Pies and Prejudice This Month's Cozy Mystery Book Club

 

I really, really enjoyed Ellery Adams' Secret, Book and Scone society. This series is an earlier series by the same author, Pies and Prejudice is the first book in that series. I picked up this book to read because it's the January 2023 selection for the Cozy Mystery Book Club. 

On Tuesday, January 31st, you can watch the live stream where Angela and Ben will talk about the book and all of us Cozy Mystery Book Club in the comments where we chat and share our thoughts and hot takes on the cozy of the month-- 

I listened to the audio version of this book. I stumbled a little in my listening because a few southern accents seemed very over the top to me, I don't know if that was on purpose or not.  The mystery and the whodoneit of this book are good.  The pie-baking talk is nice and if you enjoy a slueth who actively tries to figure out the murder, this book fits that bill. 

The book includes a high school nemesis and for me, that is a trope I don't enjoy.  Our MC has moved back to Georgia after she catches her husband of 7-years cheating. She was in New York City during her marriage and during that time she didn't speak to her mother at all. This really didn't make sense to me throughout the book. She doesn't speak to her mom for 7 ye but comes home with just the clothes on her back and her dog when she catches her husband in flagrant delicato with not one but two women, but her mom redoes a place for her to stay and her mom and her aunts fun a business for her --the Charmed Pie Shoppe. The text for me didn't make it clear why she and her mom wouldn't have spoken. There isn't a big enough riff. 

The book has light magical realism and is pretty standard cozy until the very end. The book ends with reveals that move it from magical realism to contemporary fantasy. Depending on how large a part magical beings play in book two, this may or may not appeal to you. Will I read the next book in this series?  First I need to read the rest of the books in the Secret, Book and Scone Society series because I loved the first book and want to return to Miracle Springs, NC. Once I have caught up on that series, I plan to check out the synopses for the second book in this series in order to decide if it's a book I'd enjoy or if I should check out Ellery Adams other series. 

3 Stars for Pies and Prejudice and 5 stars for writer Ellery Adams. 

I'm Almost Completely Caught Up on Everything Ilona Andrews has Published.

 

I look at the Innkeeper Chronicles as being Sci-Fi Cozy Mysteries. On the one hand, I can't believe I read the first book in this series, Clean Sweep, and then didn't continue on--thank goodness I found my way back to this series.  I could read about the goings on at the Gertrude Hunt every day. It is such a great blend of what I like in a cozy mystery series and what I love in paranormal/fantasy all mushed together with Ilona Andrews's wonderful world-building and well-rounded characters. 

On to the reviews of books one and two in the series. In the first book we meet Dina who is an Innkeeper, but not a regular Innkeeper, her BnB caters to aliens from all over the universe. The thing is, no one on Earth can know that aliens travel to and from the earth all the time. Turns out Earth is a hub from which you can travel to many different worlds. Dina's job is to protect her guests and make sure earth people don't know about aliens.  We quickly met Sean and Arland. Sean is a werewolf who was born in the USA but his ancestors are from another planet and we met Arland who is a vampire. Vampires in this series are more like super-powerful humans than your classic vampire can't have kids and drain people to death type. I could go on and on because this story is so expansive, but I don't want to bore or spoil you. 

This series has elements of cozy mysteries in these ways:

1. Overarching mystery regarding the backstory of our MC. Her parents are missing

2. Dina has a cozy companion, her deceptively cute dog.

3. Dina runs a BnB that is historically old and she loves to garden. The Inn has a name- Gertrude Hunt- How Cozy is That~

4. A community of quirky recurring characters. 

5. Light romance 

6. Dina does sleuthing to figure out why various people were killed or how to stop a killing.

Here is a link to Ilona Andrews website if you want more info on the series. I highly recommend you add this to your TBR pile asap! 

#TheSundayPost So Many Books, Only So Much Time-

  

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 

My goodness, my library holds are coming up fast! I just got the latest Charlaine Harris book and I've had that on hold for while! I am bumping up this book to the top of my TBR pile.  How about you? Do you plan your reading?  I try to map out a month at a time. If I don't then I find that I don't do a very good job of blogging! 

Last week I was planning a post on the Ilona Andrews Innkeep Chronicles series, but it didn't happen. However, you will see it this week and I have all of next week's posts ready to go! Exciting!  This weekend I get to enjoy a 3 day weekend from working at the school and I am planning to finish and write up reviews for two books. 

