Swamp Sniper by Jana Deleon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Comedy
Content: Strong Language


In the two weeks CIA assassin Fortune Redding has been hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, she’s been harassed, poisoned, and shot at…and that was the easy part. But now, she’s about to face her biggest challenge since setting foot in the tiny bayou town.

This is the third book in the Miss Fortune series, set in Louisiana. I have no idea why I'm still reading these. They are mediocre at best and not nearly as funny as they could be. I felt like the comedic relief in this one was all done in the previous book. There are only so many times the same scenario is going to work. There was one mildly funny scene that involved the bathroom at the police department, but other than that it didn't really make me laugh at all. And really, how many people can get murdered in one tiny town in just two weeks? It's very far-fetched, but it is light reading that isn't supposed to be taken too seriously. At this point though, I'm really not sure if I'm going to continue on with this series.

Lethal Bayou Beauty by Jana Deleon

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Comedy



No one in Sinful liked Pansy Arceneaux, but who hated her enough to kill her?

Lethal Bayou Beauty is the sequel to Louisiana Longshot. This time around Pansy Arceneaux, ex-beauty queen and aspiring actress returns to her hometown, Sinful Louisiana to help with the beauty pageant portion of the Summer Festival. No one likes Pansy, who has been through almost every guy in town, even the married ones, so when she ends up dead no one is surprised.

While Lethal Bayou Beauty was amusing at times, I didn't like it quite as much as Louisiana Longshot, which did actually make me laugh out loud once. Mostly I feel like this series relies too much on dumb humor derived from unbelievable situations. There are too many bumbling mistakes made by the main character and she is completely unprepared to pose as an ex-beauty queen/librarian. What kind of spy would fail to do her homework to make the role convincing? Also who in the world doesn't know who Lady Gaga is? You'd have to be living under a rock to have never heard of her. Fortune would also have to at least know of some TV shows. Maybe Fortune had her head buried in the sand when she was playing assassin in the Middle East. This series has completely failed to convince me that Fortune is a CIA agent or a real person at all for that matter.

Despite my complaints I like other things about this series enough to give it another chance, like the Louisiana charm and Ida Belle and Gertie, the outrageous ladies of the Geritol mafia, so I'm still keeping this series on my to-read list for now.



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July 2017 Book Club: The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred the Vampire Accountant

We've been making themed refreshments for our book club get-togethers. That was my husband's brilliant idea and it has turned out to be one of the high-lights of our meetings every month. And this month, since it was a vampire book, I knew we would have to include blood. But what to do other than a red colored drinks? After thinking on it for a while I started wondering if I could actually get drink pouches that looked like blood bags. You know, so we could drink from blood bags the same way Fred the vampire does in the book. And lo and behold, look what I found on Amazon...

We ended up filling them with a mixed berry drink and we sipped on them while we talked about the book. We had so much fun this month and I'm looking forward to next month when we all read Ready Player One. We already know we are going for an 80s theme, but no idea what the refreshments will be yet. Anyway, here is my review of the book:



The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew  Hayes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Comedy


Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one.

This was our book club pick for July. I enjoyed it quite a bit and found Fred the vampire to be quite clever and lovable, even if he was somewhat boring as an individual. In the beginning Fred goes to his high school reunion and runs into an old friend who ends up spicing his life up a bit. The book is divided into different stories about Fred. He ends up collecting a new friend in each new story, until he has his own little group of friends, who all happen to be supernatural beings like him. Besides the high school reunion story there are also stories about a LARP, a trip to Vegas, and a couple of kidnappings.

This book was funny, but not as funny as I was expecting it to be. For me, the best part was the jousting duel in Vegas. Just picturing that makes me laugh, but I don't want to spoil anything so I'm not going to give away any of the details. It turns out there are more books about Fred but I think I'm fine with calling this a stand-alone. It was a fun diversion, but not something that I really want to invest a lot of time in. If you are looking for something light to read between heavier, more complicated books, than this would fit the bill perfectly.

Lady Fiasco by Kathleen Baldwin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Romance
Content: Clean


Can a lady with a reputation for disaster, stumble into love?

Lady Fiasco is the first in a series of companion books. I did not read these in order. I read book 2, Mistaken Kiss first. Book 3, Cut From the Same Cloth second, and this book I read third. Out of the three this one was the one I liked the least. The series features Aunt Honore in all three books. In each book she "helps" along the romantic relationship of one of her nieces or nephews. I felt like she was a little inconsistent throughout the books. In this book she is pretty outrageous and some of the things she did would have been pretty shocking for the time period. In book two she just seems like a meddlesome busybody and was not featured nearly as much, and in book three she schemes but is not nearly as outrageous as she was in book one and I liked her the most in that one.

This is a humorous regency romance, but for the most part the humor fell flat in this one. I thought Mistaken Kiss was the most humorous of the three and that one is my favorite. A couple of things that annoyed me about this book were the foot stamping the main character does several times, and the aunt and love interest keeping something from the main character that they could have let her in on. As far as the foot stamping goes, I didn't notice it so much in the other two books, although I think it happened once or twice. I have a hard time picturing a grown woman stamping her foot like a little girl when shes upset. It's a childish and unattractive thing for a grown woman to do. I don't know if there will be more books in the series, but for the most part I've enjoyed the ones I've read. They have been a fun diversion and I would be willing to read more.



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'til Death by Jason Anspach

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal, Comedy
Content: Clean


'til Death was a fun, light read. Sam Rockwell is a private investigator who specializes in Returns, or ghosts who have not crossed over yet because they have some sort of unfinished business. In this book Sam's father is murdered and comes back wanting his help. I enjoyed the combination of hard-boiled mystery, ghost story, and comedy. There were some funny moments in the book, but it wasn't quite as funny as I was expecting it to be.

