Category: Mystery

Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by M.C. Beaton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Such a delightful read during summer gardening season.

I listened to this one as an audiobook, narrated by Penelope Keith, who was an amazing story teller for these types of cozy mystery books, especially for the setting of an old English village where the vernacular and voice portrayal made so much sense in both time and place. She also brought out the snarky side of the main character which confirmed that it wasn’t all in my mind.

This was my first in the series, which I chose out of order because of the season, so I’ll have to catch up on the others, but so far, I enjoyed it. It was a short, easy read which made it all the more perfect for the moment for me as a typical mood reader.

The storyline and writing were interesting to follow with unique character quirks that I found delight in. I didn’t know if I was supposed to love or hate the main (or even the side characters), but sometimes it doesn’t matter because the plot was the driving force and it was quite entertaining to be stilted by unconventional characters that brought a different flavor to the mix in each their own way.

I would have liked a bit more integration of gardening subject matter. And sometimes the main character’s remarks in conversation and love interest/crush made me question her whole persona. And the climax/plot reveal were a little too late in an anticipated arrival of a lesser known character and cliffhanger for me, but still, short and sweet so I hung on and finished it with enjoyment anyway.

I’m looking forward to the rest in this series.

View all my reviews

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One by One by Ruth Ware

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

One by One by Ruth Ware

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.

I enjoyed curling up with a cozy blanket and a cup of hot chocolate for this one! I think anyone looking for a read that matches what you’d expect from the cover and title will be highly satisfied.

I loved how the author wrote, with the fast pacing, a very in-the-moment, spontaneous, almost fleeting style which I devoured in one sitting.

I liked the short time frame for this one, the straightforward descriptions, the ones used when something thrilling is going on and you can’t wait, speeding up your reading pace, and keep turning the pages.

I loved the ambiance created, the setting, being the snowy mountain, the plot, it was all perfectly aligned to tell such a great story.

I will say I did experience a little ambivalence at certain points, likely because I wasn’t really enamored right away. It actually took me a bit to get into it. I didn’t understand the details, the backstory, the relationships, and their little character quirks. I had a hard time keeping them all straight. I did receive an ARC, so it’s possible that a little rearrangement in between now and final publication could easily offer a little more guidance for readers like me.

And there was one, single line in the book that I just can’t anymore. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I know some of my fellow readers are going to cringe much like I did coming across it. My feelings, so strong about it, it’s all in good fun though, maybe it’s actually becoming a joke at this point.

There was a lot of conversation in the story. Perhaps for the setting, I would have enjoyed a bit more related to the ski activities themselves, as in depicting conversations about what makes good powder, something to that effect to add some more connection and common ground between the characters.

I wanted them to sit around the fire more to warm up, as in also warming up the story, and drink smooth French hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was mentioned of course, but maybe I would have been a bit more captured by the unfolding of scenes if there were more bonding experiences or times of reminiscence, memories, maybe some kind of internal conflict, or application of some stereotypical company team-building exercise, something like that to play into the lovely, yet mysterious scenery and actions a bit more.

Something where the characters, other than the main ones, were a bit more distinguished. To feel drawn to caring about them. And there were a lot of characters to care about, but maybe I would have liked them to be more identifiable, with traits. Traits that would have fed into the scene a bit, and into their dialogue, and to the way they went one by one accordingly. I didn’t expect a deep, emotional connection, but I wanted a bit more dimension to the plot from that standpoint.

The last 20-30 pages had more of this type of character development and I liked the ending as a whole as a result. And though I had my suspicions of the ending bit a little earlier on, it didn’t spoil the rest of the story for me, but, then when confirmed, I was pretty much ready to put the book down. So I suppose for those last few pages, the wrap up was a little lingering than it needed to be for my particular taste in the moment.

But even then it was all done very carefully which made for a very compelling read!

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Tags bookstoreadthiswinter, Featured, fireplacereads, mystery, netgalley, OnebyOne, snowedin, snowyreads, suspense, thriller, winter2020, winterreads

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The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Post author By ericarobbin
Post date May 3, 2020
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Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia’s life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they’re more likely to discuss the FBI’s recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club’s meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he’s a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she–and her book club–are the only people standing between the monster they’ve invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was great. It would make an excellent book club choice.

I listened to this one as an audiobook, narrated by Bahni Turpin, which I’d highly recommend. She brought the story to life. Her voice inflection, the cadence, her cleverness in depicting each character with such distinctness even while keeping all the Southern accents straight, the expressions in tone, and her amazing ability at voice preservation, very well done.

So for the story, I really liked how the author brought me into it, into the womens’ lives, working relationships, within this Southern lifestyle of home and hospitality, and bookclub, just the icing on the cake. It was just hilarious at times, one where I thought, oh, so spot on.

I enjoyed the trajectory of the story as it unfolded, wondering how it would go, then, it was very satisfying. Of course there were times I thought, oh geez, is that just too much? Was it far from the reality of what possibly could happen/how one would react? But it didn’t matter so much because it was consistent in character, setting, circumstances, and the tone of the book, suitable for what it was to build the climactic aspects up and overall fitting and done well anyway from those aspects, if that makes sense.

I loved the writing, the truth, the perception, all of it told in a way without apology which I just love about writing that does this in such a way. Also fun, playful with bits of humor, a spot on reminiscent decade of Redbook magazine, Opium perfume, dial phones.

