The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 

Evelyn Hardcastle will die everyday at 11:00 pm until Aiden Bishop can solve her murder and break the cycle. As each day begins anew, Aiden finds himself inhabiting the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor, some more helpful than others. 

458 pages.
 

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

The characters from my favorite Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice, come together at Pemberley for a good old fashioned murder mystery. I had actually watched the miniseries of this before coming to the book, and I found the miniseries better if just because Jenna Coleman does a great Lydia. James tries to write in the way of Austin, but I just found it more dull than witty. I also wanted Lizzie to do more, but to no avail. Ah well.

Pages: 291

Maigret Goes to School by Georges Simeon

 
173 pages
Maigret is called from his usual duties in Paris to investigate a murder in a small village located close to La Rochelle. A local postmistress has been killed and suspicion has fallen on the local schoolmaster. When Maigret gets there, he discovers a very inward-looking community of people who hated the victim because she knew all their secrets. Maigret must determine if one of those secrets was enough to make someone into a killer.

Curtains for Three by Rex Stout

Three Nero Wolf novellas:

First there is the case of the two passionate lovebirds who want to make sure that neither is a cold-blooded killer.

 Then it’s off to the races, where Wolfe must choose from a stable of five likely suspects to corral a killer on horseback.

And finally the detective finds himself the confidant of a distraught, self-described grifter who claims a murderer is stalking Wolfe’s own brownstone.

Homicide Trinity by Rex Stout

Three Nero Wolf novellas. In the first, the killer has the audacity to leave a corpse strangled with Wolfe’s own soup-stained tie.

In the second, he is hired by a wife to take charge of the gun that she is afraid she may use to shoot her husband.

When the third course is served: a cop-hating landlady brings Wolfe counterfeit cash—that leads to genuine murder. It’s up to Wolfe to see that the malefactors get their just deserts.  



224 pages

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well-written murder mystery that looks at both race and love as motivators for crime. A hate crime in his home state of Texas inspires a star law student to make a career shift and become a Texas Ranger. Years later he his tasked with solving two murders which appear to be racially motivated. Is it ok to let sleeping dogs lie or better to unearth the truth?

320 pages

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is fun. I love that she’s a librarian. It’s an interesting and different take on vampires. I just wanted it to have a bit more depth and to be just a bit more compelling. I never really had that desperate urge to turn the next page, even though I enjoyed this concept and the characters overall.

Pages: 355

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Sadie by Courtney Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The unique concept and style is absolutely stellar. I was completely captivated, even when I didn't want to be.

This is a YA suspense story about Sadie, a teenager who goes missing after her 13-year old sister is murdered. It's told in two unique, alternating parts. One part is Sadie's POV, right up until the point at which she officially disappears. The other part is a missing person's podcast, presented just like an investigative story, as the podcaster travels, researches, and interviews people trying to piece together what might have happened to Sadie.

This story is dark, ugly, emotional, and gut-wrenching, but you won't be able to look away. It reminds me a bit of watching those hour long investigative shows that I grew up with as a child, where they try to track down answers to unsolved mysteries, murders, and disappearances.

The unique style lends itself well to an audiobook format, so I highly recommend this book on audio.

Book 29 read in 2019

Pages: 311

Jed Had to Die by Tara Sivec

Jed Had to Die by Tara Sivec
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is so funny. I just laughed my guts out. It's also a great commentary on life in small towns, only it's so much more idyllic in a book format, than it is in reality.

Book 269 read in 2018

Pages: 341

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened "The Tooth Fairy." Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation?Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

This book cemented the fact that Sir Anthony Hopkins is the perfect Hannibal Lecter. 

Pages 348

Rating: 4 of 5

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perfection. The setting. The characters. The nonlinear format. The way it traces the lives of women through time. The LGBT representation. The commentary on race.

This seemingly casual and almost conversational story contains so much that I'm still surprised. It's full of honest, endearing, small town stories that I think many people would be able to relate to, and I didn't expect to enjoy it so much.

Book 92 read in 2018

Pages: 416

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book got a lot of hype, so I absolutely ignored everything about it, including the blurbs, summaries, and reviews that were posted. I knew it would be best to go in without any knowledge or expectations, and I’m so happy that I did!

As soon as the book started, my first thought was that this book is so much like The Breakfast Club, and I love that! Now that I’m reading the Goodreads blurb, that is actually the first thing mentioned about the book, and it’s dead on. Then the story quickly became more of a Clue situation (flashback to my childhood board game days), with a Gossip Girls kind of feel about it. If you like high school drama and murder mysteries, this is perfect for you. Even if you don’t think you like that, you may find something to like in this story.

The mystery is excellent, and I became really invested in the characters, who were all well-developed, which is hard to do with so many POVs. Sure, you can potentially guess at the final outcome, if you read a lot, but I was never quite sure if I was actually right about my suspicions, not until the very end.

