The Hidden One (Kate Burkholder, #14) by Linda Castillo

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Suspense
Content: Strong language

 

The discovery of an Amish bishop's remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.

Over a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister.

The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was Kate’s first love. Forced to confront a painful episode from her past, Kate travels to Pennsylvania’s Kishacoquillas Valley, where the Amish culture differs dramatically from the traditions she knows. Though Bishop Stoltzfus was highly respected, she soon hears about a dark side to this complex man. What was he hiding that resulted in his own brutal death?

Someone doesn’t want Kate asking questions. But even after being accosted and threatened in the dead of night, she refuses to back down. Is she too close to the case―and to Jonas―to see clearly? There’s a killer in the Valley who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. Will they get to Kate before she can expose the truth? Or will the bishop’s secrets remain hidden forever?

 

This was a good solid addition to the series. I enjoyed reading yet another part of Kate's past that gave more insight into what made her the person she is. I loved that Tomasetti was trusting and supportive and that their relationship continues to strengthen and endure. I'm really hoping that they take that next step and finally get married. 

I thought the mystery was good in this one. There was less of Kate jumping into dangerous situations head on, but still a lot of danger as someone was trying to hinder her investigation. It did get a bit unbelievable near the end where she finally puts everything together. I thought this situation could have been handled differently and more realistically, without all the drama that ensues. It wouldn't have taken away from anything to have left that last bit of danger and conflict out. By that time I was ready for things to wrap up, and didn't feel the need for yet another life threatening event, but overall, I enjoyed this book. 

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

 

 

 

June 2022 Reading Challenge

The reading challenge for June was titled Series Love: make progress on or finish as many series as you can this month. 

Ok, so I had pretty lofty goals for this challenge. I had a huge list of books that I wanted to get read, which probably wasn't very realistic. I ended up reading seven of them, well almost. Realistically, that probably wasn't bad at all. 

I started the month off with the last book in the Kingdom of Birds and Beasts Trilogy by Alice Ivinya, Kingdom of Feathers. I thought this one would go fast and I would have my first completed series for the challenge out of the way. Well, it didn't exactly go the way I planned. I thoroughly enjoyed books 1 and 2 of this trilogy, and there really isn't anything wrong with book 3, but for some reason I've been almost forcing myself to read this book. This is the complete opposite experience I've had with every other book I've read by this author. Her books have been easy to read and hard to put down, until this one. I wasn't feeling it, and I think it's just my mood getting in the way. I can be a real mood reader at times. It may also be that the story has just been too drawn out for me. Trilogies, or quartets feel this way to me sometimes. I'm just ready for the story to be over and it's just not holding my interest any more. Either way, this is not a bad book and I'm about halfway through. I'll keep going at my own pace until I'm done, because forcing it doesn't work. So, no rating or review for this book or series, at least not now, but I did rate and review the first book in the series here.

 

Next up was the third book in the Lady Darby Series by Anna Lee Huber. I've been buddy reading this series on Goodreads in a mystery book club and enjoying it quite a lot. I've neglected to write any reviews of this series, but I think it's a nice historical mystery series that has a few cozy mystery elements to it. I've been listening to the audio versions because they are free for me on Hoopla, but I am not real crazy about the narrator. I like the main character a lot. She is dealing with some trauma from her past marriage, and I do hope that she is able to put it behind her soon. I don't mind the trauma being there, but the repetition of what happened, multiple times over three books has gotten old. I would like to start seeing more healing happen so that she can move forward more. I did feel like there was a little of that in this book, and I'm hoping in book 4 she can start looking forward to new things.

 

Series rating as a whole so far: 4 of 5 stars

 

Probably my most anticipated read for June was The Domino Pattern by Timothy Zahn. This is the fourth book in the Quadrail Series and I've been loving it. This author has quickly become one of my favorites. I've been reading these on my Kindle, but I've also just begun buying copies for my bookshelf. This is another series that I've neglected to write any reviews for. I'm not sure how that happened, because when I'm really loving something, I usually want to write a review for it. Anyway, I really love the idea behind this space train, and this book in particular was so good that it slapped me in the face with some reveals that I did not see coming! I also want to point out that The Domino pattern also has a Murder on the Orient Express feel to it that I loved. There's only one more book to go in this series, and when I'm done reading it I'll be sure to post a review for the whole series. 

