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Review: The Hollywood Spy (Maggie Hope #10) by Susan Elia MacNeal
I fell in love with Maggie Hope long ago and watching her journey through these last 10 books has been so fun as a reader. We have seen her go from nervous secretary, to spy, through PTSD, and heartache. As we enter the 10th book in the series ,she is in many ways unrecognizable from the first book. As a reader you really get a sense of how the war changed her character and I think that’s what really makes this series shine. I haven’t always loved the direction that Maggie’s character has taken or choices that she has made but for me that’s what makes her so real and…
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Special Feature: A Rogue’s Company (Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery #3) by Allison Montclair
The Sparks and Bainbridge series is relatively young in its inception. I read the first two books but couldn’t get this one in this month—though I do plan on reading it later on this year. The series, overall, has been solid with loads of four and five star reviews flooding Amazon and Goodreads (mine among them!). Montclair is a talented writer when it comes to murder mysteries but one of the things I enjoy most about her books is the way that the mystery unfolds. It’s always thought out and polished. Since this series is still new, the author does a great job catching new readers up to speed with…
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Review: A Peculiar Combination (Electra McDonnell #1) by Ashley Weaver
I have really enjoyed Ashley Weaver’s Amory Ames books so when I saw she was coming out with a new lady detective series and with a heroine by the name of Electra (Ellie for short), I knew this was going to be a great, great read! Clearing my schedule, I added this one to my early summer reading list and I am so glad that I did! The Amory Ames series has been fun and I have liked the books I have read, but this book felt so much more complete for some reason (I will get to my thoughts on that in a minute!). Historical mysteries are my favorites,…
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Special Feature: Castle Shade (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #17) by Laurie R. King
I absolutely fell in love with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes when I randomly picked up The Bee Keepers Assistant years ago. I have since only read a few books in the series and sadly skipped around quite a bit. Now here we are with book 17 being released! I couldn’t believe how far behind I got in this series! Rather than skip around again by picking this one up, I decided to go back and re-read the other books in the series first. So in the coming months you will see more reviews for this series being posted! But I did want to get this one on your radar!…
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Special Feature and Excerpt: Dead Dead Girls (Harlem Renaissance Mystery #1) by Nekesa Afia
Nothing caught my eye faster than a new historical mystery series featuring an author and main character POC. I was thrilled to see something so tantalizing, new, and timely hitting book shelves this summer. I literally jumped at the change to feature this one! Glitzy speakeasies, the roaring 20s, murder, and a smart intelligent heroine—-need I say more!? While historical mysteries are a favorite of mine, sometimes they start to run together. Often they are set in England in the late Victorian era and the heroine is generally young, white and wealthy. A book like Dead Dead Girls breaks that tradition and moves toward something new, relevant, and enticing in…
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Special Feature: A Trail of Lies (Jazz Ramsey #3) by Kylie Logan
How can I pass on a book with a sweet pup on the cover? The answer is, I can’t! I would be lying if I said that this sweet little dog on the front didn’t suck me in because he totally did! I don’t really know much about the Jazz Ramsey series but I think the books sound like they are quick and fun mystery reads. Plus I mean they feature cadaver/rescue dog and I think that’s so cool and I am excited to read the books in this series. This book is the third in the series and from what I have read, I think it can be read…
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Special Feature: Death with a Double Edge (Daniel Pitt #4) by Anne Perry
If you love mysteries, Anne Perry will be a familiar author to you! While I haven’t read her books, I absolutely know the name! Her books are the ones that I walk past at the bookstores and think, ‘I need to read her books!’, but knowing that there are currently 32 books in her most popular series, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, it just seems daunting to go back and read them all! That’s why this series sounds so much more manageable! This latest book is fourth in the Daniel Pitt series and reading four books sounds much easier than reading 32. Perry is a prolific mystery writer with numerous, successful…
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Review: A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby Mysteries #9) by Anna Lee Huber
I have been a long time fan of all Anna Lee Huber’s books, but the Lady Darby series stands out as a favorite of all her books. I will gladly clear my calendar for any upcoming Anna Lee Huber book because they are just that good! This book is the ninth in the series and I will say that I encourage readers to start this series from the beginning. Some of the books could be read out of order but there are relationships and back stories that spread across multiple books, thus making it difficult for readers to fully appreciate the nuances of the characters and the mysteries. This book…
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Review: What the Devil Knows (Sebastian St. Cyr #16) by C. S. Harris
I absolutely love Sebastian St Cyr. I read the entire series last year in one long binge read. I adore the books and even if some of them have fallen into a bit of a formula, I still enjoy the characters so much. This one was high up on my TBR pile. I always set aside time in the early spring to read a new Sebastian mystery and I am never sorry about that. The mysteries are intelligent, a little on the gritty side, and full of questionable characters all with their own motives. Going into this one, I was fully ready for just that and I wasn’t disappointed! But…
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Review: Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #2) by Holly Jackson
One of my book club’s very first books was A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder last spring and we absolutely loved it and couldn’t put it down! So needles to say this book was our pick for March. While we all range in age from late forties to early thirties, the first YA mystery novel in this series kept us all inthralled! We all had high expectations for this one too. I will say though, we do have people in the book club who haven’t read the first book so we were a little nervous picking this one. But most of the early reviews that I read noted that this…