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Book Review: Very Dangerous Things

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Very Dangerous Things
by Lauren Muñoz

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: YA mystery thriller

When a murder game at a private school specializing in criminology is preempted by the real murder of a high school student, the victim’s ex-girlfriend is the prime suspect. But Sierra insists she didn’t do it and tries to enlist her ex-best friend Dulce in clearing her name. Dulce may be intrigued, but it’ll take more than the pleas of the girl she now considers her nemesis to get her involved.

The idea of a real crime being committed during a murder mystery game at a school for people studying criminology (though I really can’t say how realistic a school like this is) greatly intrigued me. And in some aspects, the mystery was good. There are a lot of clues, many of which are unrelated to the case, and the author throws in a lot of herrings to keep the reader guessing. (Other reviewers say the culprit was obvious from the beginning, but I did not guess it until close to the reveal.)

However, in many other aspects, the plot, mystery, and characters fell flat for me. The book had very strong Veronica Mars vibes to me, even before the show was outright mentioned, and I don’t know how intentional that was. From the horrible, corrupt sheriff, to the whole town turning against Dulce and her dad, to Dulce and Co. breaking into all sorts of places they shouldn’t be, it brought the show to my mind a lot. Everyone in this story is lying to everyone all the time. And the absolute worst of it comes from Dulce’s (current) best friend Emi who does whatever she wants, no matter who she might upset, lies to her best friend constantly, and then has the gall to accuse Dulce of being a bad friend because she resisted helping with the case for a long time. And that’s just one example of the terrible people in this book making stupid decisions.

There are background flashbacks peppered throughout the story, which aren’t really a bad way to introduce extra information, except that the bulk of the story is written in 1st-person, present tense from Dulce’s POV, and most of the flashbacks are 3rd-person, past tense (unless the person the flashback is about is Dulce, then they’re 1st-person, past tense). It’s a little jarring. What really threw me off, though, was when, in one of these flashbacks, Dulce is stated to be 13 and is making out with a high school guy and drinking alcohol. At 13! But it’s for a case for a detective agency that she and her then-best friend ran together (at 13!), so it’s okay. Then I realized that the flashback was said to be 2 years previous to the rest of the book, which meant that Dulce is still only 15 when the rest of the book happens, as would be most of the other major characters (maybe early 16), which still just feels so young to me, considering what these kids are already into. But to be fair, I’m pretty old-fashioned, so pretty much any age in high school feels too young for what these kids are into, something that is probably worth noting for anyone reading this review.

That brings me to the rest of what bothers me, which I know won’t bother everyone, but I also know that some people who read my reviews will probably be happy to know about this kind of content: multiple on- or off-screen characters are LGBT, and there is mention of religious people who are against this kind of behavior in a negative way (how dare they pray for them!). It made me consider DNFing the book. But since I don’t give a star rating when I don’t finish a book, feeling like it’s not really fair to the book or the author, and I had an ARC of this book and can’t really not give it a rating, I kept going. And in the end, it’s actually overall fairly tame compared to other anti-Christian/religious views in this area (though it’s interesting to note that the religious people actually came around to be okay with the LGBT behavior, so there’s that).

I think this story had huge potential, and the author writes well (minus the jarring POV and tense changes). But it’s pretty clear to me that I was never going to be the right audience for this book or probably for this author. I don’t personally recommend this book to anyone, but please do consider looking into it more if you’re interested.

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

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August in Review

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I read 16 books last month, which is the most I’ve read in a month this year. And it’s definitely not just due to reading a lot of shorter books, because it was also the highest page count for the year—3rd highest since I started blogging reviews in 2019, in fact (yes, I do love tracking my reading stats). It is at least partially related to listening to a lot of audiobooks, but I don’t really feel like I read/listened that much more last month than almost any other month. Crazy!

