The Year of the Series - Paging the Dead + Telling Tails

 
After the calamity that was 2020 I didn't want to give myself serious reading goals but I did want to do something to help my book stacks get a little more under control.  I've tried getting rid of the ones I want to read but unfortunately I want to read all the books I own.  So I decided to focus on series.  There are so many I have that I abandoned halfway through or came in halfway and never read the first few.  I made a list of ten series and the next book I had to read in them and will be rolling in new books and series as I go along and catch up.  Here are two reviews from that list that I've read recently.

Goodreads:  Paging the Dead (A Family History Mystery #1) by Brynn Bonner - I had picked up the fourth book in this series kind of on a whim and enjoyed it so much I had to go back and get the previous book.  This series is about Sophreena and Esme who are professional genealogists whose deep dives into family history answers generations old questions and sometimes leads to murder.  I feel like this is a series that people are either going to love or find a bit dull.  I am firmly on the love side.  I adore research, old family secrets, family history, and any kind of group collaboration when it comes to solving a mystery and this book had all of this is spades.  This mystery was all about a family matriarch trying to showcase her prestigious family only to wind up murdered and missing two family heirlooms.  Sophie and Esme are immediately suspects in the investigation and dive into clearing their name and finding out just what is lurking in the past.  I thoroughly enjoyed this and loved all the bits about their research.  This is a cozy series that was pretty much written for me and I can't wait to get to the next book!  My Rating:  Really Liked It!

Goodreads:  Telling Tails (Second Chance Cat Mystery #4) by Sofie Ryan - This is the 4th book in the Second Chance Cat Mystery series featuring store owner Sarah, her cat Elvis, and a group of older private detectives who happen to have taken up residence in Sarah's sunporch and all happened to have changed her diapers as they have no issue reminding her of.  The book starts out with Rose making a delivery an stumbling onto a crime scene.  Unfortunately, right after seeing someone dragging a dead body across a kitchen floor she is knocked on the head and wakes up two houses down and there is no dead body to be found.  This was a bit different from the usual mystery as the Angels don't have a typical client.  Instead, Rose is trying to prove she saw what she saw and figure out exactly what it was that she saw.  I really enjoyed this one but didn't feel like ending fully wrapped up.  I understood the motives and the who but I still had a few questions.  With this book I am officially caught up on the Second Chance Cat Mystery and I'm sad that I 'll have to wait until the next book is released before I can revisit Sarah, Rose, Liz, Avery, Mr. P and the whole crazy bunch again!  My Rating:  Really Liked It!