Month: June 2024

Book Review: Dog Day Afternoon

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Dog Day Afternoon
Andy Carpenter #29
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When defense attorney Andy Carpenter is asked by his mysterious and stoic associate Marcus to defend a man who is accused of a mass murder at a law office, Andy agrees, perhaps less reluctantly than normal. Though the accused man’s alibi is a bit sketchy, Andy begins to uncover a complex conspiracy that could possibly prove his client’s innocence…if only he could understand it enough to use it.

I have not read all of the books up to this point, but I’ve read enough to know that Marcus has been a background kind of guy for most of the series. For him to be more involved is an interesting change for this book, which is important this far into a series. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about these books is the variety of characters Andy uses in his investigations, which grows a little here and there. Marcus was always the comforting protective presence who had little personality, which I never felt detracted from the books. Here, though, we see a little bit of character development, yet not so much that Marcus doesn’t remain a bit of a mystery.

These books are normally in 1st-person perspective, but there are bits here and there from 3rd-person to show the reader things that Andy doesn’t directly see. I don’t know when this started in the series (or if it was new to this book), but it threw me off at first. I think that’s just because I have recently been going through the series from the beginning and have not encountered this yet. The only complaint I really had was that the conspiracy started to get a little convoluted and difficult to follow, with a lot of names that I struggled to remember. It all came together well in the end though. And Carpenter’s trademark wit and sarcasm are in full force in this book.

This series has become something of a comfort read for me. Or more accurately, a comfort listen, since, though I’ve enjoyed the books from the first one I read, once I started at the beginning with the audiobooks, it amplified my enjoyment a lot. Therefore, receiving an ARC of the audiobook was a real honor. I highly recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, and though there are some over-arcing storylines throughout the series, you don’t really need to start at the beginning (though I’d still recommend it). 

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: July 2, 2024

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Book Review: Sudden Death

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Sudden Death
Andy Carpenter #4
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

Finding himself in the middle of a stand-off between the police and a man with a dead body in his closet is not the most auspicious start to defense attorney Andy Carpenter’s relationship with his new client, who happens to be a famous football player. And when his team’s digging produces several more connected deaths, Andy starts to lose faith in his client’s innocence.

This book was my favorite of the series so far. The twist of the multiple deaths that seemed unconnected and accidental, but were related to the accused, added a lot of suspense and intrigue. I really didn’t know what was going to happen for a while. Though I’m starting to get used to Rosenfelt’s pattern of adding a final twist at the end of the book, so I did guess something correctly there. Still, I enjoyed the ride throughout the entire book. 

I highly recommend this book for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, and though there are some over-arcing storylines throughout the series, you don’t really need to start at the beginning (though I’d still recommend it). Grover Gardner is the definitive voice of Andy Carpenter, bringing Andy’s wit and sarcasm to life, so if you’re an audiobook listener, I’d suggest trying that out for this series. 

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Book Review: Lightkeepers

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Lightkeepers
by Kennedy Plumb

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA romance

In this modern Rapunzel re-telling, Rapunzel (Zella) has lived in isolation all her life, one of the first “Children of the Lighthouse,” an organization her mother founded. Though she understands her mother’s reasons for keeping her shut away and has always done her best to obey, it only takes one small crack to make her wonder about the world outside the stone walls. When a young man bursts into her room looking for refuge from the cops, Zella sees a way out.

This book was overall okay, though not really my thing. The set-up of Zella living in a lighthouse as part of a cult, and having been lied to her whole life about the world outside to keep her complacent wasn’t bad, but I think it was all quite shallow for being something so dark and potentially deep. Based on what we’re told about her isolation, she knows more things about normal life than I would expect. And once she starts getting out into the real world, she doesn’t really seem as naïve as I feel like she should be.

Ryder’s foster situation is also fairly interesting to start with, if a little cliché, but again, it wasn’t explored as deeply as I might have preferred. Instead, the focus is mostly on Zella’s freedom or on Ryder and Zella’s burgeoning relationship. And their relationship advances fast enough that it doesn’t seem stable to me. I mean, he’s a foster kid whose every action is defined by his need to belong and she’s…well, she’s a cult child who’s been isolated her whole life and is presented with the opportunity for freedom by an attractive teenage boy. It’s probably not unrealistic that they become chummy so quickly, but to me, that’s not exactly romance.

One other thing to note—this book was self-published, and is overall one of the better self-published books I’ve read. It wasn’t terribly obvious, other than maybe the shorter length to the book, which seems to be a common thing with self-published books. In the end, I think this book is aimed at 2 things that I’m not: a teenager (specifically female, I assume) and a fan of Tangled (which I’ve never seen). However, my daughter is a 14-year-old girl who is a fan of Tangled, and after I read this book, she did as well, and she liked it. So if you’re in that audience in some form, you might do well to check out this book or at least other reviews at the link below.

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Book Review: The Power of Six

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The Power of Six
Lorien Legacies #2
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous book in the series, I Am Number Four.

