Book Recommendation – The Christmas Guest

Now that it is officially the Christmas season, I’d like to offer up a holiday read for you. If you are looking for a quick holiday mystery to read, let me offer up one to you. I stumbled on author Peter Swanson when “Eight Perfect Murders” came up as a suggestion on Goodreads. That led me to read a few of this other books (The Kind Worth Killing, The Kind Worth Saving, Nine Lives, etc…).

When I saw that he had a Christmas book, I added it to my “to read” list. It’s been on there since just after Christmas last year. Since all the decorations are up, I thought this would be a good book to read by the lights of the tree.

The book is a novella. It is something that I read in one sitting. It wasn’t as good as some of his other stuff, but there was still a big twist in there which helped boost my rating of the book.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

An American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family’s Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village’s grim history.

Ashley Smith, an American art student in London for her junior year, was planning on spending Christmas alone, but a last-minute invitation from fellow student Emma Chapman brings her to Starvewood Hall, country residence of the Chapman family. The Cotswold manor house, festooned in pine boughs and crammed with guests for Christmas week, is a dream come true for Ashley. She is mesmerized by the cozy, firelit house, the large family, and the charming village of Clevemoor, but also by Adam Chapman, Emma’s aloof and handsome brother.

But Adam is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the village, and there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to wonder what kind of story she is actually inhabiting. Is she in a grand romance? A gothic tale? Or has she wandered into something far more sinister and terrifying than she’d ever imagined?

Over thirty years later the events of that horrific week are revisited, along with a diary from that time. What began in a small English village in 1989 reaches its ghostly conclusion in modern-day New York, many Christmas seasons later.

The book was a nice read while I waited for the one I had on hold. It wasn’t like some of his other books, but the twist caught me off guard. Once that happens, the rest of the story all falls into place.

I would have given the book 3.5 stars, but the twist brought it up to 4 stars for me.

Book Recommendation – Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man

One of the hardest things about using my library’s Libby App is the occasional wait. This was the case recently as I had finished one book and was waiting for another. When this happens, I usually go to the other Library App (Hoopla). It is there that I will grab something short to read until my book becomes available.

I began to search for something like a short mystery when I stumbled on a title that screamed “Film noir.” The audio book was a little over 6 hours long. That’s three trips back and forth to work, so I borrowed it. Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man is a 1950’s detective story and didn’t take a lot of thought to get through.

As I read it, in my mind I pictured an old black and white detective movie. There were the occasional slang words (like “dollface”) that added to the “noir” feel. It wasn’t something that blew me away, but it wasn’t a bad little read.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Life as a secretary in New York just got tougher when Viviana Valentine’s boss winds up dead in this debut historical mystery, perfect for fans of Susan Elia MacNeal and Frances Brody.

New York City, 1950. Viviana Valentine is Girl Friday to the city’s top private investigator, Tommy Fortuna. The clients can be frustrating, and none more maddening than fabulously wealthy Tallmadge Blackstone, who demands Tommy tail his daughter, Tallulah, and find out why she won’t marry his business partner, a man forty years her senior. Sounds like an open-and-shut case for a P.I. known for busting up organized crime—but the next day, Viviana opens the office to find Tommy M.I.A. and a lifeless body on the floor.

The cops swoop in and Detective Jake Lawson issues a warrant for Tommy’s arrest. Desperate to clear Tommy’s name, Viviana takes on the Blackstone case herself. When she goes out for a night on the town with the heiress, she begins to learn the secrets behind Tallulah’s life and loves—and discovers that the body in the office is none other than Tallulah’s betrothed. Meanwhile, Lawson is itching to solve his murder case, and continues harassing Viviana for answers—until she’s the victim of an attack by a group of goons hooked up with a gangster named Santino Napolitano, a.k.a. Tino the Conderoga. Tino’s connected to the death of Tommy’s brother, and now he’s trying to get to Tommy through Viviana.

But Tommy’s still missing, and Tino is still out for blood. As Viviana digs into the dirty history of the Blackstone empire, she suddenly realizes the true danger at hand. Now, it’s up to her to find her missing boss and make sure she doesn’t turn up D.O.A.

I plays out just like an old movie and was enjoyable. If you are looking for a book you can get through quick, check it out.

3 out of 5 stars.

Book Recommendation – One Puzzling Afternoon

I had this book in my “favorites” on the Hoopla app for a while. The title intrigued me. I “favorite” a book I want to read and when it is time for a new read, I search there. After finishing my prior books I clicked on the book to read it, but it kept giving me an error. After a few weeks, I typed the title back into the search bar and found it again. This time it had a different cover and it loaded without any trouble.

I remember when it loaded thinking, “Well, after all this, I hope it is good!” I am happy to say that it was a good read, but I had some trouble reading it. Before I get into that, here is the Goodreads synopsis:

A mystery she can’t remember. A friend she can’t forget.

