March Minireviews // Part 1

Well, I didn’t quite get my first batch of March reviews in before the end of May, but I consider this progress nonetheless!!

Under Currents by Nora Roberts – 4*

//published 2019//

One day I was in town running errands and realized that I had forgotten my book, and since several errands were going to involve downtime, it obviously made sense to just buy a cheap paperback off the discount rack, right?  RIGHT.  :-D  One of the big reasons I keep coming back to Nora Roberts time after time is that I just simply love her characters.  She rights people that, even when they’re doing crazy things like marine archeology or running a “big cat” sanctuary in the Dakotas, still somehow feel like real, genuine people.  This one was on the long side, and honestly should have ended after Part 3 (of 4) because literally everything that happened in Part 4 felt a bit over-the-top… BUT I really liked everyone so much, including all the background and secondary characters, that I just simply didn’t mind spending more time with them!

This book tackles the topic of domestic/spousal abuse.  Somehow, NR writes about difficult topics in a way that feel realistic yet sensitive, and she did it again here.  There are scenes that are hard to read, but none of them felt like she was just creating misery porn.  I also appreciated that there were many happy, loving couples and families involved in the story to balance out the darker homes, reminding readers both that we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors (could be quite bad) but also that most people really can find good, loving relationships if they work for them.

One of the main characters is into landscape design, and when I read other reviews of this book a lot of people complained that there was “so much talking about plants”… have to say that I didn’t particularly feel that way BUT I also really love plants and gardening so maybe that’s it haha

I was mildly… frustrated is a strong word… mildly eye-roll-y, I guess, that one character is very stereotypical “redneck” and we are very specifically told that he (a) was homeschooled, (b) has a bumper sticker supported 2A rights, and (c) has always enjoyed hunting.  Oh guess what, he’s also an abusive jerk whose family lives in a creepy compound in the hills.  Just.  I’m really over the portrayal of homeschoolers as borderline cult members.  (Because actually, we all walk among you as normal citizens!)  It’s almost as annoying as the portrayal of everyone who owns guns and/or hunts also being someone who glories in violence and torture.  I know I’ve ranted about this before, but I know a LOT of people who enjoy hunting – including my own husband – and literally none of them are creepy psychopaths who delight in tormenting living creatures.  What they actually are, are people who enjoy sitting about in the woods for hours at a time.  Anyway.

At any rate, on the whole I really did enjoy Under Currents, although I really wanted the title to be one word, Undercurrents, because that made more sense to me.  This wasn’t my new favorite NR read, but it is one I could see myself rereading at some point.

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley – 5*

//published 1941//

Honestly, this is just one of my childhood favorites, so even though it has some weaknesses, how could I rate it less than 5*??  When I was little, I had a picture book adaptation called Big Black Horse, which tells the story of Alec heading home to New York via steamer from India, where he meets a black stallion, wild and untamed despite being wrestled unwillingly onto the ship.  During a terrible storm, the ship goes down.  Alec, overboard with a life belt, grabs a rope attached to the Black’s halter as he swims by.  Thus, they both ended up stranded on a deserted island, desperate to survive.  Big Black Horse ends with their eventual rescue, so I didn’t know until I was around probably 12 or 13 and finally read the actual full-length novel that that’s only the first half of the book!  The second half of the story is Alec and the Black settling back into life stateside.  Alec finds a place to house the Black near his house in a barn owned by an older man named Henry, who turns out to be a retired jockey/race horse trainer.  Henry sees how fast the Black is, and he and Alec want to race him – but the Black has no papers.  Through a series of events they manage to get him into a match race between two of the fastest Thoroughbreds in the country.

I love this book!  I love the adventure and survival story of the first half, and I love the prep for the horse race and the thrill of the big race.  Several years ago, I read the entire Black Stallion series.  Sadly, this is a series that fades out as it goes along – my understanding is that Farley had a lot of personal tragedies that influenced his writing – but this book will always be one of my all-time favorites.  I read it every few years – here’s my review from five years ago as well.

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis – 3.5*

//published 2022//

I see Davis’s name a lot around Litsy, so I thought I would give one of her books a try.  While this one was okay, it didn’t make me want to rush out and read everything else she’s ever written.  The dual timelines were handled deftly, although I rarely remembered that the 1960s timeline was in the 60s and not present day.  Lily aggravated me because she never did what I would do in her situation, but she was still believable and likable.  The ending was a little shaky for me – I felt like we spent the whole book establishing one person’s character as someone who is very unreliable and who says she will do something and then not do, and then in the end she is the one who is magically fixing everyone’s problems, and it just made me kind of uneasy about the future.  So not a bad read, but not a great one.

The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge – 4.5* (aka The Linnets and Valerians)

//published 1964//

This was a reread for me, and I enjoyed it just as much this time around.  A rather odd tale, but it somehow works for me.  Four children end up living with their crotchety old bachelor uncle for the summer.  There’s a bit of magic (or is there?).  Much of this story is rather predictable, and I do wish that Lady Alicia’s husband had been missing for a more reasonable amount of time (30 years just feels ridiculous), but I loved absolutely everyone, even the villains.  I would marry Uncle Ambrose myself given half a chance, and since he oddly reminded me of my husband, maybe that all makes sense haha

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie – 4* (aka Easy to Kill)

//published 1938//

This was a reread for me, and I did remember who the murderer was, but Christie’s books are such a delight that I didn’t mind.  In fact, it was fun to watch her plant the red herrings and clues.  There are bits where this one drags a little as Luke seems to really enjoy hashing and rehashing the possibilities, but overall this is another great setup with a satisfying conclusion.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 63!!!  High/Low: 97/58

The Secret to Happiness // by Suzanne Woods Fisher

I’m still here!!! Things have just gotten a little crazy again, as they do haha  I’m hoping to post my February Rearview soon, but in the meantime, here is a review from a book I just read!!

