The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

 

 

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Historical Mystery
Content: Strong language, Not sure what else since I didn't finish it.

 

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.

But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.

And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.

Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?

With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board. 

 

I've tried twice to get into this book, and having loved The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle I really, really wanted to love this one too. Unfortunately I just am not enjoying it, and it's nothing at all like The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I wasn't really expecting it to be much like it, but this one just has a completely different feel that I don't care for, so it's going on the abandoned book pile.

Also I need to mention that I've read other reviews of this book and--apart from the little bit I noticed myself--apparently there are some glaring historical inaccuracies in it, and yes it's fiction and a mystery, but it's set in the real world so I feel like that matters. 

 

 

 

 

December 2020 Book Club: The Chimes by Charles Dickens, and Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin

For December we picked two short books, and since it's the holidays we decided one of them would be The Chimes by Charles Dickens. I had never read it, and overall I find Dickens can be tedious to read, even though I've enjoyed movie adaptations of several of his books, but I wanted to give this one a try. This story felt similar to A Christmas Carol in some ways, so it was inevitable that the two would be compared. While The Chimes is about the new year with resolutions and change being the major themes of the story, there are the sequences where the main character sees what the future could be like for his loved ones, and that reminded me a lot of A Christmas Carol. It's not a pretty picture, but of course I wasn't expecting it to be, this is Dickens after all. This story is more heavy handed and dreary feeling than A Christmas Carol and I did not enjoy it as much, but the overall theme and message was a good one that I could appreciate.

The other book we chose was a fun comedic fantasy, Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin. This is the first book in a whole series of adventures. It was quite funny at times, and overall I liked it, but it does unfortunately have a very dated looking cover. If you are looking for a humorous type fantasy, maybe in the vein of Discworld, then give this series a try. It has everything that makes for a good humorous fantasy story, including puns, characters that are absurdly silly, and situations that will make you laugh.

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Classics
Content: Clean

Charles Dickens 1844 novella that concerns the disillusionment of Toby "Trotty" Veck, a poor working-class man. When Trotty has lost his faith in Humanity and believes that his poverty is the result of his unworthiness he is visited on New Year's Eve by spirits to help restore his faith and show him that nobody is born evil, but rather that crime and poverty are things created by man.

 

  

 My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

Skeeve is a magician’s apprentice (and a wanna-be thief) until an assassin’s bolt kills his master, Garkin. Along with Aahz, the green-scaled, purple-tongued demon and master magician summoned by Garkin, he sets out on a quest to get even. The road to vengeance is bound to prove rocky, however, because Skeeve can barely light a candle with his beginning magic, and Aahz has lost his own considerable magical abilities as a consequence of Garkin’s summoning spell. Before they can confront the power-mad wizard who ordered Garkin’s assassination, they must survive a trip to a weird alternate dimension, encounters with Impish hit-men and a somewhat dull but persistent demon hunter who rides a friendly war unicorn, outwit a sharp-dealing Deevel, and deal with other uncanny enemies and even stranger friends ... all without killing each other in the process!

 

 

 

Finding Peace (Almost a Billionaire Book 8) by Bridget E. Baker

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance
Content: Clean

 

Anica Maggard was born under a lucky star. Her big sister became her very best friend. Her debut novel was an instant bestseller. She lived in the apartment of her dreams at the age of twenty-five.

But luck changes. . . and sometimes it runs out entirely.

Cancer steals her sister, and that loss robs Anica of her words. Years later, she still can't even find the desire to search for them.

Ethan Trainor coasts through life, trading on his boyish grin, cerulean eyes, and ample trust fund to succeed. No one has ever bothered to peel back the façade and discover that Ethan's glorious life didn't begin with a silver spoon.

It began with bars on his windows.

A boiling rage simmers just below the surface, and when the demons from his past swing back around, that fury threatens to consume him.

When fate drags Ethan to Atlanta to confront his past and Anica there to search for her future, can they both find the peace they need to let go? Or will they lose what really matters in the process?

So, I've finally come to the last book in this series, and I'm a little sad that it's over. I've enjoyed these feel-good stories with sweet romances so much. Anica wasn't one of my favorite characters going into this, but after reading many books by Bridget Baker, I was confident she could win me over to Anica's side, and I was right. Anica and Ethan's story was pretty smooth most of the way, with only a couple of little bumps, and I liked how easily they fell into their relationship.

There were some pretty heavy themes in this book—past abuse, and that abuse leading to the death of a loved one—but Bridget was able to write those elements into the story without it feeling too dark. I liked the way the book dealt with the topic of forgiveness. It made my think about how we can forgive but still keep our distance from someone who may not be healthy for us to be around. I also liked that the book showed that we can't control and make decisions for those that we love, and how tough that can be when we see they could be heading for something not good for them. This book also showed how low a person can be brought by their own actions and the consequences of those actions, and how sometimes a person can change because of that.

