Thursday, May 2, 2024
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
April 2024 Wrap-Up
April was a busy month for me, and did it ever fly by, but I still somehow managed to get to all the books I had on my list. I'm still working on a couple of them but I'll be done with them soon.
What New Beginnings are Made of (Star Gazer Inn of Corpus Christi Bay Book #1) by Debra Clopton
3.5 of 5 stars
See my review here.
The Apocalypse Troll by David Weber
3 of 5 stars.
Review to come.
A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson
3.5 of 5 stars
Review to come.
Cat Among the Pigeons (Hercule Poirot #32) by Agatha Christie
4.5 of 5 stars.
This ended up being one of my favorites in the series, even though Poirot doesn't show up until 60% into the book. I enjoyed the characters and the espionage.
Foreigner
(Foreigner #1) by CJ Cherryh
3 of 5 stars
Review to come.
Dark One: Forgotten by Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells
3.5 of 5 stars
Review to come.
The Princess of Potential (The House Witch #4) by Delemhach
4 of 5 stars
The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
4 of 5 stars
Review to come.
The Lookback
(The Birch Creek Ranch #8) by B.E. Baker
4 of 5 stars
See my review here.
The Burning Witch (The Burning Witch #1) by Delemhach
4 of 5 stars
Review to come.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
(Dragonlance: Chronicles #1) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
5 of 5 stars
I finally finished this reread and I thoroughly enjoyed this all over again. I'm keeping my 5 star rating.
Castle Manoeuvre (Tournament of Shadows #5) by Tilly Wallace
3 of 5 stars
I originally thought this would be the last book in the series, but there will be one more. I think this series started out enjoyable enough, though not as good as Manners and Monsters, it had potential. However, as I've read each book in the series I've noticed there is a lot of filler and not much plot progression. I think it could have been condensed into three books. I will still read the last book after it's released later this year though.
Blood and Treachery
(DCI Logan Crime Thrillers #4) by JD Kirk
3 of 5 stars
I didn't think this one was as good as the other books I've read in the series. I found it to be a lot more predictable than the others and had it all figured out pretty early on. That being said is wasn't bad and still held my interest. At this point I would really like to see some character growth for the main character. He was his usual "skirting the rules" self and I would like to see his softer side start to some out a bit.
Empire of Dirt
(The Echoes Saga #2) by Philip C. Quaintrell
No rating yet because I'm still reading this one.
Review to come.
The Engines of God
(The Academy #1) by Jack McDevitt
No rating yet because I'm still reading this one.
Review to come.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
The Perfect Nanny by Karen Clarke, Amanda Brittany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
Content: Nothing I can remember
You trust her with your home, your husband, your baby… but she is about to destroy it all.
Sophy
Pemberton is struggling to cope with the pressures of becoming a new
mother. Her nine-month-old son never settles in her arms and the
unrelenting tiredness from late night feeds is all-consuming.
So,
when Liv Granger from the mother and baby group offers her services as a
nanny, Sophy is overcome with relief. Now she can finally get some
sleep… She can stop failing at being a mother.
But Liv has a secret.
She is convinced that Sophy was accountable for her brother’s tragic death and she has been searching for her for years.
And now that Liv’s found her, she’s outraged Sophy seems oblivious to the pain she has caused her family.
Sophy’s perfect house, perfect husband and perfect baby are too much for Liv to bear… and she’s going to make her pay.
'An
utterly gripping and suspenseful novel that will have you turning the
pages long into the night! Fans of The Mother-In-Law, Lies Lies Lies,
and The Babysitter will love this heart-racing read.'
A while ago I found the author Karen Clarke through her book My Best Friend's Secret and just thoroughly enjoyed her storytelling. I've gone on to read every one of her mystery thrillers and I'm sad that for now, this was the last one. I hope she writes more. This was one of three that she co-wrote with author Amanda Brittany, and I think it's the best of the three. I had issues with the other two books that brought my ratings down to 3 stars. This one I confidently gave 4 stars to.
