Not what I expected.

I was promised: "an insightful, funny and straight-shooting narrative". Well, I didn't find the narrative insightful or funny and I'm at a loss what it was shooting straight at. It's the rather dull musings of a single woman that's happy with her life but not OK with being single. (Although near the end she says she is, after 15 years of dating-failures.)

It didn't help that many of the anecdotes or insights were accompanied by "LOL", "Wahaha" or "Waa". This was supposedly the narrative of a 42-year old. If she can't write like a grown-up, what makes her think she's mature enough for an adult relationship?

I was sort of expecting a book along the lines of Inappropriate Men by Stacey Ballis, which I didn't think was a good book either, but still better than this. There's 4.5 pages on how scammers on online dating sites work. And that's without mentioning that the dating site itself could be scamming you.

I guess if I want to read about a woman not being able to meet the right guy, I prefer it to be an actual story, with plot and dialogue. And actual humour.

Definitely not a "must-read for single women in their late-20s, 30s and 40s".

I read a copy of this book through Netgalley.

I have no idea what either the title or the cover of the book have to do with the actual story. The murder victim was cremated and there's no mention anywhere of books flying all over the place.

The narrative of this story is pretty detailed, so if it wasn't mentioned, it didn't happen.

Carrie Singleton has a few problems on her hands. She's made Sunshine representative, meaning she has to show the employer and co-workers care when an employee is taken ill. There are homeless people hanging out at the library because they have no place else to go, and some of them are causing trouble. Then Dorothy Hawkins, a co-worker no one really liked, first makes a nasty fall and when she returns to work she's driven off the road and killed.

Carrie has some experience in solving crimes and the library's ghost in residence was Dorothy's aunt, so Carrie decides to do some snooping. She's warned off from this by her friend the cop, her boyfriend the investigator and another friend the lawyer. And some unknown person tries to intimidate her too.

I liked this story at the start, because it was well written and not too simplistic. But later on, the details and the repetitiveness of some statements got to me. Plus, the story lacked focus on the murder mystery. None of the characters was ever seriously considered a murder suspect.

In the end I was left feeling mwah about the book.

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

2.5 stars. I can't make myself be more generous than that. The writing was simplistic, Maggie's inability to talk with her grandmother about 'death cleaning' plain dumb (as was the pretend break-up) and Maggie exhibited some first-rate too stupid to live behaviour. Oy.

The town of Pelican is hosting the Cajun Country Live! festival and local girl that made it big Tammy Barker is back in town to perform at the festival, and to be a pain in the backside of Gaynell, a girl Tammy bullied in highschool. Tammy sets Gaynell - an aspiring musician herself - up with her manager Pony, but Pony tells Gaynell she won't make it in the music business because she doesn't have sex appeal. Things come to real blows when Tammy finishes her set at the festival with a song Gaynell wrote and had wanted to use for her own set. Gaynell leaves making threats to Pony.

Shortly after, Pony is killed by electrocution.

Gaynell is the main suspect, because making threats gives you motive. Because Gaynell is her friend and she can't believe the girl would do such a thing, Maggie Crozat steps in to investigate. She even goes as far as to go on a pretend break-up with her fiancé so she can get closer to the musicians in Tammy's support band. Why out-of-town musicians would be interested in small town gossip about a couple's break up is beyond me.

Strangely enough, they are into the local gossip and let Maggie hang out with them to mend her broken heart. Ugh.

There's a large cast of characters. Probably too large to get a connection to any of them. Mainly, I didn't get a connection to Maggie, the sleuth, who is a woman of strong, but shallow emotions. It was an enjoyable story, though. And I probably won't pass if I come across any of the other books in the series.

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

And Then They Were Doomed is the fourth book in the Little Library series, but the first for me. And also the last. Too literary and slow paced for me. It took the characters 25 pages to open an envelop! And too dark. I like my mysteries to be light reading.

I was disappointed too in the quality of the mystery. It's not until almost halfway into the story that the mystery starts. Oh, there were a few subtle clues before, but mainly before there was darkness and rain. But soon after that, the mystery bogs down again (must be all that rain). Zoe Zola keeps thinking the whole thing is about her. Even though it is pretty obvious something else is going on. Zoe does some digging on the Internet, when on one trip to the outside world, but mainly the story is a lot of waiting until the big reveal in the end.

