Review- The Lost Cats and Lonely Hearts Club

While covering a story, feisty network reporter Madison Shaw gets more than she bargained for when she rescues a box of orphaned kittens. Suddenly the glamazon of the Manhattan news room is doing two am feedings to keep these furbabies alive!

This is certainly a change of pace for the high maintenance workaholic she’s become and taking care of the kittens makes Madison realise how far off track she’s come—after all, she was a stray once too…

When a video of her caring for the kittens goes viral, she knows her image as a hardnosed reporter is shot to hell. What Madison doesn’t expect is the media circus that propels her and the kittens to stardom. And the domino effect that has on her, her career and her love life—especially when she meets sexy Officer Nick Marino!– Amazon

Labor Day is coming up and here is the perfect last beach read of the season. One woman on the wrong road to success and happiness finds the true path by rescuing four stray kittens.

Look, it is what it is- fun, nothing more. A perfect book to pick up, put down, and pick up again. You can see the predictable plot twists coming but that doesn’t make less enjoyable. It’s designed to give you happy, warm fuzzies and it does.

There are bad guys who get what they deserve, the hot, good guy who gets Madison, the best friends who each get a kitten (and  their own books), and Madison who gets everything a book heroine should get.

This is the perfect example of what a 3 star book should be. Read it.

Review- Twistered

My name is Dorothy. I live in Kansas. I’ve seen a few tornadoes in my day, but nothing like the one that dropped my dead ex-husband, Wade, on my doorstep in a crushed motor home. Wade looked almost as beat up as the RV when he spilled from the back door, his red sneakers sticking out.

That was just the beginning of a crazy Memorial Day weekend when I won a big contest (complete with cash and a car), was accosted by a studly FBI agent, uncovered an old case of blackmail, discovered my ex-love might still love me, dealt with the Wickeds motorcycle gang, managed the annual charity dog show…and nearly died from a gunshot wound.

I almost had the feeling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore….– Amazon

I read this book well over a year ago and never got around to a review. For me a cozy mystery is a light, entertaining read and Twistered is precisely that but with a, pardon the expression, twist.

The twist is Wilson’s adept marrying of a modern mystery in a fictional real world setting with the characters, settings, and plot points of the Wizard of Oz book, movie, and actors. She does it brilliantly, at times subtly, at times brashly, and she does it in a way that doesn’t interfere with the flow of the story.

She even manages to include monkeys.

The only problem for me was the ending, I’m picky about my endings, and this one seemed to drag on just a little too long but not enough to ruin the whole experience. An excellent example of what a carefully crafted cosy should be.

Review- The Forgotten Engineer

Ooh, boy, I went back to Amazon to check this ebook out and found this. This being “Newly Re-Edited and Re-Formatted“, never a good sign when it is the very first thing you see after the title.

It might have impressed me more if the description lived up to the claim.

At this time I want to bring back a crowd favorite, can you guess who?

Happy holidays from our favorite pigeon, Paul. Paul wants to express his opinion of the claim “Newly Re-Edited and Re-Formatted” in a way that pigeons excel at.  I don’t have to tell you, I don’t have to show you, you know what pigeons do best, right?

And speaking of telling and showing The Forgotten Engineer has massive issues with both, too much of the former and not enough of the latter. In fact, Engineer seemed to do what felt like 90% telling to 10% showing.

Authors, readers, reviewers all talk about showing not telling but somehow this author seems to have missed all the discussions to the detriment of this book. Paul, the author not the pigeon, talks his heroine and her story, what there is of it, into the ground. And he’s boring to boot.

I thought Engineer would be a sort of Castaway in space but I was sadly mistaken. Wilson, the soccer ball in Castaway, had more personality than Athena most of the time. Athena started out whiny and ended up whiny and hostile. Carver, the captain of the ship who finds her, is sort of bumbling and clueless, and Buckley, the captain of the doomed Redcoat is the sort of officer that usually meets his end at the hands of his fellow crewmembers. How could anyone so stupid and arrogant advance so far and be in command?  Because of Paul’s inability to craft a good character you could see their actions coming from a mile away.

Beyond the poor characterization was the sad lack of an engaging plot. You can’t spend a significant part of a book telling your readers a summary of life alone building a space station unless you’re one hell of a story teller and Paul isn’t.  There was too much of “I built this and almost died when it …” or “when I built this I lost 3 drones because…”, well why are you telling me this? Why aren’t you showing me? Instead of a straight timeline from past to present Paul chose to jump back and forth chapter to chapter. I don’t know if this was because he didn’t feel up to the task of trying to craft an interesting straightforward timeline, didn’t want to, or because he thought the back and forth timeline would be more interesting. It isn’t. The question of whether Athena will be found stops at chapter 2.