John Smith’s attempt to stay out of the hands of the Mogadorians and the FBI is interspersed with the introduction of another of the Garde, number seven out of nine who are meant to be the saviors of their planet Lorien. Where John has been on the move throughout his time on Earth, Seven—known as Marina—has been living in a convent orphanage for years. But she’s not as safe as she seems to be.

I don’t know…I enjoyed the previous book quite a bit. John and Henri’s father-son-like relationship was the heart of the story, and we’re completely missing anything resembling a heart in this one. I already didn’t really care about John’s relationship with Sarah in the previous book, and now I am supposed to care about a love triangle? John is beating himself up over the fact that he’s “supposed to” love only Sarah all his life, because Henri had told him that Loriens love only one person for life. But he (and the author) failed to keep in mind that 16-year-old love isn’t necessarily real love. I get the feeling, though, that the author(s) just assume that YA is supposed to have a love triangle.

Meanwhile, in the sections about Marina, not a whole lot happens. Her Cepan has turned her back on her and Marina’s heritage and Marina is dealing with bullies, both in the form of peers and nuns. Again, it seems like the author(s) just took every trope of YA (in this case, the MC being bullied) and put it all into a story. John’s and Sam’s choices at various points are pretty terrible, which maybe points to them being badly in need of a wise adult, but mostly makes them seem inept. There’s a lot of action, though I’m not a huge fan of major fighting/battle scenes. Overall, this one just didn’t work as well as the first one did for me. Still, I’m interested to see what happens, since there’s clearly an over-arcing plot going on. I just hope the characters get a little wiser.

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Book Review: He Should Have Told the Bees

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He Should Have Told the Bees
by Amanda Cox

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Christian fiction

When George Walsh dies and leaves his apiary to both his daughter, Beckett, and a complete stranger named Callie Peterson, it throws both of these young women’s lives into a whirlwind. Callie is in a difficult financial situation and could use the money from the sale of the farm, while Beck is afraid of losing the only place she’s ever felt safe. Both must learn difficult truths about their upbringings and secrets kept from them by those they loved while also trying to navigate the confusing joint ownership. 

Probably the most intriguing thing about this book was all of the various descriptions about beekeeping, which provide a sort of backdrop to the rest of the story. The author clearly knows her stuff, and I enjoyed the way Beck shared the beekeeping duties with Fern, a young girl spending the summer on a nearby farm. Like the beekeeping aspect, though, the traumatizing backgrounds of both main characters are not something I’m terribly familiar with (except for Beck’s agoraphobia—I may not be fully agoraphobic, but I have anxieties that sometimes seem similar). My mom had some major trauma in her life before she married my dad and had us kids, but much of this I only learned about after her death last year. So I could identify somewhat with what these ladies went through, but probably not as much as would have been helpful to become more invested in the story.

The Christian message in this book, though light (and I don’t mean that in a bad way—I don’t need a book to be preachy to count as Christian fiction), was appreciated. Trauma, abuse, and neglect are terrible things to go through, and I truly don’t know how anyone finds their way out from under the weight of these things without God. However, though I have nothing against therapy and counseling, those tools seemed to be pushed a bit more, and while perhaps the author meant the two to be entwined, I don’t recall the therapist that Callie sees referencing God much, if at all. Still, though this book was perhaps a bit slower-paced and more drama-filled than my normal preference, I’m glad I read it. I think there’s probably a better audience out there for it than me, and I do recommend it to anyone who is interested in Christian fiction with a focus on trauma and family connections.

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Book Review: As Good As Dead

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As Good As Dead
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3
by Holly Jackson

My rating: 1.5 / 5
Genre: YA mystery, suspense

Well…I’ve put off writing this review as long as I could. I don’t know how much I can say without giving spoilers, but I’ll try. I’m really disappointed by the turn this book took from the series before it. Not only does Pip cross some major ethical/moral lines (which she also did in the previous book, but not nearly to the same extent), the mystery is nearly non-existent, is not solved by Pip at all, and is wrapped up halfway through the book. The second half is given over to the stuff I can’t talk about without spoiling it.

During that first half, while the not-very-mysterious mystery is unfolding, Pip is suffering some severe PTSD from what happened at the end of the previous book. While I can’t really say that her trauma is unrealistic or too extreme, since I’ve never gone through what she did, it definitely feels overdone. It’s certainly a preference thing, but my preference is to not have a book like this so bogged down by a main character who is falling apart and dealing with it in all the worst ways. 

As for the spoilers, I don’t want share them here and risk anyone accidentally seeing something they wish they hadn’t. If you want to read the spoiler part of my review, follow this link to my review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6243264646 (Once there, click on the spoiler tag midway through the text.)

Not only did I not enjoy this book, but it also seems likely to me that the author planned this ending from the start. Though I really enjoyed the first two books in the series, I don’t know that I’ll ever want to re-read them, and I also don’t think I’ll be able to trust another book/series by this author. As for a recommendation, it’s difficult to recommend any of this series, knowing how it ends, and knowing that the books are connected enough that stopping at #2 might feel incomplete. Plenty of others weren’t bothered by what I was, both the spoiler and the non-spoiler parts, so maybe you won’t be either.

