The Unkindness of Ravens

Title: The Unkindness of Ravens
Author: M.E. Hilliard
Published: April 13th 2021 by Crooked Lane Books
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Greer Hogan Mystery #1

From the cover, I was expecting a book along gothic lines. That is not what M. E. Hillard was offering. Other than Raven Hill library being housed in an old manor complete with weary groans and creaking floors, a raven, and sudden storms, the creepy feeling does not carry through the book.

Needing a change after the death of her husband, Greer Hogan leaves New York City and an executive-level career to reinvent herself as a small-town librarian. Not allowing herself to open up to too many people, she takes a chance and befriends Joanna Goodhue, a member of the Friends of the Library organization. When Greer discovers Joanna’s battered body at the bottom of a narrow stairway, she must divulge her past before the police uncover it on their own and decided Greer is their one and only suspect.

As a bookish researcher and wanna-be girl detective in the style of Trixie Belden, Greer uses her skills to start poking around. Stepping on too many toes and more than once being told to back off, Greer does what she has to since she feels she owes her friend. Greer is hoping all along that she is on the right track and doesn’t let down yet another person who had depended on her.

The middle is a bit longwinded and more twisty than it needs to be, but eventually, the pieces and gossip start coming together. By the conclusion, the reader realizes that Greer isn’t finished when it comes to her sleuthing ways, and “The Unkindness of Ravens” is just opening the door for Greer Hogan as she contemplates returning to New York City to solve the mystery of her murdered husband.

Infinite

Title: Infinite
Author: Brian Freeman
Published: March 1st 2021 by Thomas & Mercer
Format: Kindle Edition, 328 pages
Genre: Thriller

This book is going to stay with you for a while. You are going to find yourself looking around to figure out if your perceived reality is true or if there is something just slightly off. Something that you can’t put your finger on, but the lines are not matching up in the way they should.

Dylan Moran has fallen to a depth that he cannot get climb out of after the death of his wife. They were trying to find their way back from an affair, there was a car accident, Dylan swam away from his submerged car but his wife Karly wasn’t so lucky. On the bank of the river, he calls for help. He saw a man standing there unwilling to lend a hand, but there was something oddly familiar about the silhouette. Dylan’s mind must be playing tricks because he swears that he saw his double staring back at him.

As a hotel events manager Dylan has had his fair share of people come through the door of his hotel but when Eve Brier states that Dylan himself had invited her, and he knows that they have never met, another rabbit trail opens in Dylan’s head. But this time, there may be no coming back.

Brian Freeman takes his readers on a journey of alternative lives and alternate realities. As he chases his multiple doppelgangers through new doorways, in hopes of finding his beloved wife Karly, the reader is quick to following along and hopes that something somewhere will make all the links come together. That is before one of his selves, a serial killer, kills another Karly look-alike.

You all have read the Frost poem of roads not taken, well, Brian Freeman has opened that path for his readers, and now we will see which road Dylan Moran is willing to take.

Murder in the Cookbook Nook

Title: Murder in the Cookbook Nook
Author: Ellery Adams
Published: April 27th 2021 by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Format: Kindle, Paperback, 336 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Book Retreat Mysteries #7

Ellery Adams has brought my two favorite things together. Reading and cooking show. Imagine the Great British Baking Show – Professional Chef edition, taking place at Storyton Hall, in the beautiful mountains of Virginia, with book-themed challenges.

Before internet sensation Mia Mallet arrives to host the cook-off, trouble begins. One mishap could be called an accident, but when cantankerous Chef Pierce, brought in for the sake of drama, is found dead in Mrs. Hubbard’s cookbook nook, Jane and the Fins go into high alert before any more misfortune, other than an exploding propane tank, can visit the place they call home.

Jane and her crew have a way of jumping in to help the local sheriff investigate. Now they have their hands full with an abundance of suspects considering Chef Pierce has his fair share of detractors, and the company behind the cooking competition has a few nefarious business practices up their sleeve (think Netflix Seaspircies). As the competition heats up and the tale unwinds, the reader will be a bit surprised when the culprit is revealed.

I enjoy this series. I can’t say if it is the writing, the mystery, or just the idea of a reading sanctuary with no electronics, a spa on-site, and gourmet meals, but if there was a place, please sign me up for my next vacation.

The Body in the Lake

Title: The Body in the Lake
Author: Matthew Costello, Neil Richards
Published: June 5th 2014 by Bastei Entertainment
Format: Kindle Edition, 154 pagess
Genre: Mystery
Series: Cherringham #7

I love these novellas as simple breaks from my usual reading.

Laurent Bourdain, a mayor of a French village has been invited to Cherringham in the hopes of joining the two villages into a “twinning” or sister city arrangement. With a party planned at Lady Repton’s home, which her son has hopes of turning into a conference center, things are well underway with all sorts of debauchery when the mayor disappears and is later found dead in a nearby lake. From the onset, it appears to be an accident. That is until American ex-police officer Jack and English web designer Sarah start aligning the facts and come up with something much different than an accident.

The Cherringham series is made up of quick reads or listens, depending on your preference, and ties up the not-so-obvious with a familiar twist at the end.