Two stars for the story, but I'm tempted to dock a further star because I don't like the ethics of the characters. Murderers have skewed ethics, for sure. I expect better from main characters.

Spoiler

At the very least, she could have mentioned that conspiring to commit murder is a crime too. So, no, if a group of people kills a person, they don't all get off scott free because not a single person can be held responsible. What kind of crooked reasoning is that?

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

I had to start this book over. The first time I started reading it, I had to put it aside after about 25 pages because Felicity’s many good deeds for her servants just annoyed me too much. And how did she get into university? Didn’t she need the permission of her disapproving father?

Second time round - I just glossed over those points.

Felicity Carrol is a young woman of independent means. All her close relatives have died and she is now the owner of a rather successful company. A company she doesn’t seem to run, though she does make efforts to improve the work circumstances for the employees. By introducing education and machines. When she’s not doing that she likes to solve crimes she reads about in the newspapers.

The novel opens with Felicity tracking down a female serial killer. She read all about this woman (including her name) in a newspaper, so how it is possible that the police were unable to find this killer is a little beyond me.

Then Felicity is called to the sick bed of her friend Inspector Jackson Davies. He got sick because he did not take care of himself in his hunt for Jack the Ripper. Jackson shows Felicity an article that suggests the Whitechapel murders have stopped because the murderer relocated to the USA. Felicity decides to follow in his track.

How I wish the author had done some better research.

Though I can to a degree overlook how intimate Felicity and Jackson are towards each other (even if Victorian British were even more formal to a fault than today’s Brits), I can’t comprehend how much money Felicity is spending on buying information. 1890’s dollar has more than 28 times the purchasing power of today’s dollar. In other words, if you spend $20 in 1890 that would be like spending $575 today. Who even carries that much money around in their purse?

The subject matter - tracking down Jack the Ripper - makes this story grittier than is usual for the cozy genre. I think I prefer the more lighthearted cozies, but perhaps that is due too to liking other cozy heroines better. I didn’t start to get an appreciation for this story until the final confrontation with the murderer. That’s a bit late.

I received a reader copy through NetGalley.

Jane Marsh first fumbles a Murder Mystery Game at a B&B and the next morning stumbles upon a murder. While Jane, her fiancé and their friends do the tourist thing (visit the peach festival, local wineries, etc.) and Jane and Dale make their wedding arrangements, Jane ponders about who could be the murderer. She soon finds that almost everyone she considers a suspect is also someone she wants to do business with for her wedding. That makes her all the more determined to solve the case, as she can't do business with a murderer.

Though the mystery is interesting, I never really got into the story. I found the narrative boring. In particular, the paragraphs that detailed where everyone moved (Jane went X, Doug and Dale went Y, then Olivia and Jane overtook them to go Z.) I guess I like the stories with a close third person narrative or first person narrative better. Stories where there is more running commentary from the main character.

Here, there isn't much commentary on the events of the story and where there is, it isn't always clear who the commentary is coming from. For instance the comment: "Olivia was going a bit too far now." Was that Jane's opinion or the author's?

It does get better later on, when Jane is on her own. But that's so far into the book, if I hadn't received this book for free in exchange for a review (and wanted to make an honest effort for a review), I probably would have put it on my maybe-later stack already.

I read a copy of this book through Netgalley.

The book started out all right with a good setting of the scene. But once the murder happened it completely lost the plot.

There's no snooping by the bakery owner, there are no multiple suspects discussed, no red herrings thrown this way and that, and in the end, the police solves the murder. All very much not like a cozy.

The Country Inn Mystery is part of the Jenny Starling Series. Most books in this series have previously been published under the penname Joyce Cato as part of the Travelling Cook Mystery Series. This title had not been previously published, but reading through the reviews of other books in this series I see gripes that bothered me in this book too. So either Faith Martin decided to continue writing in style for the series, or this story was written as part of the original run, but shelved.

