Tag Archives: 4-Stars

Unicorns Can Be Deadly by Charlotte Stuart PhD

This is the fifth book in the Discount Detective Mysteries series, but if this offering is any indication, they can be read as a standalone (and the author did mention this). You can tell there’s been a lot going on earlier in the series, but there are enough clues and updates to prevent confusion and make you want to read the earlier books to get the rest of the story.

Cameron and Yuri are private investigators and partners working for Penny-Wise Investigations. Why does this company have the same name as the Stephen King monster from “It?” Actually, it makes more sense in this context than in the horror novel!

Cameron’s husband died suddenly but not before trashing the family finances. She lives with her mother and two kids and it’s refreshing that they don’t argue constantly! The family unit seems to be a great team. It also seems there’s a great working relationship with Yuri. Of course, private detectives always need a friend on the police department, so we have one of those.

We also have two characters with mysterious backgrounds – friend Gary and Cameron’s boss, P. W., the owner of the agency. You can tell there’s definitely going to be more about these two in upcoming books while the duo tries to figure them out.

The book was an easy read and the plot moved along nicely. The characters did get bogged down on occasion while they tossed theories back and forth, but it wasn’t enough to be distracting. There were several investigations going on at once, but they all tied in together to the point I was thinking if they solved one puzzle, all would be revealed.

There was one aspect that was problematic for me. There are a few instances where legal lines are bent and laws actually broken. After some discussion, it’s pretty much decided that since they did what they did for the right reasons and a worthy cause, it was okay. It’s not like they didn’t realize they were crossing those lines before it happened. There was also a lot of thought given to what to tell their cop friend and how to frame the lies.

On the one hand, the fact that they committed an actual crime to get information on a guy they were suspicious about was pretty ironic. On the other hand? It’s fiction and even real people have plenty of skeletons in their closets!

If I had been able to take a day to read this in one go, that would have been great! I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to more!

4/5

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Want to know how to build a clock? Ask Grady Hendrix what time it is! I love these stories but good grief! Get ON with it! At some point I probably wanted to kill each of these characters myself. How often can you repeatedly say the same thing? Pretty often! The only redeeming quality about all the repetition? It helped me keep track of the many, many characters by the way they talked. Way too many characters here.

Even with all that, I love the way this guy writes. In the midst of murder and mayhem, I’m laughing all the way to work.

It took a long time for the plot to reveal itself and make sense. Most of the book is spent trying to figure out if we’ve got an unreliable narrator here. I’m still not sure about that. This nagging question overshadows everything else.

I did like the book and already have a few more on my TBR list. I’ll just have to accept that they’re all a lot longer than they need to be.

4/5

Make It Right by Ron Yates

Make it Right by Ron YatesThis review was written for LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers. I received a copy of this book from the author to review.

“Good fiction presents plausible problems. Chekhov maintained that the artist is not required to solve the problem but to correctly formulate it. I feel cheated when an author provides a tidy package without allowing me to participate in wrapping it up. I’d hate to deny my readers the opportunity of struggling with the problems I’ve formulated. In grappling with them, the reader will decide if they’ve been correctly formulated.”

When I saw these words in the preface, my heart sank. I don’t want to grapple with problems. I do that all day. When I settle in to read I want all the hard work done for me. I guess I want to be cheated with tidy packages. It’s also been my experience that when an author or screenwriter makes these claims, it usually feels like they were just lazy and couldn’t figure out how to finish the book or movie they were working on. I’m very relieved this wasn’t true of Ron Yates and these offerings.

I really enjoyed these stories and didn’t feel I was left hanging after finishing any of them. That’s not to say it was all over as soon as the last page was turned. I still find images and thoughts of most of these stories popping into my head at odd times, especially “I Sank the Mandolin.”

I love the way Ron Yates writes — direct and to the point — and his style was quite refreshing. There isn’t a word in these stories that doesn’t belong and make sense; no verbose scene-setting to skim through. But you still get that feeling of, say, exploring the old abandoned barn. And you still know enough about the characters to actually care about what happens to them, or to realize you have people in your own life who are just like that.

This is a short book and a quick, thought-provoking read.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist by Paulo CoelhoI’m a little more than half-way through my first reading of this book and I’m so glad I didn’t read any of the reviews or the recommendations on my book sites before I started.