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Book Review: Cranford

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Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
read by Nadia May

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Classic Victorian literature

Having greatly enjoyed Wives and Daughters and North and South by the same author, and seeing this billed in some places as Gaskell’s best-loved work, I went into this expecting something very different. Maybe this is just another example of classic writing that I simply don’t get, but I spent at least half of the time listening to this wondering what I was missing. It wasn’t completely uninteresting, but there isn’t much of a plot—at least not one that is discernible until far into the book. Even then, it’s thin.

On the other hand, some of the vignettes are amusing or interesting, and when a somewhat more involved plot emerged near the end, I was invested enough to really like it. I just think that there weren’t as many solid, distinct characters around which this book was written. I realized partway through that I probably should have approached this book the same way I did the other two (though it was not intentional with those two). I watched the BBC mini-series for both of them before I ever read the books, and maybe that allowed me to stay more interested as the plot meandered its way to the end (especially in Wives and Daughters). My husband bought me the mini-series of Cranford recently, so I’ll watch that soon, and who knows, maybe it will inspire me to listen to the audiobook again in the future with a different mindset going in.

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May in Review

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I read 13 books last month, a comeback from last month’s low number. I don’t feel like I’m reading much, especially with Vacation Bible School, for which I’m the director, starting in a week and lots of work being done for it in May, but then, that’s where audiobooks come in, and I did finish 4 of those during May.

Here are the books I read in May:

carpenter-3
captains-daughter
nd2
boy-who-loved
regency
dragonback-6
poirot-4
Last Man
minor
romcom
masterminds-3
Cranford
tidemagic
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Bury the Lead by David Rosenfelt (4.5 / 5)
The Captain’s Daughter by Jennifer Delamere (3 / 5)
The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene (4 / 5)
The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank by Ellen Feldman (3 / 5)
The Regency Brides Collection by various authors (3.5 / 5)
Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn (4.5 / 5)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (3 / 5)
The Last Man by Thomas Goodman (3.5 / 5)
The Minor Miracle by Meredith Davis (4 / 5)
Seeking Real Life Irish RomCom by Katie Nelson (2.5 / 5)
Payback by Gordon Korman (5 / 5)
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (review pending)
Tidemagic: The Many Faces of Ista Flit by Clare Harlow (4 / 5)

This list includes 3 ARCs and 0 re-reads. My favorite book from May was Payback. I started 0 series, continued 3 series, and finished 2 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.

Book Review: Payback

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Payback
Masterminds #3
by Gordon Korman

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi adventure, suspense

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series,  starting with Masterminds.

Split up and suffering the sting of betrayal, the four teens from Serenity, New Mexico, the happiest town on earth, have to decide whether their own freedom is worth risking to try to save their fellow clones from Serenity.

This is an exciting and satisfying conclusion to a trilogy that I have enjoyed all the way through. Though nothing can quite match the reveal in the first book, there were still some surprises in this one. It was maybe a tiny bit anti-climactic, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing in a book like this, especially one written for pre-teens. Like the previous books, each teen’s perspective is shown at different times, all in 1st person, and by now they’re all familiar voices. I especially appreciated Malik’s arc, which I was really starting to think was going to go a different way. I highly recommend this book, and the entire series, for teens and even adults who enjoy suspenseful teen books (though definitely start at the beginning).

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Book Review: Tidemagic: The Many Faces of Ista Flit

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Tidemagic: The Many Faces of Ista Flit
by Clare Harlow

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy, mystery

Ista Flit has traveled to Shelwich to find her father, one of many who have gone missing recently. The disappearances are attributed to monsters that come with the mist and seem connected to the rising and falling of magic that comes with the tides—magic that has given Ista the ability to “borrow” someone’s looks. With the help of some new friends, Ista won’t stop until she finds out what happened to her dad.

I’m going to do things a little out of order for this review and give my recommendations up front. I struggled a lot with writing this review and assigning a rating, but in the end, I rated it based on what I thought of the story, world-building, and characters. However, I don’t really know that I could recommend it to anyone in the age group it’s meant for, due to the subtle inclusion of LGBT elements. The attempt to normalize these things for kids is a major issue for me, and I am certain that there are others who will want to be aware of this in advance. At the very least, if have the same concerns at all, I would recommend reading the book before allowing your child to read it, to evaluate for yourself whether you feel it’s okay for them to read.

That being said, I do think that Clare Harlow is a talented author and world builder. The fantasy elements are interesting, and the mystery surrounding the monsters and disappearances is engaging. It ends with a cliffhanger and a clear opening for future books, though it takes such a turn from the rest of the book that I am not sure it did it’s job, for me, in making me want to come back and read more, especially when coupled with what I mentioned above. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Books for Young Readers for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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