The Sign of Death

Title: The Sign of Death
Author: Callie Hutton
Published: April 13th 2021 by Crooked Lane Books
Format: Kindle, 327 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: A Victorian Book Club Mystery #2

Reading this book, all I could think about was the lack of humor and sass. 1890's Bath, England, is conventional enough, but with the intelligence and spunkiness of Lady Amy Lovell, there should be more verbal sparring between her and Lord William Wethington. Without it, William comes across as a second to Amy’s cleverness instead of the partnership she desires.

When James Harding, William’s man of business, is found dead in the River Avon with William’s business card in his pocket, the police call him in to identify the body. With this simple request and Amy at his side, a nefarious chain of deceits unfolds. Harding was blackmailing or embezzling various citizens of their community. With so many potential suspects in Harding's murder, William and Amy are kept busy sorting it out while trying to keep William out of prison and Amy away from the killer’s grasp.

But that does not mean Amy has not found herself in a pickle since her long-held secret is about to be divulged. From the first book, A Study in Murder, the reader knows Amy is a celebrated mystery author, but as a woman, been forced by her father to write under a pseudonym since no man would want to marry a woman who writes the kind of books she does. She is not sure how she will get out of this until William comes up with an acceptable proposition.

I am enjoying this series, yet, I continue to wish the speed would pick up a bit, and the banter would have a bit more humor and tension.

Inked Out

Title: Inked Out
Author: Karen MacInerney
Published: February 28th 2021, by Gray Whale Press
Format: Kindle, 201 Pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Snug Harbor Mysteries #2

Inked Out reads more like a draft meant for the editor than the final product intended for the reader. Extra words, missing words, and a great deal of redundancy made this book painful to read.

Book two in the Snug Harbor series sees Max Sayer, with assistant Bethany, hosting a new mystery writers’ group at Seaside Cottage Books. The group is barely off the ground when Reginald Blakely accuses Bethany of plagiarizing his novel involving the death of a housekeeper. When Reginald’s body is found in the bookstore, Bethany becomes the number one suspect.

What slowly evolves is that one of the founding families of Snug Harbor wants to keep their secret buried since there is a proposed land deal and millions of dollars on the line and no one knows what could happen if the truth is told. Especially a truth that could reveal a long-forgotten member of the family and an end to the cash infusion that the family desperately needs.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I have enjoyed the past books from this author, I would give up completely. Hopefully, this was only a slight glitch in her usually well-oiled machine and soon she will get back to the writing that I have enjoyed. *

The French Paradox

Title: The French Paradox
Author: Ellen Crosby
Published: April 6th 2021 by Severn House Publishers
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 256 Pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Wine Country Mysteries #11

I’m used to the Wine Country series having a more factual history to go along with the murder mystery and wine parings. With this outing, I was put off with the history premise based on a made-up affair between Jacqueline Bouvier and Lucie Montgomery’s grandfather, taking place in 1949 France, when Jacqueline was spending a year abroad.

By presuming an affair, which brought the timeline together and incorporating the Montgomery Vineyards patriarch, then adding in paintings found in old bookseller’s drawers, allows for Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun and her canvases, to be brought center stage. A stage quickly moved to the background when Harriet Delacrox, a failed journalist, plans to hold a gathering to present the book she is writing based on a manuscript about Marie-Antoinette and her portraitist that Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis had left in a box given to Harriet’s mother. This manuscript coincides with journals Lucie found which calls into question her grandfather’s love for her grandmother and a secret that should remain hidden.

Because the book, in my mind, had a cohesion issue, it felt as if the author was halfway through before she realized she forgot a murder victim and threw in a celebrated landscape designer, who was also a contemporary of Miss Bouvier, and killed him off. Was it because he threatened to call Harriet out on her ridiculous book or is there more since Lucie’s sister has a new beau and said landscaper thought he looked slightly familiar or could it be that he had publicly called out a local botanist about his research on climate change and its effect on viticulture? The murder part of this mystery was a jumbled mess from beginning to end.

In my opinion, too much was going on in this book. So much so that each of the storylines was swallowed up by another and what is left was too many ideas and not enough development of any of them.

Murder By Page One

Title: Murder by Page One
Author: Olivia Matthews
Published: March 23rd 2021 by Hallmark Publishing
Format: Kindle, Paperback, 336 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Peach Coast Mystery #1

After the first couple of chapters, I was ready to put this book down. The characters did not appeal to me, the oversimplistic approach grated on me, and the feel of – let’s throw a cat in here to catch the sympathy of the readers was off-putting.

Marvey, and if she had a last name, I have forgotten it, moved from Brooklyn, New York to Peach Coast, Georgia, to take over as a librarian tasked with developing readership and community involvement. When a body is discovered and her friend Jo, which once again, I didn’t think Marvey had been in town long enough to have such close ties that she was willing to put her life on the line for, is under suspicion. Marvey and the son (how they met was never fleshed out) of a local wealthy family and newspaper owner, join forces and talents to save the day and find the true murderer.

As a Hallmark publication, I am wondering if the plan is to turn this book into a Hallmark Movie and Mystery series. If so, haven’t we already had a few too many librarian sleuths in the cozy genre? Granted, there are a few old standards that might charm a Hallmark audience, but overall, this book did not appeal to me.