The Guard Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files #12 by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 3 / 5 Genre: YA sci-fi
Spoiler notice: The following review may contain spoilers for the main series, starting with I Am Number Four.
While the Garde hide and grow, Lexa waits in the shadows, doing whatever she can to help them from a distance, until such time as they might need her. Since Lexa has always felt a bit mediocre to me, this book was mostly mediocre too. There isn’t much new here or particularly interesting. It’s really just a way to re-visit the world of the main series and possibly get excited for the next book of the series. For those who have already read the main series, you can probably skip this one unless you just love the books so much you want to read everything that was written.
The Hawthorne Legacy The Inheritance Games #2 by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 3 / 5 Genre: YA mystery, romance
Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous book in the series, The Inheritance Games.
Avery Grambs is still trying to understand why a complete stranger, Tobias Hawthorne, left her his vast fortune when he died, and a recent development has left her, and other members of the Hawthorne family, reeling. Never truly knowing who is friend and who is foe, Avery and at least some of the Hawthorne brothers attempt to unravel the mystery about the presumed-dead, long-lost Hawthorne son.
Like with the previous book, I kind of had to try to push aside my annoyance with the “romance” angle in this book. It’s based way too much on physical attraction for my preference, though I will at least say that there was a little deeper connection happening here than the previous. Still, Barnes’s idea of romance is not at all the same as mine, and some of her decisions on how she wrote that side of the story and then how things stood at the end made me scratch my head.
Fortunately, I was much more into the mystery side of this book than I was in the previous, at least for a while. Because Avery has already had time to get past the initial shock of the inheritance, meeting the family, and learning how crazy the house is, there’s more going on in the search for answers. But I should have been suspicious when major answers seemed to come way too early in the book. “What could the rest of the story be about?” I found myself wondering. Oh, if only I were less trusting…. One of my biggest grips about the plot of the previous book was that there weren’t really any solid answers about what I thought the main mystery was (why did the old man leave his fortune to Avery?). There was an answer, but it was weak and didn’t seem to be all of the story. I was much happier with how things started to pan out during this book…until Barnes basically undid everything she’d set up by the end. And this point, I don’t know if the “new” answer at the end of this book is any more the “real” answer than what we ended the last book with, or if the next book will start with Avery or one of the Hawthorne brothers unearthing a clue that starts them on the hunt to the real “real” answer. Maybe the intention here has always been for the mystery of the unknown heiress to stretch across the entire trilogy, but Barnes’s way of keeping that going is to pretend to give us an answer, then go, “Fooled you! That’s not the real answer; you have to keep going!” And I don’t particularly care for that kind of story. Subversion is one thing, but this is giving me mental whiplash.
I would definitely stop reading here, not remotely caring enough to see how Avery finishes her required year living in Hawthorne House, but my daughter, who loves this series, wants me to finish it out, so I will do it for her. It’s still difficult for me to recommend this book to anyone, but if you read my review and don’t feel that what bothered me would bother you and you’re interested in the story, you might consider trying it out yourself (it’s a continuing story, though, so you definitely need to start with the first one).
Dumb Witness Hercule Poirot #17 by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Classic mystery
This story was a bit different than the rest of the series so far, in that the death that starts it off is billed as natural. However, the dead woman had an accident not long before, chalked up to her tripping over the ball that her dog left at the top of the stairs, but something about that scenario leaves her suspicious of her family. She writes to Poirot, who doesn’t get her letter until it’s too late but is still compelled to investigate the original attempted murder. The large cast of suspects is standard fare, though, as is the path we go down with Poirot and Hastings on the way to the solution. And as is the fact that most of my many theories about whodunit and why turned out to be wrong. It was overall an average Poirot for me, not as slow as the early ones but not a stand-out either, except for Bob the dog (whose ball was blamed for his owner’s fall). Any time Poirot and Hastings are at the house and encounter Bob, Hastings tells us what the dog is likely thinking, and it’s hilarious, especially the way Hugh Fraser narrates it.
