in omnibus Take Two at Bedtime
Beautiful Margot Robert visits her adopted mother Zoff to explain that she has broken the engagement to Zoff’s son, and discovers Zoff fears for her life at the hands of her other son.
I couldn’t get into this story either, it just held nothing to interest me. Zoff is a drama queen and Margot a bit of a wimp.
Collection of short stories featuring Darcy and Sean as criminal investigators in an alternate universe where the Plantagenets still rule over a unified Europe. Includes “The Napoli Express.”
Another collection of engaging stories, solidly plotted. Great for those who enjoy a literate story that makes demands on the reader, such as Dorothy Sayers. For instance, if the reader does not know that Richard the Lionheart died besieging a castle called Chaluz, the he will not understand the references to Richard surviving “the siege of Chaluz” and becoming a much better king. Likewise, unless the reader knows “sherry” was an English corruption of the town where it was originally made, Jerez, she won’t realize what they are drinking when they ask for “Xerez,” although hopefully she can still figure out “oporto” and “ouiskie.”
A more recent collection of Darkover short stories, this apparently went to press around the time that “The Mists of Avalon” was being filmed, in 1990.
The stories are okay, but many left me with an incomplete feeling, as if there was more to the story that the writer hadn’t gotten around to. Worth reading for established Darkover fans but not recommended for newbies.
The Lyon clan continue assisting in the investigation into and war against the Hive, and eventually Rojer and Thian wind up on the enormous spaceship Washington, contributing ideas as well as teleporting abilities to the effort.
Definitely a continuation of the previous books in this series, not a standalone even with a “prologue” summing up The Story So Far. But the characters and story remain involving even though unfocused, more a series of connected events than a unified novel.
Leota lives on Social Security in a house she can no longer keep up, praying to God to take her home. Her daughter Nora has spent her life manipulating her husbands and children and blames them when they won’t follow the path she thinks appropriate. Nora’s daughter Annie turned down a scholarship to Wellesley to attend art school in San Francisco. When Annie and Leota find each other, the repurcussions will change all their lives.
Vibrant story with fascinating, likable characters. While there were a few too-pat events, mostly it featured believable people living believable if unpredictable lives. I was particularly impressed by Rivers’ avoidance of a pat resolution for Annie. I’ll be adding this author to my “favorites” list with the library and considering her for Christmas gifts.
Rutledge unravels a mystery involving a woman accused of killing the mother of her adopted child, a 100-year-old corpse, a long-missing noblewoman, and a town eager to punish a new resident – who turns out to be the late Hamish’s fiancee. Why would Fiona rather hang for murder than reveal the child’s parentage?
Convoluted as the rest of this series, Rutledge finds what seem to be unrelated pieces of information as he traces the long-missing woman through WWI Scotland. This is a slow read but that doesn’t mean uninteresting. The resolution was logical, but the ending was simplistic and unsatisfying, a surprise from this series.
In the 1980’s, a church ladies’ group becomes an investment club. Although their stock purchases make them wealthy, the members face personal problems along the way.
Narrated by Sophia, the daughter of one of the members who became the club attorney, the story often disappeared in recountings of the baked goods brought to club meetings and tales of struggling through law school and practice. It never really was a conventional story, with a beginning/middle/end, but did manage to come up with a big denouement. Okay but slow read and I don’t plan to try the sequel.
Roger is asked to report on a long-ago convert at a Baptist/Catholic conference. Meanwhile, a feminist minister decides to disrupt the Baylor/Notre Dame game and Philip is hired to investigate the murder of a self-important university employee.
Lots of funny football references in this book, but the murder itself was the weakest element. The identify of the killer was fairly obvious, even though I missed one important clue. The moral conflicts were more interesting but flawed as well. It also annoys me when a book title bears absolutely no relation to anything in the book. The first book in the series was much stronger than this one; I’ll have to try the third book to see whether the deteriorating storylines continue.
Budding TV star Chris asks Bailey’s help to find a friend. After she locates the missing man, she hunts for the killer in a small New York town as well as on the set of Chris’ TV show.