//published 2023//

After reading the first book in this series, The Sweet Life, last year, I was honestly excited for a chance to revisit these characters in book two. In book one, Dawn and her mother, Marnie, open an ice cream shop in a small Cape Cod town. Here in book two, they are now in the middle of winter when business isn’t as brisk, still trying to find their way to a successful business. Meanwhile, Dawn’s cousin, Callie, has gotten fired from her job as a top chef because her error led to giving an entire conference of people food poisoning. With her life in shambles and her dad constantly nagging her to “get back out there,” Callie invites herself to stay with Marnie and Dawn.

While I sometimes found some of these characters to be annoying, they honestly annoyed me in realistic ways so I didn’t mind as much, if that makes sense haha I felt like these characters worked together and communicated like real people would in their situations. I really enjoyed the way that the two cousins had completely different perspectives on their relationship – I think that we often make assumptions about how other people feel about something because of the way we feel about it, when that person may have had a completely different takeaway. Starting to realize that the other person didn’t view that relationship and events from the past in the same way really helped Dawn and Callie to grow closer.

A lot of this book is about depression and dealing with it, and there were times that the book bogged down a little into self-help territory. Dawn convinces Callie to attend a class about “happiness” and throughout the story Callie is reading the book written by the class’s teacher. So there were frequently quotes from this book or from the class, and while I mostly agreed with what was being taught, it did come through a little heavy-handed at times.

But I did feel like the subject was handled well. You can’t just “be happy,” it’s true, but there are ways to help train your brain and get out of negative spirals and I felt like this book handled that small-step method really well, although I did find the little “summary” of what Callie had learned at the very end of the book to be a bit much.

This may sound a little dumb, but I was actually quite glad that Callie showed up and eventually was able to get the creamery’s kitchen into order. I’ve worked in the food industry a lot, and Dawn’s methods absolutely gave me the heebie jeebies so I feel a lot better about their chances of success haha

This is a Revell book, so there is a Christian perspective to the story that I appreciated, although I honestly wanted it to be a little stronger. Still, there is a solid message here that God doesn’t “fix” you problems, but He does help you to see the purpose of what life is bringing you.

All in all, an enjoyable read. It looks like there will be a third book next year, and I definitely plan to read it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me this book in exchange for an honest review.

February Minireviews // Part 3

The final February batch!!!  I also read The Bear and the Nightingale in February (and it honestly was probably my favorite book of the month), but since I read the other two books in the trilogy in March, I’m going to review them all together in a separate post.  So here are the rest of February’s reads!!

Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers – 3.5*

//published 1923//

A group on Litsy is reading some various vintage/Golden Age crime books.  I’ve always meant to pick up Lord Peter Wimsey, so I thought I’d read the first book in this series along with the group.  This one was fun with a good mystery. I got a little tired of the constant dropping of the letter g in the dialogue (“I’m just sayin’ that you must get goin’ if you want to be there on time”) and there were times where there were odd shifts in location in the narrative that felt a little confusing. For instance, at one point Peter and two other people are one place, then in the next scene Peter is at his mother’s house talking with her – when did he go there? Are the two people who were with him earlier now at his mother’s house as well? As the conversation progresses, we find out this information, but the initial shift feels rather jolting, and this happened a few times.

Overall, a decent start to a series, but one with a definite “first book feel” to it. However, I have the second book on my shelf as I definitely intend to give Sir Peter another try.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust – 2.5*

//published 2017//

Honestly, this book was just boring. There was a lot of potential here, but I never felt any kind of connection with the characters. Everyone was very cardboardy, especially the two main male characters, Mina’s father/the magician, and the king/Lynet’s father/Mina’s husband. Why was the magician so evil? Just for fun, I guess. We get nothing of his motivations, he’s just this dreadful, mean person lurking about in the background. Ditto for the king – why is he so obsessed the memory of his wife, to the point that he can’t bear to care about Mina? Why wouldn’t he be happy to let Lynet have a mother? Why would he rather pit them against each other? No clue, he just does and says stuff that doesn’t really make sense. There are only three men in this entire story. Two of them are emotionally abusive, creepy, selfish, and completely unlikable. The third one turns out okay, but he was literally created by a woman, so this book definitely has an anti-man taste that is always going to turn me off. Why does “feminist” in a book description always end up meaning “all the male characters suck”?

It’s a sad book, too. I liked the ending, but what a lot of wasted time, with everyone (especially Mina) assuming the worst about everyone else! I was so tired of listening to Mina go on about how no one could love her, even when people explicitly said that they loved her. I get that she was emotionally abused by her father (you know, the one that was a jerk for no reason that was ever explained… I guess because he’s a man?), but at the same time… oh my gosh, can you stop staring at your own navel for like half a second?? Please?? The author wanted so badly for Mina to be both the catalyst and still be a good guy that in the end she just annoyed the heck out of me.

Lynet is also boring and self-absorbed. It also felt a little creepy that she’s been living in a fairly insulated and isolated society, yet we’re supposed to believe that the first person she’s ever met who is around her age is also the perfect person for her to fall in love with. I’m sure that makes more sense than her just having a crush on the first attractive person her age to show up since she’s been a teenager. I think the story would have been a lot stronger with a friendship between these two instead of “love.”

I also found myself wondering throughout the entire book why any not-rich people are still living north of the frost line? It’s been snowing for literally years and years and years. Why would these people not have immigrated south by this time? What are they living on? How do they make any kind of living? What is keeping them here??

In the end, there was a lot of potential here, but none of these characters worked for me. In turn, that made the action feel clunky because none of the characters felt like they were speaking or acting naturally. I wanted to like this one, but mostly found myself bored.

Not the Witch You Wed by April Asher – 3.5*

//published 2022//

This one was gifted to me in a swap box, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  It ended up being pretty funny with some good banter and likable main characters, and I’m always here for a fun fake dating trope.  However, while I do enjoy supernatural romances from time to time, I don’t care for one that also include angels/demons.  I believe angels and demons are real; shifters aren’t.  So stories that make demons out to be good, or even regular/just like people, are always going to be a turn-off for me.  So this was okay as a one-time read, but I won’t be reading the sequel, since it’s literally about one the sisters dating a “half-demon.”

