It is the Middle Ages in England. Newly-appointed prioress Eleanor of Wynethorpe has to contend not only with resentful nuns and brothers who don’t think a woman should rule them, but with a murdered and mutilated resident and a young priest with his own agenda.
Interesting story but with two serious flaws. One is the alternating third-person POV between prioress Eleanor and young priest Brother Thomas. While it allowed Royal to present both characters sympathetically, I found it distracting. And since it is third-person rather than first, there is no change in the narrator's voice to help the reader remember who is center-stage at the moment. The second flaw is the heavy-handed preaching/praising of homosexuality. It is extremely difficult to preach and still maintain an involving storyline, and Royal fails miserably. However, by skipping the pro-homosexuality rants, I did finish the book.
in omnibus Take Two at Bedtime
Nouveau-poor Gillian Brayton is flattered when a famous schoolmate offers her a job attending to her husband. But is Rita looking for a helper, or a dupe?
Since after the first few pages it was painfully obvious where the story was headed, I skipped to the end.
When mage-attacks start breaking through Valdemar’s borders, Heir Elspeth decides she should recruit a mage to protect Valdemar and teach the Heralds magic as well. Meanwhile, Tayledras scout (and former mage) Darkwind works at keeping k’Sheyna Vale safe, in spite of the scorn of his father.
Some of Lackey’s books are just too scary for me, and this was one. I gave up about halfway through, as soon as the story revealed why Starblade was acting so oddly.
Collection of short stories with a mystery/murder theme.
Well-written, with layered plots and logical if sometimes unexpected endings, but I didn’t like it. Many of the stories were closer to horror than mystery.
Sequel to Waiting For Summer’s Return
After graduating from college in Boston, Thomas has to choose between casual labor in Hillsboro and a newspaper job in Boston. Complicating his decision is a beautiful but shallow Boston girl who does not share his devotion to God.
I enjoyed both the previous book and this one. The people seem real (except for a few of Thomas' decisions) and their desire to serve the Lord seems an integral part of their personality. Even the fact that I could predict the course of the story didn't detract from my enjoyment.
A newspaperman during Detroit’s Prohibition heyday testifies before a grand jury investigating police corruption, recalling the killings and the gangsters he interviewed.
I ordinarily detest, despise, and abhor flashbacks. But I have to admit this was different. The introduction established that this newspaper reporter was in front of a grand jury, and then it follows the story he tells. However, to someone who isn’t a fan of gangster stories, it just wasn’t very interesting. The story wandered and didn’t seem to have a point. I tried to make it at least halfway through before giving up, but I couldn't.
Charlotte sees several people acting suspiciously before her newest client is found dead.
The mystery wasn’t bad, but Charlotte’s annoying relatives and her simpering obstinacy have put me off this series.
Boyles sends Rutledge to investigate the killing of a Roman Catholic priest in a small country town. But Rutledge finds the locals mysteriously quiet about the murder and a possible replacement priest is suddenly fearful of becoming the next victim. While the local police arrests an outsider and desperately tries to prove him the murderer, Rutledge looks into why the priest might have been killed and finds a connection to a long-ago tragedy.
As always, well-written and featuring involving characters, rich in detail of post-WWI life. Although I’m not usually fond of police procedurals, I have definitely enjoyed this series. Rutledge is a flawed hero, emotionally scarred by WWI and not magically endowed with a mysterious ability to identify the murderer. He plods along like an ordinary mortal, achieving results through sheer persistence and an unwillingness to accept the easy answer. Todd’s convoluted plots don’t deliver easy answers, an often not even satisfying answers, but they are logical and consistent. The title bears only a marginal relationship to the story, one of my pet peeves.
After accepting Zachary’s proposal, Emma faces new life crises, including Mark bringing a troubled young girl to visit, Warren’s business problems, and Zachary’s expectations that she will abandon her own life once they marry.
As usual, the characters and resolution are overly simplistic, but the plot is enjoyable and I wish life offered happy endings like this.
