Force of Nature by Jane Harper

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong Language


Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along a muddy track.
Only four come out on the other side.

The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and encourage teamwork and resilience. At least, that's what the corporate retreat website advertises.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker, Alice Russell. Because Alice knew secrets, about the company she worked for and the people she worked with.

The four returning women tell Falk a tale of fear, violence and fractured trust during their days in the remote Australian bushland. And as Falk delves into the disappearance of Alice, he begins to suspect some dangers ran far deeper than anyone knew. 


After reading The Dry, I had big expectations for Force of Nature. I knew going in that it was going to be a bit different from The Dry, and I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about a completely different setting and set of characters.

Those things ended up being non-issues for me. What I ended up not liking were the stupid choices the women made out on the hike. There was a point when they could easily have found their way back to where they should have been, but instead overconfidence on the part of one person got in the way and they all ended up following her.

This kept me guessing but it also didn't seem to drop many clues. The story was told and gradually it revealed what happened. The details, of course were not pretty, and the relationships between the women, and the different secrets they each had were unraveled slowly.

“She was smiling in every photo, looked truly happy in none.”

Have you ever met someone who smiled all the time but never truly looked happy? It's in the eyes. That's what the women in this book were all like. None of them were very happy, and most of them were not all that likeable, but seeing the reasons for their own individual actions, and how their personal relationships and problems affected them on the hike was interesting.

The best part of this book was Falk himself. I very much enjoyed the parts where he examined his past with his father. His coworker was also a nice touch, and I liked that she was able to draw out the part of Falk that he kept hidden. She could see him for who he really was, despite the fact that he was hiding behind those walls. I was slightly disappointed that she was engaged to marry someone else.

I'm not sure if or when there will be another book in this series, but I'm enjoying it enough to read another one.

Grindhelm's Key by Nick Moseley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong Language (the British variety)



It’s the New Year and the whole world seems to have taken a resolution to make Trev Irwin’s life a misery. He’s trying to hold down two jobs, one of which involves dealing with dangerous, immoral and evil creatures of darkness. And if working in the property business wasn’t bad enough, he’s also got vampires, werewolves and angry elementals to deal with in his other job helping out the Custodians, the United Kingdom’s supernatural police force.

Turning up to work tired, battered and bruised isn’t conducive to good performance, and Trev is on his final warning at SmoothMove estate agents. He’s been given a short time in which to convince the management he’s worth keeping on, and he can’t afford any distractions or slip-ups. Such as his ex-girlfriend Sarah calling him out of the blue to tell him that she’s being held hostage and needs his help, or a psychotic zombie with a soul-sucking lantern ambushing him in an alley.

This ended up being one of my favorite books in the series so far. I was pleased at some of the revelations. In particular regarding Sarah. And that we got more info on Nona. Everyone was present for this book. I didn't realize how much I had missed Grandad and Agatha in the previous book, and even the real estate office. Yeah...I have no idea why I missed that part, but anyway, Trev finally makes a decision about joining the Custodians, who by the way, I always want to call the Guardians for some reason. I think it may be because custodians make me think of janitors.

Not only are Trev's allies, ex girlfriend, and coworkers all in this book, but there is also Ezekiel Barker, who is fast becoming a favorite character of mine. I loved every chapter he was in. I hope he continues to pop up in future books.

There was some really cool inter-dimensional (I guess that's the right way to say it?) travel in this book, and I'm really interested in finding out more about that stuff. But the real treat in this book was Jack. He was a creepy good character, and not someone I would ever want to meet. I also may be looking at those Jack-0-Lanterns on my front porch a little differently this Halloween.

 I'm not sure when the next book will be published, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

Spectre's Rest by Nick Moseley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong Language (the British variety)



It’s been a stressful few months for Trev Irwin, number one estate agent in the town of Brackenford. Trev’s hoping for a quiet return to selling third-rate houses to first-time buyers. No such luck.
 