That Dangerous Energy Thank You #Netgalley!

 

This is the first time I have read anything by Aya de Leon, but it won't be the last. I really enjoyed this book, it has a very satisfying ending. This book is a romantic thriller that focuses on fossil fuels, energy consumption, and climate change.  Aya de Leon does a great job of balancing information and action, especially when it came to the textile arts. Yes I know this book is a corporate climate change thriller but a nice chunk of it describes what Morgan does as an artist.  Morgan designs her own clothes and went to fashion school, but her passion is quilting. The scenes describing how she created a quilt to enter a contest is very interesting for someone who knows almost nothing about quilting. I love how quilting is a form of art and a practical way to not only tell stories but also a way to reuse fabric instead of discarding it. Quilting fits in well with the theme of the book that time is running out to affect climate change. 

The pacing of the book is wonderful, and I appreciated that the characters are nuanced and have depth, there is no knight in shining armor or a perfect badass hero--which makes everyone in the story more relatable. 

And as an aside, the color scheme on the cover and the artwork of it is gorgeous! 

Five Stars for this romantic thriller it was a great ride! 

Thank you,

NetGalley for the ARC!

*** Kensington Books has a little reading challenge for the first quarter of 2023 and  I am counting this book for a book by an Author of Color category. 

#ReadignRefreshChallenge

We *are* all related. A Brief HIstory of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

 

Here is the blurb for this book from Goodreads: 

This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex.

Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001, it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims, and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals, but vastly more about us as a species.

In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be."

I'm working on reading more non-fiction in 2023, so I saw this book on Audible.com and since I had a bad BRCA2 gene, it appealed to me because it talks about genetics and DNA. I have found that I am much more likely to finish a non-fiction read if I do the audioversion and listen during my runs and general housework. Easier for me to focus.  I listen at 2.0 speed and that helps as well---less mind wandering.

This book is a brief overview of the evolution of humans. I know that we humans are all related at some level, but this book put that idea back front and center.  We all share a common ancestor and as humans have multiplied groups of us can be traced back to various historical individuals, which is pretty neat.  We aren't like cars off an assembly line, a near copy of our parents or our parents' parents, all of our genes and our DNA changes enough in each version of a person that we really are our own person; and our genes do not determine our outcomes.  They may influence some things but there isn't a doomed-gene, an amazing-person- gene, or a you-are-going-to-live-to-a-100-gene. 

What I took away from the book was the important reminder that we are all related and at the same time we are truly one of a kind.

4 stars

Shades of Wicked #SIAM Book One of 3!

 

Happy #SIAM review day!  Today I'm sharing my thoughts on Shades of Wicked  by Jeaniene Frost --along with other participants in Anne's Read Along

Here is the schedule of the review posts where you can read everyone's review of this book. There is always a wide range of opinions! 

Jan 8:    Shades of Wicked              –  Review from Carole @ Carol’s Random Life in Books

Jan 22:    Wicked Bite                        –  Review from Robin @ Books of My Heart

Feb 5:       Wicked All Night             –   Review from Anne @ Books of My Heart

**************Spoilers**********************

Shades of Wicked is the first book in Jeaniene Frost's Night Rebel series and it's a spin-off from her very popular Night Huntress series.  If you have read the Night Huntress you'll appreciate some of the cameos and side characters in the book and you'll have more general knowledge of events prior to this book, but it's a stand-alone. 

The beginning of the book has lots of Veritas, our MC, talking to herself, We are in her head and along for the ride. For me, it was too much exposition. Give me the action. I enjoyed the action portions of this book--and the demon dog Silver. Ian is in the Night Huntress books and I am sure many readers pick up this book to read his story. His personality is based on a persona of a vampire is loyal to friends and likes sex and violence, which is pretty typical for a vampire. 

Veritas is a half-vampire half-demigod that is usually in a glamour around others to hide her actual appearance--so she looks unassuming but of course very attractive and slim. Veritas works as a law guardian but for this book, she is basically on leave to try and kill a Demon she's been trying to kill for thousands of years. 

Ian and Veritas start as enemies, and then there is a fake marriage and then they are lovers. All good stuff, all stuff I enjoy.  Here is the thing though.  Veritas is a demi-god, she's been around for 4,000 years. She should be more interesting and both she and Ian should have worked through their issues by now--guilt over people they lost, how to communicate effectively, etc. They have the maturity of humans in their early 20s. It's like the old man on the porch in It's a Wonderful Life said: (and I'm paraphrasing) "Ah, eternal youth is wasted on the wrong people."