I’ve spent too much time on this lost cause. The truly depressing thing is that Paul has written 10 “books” in this series plus others. I say “books” because none of them top out over 190 pages (hey, if they’re short you don’t have to bother with pesky details like character development and a well executed plot). After reading his bio on Amazon I guess he thinks cranking out 25 pieces of work in two years is something to be proud of. Not when the quality is this lacking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review- Putting My Foot Down

To be perfectly clear, I don’t “hate” it, but why would I pay to read an expanded version of his 2/23/16 Observer article? The original piece was all you needed to read to learn how to upload more badly written or barely written dreck to Kindle. There is far, far too much as it stands so no thanks to you, Underwood.

Read the original and spend your money on a Kindle author that is honestly trying.

And Underwood? The cover would have been better if the foot had polished nails. Nothing too bright, maybe a soft, shimmery pastelto add a little eye-catching color.

Death and Relaxation on sale today!

On sale on Amazon Kindle for $0.99 today.

I’ve read Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series and the Terric and Shame duology and enjoyed both but Ordinary was so much more fun.

It’s time for the annual Rhubarb Rally and police chief Delaney Reed and her sisters (and sister officers) have their hands full with the influx of tourists. And Delaney is still trying to figure out what or if she should do about the return of Ryder Bailey who she has crushed on since grade school. Then her ex-boyfriend returns unannounced, Death decides to vacation in Ordinary, and a god is murdered.

A god can die in Ordinary but his power doesn’t. The power is held inside one mortal, Delaney, and she has seven days to find the person the power will accept. Failure means death- for her and the town of Ordinary.

This was a fast romp with exploding rhubarb, perambulating caped concrete penguins, and baked goods.

Brides of Serenity: Book One

Just it time for holiday gifting or for the flu-ridden shut in, like me, or just because it sounds so good.

A Goode One

Every time I set up a pre-order for my newest book and have a firm deadline to complete my manuscript, the universe starts screwing with me. Something always goes wrong and I end up stressing myself out trying to hit a deadline while life spins out of control around me. So this time around, I didn’t set a firm release date. I set a date in my mind, but kept it to myself.

I figured I could outsmart the universe.

How’d that work out for me?

So glad you asked.

This happened:

Then this:

Followed by a lot of quality time spent with this:

And copious amounts of this:

And just when I finally started feeling like this again —

— I found out about this:

But somehow, despite all of that, guess what happened?

This:

Letters to Caroline is now available on Amazon! It’s on sale for only .99…

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June and July Ebooks Read

Dumping a bunch of books off my phone and wanted to sort of rate them before they disappeared.
Hope(less) 2.5 at best. Intriguing in parts but only in parts it seemingly stretched out like an endless drive on a flat road through =desert. Gabby and Clay’s relationship developes slowly but weirdly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vampires Never Cry Wolf-Fun and fluffy, Sadie fights her attraction to the werewolf prince Killian but Killian is dead set on having a relationship with vampire Sadie. I enjoyed this as the light, fun read it is- 3.5. I did not enjoy hearing the werewolf king be addressed as Your Highness, get a Debrett’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hollywood Homicide- 3.5 again. I liked Kate and her new partner, Ted. This is the first book in this series I’ve read. A good little murder mystery. Kate and her sister find a way to a closer familial relationship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firefighter Dragon- Shifters reach a new level of absurdity when a dragon shifter is a firefighter. Also dragons duel by listing their most valuable pieces in their horde. 2.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Witch Is When It All Began- PI Jill is trying to investigate a possible serial killer and trying to come to grips with the fact she’s a witch. 2.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Sickness and In Elf- 3.5 A human wedding planner finds out the family wedding planning business does a brisk business in paranormal wedding planning and someone is trying to sabotage it. I’ll probably read more in this series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death with a Cherry on Top- A lackluster mystery too easily solved by two sisters and their large Italian family. 2 at most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copper King- A werewolf and a werebear get together for an annual just-between-friends contest and the bear finds his mate. Even after I looked at a few pages I could not remember what this was about. 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maggie For Hire- 4 Of all the books listed here this is the one where I will read more from this author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden:Prequel- Turns out I read another book in this series and they aren’t bad. 3.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smoke and Mirrors:  Blackhollow Academy- 3.5 to 4.  Kimberly just wants to graduate and secure a good position in a coven so she can take care of her non-magical mother but Kimberly doesn’t have the necessary skills and now she needs a really powerful familiar to get her through graduation and into the job of her dreams. If only she can find an obliging dragon. Here is another series I will continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Aura and Double Blind- Read the first book and got halfway through the second when I realized I didn’t like most of the characters. The plot got me through the first one but I just don’t find the characters, including the heroine, all that interesting. 3