Jenny Starling, travelling cook, has found herself a job as replacement cook at the Spindlewood Inn while the regular cook takes a holiday. The first weekend of Jenny's tenure (she hasn't even unpacked yet) Muriel and Richard Sparkey, proprietors of Spindlewood Inn, host the Regency Extravaganza: a weekend where guests dress-up in Recency period clothes, the local am-dram group plays scenes from a local legend and even the meals fit the time period.

The local legend is a story of a young woman married to a much older man, finding a young lover. The husband kills the young lover in a duel and the woman drowns herself.

The lead time to the actual murder is rather long. The author takes her time to show almost all the characters may have a gripe with the eventual victim. I like it more to find out everyone had a motive after the murder. Also, I like being surprised who is the victim.

Other than that, the mystery is interesting. And it is not for that I did not like this story much.

It's because I found Jenny annoying. Annoying how she always just happened to be around when people said useful things. Annoying everyone loved all of her food. Annoying the two police detectives were impressed by her detecting skills. "[Lucy] conceded rather reluctantly that the cook's logic seemed sound." Well, if she thought about it for five seconds longer, Lucy could have found a flaw in the logic.

There's another peeve: when the police are made to look dim. Here the police were made to look unduly dim. Asking witnesses leading questions rather than open questions; jumping to conclusions even if they have enough evidence their conclusion is wrong; not (threatening to) arresting Jenny when she claims to know who's the murderer, but doesn't say immediately who, rather walks them through it. (The walking through can also be done after the reveal of the murderer.)

In the end one mystery wasn't solved: why did the cook of Spindlewood Inn take her holiday in the same week as her employers host an Extravaganza? That sounds like bad planning.

There is something to be said for the writer's advice: when you see an adverb, kill it. (For the word "naturally" in particular, I recommend a hunting party.)

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

Durf te schrijven! is geschreven in eenvoudig Nederlands. Dat irriteerde mij enorm. Fictie schrijven is niet alleen het vertellen van een verhaal, maar ook een spel met taal. Dat spel met taal miste ik hier.

In korte hoofstukjes worden de belangrijkste onderdelen van verhalen behandeld: dat een verhaal een hoofdpersoon nodig heeft en dat deze persoon iets moet willen en dat je de lezer moet laten zien hoe de persoon zich voelt. Nergens gaat het echt de diepte in (het hoofdstuk Couleur locale laat wel goed zien waarom Carry zelf niet van beschrijving houdt: ze is er heel slecht in.)

De held van dit verhaal is wat mij betreft Elles, en de cartoons van Aimée de Jongh.

Silly little book.

Rachel Levis finds a dead body in the men's room of a café. Ten days later the police ask Rachel - who has some experience solving a murder - to go undercover at the place of work of the dead man. Apparently, his former colleagues all disliked the man, but they are not saying why and the police can't make them.

So Rachel goes undercover and finds out why the dead man was disliked. But is no closer to finding out who did it, when two weeks later there is another murder. Rachel is then asked to sit in on the witness interviews because two may hear more than one. If that wasn't eye-rolling enough, the police tells each of the witnesses to not leave Paris. Seriously? Even a person that is formally considered a suspect and is placed under court supervision can go anywhere except leave France, but a person that can barely be considered a witness can't even leave town?

In the acknowledgements Emilia Bernhard mentions a few books that helped her get law details right. I think she forgot to research whether a French police capitaine has the same stature as a Wild West sheriff.

Anyway, the witnesses who are foreigners are all suspects, but for some reason, the French nationals that were present near the stacks at the time the second murder happened are not. I know French people are nationalistic, but this is silly. Neither the author nor the amateur sleuth is French so what is with this preoccupation to investigate the Brits and the American?

Rachel and her friend Magda stumble through the investigation. They do a lot of silly things and make silly assumptions. They are corrected when they do, or at least called out on it. This doesn't really stop them doing their investigations. And while usually I think it is stupid for the murderer to come after the sleuth (as often that is the one thing that gives them away), in this story I was actually looking forward for the murderer to come after Rachel and give her a good scare or knock some sense into her.

I read an ARC through Netgalley.