3.0 Stars  It's alright. 

Back to Work Tomorrow: #TheSundayPost

 

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 

Tomorrow I go back to work. I don't mind, it will be nice to see the kids and hear about their Winter Breaks. Since I am a support person, and only work 2.5 hours per day at the school, I really can't complain. It's the best part-time job. I only work when school is in session, I don't have to get up particularly early and I'm home by 1:10pm. Bonus: I can walk to work.

I got a Blue Apron delivery this past Thursday and that was a nice way to try a couple different meals during my break. How was your week?  

This week I'll be posting about these books: 

Blitzed by Norman Ohler

 No there isn't anything wrong with your eyes, the cover of this book is blurry. When this book came out in 2017 it was a huge bestseller and there are many fantastic reviews of the book on Goodreads. This is a non-fiction book that read like fiction.  I listened to the audioversion so it's not correct to say that I couldn't put this book down, but I can say I was riveted from start to finish. 

The book starts with the history of drug creation in Germany. Did you know that crystal meth was created by German pharma? Yep. Wild, the Nazi Regime was riddled with meth heads. From the head monster himself Hitler down through the rank and file. At the same time pills were given like candy to everyone in the military and government, the Nazis were publically very anti-drug with strict punishments for those caught using. This is to say, no surprise Hitler et al., were a huge bunch of hypocrites. 

Much of the book focuses on the relationship between Hilter and his Doctor, and you learn that Hilter had all sorts of physical and mental ailments which probably help increase his dependency on all the drugs. It's good to know that Hilter suffered while alive, a small consellation for all the lives he took and people he destroyed.  Too bad he didn't die of an overdose earlier in the war. 

5 stars for this haunting read. 

Time for a Series in a Month!

 In keeping with my renewed effort to read and write, I'm participating in Because Reading's  Series in a Month (#SIAM) challenge. This time around Michelle and Berls are offering a twist. You can read the Night Rebel series as the #SIAM and participate in Anne of Books are my Heart's Realdalong of the Night Huntress World at the same time. 

I do love a two-for so, I'm in for the #SIAM read of the Night Rebel books!

Here are the books:

*Shades of Wicked (to be reviewed Jan 9)

*Wicked Bite (to be reviewed Jan 23) 

*Wicked All Night (to be reviewed Jan 30) 

And speaking of series, I recently finished reading most of the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher.  Here is a quick review. Overall if you like Fantasy of any sort, you should do yourself a favor and start this series. The book  I just finished is called Skin Game and it is book number fifteen. 

As I have mentioned before, I prefer the books that are set in Chicago and involved humans over when the book is basically all Fae. This book was a 5-star book for me because it was basically a heist story, which was a fun departure and humans were central to the story -- esp. Murphy and Micheal. I would have liked more Molly. Now I only have two books left to read and I don't even know if they have a finality to them as I

think Jim Buther is still writing Harry's tale. 

If you like the True Crime genre, this is a facinating listen

Here is a blurb about the book from it's Goodreads's page:

"Violent. Provocative. Shocking. Call them what you will...but don't call them open and shut. Did Lizzie Borden murder her own father and stepmother? Was Jack the Ripper actually the Duke of Clarence? Who killed JonBenet Ramsey?

America's foremost expert on criminal profiling and twenty-five-year FBI veteran John Douglas, along with author and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, explores those tantalizing questions and more in this mesmerizing work of detection. With uniquely gripping analysis, the authors reexamine and reinterpret the accepted facts, evidence, and victimology of the most notorious murder cases in the history of crime, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Zodiac Killer, and the Whitechapel murders. Utilizing techniques developed by Douglas himself, they give detailed profiles and reveal chief suspects in pursuit of what really happened in each case.

The Cases That Haunt Us not only offers convincing and controversial conclusions, it deconstructs the evidence and widely held beliefs surrounding each case and rebuilds them -- with fascinating, surprising, and haunting results."
 

I listened to this book over the course of a few days. The content is compelling, especially since I am someone who reads and watches true crime and mysteries. I’ve listened to podcasts about some of these well know cases ( Lizzie Borden, the Zodiac killer, etc.) but this book written by an expert in profiling, gave me a better perspective. This book presents these high profile cases and debunks a lot of inaccuracies that have been reported over the years. 

If you are doing your own writing this book could be a good reference when you are creating your killer and the crime scene.

4 stars