On a side note- I'm liking the rebranding that this series is going through. It's being renamed the Finding Home Series and the new covers are quite charming. I think it fits the series a lot better than focusing on the billionaire aspect of it did. Although there are billionaires in every book, the stories are heartwarming and the main characters in each book are looking for something important that's missing in their lives, thus the titles.

 

Overall this was a good ending to the series, and I'm looking forward to reading whatever Bridget writes next.

Thanks to the author for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Gimme Some Sugar (Southern Eclectic, #3) by Molly Harper

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Romantic Comedy
Content: Strong language, A moderately descriptive sex scene

Lucy Brewer would never have guessed that her best friend, Duffy McCready (of McCready’s Bait Shop & Funeral Home) has been in love with her since they were kids. Fear of rejection and his own romantic complications prevented Duffy from confessing his true feelings in high school, so he stood by and watched her wed Wayne Bowman right after high school. Wayne had always been a cheapskate, so it comes as no surprise when he suffers a fatal accident while fixing his own truck.

Even as her family and friends invade Lucy’s life and insist that the new widow is too fragile to do much beyond weeping, Lucy is ashamed to admit that life without Wayne is easier, less complicated. After all, no one knew what a relentless, soul-grinding trudge marriage to Wayne had been. Only Duffy can tell she’s hiding something.

In need of a fresh start, Lucy asks Duffy to put his cabinet-building skills to use, transforming the town's meat shop into a bake shop. As the bakery takes shape, Lucy and Duffy discover the spark that pulled them together so many years ago. Could this finally be the second chance he’s always hoped for?


This was another fun romantic comedy from Molly Harper. This also ends the Southern Eclectic trilogy. For the most part I liked this book, although there were a few times where I thought certain people needed to speak up more, and others needed to maybe not overreact so much. I liked the characters and it was nice to see Duffy get his life straightened out and find love. This book had me laughing right from the start. The part with the cake for the bachelorette party had me laughing so much. I was reading it in bed one night and was trying to hold back laughter so I wouldn't wake my husband up!

As a whole I've liked this series. I think I liked this book the least out of the three, but it was still good fun. I liked the Southern charm, the wackiness, and of course the romance. These are good comfort reads for when you just want something light and fun. I'm going to miss visiting the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop.

 

 

 

Nova (Spectre War, #1) by Margaret Fortune

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Space opera
Content: Nothing that I can remember

 

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

When I picked this up I was expecting it to be a book written for adults, but was surprised to find that it's actually YA. I think I would have liked it better if it had been written for adults. While I liked the story and found it interesting, the book got a little bogged down with the teen relationship. There were also a couple of twists that I saw coming from the beginning. Despite those things I still liked the book. I liked the characters and was sad that some things had to end up the way they did, but I also get why those things ended up that way.

It seems like this is going to be a series, but I have no idea how many books will be in it (there are only two right now). It also seems like the characters in the second book are older, as several years look to have passed. Right now I do plan on reading the next book because I'm interested to see where the story goes next and how the characters are written as adults.

The Lady and the Highwayman by Sarah M. Eden

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Historical Romance
Content: Clean

 

Elizabeth Black is the headmistress of a girls’ school in 1830s Victorian London. She is also a well-respected author of ”silver-fork” novels, stories written both for and about the upper-class ladies of Victorian society. But by night, she writes very different kinds of stories--the Penny Dreadfuls that are all the rage among the working-class men. Under the pseudonym Charles King, Elizabeth has written about dashing heroes fighting supernatural threats, intelligent detectives solving grisly murders, and dangerous outlaws romancing helpless women. They contain all the adventure and mystery that her real life lacks.

Fletcher Walker began life as a street urchin, but is now the most successful author in the Penny Dreadful market, that is until Charles King started taking all of his readers. No one knows who King is, including Fletcher’s fellow members of the Dread Penny Society, a fraternity of authors dedicated to secretly fighting for the social and political causes of their working-class readers. The group knows King could be an asset with his obvious monetary success, or he could be the group’s undoing as King’s readership continues to cut into their profits.

Determined to find the elusive Mr. King, Fletcher approaches Miss Black. As a fellow-author, she is well-known among the high-class writers; perhaps she could be persuaded to make some inquiries as to Mr. King’s whereabouts? Elizabeth agrees to help Fletcher, if only to insure her secret identity is never discovered. What neither author anticipated was the instant attraction, even though their social positions dictate the impossibility of a relationship.

For the first time Elizabeth experiences the thrill of a cat-and-mouse adventure reminiscent of one of her own novels as she tries to throw Fletcher off her scent. But the more time they spend together, the more she loses her heart. Its upper-class against working-class, author against author where readers, reputations, and romance are all on the line.


I read the second book in this series The Gentleman and the Thief before reading this one and I gave it 3 stars because I liked it but didn't love it. Now that I've read this one I think maybe my reading experience would have been improved a bit by knowing what I know now (they are companion novels), but I think my rating would still have been 3 stars even if I had read this one first. 