 

Series rating as a whole so far: 4.5 of 5 stars

 

I've also been listening to this Steampunk Proper Romance Series by Nancy Campbell Allen for free on Audible Plus. I had already read book one and was able to get two more of them read in June, Kiss of the Spindle, and The lady in the Coppergate Tower. It's a nice light diversion and perfect for listening to when I'm cleaning or working on other projects. I particularly liked the second book in the series that was based on Sleeping Beauty. 

 

Series rating as a whole so far: 3.5 of 5 stars

I got another Cork O' Connor book read in June, Tamrack County, and now I'm down to only two left of the already published books in the series. After those two, I think that will be it for me with this series. It's a series I like ok, but I don't love it, and if you read my review of Windigo Island, then you already know my feelings on this series as a whole at this point. I do need to add here that I thought this book was better, and the bad guys were even of the opposite political persuasion this time around, so that was good. However, it seemed like they were not being painted as evil as the others because they had a "worthy cause" so that had me rolling my eyes. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the cause or any political views from either side, nor do I have to always agree with the characters in the books I read. I just don't like when excuses are made for people's bad behavior. Anyway, another one of this series down!

 

Series rating: 3 of 5 stars

 

And finally, I read the second book in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I just posted a review on it on June 23rd so I won't say much here. I was unfortunately not crazy about this book any more than I was about the first book in the series, and I decided not to continue on with the series. I'm not going to rate this series as a whole because I've only read 2 books.

  

 

So that wraps up my June reading challenge. I'm glad I was able to make some progress on these series that I have going, and even weed one out.

 

The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga, #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold

 

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, Space Opera
Content: Strong language 

 

Between the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father's legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges.

Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete freighter and in more debt than he ever thought possible. Propelled by his manic "forward momentum," the ever-inventive Miles creates a new identity for himself as the commander of his own mercenary fleet to obtain a lucrative cargo; a shipment of weapons destined for a dangerous warzone.

  

I wanted to love this. So many other people do, but it's just not working for me. The sad thing is that I feel like it should have. It has a protagonist that's easy to like, at least in the beginning, and I thought it started out good. But at some point I started getting bored with it. The story just wasn't engaging me any more, and my mind kept wandering. I feel like there just isn't enough excitement, or something. Anyway, I'm bored with this book, and I think it has a lot to do with the way it's written. I also was very underwhelmed with the main female character, Elena. As another reviewer put it, she felt like a female character written by a man. She reminded me a lot of the female characters in old western movies from the golden era, where they were mainly just props.

Anyway, I've gotten over 50% in and I feel like I'm forcing myself to listen to this, so I'm going to stop. Also, I really don't care for the narrator. It's the same one that narrated Shard's of Honor and I felt like he kind of ruined that book too. Maybe I would have liked this better if I had actually read it, instead of listened to it, but probably not. Sadly, I don't think this series is for me.

 

 

 

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Clean 

 

There's a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way though the alphabet. There seems little chance of the murderer being caught -- until he makes the crucial and vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans ...

 

My friend and I recently watched the three part series of The ABC Murders on Prime. If you read my review for Death on the Nile, this is the same friend I mentioned in that review. We decided we wanted to watch more Poirot mysteries and since it was free to watch, decided to give it a try. I have to admit though, that going in I wasn't too crazy about John Malkovich as Poirot, but I wanted to give him a chance. Unfortunately, this version of Poirot did not feel like Poirot, but some other detective! 

 

 

 

 

 

Nope! Not Hercule Poirot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, we were both disappointed in the show. It took a Christie novel and added a lot of dark and twisted things to it, that quite frankly, weren't necessary. Because of this, it didn't feel like an Agatha Christie mystery. I don't know why people think they can write Agatha Christie's mysteries better than she can. Stop messing with the classics people!

So, of course, after watching that I needed to read the book to compare. I knew there was no way certain things in the show would be in the book, so it was no surprise when those things weren't. But what I really wanted to know was if the core mystery and set up were present in the book, because that was the one thing that I really enjoyed about the show, and they were! I love the way this mystery is set up, it's so sneaky and clever. I do wonder if I would have figured it out if I had read the book first, but I didn't see the twist coming  when I watched the show. Overall, this was another superb Agatha Christie mystery, and I'm wondering why I waited so long to read these.

