Monday, August 31, 2020

"Kitty Confidential" by Molly Fitz

 When trying to get an ancient coffeemaker in the office to work, Angie is accidentally electrocuted by it instead. When she awakes, she discovers that the cat who was there for the reading of his owner's will is sitting on her chest and complaining… and that she alone can understand everything he is saying.


Octo-Cat, as she soon starts calling him, tells her that his human had not died of natural causes, but had instead been murdered. Now he needs her to help him both prove that fact and to bring the killer to justice.


This was a fun little cozy mystery and a great introduction to the "Pet Whisperer P.I." series. Belonging to several cats myself, I enjoyed seeing Angie and Octo-Cat become acquainted & learn how to live with each other as they work together to find a killer.


The author did a great job of showing the true behavior of a cat at both his best and his worst, as well as how even someone who may claim to not really like the cat at first can rapidly realize that they do love the little fuzzball after all. (Just ask my husband, a man who at first merely tolerated my cats, but eventually came to be claimed as "her human" by one one of them.)


I enjoyed this book and will very definitely be continuing on and reading more of the books in this series. Recommended for anyone who enjoys cozy mysteries and fun cat tales.


Monday, August 24, 2020

"Andromeda's Reign"
by K.S. Haigwood & Anne Conley

In the beginning of this book, Andromeda has gone with Ace to train as an Alpha in Las Vegas. Her pack will be under the authority of her Beta for the next month while she is gone, though they can easily contact her should the need arise.

That month will be a difficult one with Andromeda fighting against the growing feelings she is feeling for Ace & trying to hold onto her love of the vampire (Pheonix). But is that even possible or will she wind up falling for Ace? And if she does, are any of those feelings real? After all, she and Ace seem to need to stay close enough to physically touch each other or they both suffer.


Like the first two books in this series, I enjoyed this one. Watching Andromeda learn more about herself as well as Ace, his pride, and what it means to be the Alpha of a group was something I greatly enjoyed. Like anyone else does in life, everyone in this story made mistakes. Whether those mistakes involved feelings or knowledge shared/kept secret, it made the characters all the more relatable.


I loved the ending and the surprise contained therein, but it feels like there is another book in the series that has yet to be written. (At least I'm assuming it has yet to be written as I couldn't yet find it on Amazon.)


And while yes, the ending did wrap up my questions from this book, it left me very much wanting to find out what will happen in the next one. I want to see how the characters will deal with the new challenges & difficulties that they were left with at the end of this book. Clearly, I'll just have to wait to see what happens once the next book comes out, and I will be waiting as patiently as I can.


Monday, August 17, 2020

"Burdened Mail Order Bride
and her Reserved Widower"
by Florence Linnington

Jane has not had an easy life. Raised in an orphanage and from there winding up homeless, marrying an abusive man, and once again finding herself about to be homeless after her husband died, she sought a way out as a mail order bride.


Unfortunately, it turned out the man who paid her way out west was not seeking a wife, but women he could trap into becoming saloon girls working for him and forcing them into selling their bodies to his customers. 


But luckily a kind piano player rescued Jane from this deceitful and cruel man bringing her to the nearby town of Evergreen where she could work at Cassidy's saloon, a place where the women were paid & treated well, and where they didn't sell themselves to the customers.


I enjoyed reading this story. Unlike in some of her other books, we were given the chance to see the ways many women who were unfortunate in how their lives had progressed sometimes were forced to resort to in order to support themselves when they didn't have a man to protect and care for them.  It showed us a sometimes darker side of the lives people were often forced into through a lack of other options available to them.


And yet, despite the harshness of life, as with her other stories, I had to believe that this story would have the happy ending that I have come to expect from Ms. Linnington's tales. This book did not disappoint me, though there were many twists and turns that Jane needed to overcome that some of Ms Linnington’s other characters have never needed to face.  


As with her other books, if you enjoy a good mail order bride tale, I would suggest giving this one a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed.


Monday, August 10, 2020

"The Bunyan Barter" by Addie J King

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Janie Grimm and her housemates are awakened in the middle of the night by a very large man in a red flannel shirt chopping down the tree in her back yard while sobbing about someone having been taken. 

 After calming everyone down and realizing they are in no danger from their late night visitor, everyone returns inside to start up the coffee, breakfast, and call up the rest of the F.A.B.L.E.S. group to come and help solve the mysteries involved in this tale. 

 This book was centered around mainly American Legends and Tall tales. In this case Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe has been kidnapped and someone is threatening to kill him if the apple heir is not brought to a meeting happening on the American Holiday. There's just one small problem… no one knows who the apple heir is, where exactly the exchange is supposed to take place, or what the real motive behind it all actually is. 

 This time around, we get to see & learn about a lot of those who are featured in American tall tales and legends. Most of the new characters encountered were ones that I had grown up hearing about, plus a few that were new to me. The ones that I was familiar with were portrayed much as I would have expected them to be, with enough extra personality added in so as to not have them come across as solely one dimensional characters. 

 I enjoyed this story, as well as the emotional conflicts that were happening as part of the secondary background tale, allowing us to see all the characters as fully developed individuals with problems of their own to deal with while they were busy trying to help solve magic and legend-based troubles. 

I believe that anyone who enjoys tall tales or stories of legendary historical figures will get a kick out of reading this one. I myself found it a very fun story to read and one that contains a great deal of emotion.

Monday, August 3, 2020

"Shadow of the Champion"
by Clara C. Johnson

After her adventure in “Rise of the Champion,” Serra was given the title of Champion of Adhelm and sent immediately on a mission to arrange a peace treaty with the Queen of Crelia. But as always, nothing is ever simple or goes as planned.

From the very beginning, Serra and her companions run into one problem after another, and at first it even seems as if they made the voyage from Sostar for nothing. But it appears that fate is finally on her side when an opportunity presents itself that could prove Serra's worth to the queen and maybe even give her a chance to accomplish her mission.

This story takes quite a number of unexpected twists along the way, sometimes helping Serra move forward on her task for the queen, and other times causing her to fall back several steps & almost needing to start over from scratch.

But each encounter, whether helpful or problematic for the characters, kept me reading and wanting to know what would happen next and whether or not Serra would be able to solve the queen's request and accomplish her mission, or whether they would have to return home unsuccessful in brokering peace between the two countries. (But don’t worry, I won’t spoil the ending for you.)

I think readers will enjoy this book, especially if they read and enjoyed the first book in the series. As in the first book, the author has woven a story that made me want to keep reading to find out what would happen next. I'm already looking forward to reading the author's next book to learn what will happen in the third book in this series as I have definitely been enjoying it so far.

Mail Order Bride’s Promise, <br>by Florence Linnington

Clara moved from England to America with her sister, brother-in-law, and their baby boy. She had been looking forward to a grand adventure i...