Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

by Carol12 Comments
Gone Girl was all the rage a couple of years ago, but I didn't get around to listening to it until now. I shouldn't have put it off. It was unique, well-done, definitely attention-grabbing, maybe not quite unputdownable, but close. Nick and Amy are not nice people. Neither is really the good guy, although you do sympathize with Nick. The audio had two narrators, one for Nick and one for Amy, which I thought was a great choice. It always takes me a while to get used to anything different than one narrator of the same gender as the main character, but this format worked so well with the story it was the perfect choice. Both narrators did a great job capturing the points of view, the dark humor, the nuances in the phrasing. I think that listening to it probably made it even better than reading it in print would have. I can't say much about the plot without ruining it,...
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City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

by Carol2 Comments
The world in City of Stairs is awesome! Deities used to be involved in a close, daily basis with their followers, building and changing the world, allowing one country to rule. The gods have been killed or have disappeared, their people now at the mercy of others, the city itself transformed, the weather changing. It is not surprising that there are some in Bulikov who are not happy living under the thumb of their conquerors, some who are wiling to do whatever they can to make Bulikov thrive again. Into this arena arrives Shara, a woman whose job as an intelligence agent is to maintain the status quo but whose interests lie in the past, in the history of the gods and the miracles they allowed. She has chosen this assignment to investigate the murder of a man she truly admired, but when we're talking about governments and politics and gods, dead or not, it gets complicated. Shara begins to suspect that those closest to...
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The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

by Carol5 Comments
I feel like the Louisiana swamp where one of the pivotal scenes in the book takes place is a good comparison for the novel overall. It's murky and meandering and full of scary things you can't quiet see but you know are out there. There's a lot going on, but it didn't feel overly jumbles to me. Charlie has dreams of children that need help, and it has a paranormal/ghost story feel to it. There's the cold case involving a missing child, and the Deveau family has lots of secrets, some that go back decades. Charlie also gets a chance at romance, all while she's still grieving for her son. Young manages to keep it all together, though, doesn't let the story ramble too much or get overly stuck in the subplots. I guess, really, there are no subplots - it all ties together in the end, it's just getting there that sometimes seems like your paddling around and through...
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Gold, Frankincense and Murder by Barbara Early

by Carol2 Comments
This is a cute little mystery. The suspect list is short, and the clues are sprinkled throughout, but I for one didn't put them together until the reveal. Then it all made sense. I like Donna as a main characters. She's not perfect, maybe a bit nerdy, but caring and smart and not too young. I don't know why she was so suspicious of the dead guy's friend so quickly, and of course the missing man turns up murdered not long after it's discovered he's missing. I understood that she at first thought he was out of her league romantically, but she jumped to maybe he was the killer pretty quickly for someone who she meets for the second time in church. Of course, it is just a novella and she had to meet him, suspect him, and start a bit of a romance with him all in a short period, so maybe that explains it. And Sam just kept trying. He's a good...
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Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh

by Carol3 Comments
As is often the case, Marsh spends a lot of time with the set-up and introducing the characters. This time around, we have a country house murder committed at Christmas. We spend the first half or so of the book meeting all the folks who are spending the holidays at the home. The owner of the house, Hillary Bill-Tasman, is having his portrait painted by Agatha Troy a well-known artist who also just so happens to be the wife of Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The house is full of eccentric guests, including the fiancée, Cressida, whose character is the only one that really screams 60s/70s to me. If it weren't for her, it could have been set in the 30s, which might have been a bit more fitting overall. There’s Uncle ‘Flea’ and Aunt ‘Bed’, a gruff old Colonel and his wife who arrive with a devoted manservant. All of the other servants are convicted, but paroled, murderers. On Christmas Eve there...
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Happy and Merry: Seven Heartwarming Holiday Essays by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella

by Carol3 Comments
I admit it - I judged this one based on the cover. It was cute and Christmassy and the library had the audio available for download, so I picked it up. I thought it'd be a fun, light short listen. It was short, but I think I just must not connect well with the authors. This is the only thing I've read by the mother-daughter team, and I don't think I'll be searching out more. Other reviewers apparently love them and this short collection of re-printed essays- I am definitely in the minority. I guess they were good enough stories, trying to give the "real meaning" of the holidays, but I just couldn't relate. I liked the one about inviting the neighbor to Thanksgiving, but the "Guilt Trip" annoyed me,  as did the one about dog sweaters or something. They just seemed mostly pointless, but I guess they were just short essays, so maybe didn't really need a p0int. I didn't...
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