I kept your secret Lucy. I’ve kept it for more than sixty years . . .

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother – who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community – she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life.

When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . .

Then Lucy goes missing.

2018. Edie is eighty-four and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There’s a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . .

I enjoyed this book a lot. I mentioned early that I had trouble reading it. This was not because it was difficult to understand or follow. The main character, Edie, is forgetful. She is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s or dementia. This is where it got to me, and I suppose it was in a good way.

My grandmother had dementia. In the early stages, she would repeat a lot of things. She would have to stop mid-sentence because she couldn’t come up with the right words. She’d forget ingredients when cooking meals. I can still remember us having dinner at her house one day. She told us she thought she was “getting that Alzheimer’s.” My grandma deteriorated pretty quickly and eventually had to go to a nursing home for care.

The thing about this book was that you are getting the story told by Edie. She acknowledges that she is having trouble remembering thing. She relays the frustration involved in that. She is well aware of those “episodes” where she can’t remember something. She also remembers how it felt to come out of them. She deals with them the best that she can.

When she sees her friend from all those years ago, little things jog her memory. She knows that she went missing. She struggles to put the pieces together to get the whole story. She knows that her memory is fading and she needs to know what happened. Thus begins her quest to find answers.

As I listened to Edie throughout this book, I couldn’t help but compare her to my grandma. I wondered if her thoughts were the same thoughts that Edie was having. The struggle that Edie feels as she tries to remember was painful and sad to hear. It truly made me understand how terrible it must have been for her.

That being said, it was a good read. I wasn’t able to figure out the ending, and Critchley does a good job bringing it all together. My only beef with the story itself was that I wanted to know a bit more about what happened next. But that’s just my opinion.

4 out of 5 stars.

Book Recommendation – Local Girl Missing

This is another book that was suggested to me by my wife. Local Woman Missing was a good read. This is the first book by Mary Kubica I have read. If her others are as good as this, I will have to add them to my list.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

People don’t just disappear without a trace….

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find….

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

This was really one of those books I couldn’t stop reading, well, listening to. The audio book was very well done. It is read from the point of view of four main characters. One of them is one of the missing women.

The book bounces back and forth between the present and the events of 11 years prior. As the two time lines move forward, little by little, things come together. I found myself wondering how some of the characters played into the story . Also, what role they may have played in the disappearances of the woman/women.

The ending is one I should have seen coming, but never did. I loved that it stumped me! Definitely worth a read!

4.5 out of 5 stars

Book Recommendation – None of This Is True

All I can say is, “Wow!” I could not put this one down. Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True was a novel that kept me wanting to know more.

I feel like I should give you the Goodreads synopsis before I start giving my thoughts, so here it is:

Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Right from the start, the characters are a bit odd. The podcaster, Alix, seems to be the most normal of them. Josie is a bit creepy, if I am being honest. The more she tells Alix, the more “off” she feels. The things she mentions, the things she says, and the things she does point to a very disturbed person.

With each chapter, you learn more and more about Josie and who she is. The thing is – you know she has done something, but you have no idea what that something is! Little by little and piece by piece the puzzle starts to come together. You get bits and pieces and I found myself wanting to know “what was that about?” “How does that tie in with what is going on?” “Did she really just ask here THAT!?”

The book reminded me of Listen For The Lie, which also revolves around a podcast. But None of This is True was even better, in my opinion. Lisa Jewell really hit it out of the park! It was a suspenseful thrill ride that I absolutely enjoyed.

5 out of 5 stars!

Book Recommendation: The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

I sure enjoyed The Storied Life of AJ Fikry. It was one of those books that I could see it as a movie while reading it. (Spoiler alert: they already made it into a movie).

I listened to the audiobook. The issue with audio books is that you don’t see the words. So I didn’t catch on to what the author was doing at the beginning of each chapter. They would start with an introduction of a book, which was often followed by AJ’s thoughts on them. It didn’t take long to put it together, though. I can easily see myself doing something similar for some special people in my life …

I digress. Let me give you the Goodreads synopsis before I say any more:

On the faded Island Books sign hanging over the porch of the Victorian cottage is the motto “No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World.” A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner, is about to discover just what that truly means.

A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island—from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who’s always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.’s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, but large in weight. It’s that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.

This was such a great story! As the synopsis says, the heart of the story is AJ’s “make over.” The people he is trying to avoid in the beginning all are so important to this make over. We see a man who is pretty much done with life being thrown a huge curve ball that steers his life in a new direction. As life often does, that isn’t the last bug curve ball that is thrown his way

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Books, and their connection to each character, also play a role in the story. They also tie all the chapters together.

I was only left asking one question when the book was over. Thinking about it now, it really wasn’t something that had to be answered. However, I was left wondering about the future of one character. Perhaps there will be a sequel, but it really wraps up in a way that fits the story.