The Custodians, the clandestine supernatural police force of the United Kingdom, have been trying to recruit Trev into their ranks for some time. He’s reluctant, not least because he knows that there’s a mysterious traitor in the organisation who’s been trying to get him killed. But when a high-profile fugitive is captured and offers to trade some information for a lenient sentence, it looks as if there might be a chance for Trev to unmask the traitor and protect himself. All he has to do is go to the Custodians’ prison, Spectre’s Rest, and interview the prisoner.
 
It seems like a simple enough task. However Spectre’s Rest has its own secrets. Secrets that stretch back through the prison’s dark and violent past. Secrets that can no longer remain hidden.
 
Secrets that might mean the death of everyone inside the prison’s walls…  

I enjoyed reading this book, not quite as much as the previous one though. I think the negatives for me were that the fight scenes were a little too drawn out for me, and I found it hard to believe that people who deal with supernatural beings would have had such a hard time believing Trev when he told them he saw some of the weird things he was seeing. But those are small things and they didn't overshadow the things I liked.

The positives were that the setting was really creepy. How could an old, practically abandoned mental hospital not be? And like the previous books, this one made me laugh quite a bit. I also liked the role Oscar played in the book, but that ending! It almost broke my heart.

I do have just one question though. Do all British people eat pizza with a fork?

A Twist in the Tail by Leighann Dobbs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Cozy Mystery
Content: Clean



Josie Waters has to admit she may have acted a bit hastily when she agreed to purchase the Oyster Cove Guesthouse – a charmingly gabled Victorian mansion on the breathtaking Maine coast – from elderly family friend Millie Sullivan. Anyway, how hard can running a guesthouse be?

The truth is, Oyster Cove Guesthouse is a mouldering money pit with a cohort of regular guests who are as mischievous as a litter of kittens. And Josie might have made a mistake in promising to adopt Oyster Cove’s two resident cats Nero and Marlowe. Josie has never had a cat before… let alone two feisty felines who think they own the place.

Ok, it’s not going well. At least it can’t get any worse, Josie thinks. Until her first guest ends up dead.

This was a charming read. While it's nothing amazing, it did keep me turning the pages. I've only read a few cozy mysteries, a genre that I have a hard time taking seriously, but I think that's probably the point. This series in particular features a couple of feline detectives who usually find the clues before the humans. I thought it was fun, especially the chapters from the point of view of the cats. Though not really believable, it was entertaining and that's pretty much the nature of cozy mysteries. It was amusing to see how the cats would get the human's attention so that they could lead them to the clues they found. I was happy that it wasn't blatantly obvious who the killer was. There were a lot of red herrings thrown in there to keep me guessing for a while.

One small issue I had with the book was that it seemed to keep confusing the building inspector with a health inspector. They are two very different things and one person doesn't normally do both of those jobs. But maybe in a small town like this they've got someone qualified in both fields, who knows. Other than that, this was a quick, fun read that I recommend if you like cozy mysteries. If you aren't sure what a cozy mystery is, think Hallmark Channel mysteries, and that pretty much sums it up. I'll probably pick up the next book in this series the next time I want something light to read.

The Orchid Throne by Jeffe Kennedy

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Content: I didn't get far enough in to tell, but I've read other reviews that say there are some pretty steamy sex scenes. Some have said they aren't very romantic and too graphic. That's not my cup of tea, so it's probably good I didn't finish this.


A PRISONER OF FATE
As Queen of the island kingdom of Calanthe, Euthalia will do anything to keep her people free—and her secrets safe—from the mad tyrant who rules the mainland. Guided by a magic ring of her father’s, Lia plays the political game with the cronies the emperor sends to her island. In her heart, she knows that it’s up to her to save herself from her fate as the emperor’s bride. But in her dreams, she sees a man, one with the power to build a better world—a man whose spirit is as strong, and whose passion is as fierce as her own…

A PRINCE AMONG MEN
Conrí, former Crown Prince of Oriel, has built an army to overthrow the emperor. But he needs the fabled Abiding Ring to succeed. The ring that Euthalia holds so dear to her heart. When the two banished rulers meet face to face, neither can deny the flames of rebellion that flicker in their eyes—nor the fires of desire that draw them together. But in this broken world of shattered kingdoms, can they ever really trust each other? Can their fiery alliance defeat the shadows of evil that threaten to engulf their hearts and souls?
 