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
The Yellow House Mystery The Boxcar Children #3 by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read by Tim Gregory
My rating: 3 / 5 Genre: Children’s classic
I really think Warner needs to branch out from missing people being re-discovered in this series. Three books, and that’s been a theme in all of them. That and the repetition of the kids “roughing it” in one way or another. Overall, I did like the story here better than the previous book, but I had some issues with the plot. For example, if it’s important for a letter to not be seen by anyone but the recipient, why instruct the recipient to hide it? Wouldn’t destroying it be better? But of course, destroying it would have meant that no one could discover it decades later and start off an adventure. I know this was written for kids and written in a very different time, and I really can’t know what I would have thought of the story if I’d read it as a kid. I suppose most kids, even nowadays, wouldn’t take issue with the things I did, but that doesn’t make some of what happens in this book okay.
Rescued Andy Carpenter #17 by David Rosenfelt read by Grover Gardner
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Mystery
When a dead body is found inside a truck full of rescue dogs in a rest area parking lot, defense attorney Andy Carpenter gets a visit from the killer, except he says it was self-defense. But since the killer is the ex-fiancé of Andy’s wife Laurie, he’s not too keen to help him out…until Laurie asks nicely.
I always knew Andy was immature, but man does he hit a new low in this book. It’s totally in-character, but it’s my least favorite aspect of his character, so there’s that. On the other hand, the continuation of pod-Hike from the previous book is fun, as is the return of the Bubalah Brigade. The mystery surrounding the case sticks pretty closely to the formula Rosenfelt has used throughout the series, with enough deviations to keep it mostly fresh and as enjoyable as ever. Grover Gardner is always great at bringing Andy’s wit and sarcasm to life, and I recommend this book (especially the audiobook) for fans of mysteries and court dramas.
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.
Disney in Shadow Kingdom Keepers #3 by Ridley Pearson
My rating: 1.5 / 5 Genre: Middle grade fantasy
With their mentor Wayne missing, the five DHIs will risk everything to track him down.
I just do not understand how these books keep being published and how they get such high ratings. The first two books were okay, but they had major issues. This book just seems to amplify those issues. The plot is weak and super bloated, the characters have little in the way of personalities beyond some clichés, and very little of interest happens in 500+ pages. A conversation supposedly from book 1 is called back to here, and I’m 99% certain that conversation never happened, which means the author was trying to shore up the weak premise set forth early in the series. The stakes don’t seem all that high, since the kids are running/hiding from human security people and dodging parental questions as much as anything else. Though that reminds me—one thing I did appreciate about this book was the involvement of parents. But it was a tiny bright spot comparatively.
I only made it to the 3rd book because I own all but one of the series, but that’s not enough to keep me going now. I’m not even remotely interested in the greater story here, and I certainly can’t recommend the book or series to anyone else. But it does have some good reviews, probably more from the target audience of pre-teens/young teens, so if the book or series sounds interesting to you, click the link below to read some of those good reviews.
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.
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.
My husband recommended this book to me after reading it for one of his pastoral training classes. Though it is a fictional story, it is one meant to teach, specifically seven lessons about acquiring true wealth in the form of fulfilling relationships. As one who has always struggled with friendships, I appreciated not only the lessons but also the starting point of the main character. I can see real merit in what is presented in this book. What the book doesn’t really account for, though, is people who are super awkward in social situations. The main character just didn’t really take the time or effort to make friends before starting to learn these lessons, but it comes fairly easy to him once he tries. It would not be so smooth for me. Also, I don’t actually encounter a whole lot of people on a daily basis. All of that being said though, the story is touching and biblically grounded, so not just an empty self-help book.
I have to say, though, that as a fiction writer and reader, Toler’s writing style grated on me. This may not be his normal genre, and maybe any editors or publishers involved are also used to non-fiction more than fiction, but someone really need to read this out loud before publishing it. The main thing that bothered me was the way that the characters constantly said each others’ names as they were talking. And entire conversation would occur where the characters would say each others’ names when they started speaking back and forth, and no one talks like that in real life. My husband didn’t notice this when he read it though, so it’s clearly personal preference (and probably has something to do with me being a much heavier reader than him). Those annoyances aside though, I do recommend this book for anyone who struggles with making or keeping friendships or feels that their life could be richer in this area.
A Journey of Words 