Here are the books I read in August:

KK3
Carpenter 17
Boxcar 3
Dawn of Grace
Poirot 17
Hawthorne
Spell
mockingjay
Guard
Carpenter 18
Boxcar 4
Last Summer
Alcatraz 4
Rome
Lava
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Disney in Shadow by Ridley Pearson (1.5 / 5)
Rescued by David Rosenfelt (4 / 5)
The Yellow House Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner (3 / 5)
Dawn of Grace by Jill Eileen Smith (2.5 / 5)
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie (4 / 5)
The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (3 / 5)
A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance (3 / 5)
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (4 / 5)
The Guard by Pittacus Lore (3 / 5)
Deck the Hounds by David Rosenfelt (3.5 / 5)
Mystery Ranch by Gertrude Chandler Warner (2 / 5)
I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan (3 / 5)
Al Capone Throws Me a Curve by Gennifer Choldenko (4.5 / 5)
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (4.5 / 5)
The Daughter of Rome by Angela Elwell Hunt (4 / 5)
Lava by E.B. Roshan (4 / 5)

This list includes 3 ARCs and 1 re-read. My favorite book from August was Al Capone Throws Me a Curve. I started 0 series, continued 3 series, and finished 4 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.

*This includes 2 series I didn’t reach the end of, but decided not to continue reading, after being at least 2 books into the series.

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: A Spell to Wake the Dead

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A Spell to Wake the Dead
by Nicole Lesperance

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA fantasy horror

When Mazzy and her best friend Nora perform what is supposed to be a simple finding spell, they don’t expect to find a dead body. And they especially don’t expect the dead woman to be missing her hands and teeth. Nora seems to gain a supernatural connection to the dead woman, and the two friends have to decide how far they’re willing to go to put her to rest.

Up front, I’ll say that this is not a genre I normally read. Something about the synopsis intrigued me, but I think I was expecting more of a world where magic is known to exist, even if only accessible by a select few. This is really more of a real-world type setting, where occult-type practices that people in real life might try actually have varying degrees of success. It took me a little bit to get past this, and I feel that there are probably others like me who might appreciate knowing about this distinction in advance (if others even understand what I mean by this distinction).

With all of that said, the above did contribute to an atmosphere that made this book dark and creepy, along with the setting on the peninsula of Cape Code and involving various bodies of water. Mazzy is a fairly sympathetic character, both wary of and jealous of her friend’s seemingly better, or at least bolder, magical intuitions. Nora seems like a bit of a wild card to me, though whether that is on purpose or not, I couldn’t say. The story is engaging early on, but for me, it hit a point partway through where it seemed to become a little too straight-forward. Yes, there are some theories posited by Mazzy and Nora that don’t pan out, but not really in a way that surprised me or made me super curious to find out what is going on. And when one plot element that had added to the creepiness earlier in the book is explained…it just felt super weak to me. I kept waiting for a further revelation that the original explanation was a lie, but that never came. (Plus, we never really get an explanation for the missing teeth, at least not to my recollection.)

So despite the fact that this isn’t my typical genre of book and that I probably only kept going because I’d gotten an ARC and wanted to see it through, I did get into the story and was then a little disappointed by how it all played out. Not super disappointed, though, and I could see this being a book that is enjoyed by people who like this type of supernatural genre and atmospheric story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: August 26, 2025

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Book Review: Dawn of Grace

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Dawn of Grace
by Jill Eileen Smith

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Biblical fiction

Dawn of Grace is the fictional story of Mary Magdalene, from the perspective of Mary herself, starting in her childhood, when the author imagines that she might have first become possessed by the demons that the Bible says Jesus cleansed her of, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The first portion of the book, when Mary is possessed and dealing with that for years, is intentionally and understandably dark and depressing. Some readers may struggle with the details of the spirits that Mary lets in, so let that be a warning if that might be you. I didn’t have any issue with that, though I have to admit to being a little confused that Mary seems to believe that they are the spirits of her relatives, while also being fully aware that they are demons (does that mean she thinks her loved ones died and became demons?). And demonic possession is apparently rampant in her world (which makes sense, since Jesus and his disciples did cast demons out of a good amount of people in the Bible), so again, it seems strange that she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. But maybe she came to learn about other possessed people as she grew up and I just didn’t pick up on that. Outside of my confusion, though, I felt Smith does a great job here showing Mary’s desperation by the time she meets the “teacher who heals.”

Once Mary was cleansed and started to follow Jesus, I had two main issues with the story—one with the plot and one with the fictionalization. On the plot side, it just felt fairly slow to me. Because Mary is a woman, she spends a lot of her time (sometimes grudgingly, sometimes cheerfully) helping the other women prepare food. It’s just…not terribly interesting. And so many of Jesus’s teachings are re-hashed by “the men” and even Mary and the other women, as they try to make sense of what at the time must have truly been confounding, but again, in a fictional story, it’s just too much repetition to keep at least this reader engaged.