When the favorite entrant in a six-day foot race dies of strychnine poisoning, Sergeant Cribb wades into a sea of competitors, coaches, promoters, and bookies to catch the killer.
Interesting combination cozy mystery/police procedural. Cribb and his assistant Thackeray aren’t particularly interesting characters, but the storyline rocked right along and kept the reader following.
Grieving for her dead husband and children, Summer Steadman takes a temporary job tutoring an injured boy. But as she draws closer to the family, she draws closer to God. Can she trust Him to give her a new life?
I’m not generally a fan of romances because the factors keeping the hero and heroine apart generally seem so phony. This wasn’t as bad as most because in addition to the external factors keeping them apart, they aren’t sure they love each other and want to hold out for a godly marriage. Bit of a tearjerker, too.
Lynley and Havers investigate the torture/murder of a young student at a posh boarding school. As they find one appalling revelation after another about life at the school, their list of suspects continues to increase.
Another riveting entry in this series. George writes convoluted plots that resemble a tapeworm with indigestion, but pulls everything together in the end.
I HATE stories featuring talking animals. Brown not only has animals communicating in English, she lists her cat as co-author and an Introduction supposedly written by the cat claims sole authorship. I did not read much of the book before giving up.
When Melanie’s brother Frank becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his much-disliked business partner, he expects her to find the real killer and clear him. I’d forgotten how wimpy Melanie was in the earlier books. She’s not a tower of strength against her overbearing family in later books, but her lack of self-respect in this book remains annoying as she puts herself at risk and worries Sam. As a mystery, the clues are mostly there, although the murderer personally reveals the critical piece of information that explains the murder.
Shell-shocked and haunted, Ian Rutledge is sent to Cornwall to see if the deaths of three family members are as innocent as they seem. The gradual relevations that seem to confirm the accusation of one family member horrify him, but is there even more to the story? Painful but involving, I didn’t guess whodunnit until almost the end. But these are not cozy mysteries and can be disturbing to read.
Another noir-meets-sword-and-sorcery tale, seems to be Green’s specialty. Hawk and Fisher are married and the only honest Guards in Haven. They are assigned to protect a Reform candidate during the election day. Mildly interesting, so I read the beginning and was curious enough to read the end, but not interesting enough to wade through most of the book.
I’ve said numerous times that when an author tries a non-standard writing technique, it usually does not help the reader or make the story more interesting. This may be a partial exception. This book consists of an almost Spoon River Anthology-like collection of short stories, narrated by different participants, to present the lives of the residents of a small Irish town. Having different characters retell the same event is particularly effective in the story of Ned and Claire, an unlikely but happy married couple. It is also involving; even when the narrator is unlikeable, his/her turn doesn’t last long to make the reader want to put the book down. However, the author skips around between topics and frequently moves us from a character we know to one we haven’t heard of, which is disorienting and confusing. Also, some of the stories relate to the theme of the village’s reaction to a possible new highway that would destroy St. Ann’s Well, and some are completely irrelevant to it. Even though Binchy pulls most of the stories into the final scene, the book would be stronger if it had a plainer theme and if it was shorter – keeping the characters and stories straight tires the reader.
I was hoping for some new ideas for portable food from this book. Unfortunately, most of the recipes are well-known to any cook: spinach and artichoke dip, potato salad, even deviled eggs (although Byrn includes several neat topping ideas for the eggs). But there were some great exceptions. Winners included a 15-minute stovetop mac & cheese that even my college daughter thought she could make (no white sauce involved), Mushroom and Gruyere Cheesecake, a very adaptable roast potatoes recipe, baked apricots, and a cheese ball made with Gorgonzola instead of the usual cheddar.
I didn’t like this book, and I’m not absolutely sure why. Maybe it was that a woman who decided to test her husband’s commitment by telling him she wanted a divorce is too stupid to care about. Maybe it was that the small-town residents punished her teenaged son when they decided she was the murderer. For whatever reason, when I got halfway through and realized I didn’t care enough to find out who the murderer was, I gave up. Too bad, because this was the first of a series and had sounded interesting.
