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Book Review: The Mystery at Lilac Inn

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The Mystery at Lilac Inn
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #4
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

This installment in the series was a bit disjointed and bloated. I feel like too many sub-plots were thrown in, or maybe they were trails meant to throw us off the mystery. Not terrible, but I definitely wasn’t as engaged as I was while listening to the previous books.  Laura Linney still does a great job bringing Nancy to life, but I hope to enjoy the next one more.

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Book Review: Dead Center

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Dead Center
Andy Carpenter #5
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When defense attorney Andy Carpenter’s ex-girlfriend asks him to come to Wisconsin and defend a young man that she, as chief of police, had no choice but to arrest, he does so even more reluctantly than usual. And finds himself at odds with an entire town of cultist fanatics.

Another solid addition to the series, this book takes a unique turn when the mystery isn’t about proving the innocence of Andy’s client anymore. It’s maybe a minor spoiler, but still early enough in the book—when Andy’s client is released, he has to decide whether to pursue the truth or return home. The weird cult that lets a carnival wheel decide the members’ every actions isn’t just ridiculed and passed off as mindless zealots by the MC/author, but instead there are real discussions about why people choose to follow something that to the rest of us is clearly ridiculous. The body count is high in this book (though I haven’t been keeping track, so it may be normal for the series), but the deaths aren’t just glossed over as a means to an end. Overall, I greatly enjoyed this 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: In the Nick of Time

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In the Nick of Time
McGee and Me! #10
by Bill Myers & Robert West

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian fiction

This is the first in what I always thought of as the “older Nick” additions to the series. I don’t know that I ever watched this one, so the story was unfamiliar to me. I really liked the suggestion of looking up before you look down, meaning look to God before you look at the difficult situation in front of you. There’s also a very good lesson in taking a mountain one step at a time (cue Psalty song to really hit the nostalgia), rather than getting anxious over the idea of tackling it all at once. Just do the next thing, then the next thing, etc. That’s good advice for anyone—young or old, Christian or not. As Nick gets older, though, it seems like McGee is much less part of his life (in fact, I’m not sure Nick “acknowledged” McGee more than once in this book), and so it’s all the more jarring that this obnoxious, egotistical imaginary character keeps popping in to have his own little adventures. Still, the main story is another good one. These books may not be easy to find anymore, but if you do have the chance to read this book or procure it for an 8-10-year-old child, I recommend it.

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Book Review: Vespers Rising

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Vespers Rising
The 39 Clues #11
by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, & Jude Watson

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Though it’s billed as the last book in the main 39 Clues series, this book is really more of a launching point into a spinoff series: Cahills vs. Vespers. This book is a collection of 4 vignettes of different key points in the history of the Cahill family—the death of the patriarch of the family after he split the Clues into 4 sets and sent them with his four children; the fifth Cahill child grown up and trying to figure out how to proceed with her task; Grace Cahill coming into her role in the family; and Amy & Dan learning about the rival family and being sent off on another adventure.

Each of these stories dives in quickly and gives you just what you need to catch up and follow the action. Some are a little confusing at first, but I found each of them to be engaging in its own way.  However, it’s easy to feel like the Vespers were made up after the main series had found enough success that the authors/publisher wanted to be able to keep it going, because it seems strange that, with as dogged as these people are, they would not have come up even once during the Clue hunt in the first 10 books. Whether or not that will prove to be a detraction for the coming books remains to be seen (by me, at least), but I’ll definitely give it a try. I’m also not entirely sure how necessary this book is to the rest of the series. It’s definitely not at all important to finishing the main series. Whether it contains information that is crucial to the spinoff or not, I don’t know. I’m also not sure it would be quite as fun a read for middle grade readers as the rest of the series.

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Book Review: Starter Villain

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Starter Villain
by John Scalzi

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Sci-fi

Sentient cats and volcano lairs may sound exciting, but being a villain is not all it’s cracked up to be, as Charlie discovers when his uncle dies and names him heir to his secret villainy business.