I have to say that this book, in my opinion is better. I enjoyed the overall story more, and the Penny Dreadful stories that are included were more interesting to me in this book as well, although I still didn't like the way they interrupted the main story. I did think that Fletcher should have been smart enough to figure out who Mr. King was long before he did. That part just felt dragged out for the sake of keeping the subterfuge going and not because it made sense.

The third book in the trilogy (I'm assuming it's a trilogy) is being published in August and I will definitely read it.

Of course I had to look up some real Penny Dreadfuls and these are some of the ones I found:

 

 

 

 

 

Death Qualified (A Barbara Holloway Novel Book 1) by Kate Wilhelm

 

   

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, off page sex

 

Lucas Kendrick appears at his estranged wife’s home after a mysterious seven-year disappearance, and is instantly shot. Nell Kendrick, charged with his murder, calls Attorney Frank Holloway to defend her. But Frank cannot prepare her defense alone. He needs a lawyer who is “death qualified”—able to defend capital cases. He appeals to his daughter Barbara, who, out of disillusionment with a profession prizing politics over justice, abandoned her practice five years before. Reluctantly, Barbara is plunged into a case involving chaos theory, the mysterious death of a researcher, and a politically motivated and hostile prosecutor. To complicate matters, Barbara falls in love with a mathematician whose help she seeks in unraveling the case.

I recently started buddy reading this book with a couple of friends on Goodreads and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I'm now on the third book in the series. What I like about these is the father daughter dynamic between Barbara and Frank. They are both attorneys and they collaborate on the cases. They both have their flaws and they don't always get along, but there is a mutual respect there and I like the dialog between them.

Another thing I really like about this series are the courtroom scenes. There are always interesting things learned in these chapters about how trials are conducted and how things can be perceived and manipulated during trials. Certain aspects of the series—the courtroom drama and the investigations—remind me a great deal of Perry Mason.

I've been listening to these since the audio for the whole series is on Hoopla and I really like the narrator. I can totally picture that voice being Barbara's. The narrator also does a pretty good job with the other character voices, especially Frank.

This is a long series with 14 books, so I will probably not review every book in the series, but just the ones that make the most impression on me. As for this book in particular, I liked the overall plot, even though the whole psychological experimentation thing was a little hard to believe at times, and I had issues with some things about the ending. I liked the characters and everything else enough to want to keep reading.

Dog on It (A Chet and Bernie Mystery, #1) by Spencer Quinn

 

 My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Cozy Mystery
Content: Nothing that I can remember.

Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, and Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator, are quick to take a new case involving a frantic mother searching for her teenage daughter. This well-behaved and gifted student may or may not have been kidnapped, but she has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. With Chet’s highly trained nose leading the way, their hunt for clues takes them into the desert to biker bars and other exotic locales—until the bad guys try to turn the tables and the resourceful duo lands in the paws of peril. Spencer Quinn’s irresistible mystery kicks off a delightful new series that will have readers panting for more.

 

This is a super cute cozy mystery from the dog's point of view. It was quite amusing to read Chet's thoughts about things, especially when he would be telling about something and get sidetracked by something only a dog would get sidetracked by, or when he would find himself involuntarily growling. I also loved how devoted Chet was to Bernie. If you're a cozy mystery reader who also loves dogs (who doesn't?), then this would probably be right up your alley. I'll definitely read more of this series when I'm in the mood for something light and a good chuckle as well. 

 

 

 

Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic, #2) by Melissa F. Olson

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong language, A fade to black sex scene

 

Fitting into the Old World isn’t going very well for Boulder boundary witch Allison “Lex” Luther: she may have earned a place in a vampire’s service, but now it seems as if every supernatural creature in town has found a reason to hate her. And when Lex and her partner are assigned to investigate the suspicious disappearance of two vampires during the night of the full moon, they find themselves with more questions than answers.

Was it murder…or mutiny?

The crusade for answers will lead Lex all over the Colorado Old World, from a prison cell for a broken werewolf to a haunted Denver brothel. And when Lex determines the responsible party, the hunt is just beginning: something has been awakened in Boulder, something as old and powerful as it is terrifying. Only the woman with death in her blood can stop what’s coming.

 

I wanted to love this, and don't get me wrong I liked it, and it was a strong like, but after the set up from the first book I was hoping we would dig deeper into the characters. I thought the plot was good, but the characters are feeling a little flat to me. I was even rooting for Lex and Quinn romantically speaking, but that also felt kind of flat. Where is the spark? Where is the excitement of this new relationship—the will they or won't they? There was no tease there that I would have loved to have seen. I also would love some humor mixed into the story in general.

As I said, I thought the book was good plot-wise. I really got into the whole thing between the vampires and the witches and trying to figure out who was behind things, and that was what really saved the book for me. A couple of the plot twists were a little obvious to me, but overall it was good.
Despite some disappointments, I'll continue on to the next book.