Mystery by Moonlight by Mary C. Jane – 3.5*

//published 1963//

This is another one of those children’s mystery books that I bought at a booksale back in the mists of time.  This was a fun, if somewhat forgettable, little story involving some kids and the neighborhood “haunted” house.  It was pretty cute.  I’ve read and enjoyed several of Jane’s mysteries – while they are somewhat simplistic for adult reading, I know I would have loved them as a kid!

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 58!!!  High/Low: 97/58

Chesapeake Shores Series – Books 10-14

• A Seaside Christmas (2013)
• The Christmas Bouquet (2014)
• Dogwood Hill (2015)
• Bayside Retreat (2015)
• Willow Brook Road (2015)
• Lilac Lane (2017)

So in mid-February I decided I was going to finish off this series once and for all.  I have been poking along through them since March 2022 and while the series has had its ups and downs, it was just pretty average all the way through.  I owned some of these later books, which is why I started reading the series in the first place, but it really wasn’t doing much for me so I was ready to check it off the list lol

My biggest issue with this series was illustrated in A Seaside Christmas.  Woods would do this great job of introducing a reasonable, thoughtful controversy between the two main characters.  We would spend the whole book agonizing over it.  And then everything is just magically resolved in a “oh we love each other!!!” two-sentence conversation at the end!  So freaking frustrating!!

The rest of these books (Bayside Retreat was a bonus story at the end of one of the books), with the exception of The Christmas Bouquet, were solid 3.5* reads.  Just.  Mediocre.  Genuinely unsure why I continued them, other than my mild obsession with finishing series.

The Christmas Bouquet was an absolute DISASTER.  The main character was the most spoiled, whiny, obnoxious, self-absorbed, entitled, annoying, pouty, self-centered brat I’ve just about ever read about.  She was just.  Wow.  Stunningly unreasonable.  She refused to have a single adult conversation and spent the whole book complaining about how she couldn’t have everything.  You know what?  You can’t.  That’s what life is about.  Things come at you that are different than what you planned, and being an adult is learning to adjust your plans and take on the new challenges you weren’t expecting.  No one hopes for things like people dying, car wrecks, getting fired, cancer, etc etc.  These things just happen, and you have to deal with them.  Life is about making the best choices you can make, and every choice means that you are actually closing doors on other choices, and that’s okay.  You can’t spend your entire life trying to keep every door open – the whole point is that you have to pick a door and go through it, and Cait just literally refused to do that.  The problem is, if you don’t pick a door – life picks one for you, and it’s usually not the best option.  So not only did Cait make me want to push her down a flight of stairs, I was also annoyed by everyone in her life that kept reassuring her that she could have everything!!!  No, you can’t.

But beyond that, none of these books particularly struck any real emotion in me, other than relief when I was finally finished with them.  Part of the reason I read these was because Woods is a pretty prolific writer and I love finding contemporary romance that I actually enjoy, but she is OFF my list.  Ah well.

Anne of Manhattan // by Brina Starler

//published 2021//

Do you ever read a book and you have no idea why you even finished it?  That’s where I was with February’s pick for the Kindred Spirits Buddy Read group.  Part of the problem was I was just reading a chapter a day, so while I hated it, it was like taking one little pill of bitterness each day so I just kept doing it haha  But it really was just dreadful from beginning to end.

FYI: I gave this book 1* and wished I didn’t finish it. This review is very ranty.  It’s also one of the few books I really ranted about on GoodReads when I read it, so most of this is copied from there onto this blog for my personal records LOL

As a story, this book was okay, although amazingly dull. But as a retelling of Anne of Green Gables/Anne of the Island, it fails on basically every level, for reasons I will elaborate on below. Some of the reasons could probably be categorized as petty/nit-picky, but you know what? If you write a retelling of one of the most beloved stories of all time, you should be prepared for people calling you out when you 100% change the characters.

The Anne series is comprised of some of my all-time favorite books, stories I have read over and over. I first read them when I was around the age of 10, and absolutely fell in love with Anne and Gilbert as a couple. Their romance is developed so perfectly throughout the series, that it really is laughable to think that anyone else could even kind of get it right, so it’s kind of my own fault for trying to read this. Just.  Ew.

The rest of this review involves lots of spoilers!!!!  Not that there is much to spoil because it’s a pretty straightforward story, but still.  If you want to read this book without being influenced by my intense dislike for it ahead of time, stop reading now!!!  Also, I copied a lot of this over from GR and then edited it so who even knows what kind of wonky formatting is going to occur!

Rant List:

-Anne herself is such a wooden, generic character here. She doesn’t get into any “scrapes” or have any adventures. She doesn’t imagine anything. She’s just a stereotypical, hard-working, hard-studying college student. I can’t tell you how boring she is. Even as an adult, the original Anne is always getting into shenanigans, but they are totally lacking here. In general, Anne doesn’t do anything in this story that doesn’t involve the Gil storyline in some way. Like I get that the author has limited space and that the “romance” is the main drive of her story, but I needed to see Anne doing ANYTHING on her own besides going to work and writing papers and fending off unwanted sexual advances from her professor. The glimpses of Anne’s childhood that we do get also don’t work. I was especially put off by the story of her getting revenge on another girl in the group home. Original Anne is not vindictive and she is not a prankster. I can’t imagine her putting ink in someone’s shampoo to get back at them. No.
-The whole story is set in New York. I get it, she’s in college. But at the same time – original Anne is 100% a country/nature girl. Any time she lives in town, she yearns for the countryside, the sea, the trees – especially the trees. Here, she seems perfectly content to live in a tiny, cramped apartment. In the end she takes a job that will keep her living in the city forever. She never talks about nature or trees or goes to a park or takes a walk through a cemetery. Original Anne’s love and passion for the outdoors is a HUGE part of who she is, a part that is completely ignored in this update.
-Green Gables is a WINERY?! That’s the best update you could find??? I felt like poor Marilla, who was known for her strong views against alcohol, would have been absolutely horrified.
-Speaking of things that would horrify Marilla, I was genuinely offended that she and Rachel are turned into lesbian lovers in this update. In fact, if I had to pick one specific thing that annoyed me the most, this would be it. In the original story, Rachel loves her husband and her family and is devastated when her husband dies. She and Marilla are life-time friends and move in together to pool resources, carefully arranging things so that they can each have their own individual space so that they can maintain their independence. Turning them into lovers just completely devalues their beautiful friendship. I’m so tired of being told that women can’t be friends – they must be lovers, or wishing they could be lovers. It was also so unnecessary to even have this happen as far as moving the story along. Rachel didn’t even need to be a part of this story, so the entire thing was just shoehorned in for more “diversity.” So. Gross. One of the things I have always loved about the original stories is the genuine friendship between these two very different women, and I absolutely hated the implication that that’s actually just secret pining. Ugh.
-Diana. Where do I even start with Diana? Original Diana is sweet, a little shy, not remotely ambitious, not daring or courageous, and definitely not athletic. (And I say all these as positives – I LOVE original Diana and actually related to her so much more than Anne in many ways.) But here she’s brassy, sassy, tall, plays sports, swears, threatens people, and is in general bold, out-going, and borderline obnoxious. I hated every facet of her “updated” character. The story of her knocking someone over while playing an outdoor game as a little revenge for the girl being a jerk… just no. It’s hard to decide which character was updated the most poorly, because they literally all suck, but Diana is definitely up there.  It’s like Starler wrote down a list of the original Diana’s attributes and then made her new, updated Diana the opposite of every single one of them.
-Why is Phil even in this story?? She’s such a fun secondary character in the original story, but here she just sort of shows up every once in a while, says something supportive, and then disappears again. Why???
-Gilbert. Oh my dear, sweet Gilbert. What has this horrible woman done to you?? (Please note, I’m sure this author is actually a perfectly nice person. But what she did to Gilbert…!!!!) First off, Gilbert IS a doctor. That’s a huge part of who he is as a person. He doesn’t become a doctor because he’s ambitious or wants money, he does it because he wants to help people and make a difference in a community. So in some ways I guess Starler captures that by deciding that he’s going to found a reading center or whatever his random plan is that he comes up with, but she manages to do it by making Gil feel directionless and unambitious, and also while kind of insulting Gil’s dad for ever wanting Gil to be a doctor, acting like that would just be a completely self-absorbed choice to make. He even says something like Anne always knew what she wanted to do and he’s just been drifting along. That is so un-Gilbert-like. But the real problem is, like with this updated version of Anne, new-Gil is just so, so, SO boring. He works, he studies, and thinks about having sex with Anne. Later, he actually does have sex with Anne, so you can add that to his list of things he does in this story. Like Anne, we get basically nothing about him outside of their relationship. Nothing about what really makes him tick. Just, he wants to bang Anne because he’s always loved her. Okay then, I guess. Oh and he has dimples and he’s really hot. Blah blah blah.  The character is made of CARDBOARD.
-Anne and Gilbert were truly my first “ship” when I was growing up, back before “shipping” was even a thing. Reading sex scenes between the two of them was dreadful. If my parents started talking about they do when they have sex, I think it would give me similar feelings. I know it happens; I want it to happen; it’s healthy that it happens; I don’t want to hear about it AT ALL. This story felt like it was way more about getting Gil and Anne to have sex with each other than it was about them actually developing a life-long relationship together.  It was honestly icky.  Did Starler just write this entire book so she could write sex scenes about Gilbert and Anne??  Ugh.
-I think that kind of ties in to a big part of what bothered me about this story. And I totally understand that Starler is trying to jam like three books of material into one book, but still. In the original stories, Anne and Gilbert become FRIENDS and are friends for years. They share so many good memories together. The reason they stop being friends is because Gilbert wants to move their relationship into romantic territory, and Anne doesn’t. The reason Anne doesn’t is because she’s hanging on to these romantic ideals. That’s when she starts dating Roy – he’s the exact romantic hero of her imagination. But in the end, Anne breaks up with Roy because they aren’t friends; they don’t laugh together; they want different things from life; he sees her little “flights of fancy” and imagination as things that need to be curbed, not loved; and she realizes that a truly happy marriage is based on being with someone who makes you laugh, someone you can share your deepest hopes, dreams, and fears with because they get you and love you all the more for them. When Gilbert gets sick and almost dies, Anne knows that she genuinely loves him, but that’s because of this amazing friendship that they have had. Contrast that with this story: Anne and Gil argue like petty children throughout high school, which is fine because they are petty children in high school lol But then Gil leaves for college across the country and they don’t see each other for a few years. Now they are back in the same town and working together and because they are no longer petty children they actually get along just fine. They find each other attractive and start having sex. They fight about something stupid and break up. Gil almost dies and Anne realizes she really does love him after all, so they decide to move in together. Friends, that is NOT romantic. Like, not even kind of. So much of this relationship is just about sex and attraction. We’re TOLD that they have conversations about other stuff, but we only ever SEE sex and them thinking about sex. I never felt like they were actual friends. They never do anything together except study, work on their school project, and bang (or cuddle somewhere talking about banging). It felt so hollow and pointless. And sorrynotsorry, concluding a romance with “oh we should live together” will literally never be romantic. That’s not actually a commitment, it’s just a sexual convenience.

In the end, this one was a big, giant NOPE for me. This didn’t feel like an adaptation as much as it felt like a shortcut – by using names of characters with which the reader was already familiar, the author didn’t have to bother giving us much background or connections, or worry about character development or growth. But instead of treating those characters with love and updating them in a way that accurately reflected their originals, she just slapped names on cardboard cutouts and went with it. Hugely disappointing.