White got lazy with this fifth entry in the Bailey Weggins series. Bailey is a veteran crime writer and would KNOW not to contaminate a possible crime scene, yet White has her charging in, turning on lights, leaving fingerprints on doors and walls, and generally messing up any evidence that was there. I also could have done without dwelling on the gory murder details and the endless, graphic sex scenes; they didn’t contribute anything to the plot. It’s almost like someone dared White to write the most sickening crime scene possible. Other than those problems, this is a workmanlike mystery, and Bailey is handed problems well within her abilities and resources to solve. Don’t worry about the title giving you a clue, nearly everyone is either blond or might be.
Shortly after selling Norman a derelict house, Rhonda is found dead in the basement. Hannah’s good intentions to stay out of the police’s way don’t survive the efforts of her mother, Norman, and others to get her to investigate.
As usual, entertaining and tightly-written, with lots of red herrings, some of which turn out to not be red herrings after all. I was completely wrong about the murderer.
Story of a family where the father moves out and remarries, the mother develops cancer, the son becomes a druggie and the daughter falls in love with a dealer.
What an utterly depressing book. Everything bad happens to the family and their friends. The format itself is bizarre, isolating brief periods of time and then skipping large intervals to the next story, some sections told in third person and some narrated by Gretel, the daughter. I gave up halfway through the book and only make it that far because I figured something good had to happen eventually. It didn’t.
Blechman became interested in senior villages when his neighbors left their long-time home up North to move into one.
He includes the history of retirement communities but his “gee whiz, how can people live like this?” attitude gets old fast. Plus he sets his own standard for what things should be and then expects the communities (and the reader) to abide by his definitons. I don’t think I’d want to live in the retirement communities he describes, but if others do, more power to them and trying to make them look like idiots does not impress me favorably.
Bitter divorcee running antique shop tries to find the murderer of her aunt. Full of “colorful” characters, none of whom you would want to host in your living room.
Another book I couldn’t make it through. Way too much narrating about herself and her lousy ex-husband. A great rule of writing is to not tell the reader about the character, let the actions show the reader. Too bad Myers doesn’t know about that rule, especially because her titles are so clever I wanted to like the book.
Beautiful Alba attracts men like a honeypot but is desperate to know more about her late mother Valentina. The story skips back and forth between Alba’s casual use of her lovers and Valentina’s love affair with Thomas. I was 3/4 of the way through when I realized I didn’t care what happened to any of the unbelievable and/or unlikeable characters and gave up. (Oh, and the Valentina is a houseboat Thomas named after his late wife.)
When Thursday’s new husband Landen is eradicated, a Goliath agent forces her to discover how to enter a book to bring Landen back. This brings her into Jurisfiction … where things get really weird. This is the second book I’ve tried from this series, and I won’t bother with any more.
One of Lofts' bitterest books, and that is saying something. Marion Draper is a young Victorian woman whose dictatorial father is determined to keep his daughters at home to care for his old age, and manages to counter her every attempt to have a life.
Obviously inspired by an old Shirley Temple movie, Skeeve sneaks out to a dragon poker game and (to his surprise) wins, agrees to take another player's marker, and brings home a little girl. Markie's innocent little-girl comments are on the verge of breaking up Skeeve's gang when Tananda hears that a character assassin is after Skeeve, and the group concentrates on protecting Skeeve while he studies for a championship dragon poker match against the Sen-Sen Ante Kid. Asprin once again shows his ability to move the story along so the reader doesn't realize he hasn't been told all the facts ... until Skeeve discovers them.
I don't know why I thought this was a sequel to her other books, but it's not. It's just another whiny-heroine going through self-discovery, and boring as well.
Grim story of an elderly woman whose hired helper becomes live-in.
I briefly tried her Outland series but found it not interesting enough to be believable, so tried this offshoot with some hesitation. With reason. Lord John is one of the Outland characters, here spun off into his own series, and no more involving than the main series. I got halfway through before deciding it was silly to keep reading when the characters weren't real or interesting enough to make me care what happened to them.
It seems that Weiner's purpose was to show how pregnancy and new motherhood influences different women, but with uninteresting characters and uninvolving storylines, I just couldn't care. Didn't even get halfway through the book.
I couldn't finish this one, but it had nothing to do with the quality of the writing. It was just too scary for me. If you like Frank Peretti's later books, check this one out; it is the first in a Christian end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it trilogy. (So you know where to put this on a scary-scale, I barely made it through Peretti's Piercing the Darkness and couldn't read anything after that except his young adult series.)