The reviews confuse me, and I’ll be taking a harder look at them after I’ve finished my own analysis. But what struck me in a cursory skimming of them is how negative they are. Not just that they didn’t like it, or wouldn’t read it again, or wouldn’t recommend it to friends — they HATED it! — and didn’t have very kind things to say about anyone who DID like it. I’d estimate five zealously negative reviews for every good one, which accounts for the 3-star (give or take) over-all rating.

Not a single one of my book sites thought I’d like this book. Interesting — maybe those algorithms aren’t as helpful as we’d like to think! Or maybe some of the books I have that would have tilted that scale haven’t been included in my book lists yet. I’m constantly finding some that I haven’t cataloged.

I obtained this book from a friend. It came up on my radar at least three times in a 24-hour period, which got my attention, so when she said she still had her copy and would find it for me, I took her up on it right away. She’s reliable when it comes to things like this, but apparently she brought it by within hours!

I started reading it that night. I was sold on the first page. Thirty pages into it, unlike most books, I knew it deserved more than one reading. It’s a quick read if you like, and at less than 200 pages you can get through it in one day if you’re so inclined. It has a “Sally, Dick and Jane” writing style, which I’m surprised doesn’t irritate me in this case. Actually, I was surprised it has a Lexile Measure of 910L — I expected it to be lower, though I *am* new to this measurement and don’t have a lot of experience with it as yet.

I should be finishing this up in a day or two. And I fully intend to read it at least once more. I might buy my own copy of it before then, however, as this one needs lots of scribbles, notes, highlighting and tags.

4/5

If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him by Sharyn McCrumb

I just finished this book and I enjoyed it immensely. This is my first Sharyn McCrumb book and I love her writing style and her wit. I will definitely be reading more of her books.

That said, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book before you read the others in the Elizabeth MacPherson series. Most series writers that I read (for instance, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone books) give enough background information in each book that you can pick up any one of them and you don’t feel like you’ve missed something. My first Kinsey Milhone book was “M is for Malice” and I didn’t feel lost at all — but I did start reading the series from the beginning.

That was not the case with this book. I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone, so I will just generally say that you can tell there’s *something* going on with Elizabeth and Cameron, her significant other or husband, but you really have a hard time figuring out what it is until almost the end of the book — and even then it’s a guess. It’s a little distracting because Elizabeth is supposed to be the focus of the series, but she seems to be distracted by something the reader isn’t completely privy to.

I highly recommend this book as a fun read, but don’t make your introduction to this series.

4/5

The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn by Retha M. Warnicke

I’m not going to say I don’t recommend this book, because it might not have gotten a fair go. This is my fourth Tudor-era book in a row, and maybe I’m just burnt out. Perhaps I would have preferred this book if I had read it first, rather than last.

The blurbs about this book state that Warnicke sets forth a new and controversial reinterpretation of the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and focuses on sexual intrigues and family politics.

Maybe I just wasn’t up to the challenge, but I was kind of disappointed. I thought it *was* going to be a new and controversial reinterpretation, but I didn’t get that impression at all, unless by “reinterpretation” she means that she discredits or relies on sources differently than Ives and Weir do.

For instance, all three authors rank the credibility of the Imperial Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys differently, depending on what he is reporting at the time. I would think this is to be expected and don’t see anything “new” or “controversial” about it.

By the time we got to the fall and execution of the Queen, I was pretty much worn out and became bored with her discussion about how the whole thing was due to Anne’s delivery of a deformed fetus in January 1536. The rest of her argument regarding the charges against Anne is completely dependent on this one singular event. If the baby was not deformed, then the rest of her argument fails.

It seemed to me that sources she had been discrediting throughout the book were now considered authoritative and accurate when it came to this issue. I am certainly no expert on this historical period — just eternally fascinated — but she seemed to be digging pretty deep to come up with facts to support her conclusion.

I had considered that I should read the book again more carefully to see what I had missed, but when I finished it and realized I was relieved to be done with it, I decided against a re-read. I also know that she has written some follow-up articles about her conclusions in this book, and I would have liked to read those, but I was unable to access those publications at a reasonable cost.

But, as I said, I cannot say that I wouldn’t recommend the book. These four books — two by Ives, one by Weir and then this one by Warnicke — are definitely not summer beach books. You really have to pay attention to follow the arguments, and it’s a lot of work. So if I would recommend anything, it would be to separate these with a few along the lines of “Twilight” or “Charlotte’s Web” rather than trying to read them one after the other.

4/5