February Minireviews // Part 1

Oof, I was doing so well and then, as always, fell off the bandwagon!!  Things got really crazy around here as we decided to jump into the exciting project of putting down vinyl plank flooring all over pretty much our whole house!! Ourselves!!  So yeah, that was lively, but we are DONE and it looks FABULOUS! But it took two full weekends and some evenings and here we are haha

And, more importantly, here are some FEBRUARY reviews!!

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik – 4*

//published 2006//

I liked the second book in this series better than the first, mainly because Laurence isn’t as much of a prig.  Still, the story is rather dense, with a lot of characters to track.  I had to print off a character list – it really annoys me when authors have huge, complicated worlds with a zillion characters but don’t  bother giving any kind of information.  This series desperately needs a glossary, a drawing of how the dragon battle harnesses work, explanations about the different kinds of dragons, and character lists.  I think the main reason it annoys me is that I know the author has to have these things in order to write the story, so why not share so the rest of us can get our heads around what you’re writing???  A solid story, and I am planning to continue the series, but I do keep kind of putting off book three, so that may be an indication of how much I am really enjoying these haha

The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart – 4*

//published 2016//

I really love The Secret Benedict Society books, and this story (by the same author) has a similar vibe.  Reuben and his mother are on their own, and struggling financially.  Reuben’s mother has to work two jobs, which means Reuben spends a lot of time on his own, exploring the city even though he’s supposed to stick to approved areas.  One day, he discovers a mysterious device.  While trying to find out what it is and how it works, he gets drawn into a complicated plot as it becomes apparent that he isn’t the only person who wants this item.  There were times that this story dragged a little, or that Reuben made such a cloth-headed decision that I wanted to bop him on the head, but overall this was a fun middle grade read with a likable protagonist and plenty of excitement to keep the pages turning.  And nothing like a villain who can go invisible to keep things scary!

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder – 4*

//published 1935//

I thoroughly enjoyed my reread of this one.  As a kid, I remember thinking it was exciting and full of adventures.  As an adult, I was absolutely terrified by everything they went through!  And sometimes frustrated with the parents who made some decisions that I found a little questionable, all things considered.  It was very interesting to read this with the Litsy group, as a few of our fellow readers were so inclined to take offense at everything that I was a smidge confused as to why they were reading this book to begin with.  While yes, Ma especially had a strong prejudice against the Native Americans in the region (and I realize that they were illegally homesteading in Indian Territory), I was honestly amazed at how callous some of the modern readers were about the very real dangers and fears the family faced.  In particular, there is one chapter where Pa has had to ride to the nearest town, a multi-day journey, leaving Ma and three small girls all alone in their cabin.  Two Native American men come into the house, force Ma to cook them dinner, stead multiple things from the home, and leave.  Several of our readers had the audacity to think Ma had overreacted by being absolutely terrified by this event!  Setting aside race, in what world is it not absolutely horrifying to imagine two strange men, who don’t even speak the same language as you, coming into your home where it is just you and your three small daughters and no way of protecting yourself??  Personally, I think there is simply a great deal to discuss and learn from in this story, as from other historical pieces.  The Ingalls’s story is only one side of the story, yes, but it IS a side and still worth understanding, as is the perspective of the native people whose land was being stolen at the time.  Both are valid and both are a real part of our history.  All I know is that I would have spent all of my time perpetually petrified by all the dangers to be faced!

Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts – 4*

//published 2018//

Wow, this was kind of a tough one.  It’s a great story and I really grew attached to the characters.  However, the material is tough to get through – the story starts with a terrifying killing spree, with three teens shooting up a busy shopping mall.  This part of the story is handled well – it didn’t feel unnecessarily gruesome, but it did capture the absolute horror and helplessness of the victims.  The story then jumps forward in time, focusing on the lives of two of the people who lived through the event – one young man who went into law enforcement because of his experience that night, and a young woman who was one of the first people to call 911 during the shooting.  The biggest reason that I don’t see myself rereading this one is because the whole point is that the mastermind behind the shooting wasn’t actually there that night – and now is going on to kill people who survived that night who “should” have died.  The shooting itself was pretty horrific, but then to watch people who survived and changed their lives after living through it still get senselessly murdered – that was just so hard to read.  It made for a great, suspenseful story, but parts of it were just so incredibly sad.  In some ways, this was one of my favorite of her books that I’ve read, just because it was written so well, with the sensitive material handled deftly, but I doubt it’s one that I’ll revisit.

The Provincial Lady in London by E.M. Delafield – 3.5*

//published 1933//

In completely contrast to Shelter in Place are the lighthearted adventures of the Provincial Lady.  In this, the second volume, the PL has come into some money from selling her first book (Diary of a Provincial Lady) and is convinced by her friends that she should rent a small flat in London where she can escape from the daily cares of life and focus on writing her second book – except every time she goes to London, she seems to get more distracted than ever!  I read the first volume of this series with the Traveling Book Club, and because the same group of us decided to read together again for another round, we chose this second volume as one of our books.  However, this one fell just a little flat – some of the situations felt a little forced, and it’s obviously that the PL has learned nothing when it comes to things like living with her budget, appreciating her life, and not trying to impress others by exaggerating her accomplishments!  I did enjoy parts of this – there were some very fun little shenanigans and whatnot, but it lacked some of the sparkle that the first volume had, and the little undertone of bitterness and discontent that would flash from time to time in the first book felt even more prevalent here.  I’m not sure if I’ll pick up the third volume – although in it the PL does come to America! – and even though I’m reading with this same group of ladies for another round of Traveling Book Club, we decided not to continue the PL’s adventures together.

