Books from the Backlog - Christmas at Holiday House

Today I'm linking up with Carole from Carole's Random Life of Books for Books from the Backlog.  I really enjoy the chance to feature a book that's been hiding in the piles of books for far too long!

Goodreads:  Christmas at Holiday House by RaeAnne Thayne

Blurb:   This New Year will bring widowed nurse Abigail Powell a fresh start in a different city. Excited about the chance to create an unforgettable Christmas for her young son in picturesque Silver Bells, Colorado, Abby has been hired to take care of her dear friend’s recuperating grandmother. But sprightly senior Winnie insists she doesn’t need looking after. What she does need is help decorating her historic mansion, Holiday House, for a seasonal town fundraiser. Abby warms to the festive task, but she’ll have to contend with her own personal Grinch: Winnie’s prickly grandson, Ethan Lancaster.

Ethan Lancaster is good at a lot of things. Relationships surely aren’t one of them. His ex-fiancée convinced Ethan he was incapable of love, and he believes her…up until the moment he impulsively kisses Abby. What is it about this vibrant woman and her sweet son that knocks his world off-kilter? He knows they’re leaving town after Christmas. He just didn’t expect they’d be taking a little of his heart with them. But as he and Abby work together on the magical Holiday House through the record cold weather, visions of a different future dance in his head…one filled with warmth, love and a new beginning for them both.

Why It Needs to Come Off the Shelf:  No one does cozy Christmas stories like Thayne and this looks like a good one.  

Booked For Murder - Mystery Review

Goodreads: Booked For Murder (An Old Juniper Bookshop Mystery) by P.J. Nelson

Rating: Liked It! (3.5 Stars)
Source:   Publisher

Description:  Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately.

But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

Genre: Mystery

Why I Picked This Book:  A mystery that takes please in an inherited bookstore located in an old mansion.  How could I resist?

My Impression: I wasn't sure if I was going to like this one at first.  Madeline isn't the most likable character and at the end I wasn't entirely sure she completely won me over.  However, while Madeline wasn't my favorite even at the end the book did win me over.

Madeline is a bit of a mess and never met and impulse she couldn't jump at.  She's a bit at the end of her rope when she learns that her aunt has died and left her The Old Juniper Bookstore.  When her gazebo burns down, and she starts receiving threatening phone calls it is hardly a peaceful homecoming.  Things really go off the rails when a guest is murdered and Madeline gets pulled into the investigation.  

This book tackles a lot of more serious issues including grief and the desire to fit in or become what you know you can be.  This isn't the typical cozy small town with lots of shops and quirky characters.  Enigma, Georgia is a small town without many jobs and not always a lot of tolerance.  There are a lot of bits and pieces around just who would have wanted Tandy dead - or was it Madeline someone wanted dead.  I really liked that there's a bit of a team element with Father Gloria Coleman - the local Episcopalian minister, and Madeline's Aunt Rose's best friend who is a professor at the local college.  The three of them put their heads together to try and solve the murder - though the local police detective is no slouch.  

The mystery kept me guessing and the end was a bit of a surprise.  While I wasn't in love with the book from the beginning the writing grabbed me and soon after the story had me completely hooked.  I'll keep a lookout for anything else by this author - especially if there is another book in this series.

Would I Read More of this Series/Author? Yes, I would.  I'm interested to see what this author does next.

Would I Recommend this Book? Yes - if you're a mystery reader and are looking for something a little different with lots of character development than I think you might enjoy this one.

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review.  As always my opinions and impressions are completely my own. *

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Books to Read During a Storm

Today I'm linking up with Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl which is all about lists.  Since lists are one of my favorite things this is one of my favorite linkups!  Today's topic is Books to Read During a Storm.  I love this topic!  I live in Alabama where we get some pretty big storms and as long as they're not spawning tornadoes are lots of fun to cuddle up and watch from a nice cozy (and dry) room.  Here are ten books I'd love to have by my side while storm watching.  

1.  First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston - This looks weird and fast paced and like it would keep me guessing and keep me distracted if the power goes out after a storm.

2.  Dark and Secret Magic by Wallis Kinney- This one doesn't look particularly spooky but it does look like it's full of magic, so I feel that this counts.

3.  Return to Wlydcliffe Heights by Carole Gooodman - The cover of this looks like a storm is about to happen and it's listed as a modern Gothic novel.

4.  Long Time Gone by Charlie Donlea - This one is just high up on my TBR so I want to read it anyway, but it looks creepy and fast paced which seems like pretty good stormy reading - especially if the power goes out and I need a distraction.

5.  One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware - Ruth Ware's books are always so gripping, and this one takes place on an island so I can pretend I'm on vacation while I'm riding out a storm!

6.  Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places by Claire Kann - This looks a little bit lighter but it has ghosts and a haunted house so I think it counts as stormy reading.

7.  The Broken Girls by Simone St James - I'm not sure anyone does atmosphere as well as Simone St James and this look like a great read for a stormy night.

8.  Every Single Secret by Christina Dodd - Her books are such fun with lots of chaos and over the top-ness and I think would be great reading during a big storm.

9.  A Game of Lies by Claire Mackintosh - This is a thriller in the wilderness in Wales - it just sounds stormy!

10. The Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart - A book set on a remote Scottish island sounds like good stormy reading - especially since the word "stormy" is in the title!

What books would you read during a storm?

Pretty Dead Things - Mystery Review

 

Goodreads:  Pretty Dead Things by Lilian West

Rating: Just Okay (2.5 Stars)
Source:   Publisher

Description:  2024. Recently-engaged city girl Cora is new to the small town of Hickory Falls. Still adjusting to the change in pace, she’s delighted when she stumbles upon a quaint estate sale. Drawn in by the knickknacks, she buys a jar of colorful baubles and is surprised to find two rings at the bottom of the jar. When she innocently sets out to find the original owner of the rings, she instead stumbles upon a decades-old mystery.