The other main issue I had was with the portrayal of Jesus. I’m not saying that Smith went against the Bible or included anything sacrilegious, but I think that we need to be really careful about any fictional portrayals of Jesus. Other biblical figures (humans themselves) are one thing, but this is God Himself in human form, and anything outside of what the Bible says He did or said is purely human invention. Smith does use Scripture for a majority of his dialog, but the rest of his words, actions, or feelings made me a little uneasy. I worry that there are people who don’t necessarily know how to draw that line, and presenting extra-biblical portrayals of God or Jesus to people like that could cause trouble. This concern isn’t specific to this book, but something I realized as I read. And it made me realize why other fictionalized portrayals of Jesus have set me on edge in the past; I think what this tells me is that I need to avoid biblical fiction that is likely to include Christ himself as a character. (Though I did once read a biblical fiction book that showed Jesus in a private moment, and the author still used Scripture for his words, which I really appreciated.) Even beyond my concern about the character of Jesus having extra-biblical words and actions, there’s also the incongruity of all of the fictional dialog with what is directly out of the Bible. Though Smith’s dialog isn’t exactly modern, it’s different enough from NIV dialog to be a bit jolting to me. 

Overall, the book fell short of my expectations, but I think many people would easily overlook the things that brought the rating down for me. So as always, please check out the link below to see other reviews if you’re interested in reading this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Revell for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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July in Review

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I read 12 books last month, a great book and page count for the first time in months. Considering that I barely read during the whole first week, due to being on vacation, this is pretty amazing. I think it’s mostly due to having a lot of time to listen to audiobooks last month.

Here are the books I read in July:

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hunger-games-1
McGee 12
Alcatraz vs. Librarians
Cloaked
Carpenter 16
Poirot 16
Burned Books
Boxcar 2
Moonleapers
catching-fire
Secret Blend

Mary Anne Saves the Day by Ann M. Martin (5 / 5)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (5 / 5)
Beauty in the Least by Bill Myers & Robert West (3 / 5)
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (3.5 / 5)
Cloaked in Beauty by Karen Witemeyer (2 / 5)
Collared by David Rosenfelt (4.5 / 5)
Murder in the Mews by Agatha Christie (4 / 5)
The Collector of Burned Books by Roseanna M. White (3 / 5)
Surprise Island by Gertrude Chandler Warner (2 / 5)
Moonleapers by Margaret Peterson Haddix (4 / 5)
The Secret Blend by Stan Toler (4 / 5)
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (5 / 5)

This list includes 3 ARCs and 3 re-reads. My favorite book from July was Collared. I started 2 series, continued 5 series, and finished (or caught up on) 1 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: Moonleapers

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Moonleapers
Book #1
by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade science fiction

The good news is that 12-year-old Maisie is finally getting a phone like everyone at school. The bad news is that her family is going to spend the summer in Maryland so her mom can be with her great-aunt who is dying. A mysterious text on the phone that actually used to belong to Great-Aunt Hazel, a blank book, and a brief phone call from a dying woman launch Maisie into the world of moonleaping.

The official synopsis gives as little clue about what moonleaping is and what angle this sci-fi book takes as I did above, so it sort of feels like a spoiler to explain. But the info is available in the genre sections on both Goodreads and Amazon, and I really don’t think I can write this review very well without stating it, but I’ll still try to be vague. This book is an interesting take on time travel, especially since there’s technically no travel involved. It’s all about communicating with other times, not traveling there. I’m the kind of person who really appreciates a time travel story that is well done, where connections to the past or the future are made well and flow in the way that would make the most sense if time travel were real. And though there are definitely some liberties taken here that are somewhat common in this genre, they really worked for me. I can’t explain further, but I actually got really excited by a sort of twist that the author brought out later in the book to make the time travel angle work in a fresh way.

