Annual e-Book Edition

Well, I may have been lax on posting, but not reading.  I made some finds and also found some lemons.  Most have been average.  I am reading nearly 90% e-books.  In part, this is due to the near-complete annihilation of mass-market paperback a publishers booting authors out the door.  Some authors seem to waver between self-publishing and finding a new print publisher to relieve the burden of self-promotion.  None the less I’ve found some offbeat goodies in large part due to BookBub.

These will be mostly short reviews as I have a lot to get through and I’ll look at series in an overall fashion.  Before I start my rants and raves, allow me to wish you all a belated Happy New Year!

Let’s start with light cozy style humorous mysteries:

Julie Mulhern wrote two books featuring Poppy Fields, Field’s Guide to Abductions and Field’s Guide to Assassins.  Then she stopped writing them, something I find really annoying.  She responded to my comment on BoobBub saying the death of a friend some years ago caused her to stop writing the humorous series but she planned to pick it up again.  If she does, this is a worthwhile series.  If not, skip it and move on.  Characters are good and of the outer edge of plausible, but the plots are decent for the genre.  A good choice for a lighter read.  My grade is B (3.8*) with the conditional recommendation as given above.  NOTE:  The author has finally restarted this series and book 3 is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Next up is Camilla Monk’s Spotless series.  There are 4 books ranging from somewhat interesting while being annoying to WTF??????  Ms Monk was apparently aiming for a kind of Lexi Carmichael style geek girl accidental adventure series and bombed.  Spectacularly.  The 4th book is a MOAB of epic proportions.  Spotless, Beating Ruby, The Crystal Whisperer, and MOAB Butterfly in Amber represent a perfect example of characters that are shallow, badly drawn, and hard to like, plots that are choppy, without logic, and by book 3 just plain annoying and in book 4 it makes you wonder if there is a satisfying way of burning an e-book.  The synopsis is best summed up a ‘STUPID’.  Grades from C-(2.8*) at the start and descending to hell from there, though I am limited to giving Butterfly in Amber an F (0*).  It deserves less.  AVOID THIS SERIES.

Thankfully, my brain did not turn to mush nor my IQ drop to drool level and I was saved by Marianne Delacourt’s Tara Sharp series.  Sharp Shooter, Sharp Turn, Too Sharp, and Sharp Edge so far.  Set in Perth, Australia and featuring Tara Sharp who has been blessed – or cursed – with the ability to see auras, although not always getting her reading of the auras right – proved by her terrible taste in boyfriends and current jobless state.  The dialogue quick and sharp, Tara is real and witty, and the plots are entertaining with enough tension to make them worthwhile.  The secondary characters are well drawn and offbeat.  There are some noticeable editing errors as the series moves on.  A chronic problem e-books that drives me nuts.  Still, they are fun reads but be warned, they are also filled with Aussie slang and have the rhythm of Aussie speech, so if you hate dealing with that, you might not enjoy them as much.  New entries are erratic as the author is mainly a sci-fi writer under another name.  My grades are C+ (3.7*) to B (4*) and they are a recommended read for those who enjoy Jana DeLeon, J. B. Lynn, or Josie Brown.

Speaking of Jana DeLeon, she published two new Miss Fortune books in 2018!  Reel of Fortune and Swamp Spook.  Both are good and everyone seems back in character but some of the tension is gone from the series making a shade less satisfying than most early books and with less snark.  Still, but get a B- (3.8*) and remain recommended reads.

Also back in the saddle, Julie Moffett finally put out a new Lexi Carmichael this year.  It centers around Slash’s past and Vatican politics.  Not her best, but it has some excellent moments and Slash and Lexi remain solid characters even though I found the plot on the lame and sentimental side.  No Stone Unturned left lots of stones unturned, so it gets a C+ to B- rating (3.6*) but is still a recommended read.

Finally, there was a find worth reading K. F. Breen’s DDVN world books featuring bounty hunter Reagan Somerset and vampire elder Darius Durant, the worst investigative team ever.  Written in the first person from Regan’s view, she’s tough, feisty, snarky, and just my kind of female lead.  Darius has his hands full and oddly, for an old vamp, he’s enjoying it.  Born in Fire starts the plot, Raised in Fire takes it up a notch, and Fused in Fire finds Reagan finally getting a grip on her powers.  All are excellent, but book 3 is a bit darker and less humorous.  You have it all, weres, vamps, mages, magic, and demons – and a brief appearance by Lucifer.  The books get solid B to A- (4* to 4.4*) with the first two being my favorites.  The author will be continuing this world using Vlad, the vamp elder, as a lead later this year.