The accurate quirks in the sayings of the time, not only how a child/teenager would simply act, but appropriate for the age and time on such a consistent basis within each rise and flow of the plot, narrative thought, and dialogue.

I did question a few things, though not terribly distracting. Pupils would constrict in sunlight, not dilate. How a suspected rape victim would have been handled by a medical professional. How they celebrated Halloween with an incident happening that evening, but then later in the story, the continuation of the timeline, the next day was a cloudless, sunny, October day?

A really great story nonetheless. One that definitely kept me engaged the whole way through.

Check out the audiobook version on Libro.fm and support your local bookstore

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Tide and Punishment (Seaside Cafe Mystery #3) by Bree Baker

Post author By ericarobbin
Post date April 9, 2020
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It’s Christmastime in Charm, North Carolina, and while Everly Swan would prefer to focus on decorating her iced tea shop for its first holiday season, Great-Aunt Fran has decided to run for mayor against her long-time nemesis. But when the other candidate turns up dead just before the first scheduled debate, all eyes turn to Fran as the suspect with the most obvious motive.

Everly knows her sweet, elderly Aunt Fran couldn’t have murdered anyone, but as she struggles to find the real killer, it begins to seem like this may be the last merry Christmas her family may ever have.

Tide and Punishment by Bree Baker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, I loved living in the quaint seaside town called Charm. It continued to be this buttery, divine escape for me as a reader.

Overall I’m finding this Seaside Cafe Mystery series as one of my favorites and one that I think anyone could jump into without being terribly rigid about reading succession. There was just enough of a refresher backstory to set the tone and characters, but it didn’t belabor or spoil it either. It was just right. I say that because I didn’t have access to the second one before I read this third one, so I’ll have to go back, but I feel I will be able to pick up where I initially left off.

I loved how the author took the liberty to build up the town and characters in the setting where it lies. A place where people would typically leave their doors unlocked. Where amatuer sleuthing around and small town gossip adds intriguing gullibility and interesting layers to the story.

I loved the writing style. There was this flow and ease of reading in a ‘now you know, therefore you know’ approach. Though there was quite a bit of detail given at times, I still enjoyed it. Probably because the sentence structures themselves were not excessively fluffy or overly descriptive but instead celebrated the the simple aspects of what they were.

I wasn’t sure where the main character’s personal relationship with love interests were going. One I was questioning reconciliation, the other, maybe emasculating and calling their relationship over. I wasn’t sure if the meddling and bantering from a non colleague was becoming too much. But we’ll see, I wasn’t deterred from my enjoyment of the story. Not sure what will result from unrequited almost tipping to frustration as to what kind if progress they would be making, hoping it doesn’t become problematic, to gain any traction in what could be. So I look forward to where it goes.

I would have liked to have seen more of a recipe for the caesar salad, but that’s ok.

There is a delicious lingering to the storyline which will keep me looking forward to the next.

FAVORITE LINES:
“When you feel lost or like giving up, it’s time to stop and give thanks.”

Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

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Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

Post author By ericarobbin
Post date March 26, 2020
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Nancy Harmon long ago fled the heartbreak of her first marriage, the macabre deaths of her two little children, and the shocking charges against her. She changed her name, dyed her hair, and left California for the windswept peace of Cape Cod. Now remarried, she has two more beloved children, and the terrible pain has begun to heal — until the morning when she looks in the backyard for her little boy and girl and finds only one red mitten. She knows that the nightmare is beginning again…

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After learning of Mary Higgins Clark’s passing, I thought I would pick up her first suspense novel, Where Are the Children? which was published by Simon & Schuster in 1975. I haven’t read any of her works in a while and I just have to say that I loved flipping through the old paperback book I found with all its page patina glory.

I loved the pacing of this one. It fit the crime story well since it was mainly plot driven and straight to the point, no meandering in atmospheric details which I quite enjoyed for this type of narrative. The plot is brought into view from multiple perspectives with a reveal that left me at a tipping point at the end of every chapter, peaking around the corners, as well-written suspense should have.

I really liked simple yet descriptive lines like:

“It was only when her vision blurred that she realized that tears were swimming in her eyes.”

“Startled, she looked up. Jonathan must have cut through the woods from his house. His face was deeply creased today. She knew he must be nearly sixty years old, and today he looked every bit of it.”

“The fire licked hungrily at the thick logs.”

It was a style of writing that I think really captured and beautified what was going on along with proper perspective to come with it without making it feel over embellished.

I liked that all the scenarios remained focused and directed to the endpoint.

There was kind of a bit of catching up to do with backstory around the 3-4/5th of the book which may have benefited from being placed elsewhere so it didn’t create that sense of “Oh time to better explain that.” It wasn’t exactly to the point of me being too overly distracted in the reading… or getting too lost in the newly revealed details… or subsequent urge to look for plot holes, but briefly enough to take me out if the trajectory of the story for a wee bit. Couple that with a sort of disconnect I felt about the main character Nancy, I sort of wasn’t sure what to think at one point.

However it quickly picked up again and the scenes did fall into place. I imagine it is difficult to explain changing scenes and changing POVs when you want to tell them all at the same time. They all have them make sense and keep the suspense up simultaneously.

Really enjoyed it.