The story and journey along the way to Maisie discovering what she can do and what she’s supposed to do with it are maybe a little on the slower side, but I was never bored. As the set-up for more to come now that Maisie knows about her moonleaping abilities, the book did what it needed to do and gave plenty of intrigue along the way. Some things are left unexplained—maybe they’ll be explained in a future book, but to be honest, they didn’t feel to me like loose enough threads to be certain they’ll ever be explained. Though that doesn’t make me want an explanation any less. Then there were other aspects that I wish had simply been fleshed out more in the plot, especially some details related to the climax. Also, Maisie’s younger siblings at times acted or talked older than their ages, especially her brother, which threw me off now and then.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book and am already looking forward to the next one, even though this one won’t be released for over a month! I do recommend this book for anyone who likes mystery and intrigue and light time travel elements. It is middle grade fiction, but I don’t think the younger audience makes the story any less readable for adults.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: September 16, 2025

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Book Review: The Collector of Burned Books

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The Collector of Burned Books
by Roseanna M. White

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical Christian romance

When the Nazis invade Paris, they also take over a library full of books that were banned in Germany. The man sent to catalogue and update this and other libraries in Paris is Christian Bauer, who is only a Nazi officer as a means for survival. Corinne Bastien, a neighbor of the library and regular frequenter, makes herself a target of Christian and some of his Nazi compatriots when she sneaks into the library to try to recover some secrets she’d left behind. But Christian doesn’t want to cause problems for her any more than he does anyone else. Will he be able to stay true to his beliefs when his superiors push for destruction?

I was excited to read this book, because I read and loved White’s The Imposters series, set in Edwardian England, and I enjoy WWII fiction. However, it felt a little off to me. Corinne was a pretty terrible resistance worker, leaving evidence sitting around and drawing so much attention to herself. By the end of the book, the Nazis involved felt a little too much like an idealized version of what I’m used to, both in fiction and non-fiction. I actually hoped for information in an author’s note explaining why White made some of the choices she did—factual evidence or anecdotes to explain why most of the German soldiers and authorities in this book are, frankly, more polite and forgiving than how they’re usually portrayed, but there was nothing. It just felt somehow like the stakes and consequences were lower than they should be, given the setting.

On the plus side, Christian is a very sympathetic male hero. My favorite moments in this book are related to his story. I appreciate that his faith and devotion to his homeland require him to walk a thin line between going along with the Nazi Party and doing what he believes is right. And yet, he questions whether he is sinning when he lies to protect a life. I’m not sure I would agree with the line drawn here in answer to that question, but I also can readily admit that none of us knows for sure what we would do in this kind of situation. The main characters in the book are Catholic and observe various practices that are extra-biblical at best. This is probably not the best platform to go into detail or start a debate, but I think some people would appreciate knowing this information in advance. Overall, the book fell short of my expectations, but I think many people would easily overlook the things that brought the rating down for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tyndale House Publishers for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Cloaked in Beauty

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Cloaked in Beauty
by Karen Witemeyer

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Historical Christian romance

Scarlett Radcliffe is heir to a fortune left to her by her late father. But her father’s brother wants the inheritance for himself and is willing to kill to get it. To keep her safe from her uncle, Scarlett’s mother sends her away from the age of 6 until her 21st birthday, when she will be able to fully inherit the fortune and hopefully give her uncle no more cause to pursue her. When that time comes, Pinkerton agent Philip Carmichael is sent by Scarlett’s mother to bring her home safely.

It was difficult to find much to like about this book for me. A lot of it is personal preference, the most glaring one being that the romance was far too big a part of the plot and steamier than I prefer, especially in Christian fiction. I’ll address that last part first for others who are like me and want to know about this kind of thing before deciding to read a book. Other reviewers will call the romance sweet and clean, and I’m not disputing that there was nothing graphic or even all that physical involved. But the bulk of the plot seemed to consist of the author finding ways to put the two main characters (physically) close together so they could “notice” each other and have flutterings and such. I’m not going to go on at length about this, but I will just say that I was left with the feeling that the author really wanted to write mainstream romance but was stuck writing Christian romance for whatever reason and so skirts as close to the line as she can get away with. This may seem harsh and is probably completely untrue, but some scenes are close to the line, at least in my view. And even beyond those issues, physical attraction is not the same as romance. To me, it usually just means that the author doesn’t really know how to write real chemistry and connection between two characters and has to resort to physical sparks and even lust.

Now for the rest—the plot was fairly predictable and the characters were one-dimensional. I’d be hard-pressed to tell you a single flaw that either of the MCs had, other than maybe them both being stubborn, but even that trait is shown more as a strength than a weakness. The villain is ultimately an unnecessary, replaceable cliché, and I think that, had more time been spent on the rest of the plot and less on the time the two MCs traveled together, the story and characters could have been more fleshed out. This book, and the series it’s part of, is billed as a fairy tale retelling. I don’t read a lot of retellings, and I did see a lot of allusions to the two fairy tales mentioned (“Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty”)—though much more the former than the latter—it didn’t seem like what I’d call a retelling. That didn’t bother me or affect my rating, but I thought it was worth mentioning. 