 

 

 

 

 

Undercover Gorgon- Episode 1- Patrice is a gorgon who borrows magical objects from her day job at Mt Olympus to help out people in trouble. Short reads, this one was 46 pages, I’v got the second one waiting to be read. 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleuthing for a Living- 2.5 A single mother inherits a building and a PI business from her late uncle and decides to try to continue the business. It sounded more interesting than it turned out- at least to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ondine- Did not connect with this book at all. 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deadly Remains- A murder, a clairvoyant, a lot of police. I think in time I will like this series more than I do now. Interesting enough to make me pick up the next book. 3.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trinkets, Treasures, and other Bloody Magic- I stopped at 97% I was that annoyed. I could see the “big bad plot” coming a mile away in the dark. 2

 

Death & Detention

I am really enjoying this book. David is offering D&D in five episodes, the first being free. After reading it I bought the book.

In the affluent town of Augustine, being picture-perfect means everything. Which is why the powers that be are so willing to write off a troubled teen’s suspicious death as an accident.

But when seventeen-year-old outsider Prudence Mallory finds an anonymous letter that makes her classmate’s death look like a homicide, she can’t turn away from the mystery. -Amazon

Two sentences that do not do justice to Prudence. She is simply, for me, the best 17 yr old heroine I have read in a long time. Mind you, I am only at 44% but Prudence has not disappointed.

Prudence is no stranger to what happens when doing the right thing makes you the pariah, she’s done that and is still there. She knows that her digging into the “accidental” death of a classmate isn’t going to make her popular but she believes that justice for Anna  is more important than being invited to the right parties- or any parties.

She can wield a mean can of coke, she has a bright pink scooter and a cell phone. She knows when a dumb idea is dumb but if that’s her only idea she’ll make it work out- somehow.

Oh, Prudence Mallory, I love you.

 

Death and Relaxation- Review

It seems lately that I have read nothing but pretty bad books and that’s not true. Devon Monk has given us the gift of Ordinary, Oregon and the mortals, gods, and paranormals who live and vacation there.

I’ve read Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series and the Terric and Shame duology and enjoyed both but Ordinary was so much more fun.

It’s time for the annual Rhubarb Rally and police chief Delaney Reed and her sisters (and sister officers) have their hands full with the influx of tourists. And Delaney is still trying to figure out what or if she should do about the return of Ryder Bailey who she has crushed on since grade school. Then her ex-boyfriend returns unannounced, Death decides to vacation in Ordinary, and a god is murdered.

A god can die in Ordinary but his power doesn’t. The power is held inside one mortal, Delaney, and she has seven days to find the person the power will accept. Failure means death- for her and the town of Ordinary.

This was a fast romp with exploding rhubarb, perambulating caped concrete penguins, and baked goods.

I liked the relationship between the sisters, the feeling that Delaney is still learning the position she inherited from her late father, the way she loses all rational thought when Ryder walks into view.

If I had one complaint it would be the finding-the-new-god part, even I had that figured out chapters before Delaney. It lacked  subtlety.

But the dialogue, it was wonderful.

“”Rhubarb exploded,” I said, answering his first question.

“You don’t often see that in the heritage strains,” he said.”

 

“The door to the office opened and Jean sauntered in with a gust of cool air. “Guess who got her box filled with free hot donuts this morning?”

“Please tell me that’s not a euphemism,” Myra drawled.”

 

“”And I am a man of my word.”

“Do those words include ‘breaking’ and ‘entering’?”

…

“”I know those words,” he admitted. “But only one of them might be on the agenda tonight.””

 

Book two is due out in July and I can’t wait to go back to Ordinary and see what happens next.

 

Error Code- Part II

R K Howard left a comment on my Amazon review. He was courteous and professional. So while I won’t recommend Error Code Howard has 3 other offerings on Amazon, so go and look and maybe one or more will interest you.

This one caught my eye. I ride the bus, a mass transit detour story might be just the thing to read on the Ride.

 

Or not.