I wanted to love this book. A reluctant heir to a villain’s empire and sentient cats? Sounds like fun! Plus, I have enjoyed several Scalzi books in the past. But this one could have been better. Despite the fun set-up, it was not as entertaining as I expected. There was a lot of talk about how businesses are run, how billionaires don’t really have the money they’re supposedly worth due to not having liquid assets or whatever, and just…lots of financial talk that was over my head and/or dry. I’m used to sci-fi world-building being a bit difficult for me to follow, but this was real-world stuff, and I just didn’t care that much.

The cats are a bright spot in the story, though, and the plot did keep me guessing. In the end, it wasn’t super complicated, but I still didn’t expect some of what came about by the end. The book isn’t all that long, and Scalzi’s mostly simple style makes for a fairly quick read. I don’t know that I’ll re-read it some day, but I’m glad I read it in the first place. As for recommendations, if you’re a Scalzi fan and/or the plot sounds interesting, I think it’s worth giving a try. Other reviews are mostly positive, so maybe check those out too.

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Book Review: Eléonore

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Eléonore
Iníonaofa Chronicles #1
by Faith Rivens

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Urban fantasy

Librarian by day, demon hunter by night, single mom all day, Eléonore has things under control until she finds out there’s a bounty on her head. Now she has become the hunted, but she’s going to face the trouble head-on so she can get back to her son.

This type of urban fantasy is not my normal fare, but I thought I’d give it a try to support a fellow self-published author. I appreciate the depth Rivens has given to her fantasy world, as it was developed enough that I felt like I was diving into the middle of an already-going story. This led me to feel a bit lost at times, but it also made me want to know more, keeping me engaged. Unfortunately, by the end, I felt like there was something majorly missing from the plot, and I think that’s because the answers will come in a later book. Or maybe some of them won’t.  I don’t think I’ll continue on, mostly due to what I mentioned before about it not being the kind of thing I normally read. It was also a bit more extreme than I expected in various ways. There’s a fair bit of violence and language and a sex scene (not particularly graphic, but more than I prefer). It was also weirdly religious—Eléonore prays to Mary (mother of Jesus) after stating that she isn’t religious at all, so kind of confusing. Fans of urban fantasy of this nature who don’t mind the things I mentioned above might consider giving this book a try.

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Book Review: Poirot Investigates

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Poirot Investigates
Hercule Poirot #3
 by Agatha Christie
read by David Suchet

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

Reading this collection of short stories after reading 3 full-length Poirot books, I really appreciated the succinctness of the mysteries here. As far as I can tell, the short stories are very uncommon in this series, though, so it’ll be back to the longer plots that I can’t help but feel run on too long after this. Though some of the stories in this collection were more enjoyable than others, overall I felt much more engaged throughout than I have so far in my readings of Poirot. Poor Hastings, though…if I were in his place, I’m sure I’d make all the same “stupid” mistakes that Poirot berates him for. If only Poirot were a bit more understanding of those who aren’t the genius he is.

I know that David Suchet, who narrated this version of the audiobook, famously portrayed Poirot in TV adaptations, though I have not seen any version of Poirot on any size screen. I will say, though, that for a good portion of these stories, his French accent for Poirot was almost too difficult to understand. Then it suddenly seemed to lighten partway through. Outside of that, though, I enjoyed listening to this audiobook.

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Book Review: Elizabeth’s Playground

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Elizabeth’s Playground
Abby’s Letters #3
by Dana Romanin

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Christian YA romance

After losing her dad and then her mom and being lied to by her older sister for months about her mom’s death, Abby doesn’t have a lot of capacity for trust. She also can’t quite keep herself from shoplifting whenever she’s stressed and doesn’t feel worthy of love. But when she meets the new kid, Ian, she can’t stop herself from liking him any more than she can stop herself from snatching items off the store shelves.

