June 2019

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
Another solid British mystery by one of the most "English" writers out there today. Once again, as in the first book of this series The Word is Murder,  author Anthony Horowitz teams up with the curmudgeonly retired London detective, Daniel Hawthorne, to solve another twisty mystery. Yes, the author puts himself in the book, as well as much of his life, as he and Hawthorne partner again to figure out who murdered the famous divorce attorney. Many suspects abound (think Agatha Christie) and Horowitz continues to be the bumbling idiot as Hawthorne steal every scene as well as every good line. I often found myself chuckling out loud as I quickly turned pages to find out 'whodunnit.' Horowitz has yet to disappoint me so if you are looking for a solid, witty, intelligent mystery, this is it.

How Not to Die Alone by Richard Roper
In a community council office the job is to go into dead peoples' homes and figure out if they have any family or loved ones who would bury them. They have died alone, but have they lived a solitary life? This is the question that haunts Andrew as he and his new partner, Peggy, search through bed mattresses, kitchen cupboards, and boxes of old cards to find someone who cared about the deceased. Yet Andrew has his own dark secrets, one that has led to him creating a family of his own that does not truly exist, covering up his solitary life in a lonely bedsit in London amidst his model train set. What does one do when a simple white lie turns into a huge white whale that just won't go away? This lovely little book combines elements of The Rosie Project with A Man Called Ove and is utterly delightful.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
This is the new hot fantasy book that is supposed to take the place of Game of Thrones for us junkies. Quite frankly, I was underwhelmed. It has a great premise...a fantasy world that is divided between dragon haters and dragon worshippers, and now the big kahuna dragon who almost destroyed the world a thousand years ago is on his way back. Can the separates countries bond together and defeat them as one? The story follows some potentially intriguing characters like a dragon rider, a mage sent to protect the queen, a lord who becomes a spy, the young queen who must produce an heir. It is an incredibly long book at well over 800 pages, and I just did not find the characers or story that compelling. It was fine. But for that long of a book, I need gripping, on-the-edge-of-my-seat story lines and characters that I root for. My biggest problem was the lack of a serious antagonist - it would have made this book more compelling for me.

Waisted by Randy Susan Myers
I am a huge fan of two former books by Myers, The Widow of Wall Street and Accidents of Marriage. Those two books were able to engage me deeply in the characters, which is my favorite kind of story. However, this book was a miss for me. I felt like it struggled to find what it wanted to be? Was it a tale of a "fat farm" gone wrong, where dieters were abused in order to compel them to lose weight? Or was it a story of race or of women's friendships or of marriage issues or parenting problems? I just could not tell. I just never cared enough about any of the women to either cheer for them or against them. Perhaps it is written for a different audience than me. I am thankful to Net Galley for a free book in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Stone by Mark Bowden
The author of Black Hawk Down, a rave review in the New York Times, and I figured this was a great true-crime novel to download and listen to...I was mistaken. It IS a compelling story: decades ago two young sisters go to a mall and are never seen again. It was the biggest crime story in the Baltimore area back in the 1980's as a cub reporter followed up every detail. As the main suspect continuously lies to police and reporter when they interview him in prison, he constantly changes his story. This creates a LOT of repetition. While we see the clues revealed and the ending is intriguing, I was anxiously awaiting the end of the book. Not the best listen, to say the least, but excellent detective work.

Verity by Colleen Hoover
What am I missing on this book? So many people are raving about it, but wow, it was a huuuuge miss for me. In other words, I will never get those three hours back. Ostensibly a thriller about a young woman hired by the husband to finish a book series while his wife is in a coma. But really, it seemed to be just a book about the different ways the ghost-writer and husband could have sex, with an extremely predictable ending. Blech is all I have to say. It just does not deserve a picture.