I mostly liked the characters in the story, even though Frank was off-putting at first, and Alice was like a regular June Clever. Frank ended up growing on me over time. In the beginning he wasn't a very likeable character, but his growth and realizations about himself were what made me like him in the end. Too bad he didn't come to those realizations until after he was already dead. I didn't blame his wife for not being upset over his death in the beginning, even though I did find the nonchalant attitude most people in the book had about death a little odd. The reasoning behind it made some sense, but was still a bit of a stretch. I would expect at least a little shock at finding out a loved one is dead.

On the other hand I liked Sam and Amelia almost immediately, even though Amelia wasn't all that well fleshed out as a character. I especially enjoyed the parts where Sam tried to pretend, with varying degrees of success, to be like the detectives in the hard-boiled mystery novels he was reading.

There is a sequel to this and I'm guessing there will be quite a few more books written in this series. If you're looking for a good clean, light mystery that harkens to the days of hard boiled mystery, but doesn't take itself too seriously then you might like this book.



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Lighthearted Mysteries - Louisiana Longshot and 'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy

Today I'm posting a couple of lighthearted mysteries I recently read. To be honest neither of them lived up to my expectations. I find this genre can be really hit or miss--well mostly miss. A lot of the time these books are supposed to be really funny, but end up just being silly. I did like Louisiana Longshot a lot more than 'Scuse me While I Kill This Guy. I am on a quest to find a lighthearted mystery that is really laugh out loud funny without being silly or implausible. I'm just not sure one like that exists.


Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Comedy



CIA Assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever--in Sinful, Louisiana.

I was looking for something lighthearted to read when I decided on Louisiana Longshot and it was indeed lighthearted. Though not as funny as I had hoped, it did have its laugh out loud moments.

CIA agent Fortune Redding's cover has been blown and a price has been put on her head so she is sent off the grid to the tiny town of Sinful Louisiana to lie low for a while. Fortune feels completely out of her element posing as an ex beauty queen who works as a librarian and is in town to take care of her "aunt's" estate. However, not long after she arrives the dog digs up a human bone. Mishap after mishap occurs when she agrees to help a couple of seemingly innocent little old ladies, who the locals refer to as the Geritol Mafia, uncover who murdered the man. Fortune isn't just completely out of her element pretending to be an ex beauty queen, she is also completely out of her element in the Louisiana swamp country.

"As soon as I finished that shower, it was time to break out my laptop and do some reading on Louisiana. It was stranger than any foreign country I’d ever been in."

Being from there I can attest to that!

While this was a fun diversion I wouldn't go into this one with real high expectations as there isn't too much thinking involved. My biggest complaint was that most of the time Fortune didn't seem like much of an assassin to me. There were moments where her skills as an assassin did shine, if briefly, only to be dumbed down for the sake of a few laughs as she makes one unwise decision after another. I also found it hard to believe that a CIA spy would really feel that out of her element anywhere. Aren't they trained to play just about any role and to fit in just about anywhere? That's what I would have thought anyway. It ended up coming off as unbelievable. I think the story would have been much better had she just really been the person she was pretending to be instead of an assassin in hiding.

On the other hand, the little old ladies were a hoot and I loved their backstory and the town of Sinful where little old ladies make moonshine and the Baptists and the Catholics have a war going on over banana pudding. I got a good chuckle out of the names of the churches, Sinful Baptist and Sinful Catholic. I looked up Sinful Louisiana to see if there really is such a town, but there is not.

This is the first book in a series and I may read more when I'm in the mood for something silly.



'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy by Leslie Langtry

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Romance, Comedy


YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR FAMILY... 

In 'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy, the main character Virginia (Gin) Bombay belongs to a family of assassins. In the Bombay family there is no leaving the family business unless you want to die.

BUT YOU CAN PICK THEM OFF.

A family meeting is called and usually this only takes place if one of the family members is in big trouble, like they betrayed the family kind of trouble, and that usually means one of the other family members will be chosen to carry out the assassination. Yeah, real warm and fuzzy family we have here...

I went into this book hoping that it was truly laugh out loud funny, maybe like Mr. and Mrs. Smith was funny, especially after she meets a guy who claims to be a bodyguard, which is what she uses as her cover. There was so much potential there. He could have been secretly working against her or something, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.

With the exception of one paragraph about Chia Pets with supersonic listening devices, this book didn't make me laugh at all. I know I was supposed to find the main character's inner monologue about the hot guy she had just started dating funny but to me it was just cheesy (and the insta-love thing ugh!). I was probably also supposed to laugh at the first names of the whole Bombay family in which every one of them is named after a place, like Uncle Lou whose name is Louisiana (who would do that to a guy?), or cousin Missi. That's short for Mississippi in case you couldn't figure that out. The whole name thing might have started out mildly amusing, but it got old and repetitive after a while, which resulted in me rolling my eyes every time a new relative was named.

However, my biggest problem with this book beyond it not being funny was the fact that the Bombays were all forced to start training to become assassins at the age of 5 and Gin's daughter is now turning 5. If there was anything funny about this book, it would have been trumped by this as I just couldn't stand the thought of training 5 year olds to be killers and there was no way the book could make this seem ok to me. Also Gin suddenly realizes her daughter is turning 5 and kind of freaks out about it because, oh my goodness she forgot her daughter was going to have to start her assassin training. I'm pretty sure that any real mother would have been thinking about that for years.

So overall this was a letdown and it seems I'm still looking for a really funny, lighthearted mystery. This is a series but I will not be continuing with it.



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