll be talking about this week- 

Wanna Know a Fun Fact?

 

If you are a person who likes a good fun fact or likes to play trivia games this is a book you might just want to pick up. It was included with my Audible subscription and as I mentioned, I have a goal to read at least one non-fiction book per month, so here we are this is my February Non-Fiction book!

I listened to this book and what is nice about it is that basically, it's a long list of historical facts, most of which people don't readily know.  Frankly, and I mean this in the nicest way, this is a good bathroom book. 

It covers a lot of historical facts from America and England. I definitely didn't know most of the information related to England. 

When it comes to major historical events, in almost every case, a slight change could have made a huge difference. This book is filled with all the if not for X, X would not have happened. 

Case in point, the title of the book, Napoleon was having a bad morning due to hemorrhoids and didn't get on the battlefield in a timely manner and the battle was lost. 

Or that President Kennedy was wearing a back brace that keep him upright and like contributed to his death. Or that the Eiffel Tower was supposed to be torn down after it was up for 20 years, and the only reason it was kept up was that it had a radio transmitter. 

4 Stars this book is easy to read and is packed with interesting facts about history. 

The Serpent in Heaven by Charlaine Harris

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:  

"Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s half-sister and a student at the Grigori Rasputin school in San Diego—capital of the Holy Russian Empire—is caught between her own secrets and powerful family struggles. As a granddaughter of Rasputin, she provides an essential service to the hemophiliac Tsar Alexei, providing him the blood transfusions that keep him alive. Felicia is treated like a nonentity at the bedside of the tsar, and at the school she's seen as a charity case with no magical ability. But when Felicia is snatched outside the school, the facts of her heritage begin to surface. Felicia turns out to be far more than the Russian-Mexican Lizbeth rescued. As Felicia’s history unravels and her true abilities become known, she becomes under attack from all directions. Only her courage will keep her alive."

When I heard that the next book in the Gunnie Rose series was going to be about Felicia, I was delighted because that meant Lizbeth got to keep her HEA with Eli, and all of us readers got to read more in this world.  

This book was on the shorter side, I devoured it, I really enjoy Felicia and her inner monologue. She is clever and I felt that as written she acted her age. I think Charlaine got this unusual teenager's thoughts correct. The reveals as the mystery goes along works and the unveiling of Felicia's background and her abilities as a mage seem reasonable. The blurg says that only her courage will keep her alive, but I disagree, I say it's her cunning and her years of experience living on the edge in Mexico that keep her alive. 

The support cast is pretty big in this first book of Felicia's but if you have read other books in the series it's easy to keep them straight. It may be more difficult if you start the books with this one. The ending is satisfying, we get resolution to the immediate troubles of the day as well as a better understand of Felicia and her extended family. Threads are there for other books and I look forward to spending time with her again. 

5 Stars. Eagerly Anticipating Next Book 

Final book in my #SIAM Wicked All Night By Jeaniene Frost

 

January is almost over and I am ending the month with the third and final book in the Night Rebel series. I'm happy to report, yes I can read a series in a month! (#SIAM) 

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

Like book two, I did the audio version of the book and if you ask me to rate the narration I give it a 5, I think Talia Gilbert does a wonderful job with all the different voices and accents. 

As far as I know, this book wraps up Ian and Veritas/Ariel. This book was a fast listen and again we get scenes with other characters from the Night Huntress Universe.

Overall this three-book series would have worked better for me if Veritas had been in stasis for a larger portion of her life. I say this because she says she is nearly 5,000 years old. I had a very hard time reconciling her age and experience with her behaviors and lack of knowledge. She is very gullible. Good thing her dad kept raising her from the dead. You can say it's due to her first time experiencing love with Ian, but that falls flat for me. Now if she'd been in a coma for like 4,800 of the years, then it makes much more sense to me. 

I like her brother, he came in clutch in the series, because unlike Veritas and other characters, he is able to read people (people and supernatural characters). Marie the Queen of the Ghouls also continues to be an excellent character. 

Okay, I'm going to leave the review on that positive note!  

#TheSundayPost Last Sunday in January!

  

The Sunday Post is a blog news 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 your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

We are on the cusp of February. How was your January? We have a few days left if there is anything you'd like to do to button up your month or end it with a bang! Tomorrow I get to attend a cooking demo at my local library. The cooking demos always fill up fast so I set a reminder earlier this month so I didn't forget to register the moment registration opened. 

Later today the last post for the #SIAM will be posting it's the final book in the Night Rebel series Wicked All Night.  I enjoy participating in these #SIAM a trilogy of three books is really manageable for me!

What else am I talking about this week?  We will be starting February

and I have a non-fiction book to share- 

Plus a 5 star book by Charlaine Harris

Peace Talks Book 16 in the Harry Dresden Files

 

"When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, joins the White Council's security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago--and all he holds dear?" (from Goodreads) 

You wanna see magic in our mundane world? Look no further than the wizard that is Jim Butcher. Sixteen books into the series and I'm still excited to see what happens next. I'm still worried about all my fictional friends making it through the night. This book doesn't resolve some big problems happening in Harry's world, but it does give me the emotional growth I've been waiting for out of Harry. 

This book is chockful of the supernatural, but it takes place in Chicago and all my favorite characters are included which I really prefer over the books that have been centered in Faerie. One of the reasons I so enjoy this series is because humans are right in the thick of it the stories and that we see wizards, vampires, werewolves, etc. are injured and even die. There are consequences even in the midst of magical powers. 

If I had read this when it came out, I'd be so bummed that when I finished it I needed to  wait for Battle Ground  to be published--but lucky for me, and for you if you are reading the series now we can read it right away! 

5 Stars

The Devil Downtown by Joanna Schupe

I picked up this book because it was my book club's January selection. I have heard many great things about Joanna Shupe's writing so I was happy to have a push to read one of her books. This is a historical romance as you can see from the swoony cover. 

NOTE: I don't mind the cartoony romance covers that are currently popular, but as someone raised on Johanna Lindsey, this cover worked for me. 

This book is the third book in the Uptown Girls series, in it we get some scenes with Justine (our MC) and her sisters who were the main characters in the other two books. You don't need to have read any other books to enjoy this one, but if you like Romance or Historical Romance, you will most likely enjoy the other two books.

This is my first time reading Joanna Shupe's work and I get why she is award-winning.  This book takes place in the 1890s in New York City. Justine comes from a wealthy family but she is an advocate for women and children. A Feminist in the best sense of the word. She tracks down deadbeat dads and tries to get them to support their families. She does this in a system that doesn't think men should have to take care of their own children and who don't see women as equals.  She is a force to be reckoned with in this story.  The male lead is Jack Mulligan, a top-tier rough-around-the-edges character. The main conflict to their becoming a couple is that Jack is a gang leader in NYC. 

I'm not one for gang-related romance, but in the context of late 19th Century New York, it's more tolerable. It's clear throughout the book that if Justine and Jack are to find a HEA together one of them needs to give up their current livelihood. It is obvious which one of them needs to make better choices, the tension throughout the book lies in how we get to the right conclusion, and this is done very well.  

Joanna Schupe makes sure that Justine clearly consents as the romance unfolds, and I loved that while Justine was a virgin, she wasn't ignorant about sex or about pleasuring herself. 

5 Stars