I will probably find out where the movie is available to stream and see how it compares to the book . The story is one that I could easily find myself rereading.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review – The Accidental Further Adventures of the 100-Year-Old Man

Recently, I read Jonas Jonasson’s The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared. I really enjoyed the book and laughed out loud a lot. So when I stumbled on a sequel, I naturally had to read it.

Perhaps it is a given that most sequels are bad. I suppose I felt that this would be just as good or close to that when I picked it up. Sadly, I was disappointed. It truly lacked so much of what the first book had.

The first book had many flashbacks to the main characters past experiences, while this book was set almost exclusively in the present. The first book contained some political things, but this book has a lot more of it.

I probably should give you the the Goodreads synopsis here:

It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they could never have imagined that the captain of the ship would be harboring a suitcase full of contraband uranium, on a nuclear weapons mission for Kim Jong-un …

Soon Allan and Julius are at the center of a complex diplomatic crisis involving world figures from the Swedish foreign minister to Angela Merkel and President Trump. Things are about to get very complicated …

I listened to the audio book and the narrator was different from the first book. The fact that he voiced the old man in a very “throaty” voice was a bit annoying to me. His vocal interpretations of anyone in the book from the Koreas was very stereotypical sounding, while his Donald Trump was even more over the top than the real Trump.

I had hoped for a bit more adventure based on the synopsis, and to a degree there was some travel, but there was so much politics that I never really felt that I understood it all. As a matter of fact, when the book was over, I still wondered if that was the conclusion or if I was missing something.

All in all – a disappointing sequel that was best left unwritten. 2 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: The Edge of Sleep

Normally, I post what I would call a Book Recommendation, but I didn’t feel that this was one I would actually recommend. I will let you decide for yourself.

As many of you know, I work as a Sleep Technologist. When I saw the title of this book, I wondered if it might be something about sleep or dreams. When I saw that it was a novel, I read the synopsis. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

What if the whole world fell asleep…and didn’t wake up again?

Dave Torres, a night watchman in a placid coastal town, knows all about sleep troubles. Since childhood, he’s battled terrors and nightmares. Sometimes those battles leak into his waking life, with disastrous consequences for those he loves. Now Dave lives alone and self-medicates to neutralize his dreams. It’s not much of a life, he knows.

The morning after Independence Day, Santa Mira, California, is so quiet Dave can hear the ocean from miles away. Traffic signals blink from red to green over empty intersections. Storefronts remain locked up tight. Every radio station whispers static.

And all over town, there are bodies, lying right where their owners left them. Dead right where they slept.

Dave―along with his ex-girlfriend, Katie, his best friend, Matteo, and Linda, a nurse he’s just met―struggle to unravel the mystery before sleep overtakes them all.

Except the answer to the mystery might lie in the one place that frightens Dave His twisted, unnerving dreams. Now Dave and his friends must straddle the liminal boundary between life and death as they fight to save everyone they’ve ever loved―and to keep their eyes open.

Because if any of them falls asleep now, it will be the last thing they ever do.

Let me start out by saying that this had so much potential. I really had high hopes for this one. I read it based on the synopsis and the hope that it would be more of a rush to solve the mystery. By the time I got to the end of the book, I was left scratching my head wondering what they heck I had just read.

After I finished, I had to know if I was the only one who felt that way. I was not. The reviews were mixed. People either loved it or hated it. I won’t say that I hated it, I was just really disappointed with the way it ended. It didn’t make any sense to me. It almost had one of those “Tales from the Crypt” or “Creepshow” kind of endings.

I was surprised to find that in describing this book, Goodreads labels it: Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller, Fantasy and Mystery. To a degree, I can see where it might fit into each of those categories. It did have a little of each, but it was almost someone was trying to make a bunch of genre readers happy. It misses the mark, though.

I found out as I prepared for this blog that the book was made into a TV series of the same name. On IMDB it states: This a drama in podcast format. It was announced in April 2021 that popular YouTuber Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, is set to star in, and executive produce a TV series of the same name based on the podcast created by Chozen writers Jake Emanuel and Willie Block.

I don’t know want to knock the premise stemming from a podcast, because with the right stuff, it could be very entertaining. I don’t know how the show differs from the book, and I’m not sure I want to watch it to find out. If you would like to see for yourself, from what I can tell, the TV show can be watched on YouTube.

2 out of 5 stars from me.

Book Recommendation: The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip

“You have to be the friend people need while they are there with you, because it’s the only chance you’ll get.” – (The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip)

Sometimes the title of a book is enough to peak my interest. If you go back through some of the books I’ve read in the past year, you’ll find that a lot of the mysteries I’ve read had interesting titles. When I saw “The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip,” I truly believed this was going to be a murder mystery.