I wish I had liked this book more. I think I get what the author was going for throughout, but it just didn’t really work for me. Though Abby has had some rough stuff in her life, I think she is more traumatized than makes sense to me. Yes, her mom was an alcoholic, but in the first book, we’re shown that Abby still had a decent relationship with her. That was the whole point of her letters that showed her older sister Jane that Abby and their mom were close, while Jane only thought of her mom as a mess. And yes, Jane lied to Abby for a while about her mom being dead so that Abby wouldn’t be taken away, but since then, Abby has been in foster care with a loving family. So why is she a prickly, self-destructive klepto who feels like she doesn’t deserve love?

Right off the bat, I didn’t care for the cliché of instant attraction between Ian and Abby (more on his side than hers, but hers wasn’t far behind), nor the cutesy nicknames they give each other and use almost exclusively throughout the book. In fact, the whole book feels like a lot of clichés or tropes mashed together, starting with Abby being really rude to Ian when they first meet, yet him being drawn to her because there’s “just something about her.” There is some light sexual innuendo I didn’t care for, and Abby’s friend Louisa has a sort of “wise older person” persona, despite being a fairly typical-seeming teenage girl otherwise. Then there’s the moment near the end of the book when Abby’s foster dad tells her that she needs to stop living for others and do something for herself, which led me to ask…when was she ever living for others? In the end, I liked the idea of this series of novellas more than I liked the execution, though I think that the middle book could stand alone as a decent read.

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Book Review: The Bungalow Mystery

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The Bungalow Mystery
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #3
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

I’m finding it a little difficult to write a different review for each of these books, so I’ll just say a few things. I appreciate the excitement at the beginning, with Nancy and a friend stuck out on the water during a thunderstorm and that leading them to meet a young girl who ends up needing Nancy’s help. Though her predicament was pretty obvious to me from the start, I’m certain that those of the age group that these books are meant for would not have figured it out as easily. Overall, I’m enjoying the series and this trip back to a different time (though whether that time is the 30s or the 50s, I don’t know…apparently the original books were updated at some point, and I don’t know for sure which version these audiobooks are based on.) Laura Linney again does a great job bringing Nancy to life, making the audiobook a great option for this series.

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Book Review: A Dream within a Dream

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A Dream within a Dream
Coffey & Hill #3
by Mike Nappa

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Thriller/suspense, Christian

Private investigator Trudi Coffey and her ex-husband, ex-CIA agent, ex-private investigator, now Atlanta cop, Samuel Hill are separately pointed to a man known as Dream, who has knowledge highly prized by multiple different agencies. His well-being is in danger, possibly his life, and he is suffering from PTSD that has left him with holes in his memory.

This book delivers excitement, suspense, and intrigue like the other two in the series. The trend of involving writings of Edgar Allen Poe also continues, including another character in need who is named after a Poe work, this time the troubled and much sought-after Dream. He provides the first-person, present-tense perspective throughout this story as he relates to us various different events from his past that led to him being in his current predicament. The issue, though, is that these different events are jumbled together in the telling. This is indicative of the way he is processing his past and current events that bring up difficult memories, but I kept waiting for things to clear up and make more sense, and they never completely did.

Trudi and Samuel provide the other perspectives (3rd person, past tense), and while Trudi’s is familiar and provides the clearest narrative, Samuel’s is the other main reason I didn’t like this as much as I did the previous 2 books in the series. There’s just too much going on. The storyline about Dream and some stolen artwork was complex enough, to my mind, that adding a family from the Middle East coming after Samuel because he was involved in the death of one of their own was unnecessary. In the end, it seemed to only be in there to give us a particular ending, which wasn’t really my favorite kind of ending anyway. It doesn’t really leave it open for more books in this series, though some feel that it does and I’d certainly love to see more Coffey & Hill someday.

This book may not have quite held up to the high standard set by the previous 2 books in the series, but I still enjoyed it overall. And I am so glad I found this series in general, as it’s a new favorite for me. I definitely recommend it to fans of suspense and thriller novels, especially with a Christian leaning, and you don’t necessarily need to read them in order.

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