May and June 2022 Bookclub Books

I neglected to post about our book club book for May, and since we are already in June I'm going to make it a joint post. Both of these books are books I've read and reviewed before, and also loved. I'm just going to post my reviews for them again, so there really isn't anything new here, except I added an update to The Icarus Hunt, and a couple of new thoughts to The Sword of Kaigen.

I often wonder if I will still feel the same about books that I've loved in the past and with these two, I still felt the same about them, especially The Sword of Kaigen, where I had all the same feels all over again. I read the print copies of these books the first time around, and for book club I decided to listen to the audio versions. Both narrator's were fantastic!

 

May 2022 Book Club: The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery, Space Opera
Content: Strong language

 

Smuggler Jordan McKell has partner Ixil, an alien whose two "ferrets" ride his shoulders and telepathically exchange simple messages. They take a job on the odd-shaped ship Icarus. But the ragtag crew was found at taverns, the secret cargo sealed tight, the employer missing, and a saboteur is aboard. After a beautiful crew member helps uncover the nature of their cargo for Earth, Jordan suspects they are in a vast conspiracy set to change human history. Unfortunately, he's right.

This book was highly recommended by a friend and it was also brought up twice as a possibility for book club. Needless to say, I added it to my to-read list, and I'm really happy that I finally got around to reading it. It was a good mystery set in space and I really like Zahn's writing style. I think he's best known for the Star Wars books he's written, and I could see some of that influence in this book. The opening scene in the bar reminded me a lot of the cantina, and the main character had some Han Solo type personality traits. I really liked his personality and sense of humor. 

 

“For a change, Lady Luck seemed to be smiling on me. Then again, maybe the fickle wench was just lulling me into a false sense of security while she reached for a rock.”

 

I wouldn't compare this overall to Star Wars though. I actually liked this book better than anything Star Wars, but that's just me. This is an interesting mash up of mystery, sci-fi, noir, and space opera, and there are plenty of twists and turns in this story to keep you intrigued. I didn't see them all coming, so that was a real plus.

I loved that this was a standalone, but also hated that it was. It was nice to read something and just get to the end of it without having to read a lot of sequels, but at the same time I wouldn't have minded a sequel to this one. I'm definitely open to reading more books by this author.

Update: Still 4 stars for me, and apparently there is a sequel in the works! It looks like a companion novel with mostly different characters, but I'll take it.

June 2022 Book Club: The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang

 

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Some minor cursing; an off page rape; off page killing of children during a battle, their bodies are mentioned and briefly described. 

A mother struggling to repress her violent past,
A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

Wow, just wow! This book really blew me away. I wasn't expecting to love it this much at all. It started out a little slow with some history lessons on the world, but once I hit chapter 6 it started to take off. By 30% in it was impossible to put down. Is it perfect? No. The modern day setting combined with the old world feeling of most of the book threw me a little at first, and the glimpses into Misaki's past life felt a little more urban fantasy than the rest of the book, but those were minor things compared to everything else that was so amazing.

One thing that I really loved about this book is that it delivered everything I was hoping it would deliver. Every time I wished for something it would eventually end up happening. Another thing I loved about this book was the elemental magic. It totally reminded me of Avatar, the Last Air Bender. This, combined with the sword fighting, made the battle scenes pretty epic. Those scenes also kept me on the edge of my seat.

I also love when a book gives me a perspective of a character that I did not see before, and this book did that brilliantly with one character that I really disliked. I ended up understanding that character later on, and no longer disliking them. The thing I loved the most about this book was the way the characters grew and developed.

 
    “You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”
 

This book packed such an emotional punch, and anytime a book makes me feel the way this one did, it's guaranteed to get 5 stars from me. I'm pretty stingy with 5 stars, so this is the first book I've given 5 stars to in over a year. If you enjoy reading epic fantasy I highly recommend this book. It will break your heart and put it back together. It will have you staying up at all hours of the night reading it. It will have you crying at 2 am. It will give you all of those feels that you have come to love from epic fantasy.

 
    “Wholeness, she had learned, was not the absence of pain but the ability to hold it.”
 

Update: Still 5 stars. I would say the biggest drawback would be that there are plot threads left without resolution, but the story ends nicely. Also, I didn't think it was necessary for the author to change the names of time measurements. Minutes, seconds, hours, etc. would have worked fine in the story and been less confusing.