January Minireviews // Part 3

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn – 3*

//published 2017//

Add this to the large pile of books that I wanted to like more than I did.  In this one, set in the near future, time travel exists, but is used very sparingly and for very specific purposes.  Recently, a previously unheard-of letter from Jane Austen has been discovered, and it references a hitherto unheard of, unpublished novel.  Rachel and Liam are chosen to go back to 1815, befriend Jane, and then steal this novel by using fancy technology to copy it onto a flash drive-like thing.  Their cover story is to pose as a brother and sister moving to London from Jamaica to hopefully cover the fact that they don’t know anyone and maybe sometimes get a little bit of the “politeness rules” wrong.  Rachel is a doctor, and the secondary aspect of the mission is to try and find out what killed Jane at such a relatively young age.

I actually really liked the concept of this book and overall even though it was executed fairly well.  However, I found Rachel and Liam both to be extremely unlikable.  The entire story is narrated by Rachel, and they haven’t been in 1815 for very long before we start hearing about how she finds Liam strangely attractive and really wishes she could sleep with him, yadda yadda yadda.  She also acts like it’s SO horrid that she has to go SO LONG without having any sex (months!), what a burden .  She has a lot of opinions about how strong and independent she is, which means she sleeps with lots of different guys with no strings attached.  (Side note: really tired of that being the definition of “strong and independent woman”.)  Eventually, despite the fact that it wildly endangers their entire mission, she and Liam DO sleep together, and then I have to hear about THAT.  On top of all of this, Liam is actually engaged to someone back home!  But both of them think this is relatively unimportant, and in fact have an entire conversation about how it’s fine to cheat on someone because that person doesn’t “own” you.  I’m sorry, what?!?!  Rachel especially uses words like “own,” “possession,” and “control” to describe monogamous relationships, which was both creepy and insulting.  I get that Rachel and Liam aren’t actually from 1815, but it was still very jarring to have so much of the story revolve around Rachel’s sex life, all mixed up with the two of them getting to know the Austen family.  Of course, in a weird way I needed to have Rachel keep telling me how attractive she found Liam, because there was absolutely ZERO chemistry between these two, so their entire relationship felt completely forced anyway.  In the end (spoiler) Rachel and Liam do end up together, which left me pretty underwhelmed.  They both are terrible people who think cheating is fine, so I didn’t hold out a great deal of optimism for the long-term success of their relationship, and was genuinely disgusted by their completely callous attitude towards Liam’s fiancee.

Other than completely disliking the main characters, I weirdly liked the story.  The concept really was a lot of fun.  The ending was a little rushed and thus not particularly believable, but it did mostly tie things up.  The 3* is a bit of a generous rating because I did keep reading even with some unlikable characters, and I feel like the book deserves some credit for that!

Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman – 4*

//published 2004//

Another fantastic installment for the Leaphorn & Chee series.  Excellent pacing and an engaging mystery.  The characters in this series are just so dang likable, and per usual, Hillerman weaves a great deal of culture and tradition into the reading in a natural way.

Indian Island Mystery by Mary C. Jane – 3.5*

//published 1965//

Did you know that there is an Indian Reservation in Maine??  I had no idea!  The story is about two siblings who haven’t been living in the area very long and who have befriended some of the Native American children living on the reservation. The story touches lightly on being friends even if someone doesn’t look or live like you, and the main character concludes by realizing that everyone is different from everyone, and that’s part of what makes life so interesting. The mystery itself is simple but fun, and I was a bit mind-blown that their parents just let these two kids take the bus to Bangor and back on their own to see if they could find a man that none of them actually know very well…!!! This one isn’t going to be some kind of forever classic, but it’s a typical fun little MG mystery from the era and I quite enjoyed it.

The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman – 3.5*

//published 2006//

This was one of the weaker installments in this series, and sadly is also the last of these books that Hillerman wrote before he passed away and his daughter took over the series.  (I haven’t read any of her books yet, so I’m interested to see if there is a noticeable change in the writing style.)  My biggest confusion was continuity – Leaphorn has been retired for several books, yet suddenly here it’s only been a month or so.  Other changes in the characters’ lives indicate that we haven’t gone back in time, so I was genuinely perplexed.  The mystery was rather weak, and where in most books the conversations about culture and religion feel natural and engaging, here it just felt like filler, especially an overly-long section where Leaphorn and another character are driving and talk for probably a full chapter about different religions and beliefs they have in common.  It wasn’t a bad book, and I still overall enjoyed it, but definitely was not one of the stronger books in this overall fantastic series.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer – 5*

//published 1965//

It’s hard to go wrong with Heyer, and Frederica is one of my favorites.  I was happy to revisit it for the traveling book club.  The typical Heyer hero, the Marquis of Alverstoke is handsome, rich, and a bit bored.  He’s also determined not to marry, despite the pressure from all his female relatives.  Enter some distant country cousins in need of his help, which he fully intends to NOT give… only to find himself embroiled in their lives against his will.  I absolutely love this book because Alverstoke doesn’t just find love, he finds an entire warm, happy family, which is exactly what he needs.  Frederica’s siblings are just the right amount of adventurous without being too obnoxious, and Frederica herself is the typical Heyer heroine – independent, intelligent, and has a strong sense of humor.  This is one of my all-time favorite Heyer books, and always worth a reread.

Murder at the Piccadilly Playhouse by C.J. Archer – 4*

//published 2021//

The second Cleopatra Fox mystery felt like the series is beginning to find its stride.  Archer finds a (mostly) natural way for Cleo to get embroiled in another mystery, and it was fun to see some developments with the secondary characters as well.  While this series hasn’t blown me away, they are enjoyable historical mysteries.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 66!!!  High/Low: 97/66 – Making progress!!!

January Minireviews // Part 1

Well, well, well, would you look at that!  Reviews from THIS YEAR!  Progress!!!