Even the synopsis made the think that there was some “mystery” to this story.

The Goodreads synopsis:

Aidyn Kelley is talented, ambitious, and ready for a more serious assignment than the fluff pieces she’s been getting as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. In her eagerness, she pushes too hard, earning herself the menial task of writing an obituary for an unremarkable woman who’s just entered hospice care. But there’s more to Clara Kip than meets the eye. The spirited septuagenarian may be dying, but she’s not quite ready to cash it in yet. Never one to shy away from an assignment herself, she can see that God brought the young reporter into her life for a reason. And if it’s a story Aidyn Kelley wants, that’s just what Mrs. Kip will give her—but she’s going to have to work for it.

Admittedly, the book was NOT what I expected. I gathered that from the first chapter or two. So how can I begin to tell you what it is about? This book is hard to describe, because I’ve not seen one quite like it before. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised. I felt that different is good in this case.

Before I go any further, I want to say that the book was Christian fiction. I was not aware of this when I began reading it. Not that it made a difference to me, as I am a Christian and was not offended in any way by the occasional quotes from Scripture, a character reading her Bible, or talk about God. It was a breath of fresh air to me.

That being said, I will be completely honest and warn that it may be a difficult read for someone who has recently lost a loved one. My mother passed from cancer in 2006, and there were things that happened in the book that took me back to those moments with her. It was a difficult book for me to read only because of that, but it was such an important part of the story.

While there are some incredibly sad parts in the book, they do not overshadow the wonderfully amazing happy and joyful parts. If I had to describe the book, I would say that it is unique, unusual, and extraordinary.

I was hooked from the very beginning. I listened to the audio version and it was one of those books that I may have to go and buy so I can have a physical copy. There were times that a character would say something and I wished I could highlight it to reread over and over. One reviewer said, “It’s the type of book that moves you to love more deeply and challenges you in your walk with God.” I would tend to agree.

At one point in the book, Mrs. Kip spots a leaf on a tree. She turns to the young reporter and says, “A leaf is a silent proverb. Did you ever consider that? When it buds on the tree, people rejoice. Throughout is prime, they love it for the shade it provides. But only when it reaches the end of its time on the tree does its brilliance come through. Sometimes yellow, sometimes orange, sometimes deep red. Dazzling in its artistry, like a drop of sunset you can see at all house of the day.” Clara (Mrs. Kip) smiled. “A leaf has the most extraordinary death. There is so much beauty to it.”

The above analogy really struck a chord with me. It was so very powerful. It was things like this that I could see myself highlighting and keeping.

I read some reviews of the books done by the blogging community and there were more than a few who said that they almost stopped reading the book for one reason or another. As they stuck with it, they were glad that they did and had high praise for the book. I was struck right from the get-go, even though it was not what I had expected the story to be.

5 out of 5 Stars from me.

Book Recommendation: The Secret Book of Flora Lea

Every once in a while a book on my “to read” list will sit on there a bit. Usually this is because I’ve read a negative review on Goodreads or maybe someone on one of the book related Facebook groups I belong to said they couldn’t finish it. I need to keep in mind that all book reviews (like music and humor) are subjective and that what I like, others may not and vice versa. That being said, I finally sat with The Secret Book of Flora Lea.

The thing that kept bringing me back to wanting to read it was the description listed on Goodreads and Amazon. There was something about the premise, the questions surrounding the mystery involved, and my curiosity about how it would end that kept peaking my interest.

Here is that Goodreads synopsis:

When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars . Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.

A tagline for the book reads, “A world war and a fairy tail collide…” and in a way, they do. However, the war is merely the setting and the catalyst that sets the story in motion.

I found that I enjoyed this book more than I anticipated I would. I really connected with the characters and found myself feeling for them. Without giving you spoilers, let me give an example. I could not imagine living in a place that was being threatened by enemy attack and having the government telling me that I needed to send my children away to stay with some other family until it was safe. That tore me up!

As the story progresses you pick up pieces along the way from the past and present to help solve the mystery. The make believe land of Whisperwood was a story that was only shared between the two sisters, so you cannot help but wonder how another author wrote about it in great detail. You wonder if the author is really the sister. You wonder if the sister told the author the story. Maybe the sister told somebody who told somebody else, etc… I wanted to know!

Not so much a spoiler here, but I will tell you that one of the things I loved about this book was that shortly before the book is over, the mystery is solved only to bring about a second mystery which brings you to the conclusion of the book.

I really enjoyed this book. I went back and read some of the negative reviews again and I laughed. I had finished the book and these reviews were saying what they didn’t like about the book and I thought, “that couldn’t be farther from the truth” and “that’s being so nitpicky.” Lesson learned – let others opinions stand alone and don’t let them influence you.

Am I saying that you will love the book? I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I liked it and I feel that others, including you, might like it as well.