A Killer Romance is the third book in the Beach Read series, but the first I've read. Summer Merriweather owns the Beach Reads bookstore which she inherited along with her cottage from her mother, Hildy. A Killer Romance begins with Summer tripping and twisting her ankle. Because of this, she does not even get to meet the guest speaker for the Valentine's Day Festival before the woman is murdered.
The mystery, the characters, and the dialogue are all good. Summer's parrot is adorable. For me though, there was just too much talk about the covid pandemic and how life on the island was changed. Also, I understand that Summer was in pain from her ankle, but there was too much emphasis on pain relief pills for me. I just got annoyed. And there were several characters' reactions that just didn't feel realistic. And I felt like the whodunnit relied too much on stereotypes.
Overall, I was disappointed. I listened to the audio....
A Midnight Puzzle is the third in the Secret Staircase series, and I do think they are best read in order. Tempest, a former stage magician, is enjoying her work with her father's Secret Staircase Construction company. So, when a customer who is filing a lawsuit against the company is murdered, Tempest decides she has to investigate to save the family business.
This time around the connection to Tempest's family is clear. The man is murdered by a booby trap at the theater Tempest is renting for one final show, the theater where Tempest's mom disappeared. I'll be honest, this overarching mystery about the family curse has not been my favorite part of the first two books. I'm glad we get a solution here, but for me, this book just wasn't as fun as the last one. And I did guess the killer before it was revealed, although there were a couple of decent twists before we got there.
I listened to...
I came into The Third Pole not knowing much about Mt Everest and, to be honest, not caring much about it either. But, the book looked interesting and I needed an Everest book for a bingo square. I ended up enjoying it. The mountain, the climbers, the support staff, it's all fascinating.
Synnott and his team set out specifically not to summit, but to locate the body of Sandy Irvine, one of two men widely believed to have summited Mt. Everest from the north in 1924, decades before the much better-documented success of the Chinese in 1960. While the body of Irvine's partner, George Mallory, was discovered in 1999, Irvine's had yet to be definitively located, although there was speculation about where it was likely to be found. Armed with a drone to scope out the area before they made the climb, the team set out on a journey that was bound to significantly bend quite a few rules, if...
YA Horror - not my usual genre, which is why I love reading challenges, they get me out of the mystery aisle occasionally. Tales of a cursed island in the Philippines bring a television crew hoping to gather footage to produce a new reality show starring a famous ghost investigator who needs to rehabilitate his image. No one lives on the island, but the film crew needs a guide and they find a teenager, Alon. Alon is the only one willing to help them, but even they tell the crew that it would be best for everyone to leave. Most of the legends are true and people could end up hurt. Alon stays and helps, though, as they believe that's the best way for the most people to survive. Within minutes of their arrival, a giant sinkhole appears, revealing a giant balete tree with a mummified corpse entwined in its gnarled branches. And the crew start seeing strange visions.
The island...
It's always fun to catch a new series at the beginning. Jaime has recently divorced due to her husband's infidelity and she is starting over again. Thanks to a bad prenup all she has for the years she spent working with her husband in their construction company is one very rundown house. She decides to go ahead and renovate rather than sell it as is. But of course, when she knocks down one of the interior (non-structural) walls, she finds a corpse. When the cops designate her house a crime scene, she decides she has to figure out who the killer is as soon as possible so she can get back to work on the project.
The mystery is put together well. We've got several suspects and a couple of the clues are right up Jaime's alley. Jaime is a good character, rediscovering herself and finding her strengths. She also knows everyone in town, which makes it easier for her to...
The blurb for The Fury grabbed my attention. A famous former movie star and her friends trapped on a Greek Island and someone is murdered - sign me up.
Elliott Chase is our narrator and listening to the audio worked perfectly for the writing style. Elliott constantly addresses the reader, tells us the events but only from the angle he wants us to see, and acknowledges his flaws as a narrator. It was interesting how he goes back over scenes, each time adding new details, but how he could have known some piece is unclear. Jennings does a good job of hitting Elliot's tone and moods. Honestly, the fact that it was an audiobook is what allowed me to finish it.
The setup was so promising, but the book never lived up to it. The narrative style came across as trying too hard to be clever. I didn't care about any of the characters and while the island should have been gorgeous,...