I don’t like to write reviews like this, and I did give the book 2 stars, mostly because the characters do trust God pretty unwaveringly in the story and because it just doesn’t feel like a 1-star book. But I was fairly bored during most of the middle and ended up doing a LOT of skimming. I wouldn’t personally recommend this book, but if you are not bothered by the things I mentioned in my review, please check out the link below to read the positive reviews and decide if this is a book for you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bethany House for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Stellar English

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Stellar English
by Frank L. Cioffi

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Grammar guide / sci-fi story

Part grammar guide, part sci-fi novel, Stellar English was a very different kind of read. For a few years after high school I often consulted a grammar guide I was given by my high school AP English teacher, and I definitely only opened it when I needed to remind myself of certain grammar rules while writing. (I guess books like that are pretty obsolete now, when one can simply look online for answers to grammar questions, assuming that one cares enough about their grammar to ask a question.) In some ways, this book reminds me of that guide that I had, but where that guide used sentences from other published works, this guide’s example sentences were written to form a new work of fiction—the story of an alien invasion on Earth.

Understandably, I never read the entirety of the grammar guide I got in high school. However, Cioffi seems to have a strong desire for people, even in our present age of the internet and AI, to have a good grasp of grammar, so the sci-fi narrative throughout the guide is intended to entice a reader to read through the entire book, not just look for info on an as-needed basis. I read the book as intended, though I have to admit to skimming some of the grammar section when the information was something I feel I have a good grasp on. Still, I picked up a few helpful tidbits and felt justified in having ignored the “don’t end a sentence with a preposition” rule that I have long felt makes little sense to follow so strictly anymore. The somewhat conversational tone made the grammar part of the book not as tedious as it might sound.

As for the narrative told in the example sentences, it is easy to follow and overall a brief, somewhat shallow story. Aliens land on Earth, and the focus is more on the human reaction to the perceived invasion than on the aliens themselves. At times the pace is very slow, and at times it jumps ahead quickly. Considering the nature and context of the story being told, I can’t really fault the pacing choices though. The story of the invasion and the aliens themselves were inventive, though a little less exciting in the end than I might have hoped for. And there was some unnecessary political commentary in the story that bugged me a little. Overall, though, the story did its job in giving me a reason to read through the book in its entirety (minus some skimming). Anyone who is interested in improving their grammar or simply in reading a unique take on a grammar guide or a sci-fi story should considering picking up a copy of Stellar English.

I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: Dogged Pursuit

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Dogged Pursuit
Andy Carpenter #31
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Mystery

In this prequel to the 30-book series, Andy Carpenter is a new defense attorney, making the change from prosecution, against the advice of so many. With his marriage a little uncertain and wanting to make further changes in his life, Andy goes to the shelter to adopt a dog and falls in love with a golden retriever named Tara. He doesn’t want to split her up from the dog she’s been sharing a space with, so he tries to adopt both Tara and Sunny. However, Sunny is mixed up in a criminal case with her owner, who is currently being charged with murder. Soon enough, Andy is mixed up in that criminal case too, as he ends up taking Sunny’s owner on as a client.

I’m never sure what to expect with a prequel, and I’ll admit that I was a little nervous going into this one. At the beginning of the book, there’s a note where Rosenfelt acknowledges that there is a continuity issue with Tara, mostly that he knows a golden retriever wouldn’t actually live as long as she does throughout this series. I wouldn’t have questioned that, but I did question the use of some side characters who, from what I can remember of when they were introduced in some of the earlier books in the main series, didn’t seem to have the history with Andy that this book showed.

Leaving aside continuity questions (which was not difficult for me to do, especially considering that I was sad about the potential loss of Andy’s team, yet several of them are still here), this book was a fun, new take on the series while still having the same cleverness and humor that I love about the series. The formula is mostly intact, even with this being a prequel. I could see this being a good place for someone new to the series to start reading, though it’s definitely more similar in style to the later books than the earlier ones. Either way, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, whether you’ve read any of this series before  or not.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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