I liked this, and I would definitely reread it one day, even though I know how it ends. It might be interesting to take it all in again, knowing the final outcome.

Book 33 read in 2018

Pages: 361

Dream of You by J. Lynn

Dream of You by J. Lynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Book 4.5 in the Wait For You series)

This is a novella to a series I read. I like everything by J. Lynn/ Jennifer L Arementrout. This story isn't particularly memorable, but it is still an enjoyable read overall, if you like the series.

Pages: 131

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I randomly purchased this on sale, several years ago, and I expected it to be a fluffy book. It kind of is, but in a very good way.

I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that some of the mystery was pretty obvious. It didn't bother me, because I don't think everything was intended to be a secret from the reader, just from the MC. So I felt in on it, and it was interesting to wait and see when Rose would catch up. She had this delightful naivete that amused me to no end. Plus the whole visions thing kept it interesting.

When I picked this up, I didn't expect to continue the series, but if the second book landed in my lap, I'd open it.

Pages: 374

Bitter River by Julia Keller

Bitter River by Julia Keller


Bitter River was more suspenseful and perhaps more far-fetched than the first book in the Bell Elkins series. In this installment, Julia Keller expands her vivid descriptions of Acker's Gap and its people and reveals that the town is not so isolated after all.

400 pages

A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller

A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This intricate mystery set in rural West Virginia is beautiful written.  Julia Keller asks the reader to consider whether it is best to leave a painful past behind or the return to your birthplace in order to try to make it better for others. 384 pages.

Only Love can Break a Heart by Ed Tarkington

Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul. In 1977, in small-town Virginia, Paul is sixteen and cool, cruising around in his Chevy Nova, listening to Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm around his girlfriend. Paul and his girlfriend are always happy to take Rocky with them. But one day, in an act of vengeance against their father, Paul kidnaps Rocky from school and almost kills him. Leigh, Paul's girlfriend, promises to go away with him if he takes Rocky home. Paul and Leigh then disappear without a trace.

A few years later, Leigh returns, sans Paul. She will not talk about him, or their experiences, even where they've been.  Leigh eventually has a nervous breakdown, shortly before Paul returns. A mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, and Leigh and Paul are arrested and charged with the murder.  Rocky and his family must reckon with the past while dealing with this new reality.

336 pages

Elegy for Eddie: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, Book 9, by Jacqueline Winspear

The time is early April 1933: To the costermongers of Covent Garden -- sellers of fruits and vegetables with horse-drawn carts on the streets of London - Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a near-magical gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in an especially violent accident, the grieving costers are deeply skeptical about the cause of his death. Who would want to kill Eddie -- and why?
Maisie Dobbs' father, Frankie, had been a costermonger, so she had known the men since childhood. She remembers Eddie fondly and is determined to offer her help. But it soon becomes clear that powerful political and financial forces are equally determined to prevent her from learning the truth behind Eddie's death. Plunging into the investigation, Maisie begins her search for answers on the working-class streets of Lambeth where Eddie had lived and where she had grown up.
The inquiry quickly leads her to a callous press baron; a has-been politician named Winston Churchill, lingering in the hinterlands of power; and, most surprisingly, to Douglas Partridge, the husband of her dearest friend, Priscilla. As Maisie uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, she must decide whether to risk it all to see justice done.
368 pages

Messenger of Truth: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, by Jacqueline Winspear

London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope somehow falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nick's twin sister, Georgina, isn't so sure, so she calls on Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. It isn't long before the evidence surrounding Nick's death leads Maisie to the beaches of Dungeness in Kent and the underbelly of London's art world, in another confrontation with the perilous legacy of the Great War.
319 Pages

The Mapping of Love and Death: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, book 7, by Jacqueline Winspear

August 1914. Michael Clifton is mapping the land he has just purchased in California’s beautiful Santa Ynez Valley, certain that oil lies beneath its surface. But as the young cartographer prepares to return home to Boston, war is declared in Europe. Michael—the youngest son of an expatriate Englishman—puts duty first and sails for his father’s native country to serve in the British army. Three years later, he is listed among those missing in action.
April 1932. London psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs is retained by Michael’s parents, who have recently learned that their son’s remains have been unearthed in France. They want Maisie to find the unnamed nurse whose love letters were among Michael’s belongings—a quest that takes Maisie back to her own bittersweet wartime love. Her inquiries, and the stunning discovery that Michael Clifton was murdered in his trench, unleash a web of intrigue and violence that threatens to engulf the soldier’s family and even Maisie herself. Over the course of her investigation, Maisie must cope with the approaching loss of her mentor, Maurice Blanche, and her growing awareness that she is once again falling in love.
368 pages