1953. Clarity Grey should’ve known better than to get involved with a married man, but their connection went too deep to ignore. When he divorces his wife for her, they marry and she gets the family life she’s always dreamed of, with a new stepdaughter and a child of her own. But just as suddenly, her new life slips out of her hands when she simply vanishes, never to be seen or heard of again. Clarity is labeled as flaky and a homewrecker, so nobody in town takes her disappearance seriously--until Cora, seventy years later.

Genre:  Mystery

Why I Picked This Book:  The premise grabbed me and I can never resist a new mystery.

My Impression:  I do love a cold case and am always a fan of digging into secrets.  I was completely on board at the beginning when Cora goes to the daughter of the family who had the estate sale.  The writing pulled me in with just enough descriptiveness and fairly solid pacing throughout.  The mystery also kept me guessing and I wasn't really sure what had happened until the very end.

That said this wasn't a win for me.  While I had no problem reading it and went through it fairly quickly I never could really say that I liked it and I definitely wasn't a fan of the characters.  I was sympathetic to Cora even though she was frustrating, but I didn't really care for anyone else in the book.   Her relationship with her fiancée Elliot definitely not one I was rooting for as he came off as dismissive and didn't really seem interested in her.  I think it would have helped if Cora had her own life in Hickory Falls but instead it just seemed until she found the rings Cora was just sitting around waiting for Elliot and his mother to come up with plans.

I didn't dislike this book and I did find the pacing and the writing well done and always kept me reading when I picked it up.  My problem was I didn't always want to pick it up and felt no connection to the characters.  There were also a few plotlines - especially involving Charity's family and the cemetery - that I would have liked to have seen developed a bit more.  

Would I Read More of this Series/Author?  I would probably try another book by this author.  While this one didn't work for me, I did like the writing style and would read another book if the plot interested me enough.

Would I Recommend this Book?   Maybe - while this didn't work for me it might be worth a try especially if you're not a character driven reader.

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review.  As always my opinions and impressions are completely my own. *

Monthly Reading Recap - November 2024

 

Monthly Recap:

Monthly Reading Count -  15 - not as good as I wanted but not bad for how chaotic this time of year is.  And how is 2024 already almost finished?  It feels like we have skipped some time.

Print - 4

Ebook -  4  

Audiobook -  7 

Mystery - 10

Romance - 1

Fiction - 4

Favorite Books of the Month:

The Mirror by Nora Roberts - I'm still a little jealous that I don't have a unknown part of my family who will leave me a mansion full of antiques and lots of family secrets - and ghosts.  I really enjoyed this one and it was a perfect cozy read.

Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh - I've read several Ngaio Marsh mysteries and enjoyed some but she's never been a favorite.  This mystery was an absolute delight and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Least Favorite Book of the Month:

A Book to Kill For by Harper Linn - I really enjoyed the bookstore setting and found the mystery to be fairly solid but really didn't like the main character - or most of the other characters for that matter.

Bookish Armchair Travel

Domestic Travel:  I visited Rhode Island for the first time and also visited Georgia, Maine (twice), Connecticut, Texas, Illinois, and California

International Travel:  This was a slow month for international travel.  I only went to England three times and then Scotland once.

What did you read in November and where did your reads take you?

Friday Fives - December TBR

I'm taking a bit of a break from my usual Friday Linkups to try something a little different.  I'm in a list making kind of mood so I thought I'd start making random five lists.  Sometimes they'll be bookish other weeks not so much. This is the first Friday in December so I'm picking out five books I hope to read this month.

1.  Booked For Murder - P.J. Nelson - This is one of my review books for the month and I'm super excited to start it.  It looks great.

2.  Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers - This is on my classic mystery list for the year and it's the book that Harriet Vane debuts so I'm very much looking forward to it.

3.   The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey - This is another one on my classic mystery list.  I've had mixed results with Tey's books but I always go in hopeful.

4.  And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander - I want to start this series this month.  I own a number of books in it and it's time to get started.

5.  Home for the Haunting by Juliet Blackwell - This series is one I want to get through next year so I need to get started on it!

What are you planning to read in December?

Books from the Backlog - Steeped in Stories

Today I'm linking up with Carole from Carole's Random Life of Books for Books from the Backlog.  I really enjoy the chance to feature a book that's been hiding in the piles of books for far too long!

Goodreads:  Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children's Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls

Blurb:  The stories we read as children shape us for the rest of our lives. But it is never too late to discover that transformative spark of hope that children's classics can ignite within us, especially during uncertain times.
Award-winning children's author Mitali Perkins grew up steeped in stories--escaping into her books on the fire escape of a Flushing apartment building and, later, finding solace in them as she navigated between the cultures of her suburban California school and her Bengali heritage at home. Now Perkins invites us to explore the promise of seven timeless children's novels for adults living in uncertain times: stories that provide mirrors to our innermost selves and open windows to other worlds.

Blending personal narrative, accessible literary criticism, and spiritual and moral formation, Perkins delves into novels by Louisa May Alcott, C. S. Lewis, L. M. Montgomery, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and other literary "uncles" and "aunts" that illuminate the virtuous, abundant life we still desire. These novels are not perfect--and Perkins honestly assesses their frailties and flaws--but reading or rereading these books as adults can help us build virtue, unmask our vices, and restore our hope.

Reconnecting with these stories from childhood isn't merely nostalgia. In an era of uncertainty and despair, they lighten our load and bring us much-needed hope.

Why It Needs to Come Off the Shelf:  The subtitle really appeals to me this time of year.  I always feel a bit worn down and worn out as the holidays grow nearer and a book about children's novels that refresh the soul sound like the perfect medicine.