This is a fantasy romance that sounded interesting, but unfortunately I just couldn't get into it. It moves at a snails pace, and there is just so much description of her clothing and such. It is also hard to tell whose point of view I'm reading, at least in the ARC, because the chapter headings do not denote whose point of view it is. I've decided to abandon this because I want to read something more engaging. I did give it an extra star for the world building, which I thought was good.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

September 2019 Book Club: Sabriel

I haven't been posting much about book club lately or the creative ideas we've all had for refreshments, but I'm going to try to start remembering to do that. I almost always forget to take pictures, but his time I remembered after we had eaten half of the dessert! Our book this month was Sabriel by Garth Nix and there is a lot of death and necromancy on it, so we decided to make our brownies into a graveyard. It helped greatly that it's the end of September and there are loads of Halloween decorations to choose from.

 And now for my review of the book:


Sabriel by Garth Nix

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: One character overhears people having sex in the next room.



Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the random power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Charter-Mage Abhorsen, is missing, and to find him Sabriel must cross back into that world. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life--and comes face-to-face with her own hidden destiny.


Sabriel was our book club book for September. I've known about this book for some time. One of my daughters loved it as a teen and had recommended it, but I never got around to reading it. While I can see why she liked it, especially as a young teen, I did feel like there were some things missing for me. The book started off slow, and the story didn't pick up for me until after Mogget was introduced. Mogget easily became my favorite character, because talking cats are awesome! With the exception of Mogget, the characters were a little dull in general, and lacked depth, and the romance that blossoms between two of them was kind of blah and not well developed.

As for the world, I thought it was interesting, but the world building wasn't as well thought out as I would have liked. I had trouble figuring out what sort of time period the book was set in at first, and the addition of a few real world things was a little confusing to me, as this was supposed to be a fantasy world. What I really liked about this book was the magic. The bells were interesting and different, and the fact that the book included necromancers made it unique from most things I've read. I also liked that necromancy itself wasn't evil, but it was what the user chose to do with the ability that was good or evil.

“Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.”

This book deals with a lot of death and that can be pretty dark, but the way it was handled in the book it didn't feel nearly as dark as it could have been. Despite the dark content the writing felt very young adult, almost middle grade to me, and I think that's the real problem I have with the book. The writing style is a little too young for some of the content, which would be more suitable for older teens, and that, in turn causes the book to lack the depth I was expecting. That being said, if you are a fan of YA fantasy and want something that doesn't include a lot of romance you might really enjoy this book. I would recommend at least giving it a try.

The Dry by Jane Harper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, Abuse and incest are mentioned and vaguely described


 
After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.

I enjoyed this mystery quite a lot. It's set in a small farming town in Australia that is going through a drought. I thought the author did a wonderful job of describing the dismal circumstances and the feeling that went along with them. There was a distinctly depressing feel to the town in this book. The drought permeated everything, and you could really feel the tensions rising in the town as they dealt with it.

The prologue to this book did a good job of setting the tone and drawing me in. I liked how we follow the blowflies as they feed on the dead in the heat of this parched landscape, until they eventually invade the crime scene.

“It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse."

After the prologue the book ended up being rather slow for a while, but once the investigation began things picked up nicely. There were several unsavory characters in this little town with no shortage of red herrings thrown into the story, and they were very convincing. The killer wasn't either of the people I thought it could end up being. Finally at one point well into the story, something clued me into who it was, and it was a surprise. That right there earned this book a fourth star from me. If a mystery can keep me guessing, then in my opinion it has done it's job. That being said, there are a couple of things that I wish would have happened differently. The main one being the way someone goes unpunished, but this being a series, maybe we will eventually see some retribution there.

I seem to be drawn to mysteries that incorporate a person going home and revisiting their past. Usually a past that involves some sort of a mystery, so it's no surprise that this book ended up on my to-read list. Most of the time these type of books have been stand-alones, but with this book being the first in a series, I am concerned that the second book may not have the same feel or draw me in like this one did. I enjoyed this enough to continue on with the series though, so I guess I'll find out.