Well Traveled by Jen DeLuca – 3.5*

//published 2022//

This series started with Well Met, in which the main character gets sucked into helping with the local Renaissance Festival.  I’ve enjoyed the other books in the series (although not as much as the first book if I’m honest) and appreciate the creative ways DeLuca finds to keep us on the RenFaire circuit.  If you’ve enjoyed the earlier books in the series, you’ll probably like this one as well, as it has a lot of the same ingredients.  I really liked these characters together.  However, I do always find DeLuca’s books to be quite sexist against men, and this one was true to form, with Lulu constantly going off on mental rants about how all men are inherently jerks.  It also really annoys me how frequently her female characters complain about men objectifying women, while also constantly going on about how hot men in kilts are.  Almost sounds… hypocritical?? My final eye roll for this book was the fact that DeLuca dedicated the book to herself for being so amazing.  I just.  So tasteless.  So all in all a fine, middle-of-the-road read, but filled with those annoying little nags that so often mix into romcoms these days.

The Girl From Widow Hills by Megan Miranda – 3.5*

//published 2020//

This one is a slow burn yet has weirdly addictive writing. As a child, Olivia was swept into her town’s drainage system while sleepwalking, yet managed to survive three days and was rescued, becoming a national story in the process. Years of being harassed and judged (she and her mother received a lot of money as a result of the rescue) has led her to change her name and try to escape the pressure of the past. But as the 20th anniversary approaches, Olivia is finding it harder to maintain her anonymity – especially when someone from her past appears in her front yard… murdered.

The whole sleepwalking thing was kind of creepy; it’s so scary to think that you can just get up and wander around doing things and not know it. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to wake up someplace different from where you went to sleep! This added just the right amount of unreliability to Olivia’s account. The reason that it stayed a soft pick for me is that while the ending was mostly satisfying, I felt like a lot of the secondary characters were just kind of left hanging. I wanted more resolution with some of the other people I had come to know throughout the story. Still, a solid read, and I can see myself reading another of Miranda’s books if it comes my way.

Wallace the Brave by Will Henry – 5*

//published 2017//

I’ve followed this account on Instagram for quite some time, so I used some Christmas money to purchase the four books Henry has published so far.  Set in a small coastal town in Rhode Island, it focuses on the adventures of young Wallace, his parents, his half-feral younger brother, and Wallace’s group of friends, especially his BFF Spud.  I genuinely love the warm, happy characters, especially Wallace’s parents, who are perfect.  The artwork is so fun.  My only complaint is that there aren’t a lot of longer storylines – most of the comics are self-contained, which is fine, but sometimes it’s fun to have a multi-comic story arc.  Still, these are just so delightful and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey – 4*

//published 2021//

As the star rating reflects, I did enjoy this book a great deal.  The characters are warm and funny, and I’m a sucker for the way Winfrey sets her stories in Ohio and fills them with people who actually enjoy living here.  I did have some nitpicking annoyances with this one, the biggest one just being that I’m over the message that EVERYONE has a THING that is their PASSION and if you want to be TRULY HAPPY you just have to FIND THE THING!!!  I just don’t think everyone has a THING and I also think it’s perfectly possible to be content, happy, and fulfilled without finding that THING.  The weird part was that this aspect of the story was left weirdly unresolved, as it never actually did feel like Teddy found her thing, so that seemed strange.  There were also some inconsistencies with Everett’s character that I struggled to get past.  All in all, not my favorite read of Winfrey’s, but still a fun and fluffy read, definitely above the average when it comes to contemporary romance.

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren – 4*

//published 2020//

I’ve had this one on my shelf for a couple of years and finally got around to it.  It was a really fun romcom, although the fake relationship led to multiple situations where I got serious secondhand stress from the lies!!  I loved the banter between the two main characters and did overall ship them together.  However, Olive herself got on my nerves a lot, especially her tendency to hold a grudge.  There is a point in the story where Ethan sides with his brother instead of Olive.  Later, he apologizes to her about it, and that’s the point where Olive should have been willing to admit that she would have done the same thing for her sister if the situation had been reversed, but instead she acts super snotty about it.  Part of being in a relationship is not just admitting when you’re wrong, but being graceful towards your partner when they admit that they were wrong, and Olive has a LOT of work to do in that department.  This book would have really benefited from giving us Ethan’s perspective – Olive was just a little too abrasive for me to fully enjoy being 100% in her head the entire time.  A fun read, but not necessarily one I’ll pick up again.

December Minireviews // Part 4

Last batch of reviews for 2022!!!

How to Ruin the Holidays by Becky Monson – 3*

//published 2021//

I literally couldn’t remember anything about this book, so I looked up the synopsis, which still doesn’t sound familiar.  My review on GR just says, “Not bad, just boring,” and apparently that’s so true that this book has now been erased from my memory!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – 4.5*

//published 1843//

Okay, I’ll admit it: I had never actually read this classic before.  However, I have the Muppet version memorized, and I feel like that should be good enough! :-D  There’s a reason this one is a classic – the writing is delightful, the characters relatable, and the story engaging.  But I honestly do prefer the Muppet version; a good song and dance does jazz this story up a bit, and the Muppet version is actually renown for its historical accuracy when it comes to costumes and sets.  All around a very worthwhile read, but not necessarily one I see myself rereading every year as many do.

A Heartfelt Christmas Promise by Nancy Naigle – 3.5*

//published 2020//

So this one was absolutely terrible and I loved it.  It’s 100% a Hallmark movie on the page in all its cheesy glory.

Vanessa is sent to a small town in North Carolina because the whatever conglomerate corporation she works for needs more warehouse space for one of their other businesses, so Vanessa needs to close down the local factory. What do they make? FRUITCAKE! Makes perfect sense to shut down an actually profitable fruitcake factory a month before Christmas, right? Right!

Soon Vanessa is caught up in all the small-town drama, and falls for widower Mike, who raises and sells beautiful draft horses along with his 16-year-old daughter, Misty, who is also perfect in every way, including the fact that she’s better at business management than most people in their 40s.

It turns out that the factory – thanks to Misty’s suggestions!!!! – actually has become more efficient with their space, meaning that there are now two giant buildings standing empty!!! Exactly what they need for the warehouses!!!! Surely corporate will be pleased to find out that they can literally have their cake and eat it, too, with warehouse space AND continuing the fruitcake factory’s profitable business as well, right? RIGHT???  And there’s NO WAY that ANYONE will misunderstand Vanessa’s motives, right??  RIGHT???