Lanagan writes bizarre but beautiful prose that I can’t decide if I like or not, but I keep reading. The title story and several others were real stories, with enough information dropped for the reader to figure out what happened – not a characteristic of all of Lanagan’s stories, or even of all the stories in this book. But her unique point of view makes it worth putting up with the uneven quality. Also, for some reason our library puts her work in the Young Adult section, but there is no reason older adults wouldn't enjoy it.
I apparently don’t like romance novels even when they have a Christian theme. All the women are drop-dead gorgeous, all the men are stunningly handsome, and everyone is unjustly persecuted. What's wrong with ordinary people finding love?
This debut novel received rave reviews, and I have to admit the descriptions are vivid. But a novel should have a story, and likeable characters are a plus. This book has neither. Narrator Kate is a obnoxious preteen wimp, and older sister Frankie is an obnoxious teenage wannabe slut. They live in Hong Kong with their mother while their photographer father spends most of his time in war-torn Viet Nam. Rather than a story, Greenway offers a series of tableux: the girls in church, the girls listening to a tape from their father, the girls finding a dead body; unfortunately, none are particularly interesting and none seem relevant to any plot.
Next time I want to read essays by a homosexual about how hard it is to travel with his lover, I’ll pick up a Sedaris book. Or maybe not, these weren’t very interesting.
Amazing pull-no-punches story of a Navy nurse who was captured when Manila fell and spent the rest of WWII as a Japanese prisoner. Not the best-written story I’ve ever read, and the title makes it sound amusing (which it certainly isn’t), but the people jump out of the book and her experiences keep the reader following along.
Tale of a Depression-era couple whose already-strained marriage is pulled further by separation when the husband leaves to take a WPA job and the neighbor decides this is his chance to win the wife’s heart at any cost. Kind of heavyhanded about leaning on God, but I don’t know how it could have been written differently. It dragged on, though, about halfway through I started skipping 20-30 page chunks and didn’t miss anything.
Yet another growing-up tale, this one of a poor white girl abandoned by her parents after the Civil War. Just not interesting, and with a particularly unlikable main character.
Grieving widow runs her husband’s real estate business and tries to care for his Afghan hound. (Solving murders is just a sideline.)
Way too cute to be read without insulin handy, with the sassy real estate agent, the neglected 8-year-old son of a music star who wants to train the hound, the New Age masseuse, and a host of other characters. Oh, and “Whisky” is a nickname awarded by her unlamented FIRST husband. But the worst offense is the story just wasn’t interesting. I gave up halfway through.
Yet another of her stories featuring unlikeable people doing selfish things. Wimp Jim adores his wife, narcissistic Stella, who thinks she deserves better but at least would rather live with her mother, conniving Ma, where she can con siblings into caring for her child and be spoiled rotten, while Ma intends to make Jim her personal chauffeur. Even skipping chunks didn’t make the story tolerable.
Ripping good mystery reminiscent of Agatha Christie, in which Sam Holt and several other Hollywood types are stranded on a lonely island and killed one by one, and if I’d believed the book’s own description, I wouldn’t even have started it. The back cover asks “Who’s Likely to Like This?” and answers “fans of Donald Westlake,” but this is the only book by this author that I have ever liked. The intro describes it as a “Hard Boiled” mystery, with “mean streets and meaner bad guys,” which I don’t like. But I had trouble putting it down and will definitely be looking for more Sam Holt mysteries.
Very weird love-your-inner-woman self-help book. The author tries to be humorous (I think) by attributing her advice to a pre-Colombian “La Poodlea” she is supposedly channelling. There may or may not be good advice in this book, the form is so bizarre I can’t tell.
Particularly grisly retelling of the Donner Party story. Even Lofts couldn’t make most of the people likeable.
Yet another story full of gorgeous, incredibly talented women and hunky rich men, mostly unlikeable and/or gay. Fiction is one thing, absurd is another. I couldn't finish it and was appalled by the inevitable book jacket references comparing this book to Jane Austen, who filled her books with average-looking people with average problems. (Which is probably why her books are still popular today.)