I enjoyed the characters in this book, even though one of them did things at times that were pretty mean. I liked the growth in this character by the end of the book and that she ended up having a conscience. I felt incredibly bad for Sophy in this book and everything she went through. There were a couple of times I thought she was a little dumb to not see what was obvious, but I still liked this book enough to give it 4 stars. I thought I had this one all figured out and some of it I was right about, but there was a twist that I did not see coming, and of course there was that ending that sent chills up my spine but also had me thinking that character totally deserved what they got. I'll be looking for more psychological thrillers by Karen Clarke.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
The Lookback (The Birch Creek Ranch #8) by B.E. Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Women's Fiction, Romance, Clean Romance, Contemporary Fiction
Content: Clean
Amanda Saddler has lived a long and happy life.
She’s not ready to die or anything melodramatic, but she’s long since
given up on finding her fairytale ending.
But when her adoptive
granddaughter Emery picks up a box that was delivered to her doorstep,
some new stories from the past come to light. Amanda Saddler may have
spent her life pining for her neighbor, Jed Brooks, but that’s not the
only man she ever knew.
Emery doggedly asks after a man from an
old photo, who turns out to be the man Amanda Saddler stayed with when
she left town for a few months. When that same man calls Amanda’s phone,
of course Emery answers and invites him to come for a visit.
Can
Amanda Saddler reconcile the wrongs in her past to set her story right
in the present, or is it too late for her to find her happy ending
alongside a man who has always wanted a place in her heart?
This is the last book in the Birch Creek Ranch series and I'm really going to miss it. I've enjoyed getting to know these characters. In this final installment, we finally get Amanda Saddler's backstory, and in true B.E. Baker fashion, we find out that what we thought we knew isn't exactly how things happened. I found it refreshing to read about a romance between a couple of 80 year olds instead of the much younger couples we usually read about. I also thought it was a very sweet story, and I enjoyed the bits of humor that were sprinkled throughout it.
Amanda's story isn't the only one in the book though. We get more of Helen and David, and although I still don't really like Helen, I liked the fact that she grew as a person in this book. All the other characters I came to love in the series are also present, but in smaller doses. Overall, I think this was a good ending to the series.
Thanks to the author for providing me with an ARC of this book.
Monday, April 22, 2024
The Icarus Twin (The Icarus Saga #2) by Timothy Zahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, Space Opera
Content: Clean
For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian
partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of
uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable
resources. Now, they quietly work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret
government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished
alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of
light-years in the blink of an eye.
Roarke and Selene are
searching one such possibility when they find that someone appears to be
stalking them. They evade their pursuers and return to find that a man
named Easton Dent has been searching the Spiral’s databases for the
names Gregory Roarke and Icarus.
Roarke reluctantly agrees to
meet with him. But that first contact is cut short, and hours later
Roarke is arrested and accused of Dent’s murder.
More importantly
to Roarke’s Icarus Group overseers, that brief meeting also confirms
that Dent was in recent contact with a portal.
But the alien
Patth are also searching for such portals, and they are also on the
trail. It’s now a race . . . and the Patth have resources and
ruthlessness far beyond anything Roarke and Selene can match.
This is the second book in the Icarus Saga series and I enjoyed it. It started out with a bang and just kept going. I still don't think these are quite as good as The Icarus Hunt was, but I very much enjoy the characters in these books. I like that characters from The Icarus Hunt cross over into these at times as well. I do think that Roarke's "As my father used to say..." shtick is overused, but it's still amusing. One thing I love about Zahn's books is that there are always twists that surprise me, and this one was no exception.
To quote another reviewer on Goodreads, "This book, like the other Icarus Saga novels, follows the Puzzle Box format of storytelling. Not only is there a mystery, but it changes throughout the novel in a more complex way than even the most complex Agatha Christie novels. But like Agatha Christie novels, Zahn lays everything out at the end of the book neatly for the reader and characters to understand."
This describes why I love Timothy Zahn's books. I hadn't really put the pieces together of why until I read this review. I enjoy the puzzle box type of mystery, and I enjoy sci-fi/space adventure books. Blended together it makes for great reading.
Friday, April 19, 2024
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