Look, if you’re thinking about reading this, it’s because you like cheesy Christmas romances. If you like cheesy Christmas romances, you’ll probably enjoy this one. It wasn’t my favorite; a solid 3.5* from me, but it was perfectly entertaining, if 100% predictable a smidge ridiculous.  It was great for a one-off read and also lovely to pass on to someone else for their holiday entertainment this coming Christmas.

Hidden Riches by Nora Roberts – 4*

//published 1994//

In order to wrap up the 1982-2022 challenge, I needed a 1994 book, so I turned to Roberts’s backlist and found this not-Christmasy tale.  I actually really enjoyed this one.  Dora owns an upscale antique shop and frequently looks for specific items for repeat customers.  When Dora buys some things at an auction, she has no idea that they weren’t supposed to be in the sale – they were sent there by accident and actually house hidden, stolen, smuggled items inside of them – items the real (criminal) buyer is quite anxious to get back.  Thankfully, Dora’s new neighbor happens to be an ex-cop, just the kind of guy you want to have around when things start getting crazy.

I loved Dora’s family – they added some levity to the intensity of the rest of the story.  Roberts generally does romantic suspense very well, and this was pretty typical fare. There were a few side-character murders that made me kind of sad, though.  Still, all in all a solid read.

The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay – 4*

//published 1936//

I love a good cozy mystery where the victim kind of deserves to get knocked off, and this 1936 mystery that’s been reprinted by the British Crime Classics really fit the bill.  The family patriarch is a pretty big jerk, so it’s no surprise that tensions are high when he insists that the entire family gather at the country house for the Christmas season.  When he’s discovered murdered, the problem is definitely not a lack of motives!  The pacing here was good and this had that golden age rhythm to the storytelling.  I can definitely see myself rereading this one.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 82!!!  High/Low: 97/82

December Minireviews // Part 3

A Will and Way by Nora Roberts – 4*

So I had set aside this book with two Roberts stories in it, assuming that with a title like First Snow they were probably Christmasy.  Well, they weren’t haha  However, I did enjoy this one – classic trope where two people who don’t like each other have to live together in a giant mansion for six months in order to inherit the money.  Along with (naturally) falling in love, there’s a suspense element as well.  Nothing groundbreaking, but a fun read.

Local Hero by Nora Roberts – 3.5*

I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much.  A single mom moves into a new apartment.  Her son hits it off with one of their neighbors, Mitch, who ends up also being the author/illustrator of her son’s favorite comic book series.  While overall this was a fun read, I did find Mitch to be kind of pushy, and it also felt a little weird that the mom was so immediately willing to trust him with babysitting her kid.  Not a bad one-off, but it definitely had the 1980s vibe going on.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark – 4*

//published 1991//

Another not-Christmas read, this one was to fill in my 1991 slow for the 1982-2022 challenge on Litsy.  The entire premise centers on the idea of people placing and answering personal ads for potential dates, so that was kind of a fun throw-back.  A serial killer leaves behind just one shoe of each of his victims, which is really the only way the police have of connecting his crimes.  This one was quite suspenseful, and since we get some scenes from the killer’s perspective, pretty creepy, too.  A solid installment in Clark’s long list of writing.

Christmas With Anne by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

A little collection of Christmas-themed short stories by Montgomery.  Like most of the short story collections featuring her work, some of these were stronger than others.  A few were a bit on the saccharine side, but many were quite enjoyable.  It did feel odd to include two random chapters from Anne books in this collection – as someone who has read and is very familiar with the original novels, I enjoyed the revisit of these scenes, but if I had never read the Anne books, I think they would have felt a little out of place.  Enjoyable, but nothing that really stood out.

Raising the Horseman by Serena Valentina – 1*

//published 2022//

Not remotely Christmasy, I read this one for the traveling book club.  A retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, sort of, this one had loads of potential but instead decided to spend most of its time telling readers how terrible men are.  I ranted about this one at length over on GoodReads, and am actually going to link you there instead of copying it all over here.  In short, though, this one was just genuinely boring, the characters weren’t remotely believable or interesting, there were a lot of instances where character decisions/dialogue didn’t match up with earlier character decisions/dialogue, and the whole thing just felt jumbled and directionless.  This book just didn’t deliver. The writing was lackluster, the characters terrible, the plot nonexistent, the story repetitive and dull, and not a single moment of Halloween creepiness to make up for it.  Just.  Ugh.  No.

A Wedding in December by Sarah Morgan – 4*

//published 2019//

This is typical Morgan-fare.  Rosie is getting married in Colorado, so her family comes from England to Aspen.  They’re somewhat concerned because it’s been a rather whirlwind relationship – especially Rosie’s older sister, Katie, who is determined to breakup or at least postpone the wedding.  Rosie’s parents have been together a long time, but have secretly been separated for a few months and are planning to divorce – they just haven’t figured out how to tell their children yet.  As with all of Morgan’s novels, my only complaint is that it could have been longer and more detailed.  We have Rosie dealing with wedding complications, meeting her soon-to-be-husband’s family, and fending off the doubts Katie is planting.  We have Katie, who is so blinded by her assumptions that Rosie must be doing the wrong thing that she can’t actually see what their relationship looks like – despite the help of the best man, Jordan, who happens to be hot and single.  And then the parents, who feel like their marriage has just hit a dead end, but since their daughters don’t know that, have decided to pretend to be as happy as ever for the next few weeks, and then tell them the truth about their upcoming divorce after the wedding – but in the meantime, they’re sharing a cabin and Rosie keeps setting them up on romantic dates, determined that they should be enjoying a “second honeymoon.”  There’s some drama, some good conversations, and some fun scenarios.  Not my favorite book of hers, but still very enjoyable.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 87!!!  High/Low: 97/87