Breen has done several other series, but none I’ve enjoyed as much.  Her current best selling Demi-gods of San Francisco, the 3rd and final book due this month, are pretty good, but they are more romance than UF adventure and the best character is a too-old-for-her-years teen with a sharp mind and smart mouth, not the lead characters.  I give Sin & Chocolate and Sin & Magic get C+ to B- (3.6* to 3.8*) for paranormal romance.  Decent choices for readers of the genre.

I read book one in her Chosen series and was bored stiff, so don’t assume her character traits and style carry over.  I speed read the Chosen series and frankly, there are better things to read that aren’t to damnably predictable.

The Librarian by Phillip Wilson looked right up my alley as a woman turned vengeance seeking killer against crooked cops.  Preposterous is the kindest thing I can say about the plot and characters.  On the plus side, it was fairly short, so the sheer magnitude of stupidity didn’t do permanent brain damage.  My grade is D- (1.8*) with the strong suggestion you just pass this by.

Hell Bent by Gregg Hurwitz is the latest installment of his Orphan X series, though he did release a new book this month.  Book 1 was very good, book 2 was annoying, and Hell Bent took the plot down a whole new road and rescued the series.  Evan Smoak has to fulfill the dying request of his old teacher and save his most recent student.  After the angsty and annoying Nowhere Man, this was back in top high-speed form as Evan tries to rescue and less than trusting teen girl from the kill squad that’s wiping out all traces of the highly illegal government program.  Exciting and well paced and Joey is a surprising plus in the plot.  My grade is B- (3.9*) for action thriller/assassin readers.  (I read the HC from Amazon)

The first 3 books of the Thirteen Realms series by Aussie author Marina Finlayson, Changeling Exile, Changeling Magic, and Changeling Illusion are better than average UF/Pnr Rom.  The story centers around 3 young women each with a tie to the Fae Realms.  The books are fairly well done, though Changeling Illusion seems choppy and not smoothly told, plus too predictable.  As a group, you get C+ to B- (3.3* to 3.7*) and each of the 3 females friends appears they will a trilogy of their story.  Best character, Yriell, the High King’s sister who lives outside the Realm disguised as a cranky old healer.  Her I loved.

Marriage Vow Murder is Book 9 in the Merry Wrath series by Leslie Lantry.  This has been an erratic series and the books, though short, somehow manage to screw up timelines and facts from previous books and leaves things just dangling.  Wrath is finally getting her big day, but the groom is missing.  Of all people, Merry goes to her sharp as a tack 4th-grade teacher and puzzle fanatic to get help with the clues to find Rex and maybe the solution to a hidden treasure.  If you can suspend all credibility, it’s kind of OK.  Best I can muster is a C+ (3.5*) well below the Amazon ratings.  Langtry scrambles her facts and timelines in every series.  She desperately needs a continuity editor.

And I close with a fairly reliable author, Jenn Stark with her latest The Lost Queen.  The second of 3 stand alones that tie with her Immortals of Las Vegas as Sara Wilde takes over as Justice for the Council.  Niki is still with her and the Magician is as remote and enigmatic as ever, though he seems to go full masochist here.  The Lost Queen is a very powerful witch but the real story becomes about the witch Danae and a spirit Myanya who seeks to inhabit the most powerful witch alive.  I’ll give this a B- (3.7*) and it’s a must read for fans of Immortal Las Vegas.

 

 

 

I’m BACK!

Yes, you have all been awaiting my return.  Or maybe not.  But I’m back!  And we the good, the bad, and OMG what the hell were they thinking?

I’m happy to report I can now see again – with both eyes.  Yes, it’s true.  You CANNOT see through cataracts.  I must admit to a certain feeling of persecution as my very blue-eyed dad never wore sunglasses and died at 85 cataract free.  My OLDER brother has hazel green eyes and also never wore sunglasses – and he’s CATARACT FREE!  Both spent/spend a LOT of time outdoors.  I have worn sunglasses – expensive polarized glasses – for decades and I’m the one with cataracts.  Gene pool lotto sucks.

Still, thanks to modern surgery, getting cataracts removed is stupidly expensive, but easy.  It’s the inability to see, and double vision, before, the two different focal points between, and the waiting on the healing to get results and news reading glasses, which I still need.  Then I have to get my driving confidence back.  It’s so nice that street signs are no longer blurry even wearing my distance glasses.  The downside, I might have the beginning of age-related macular degeneration, so add one more vitamin to the mix.  If you’re over 60, it’s actually a good idea.  PreserVision AREDS2 by Bausch & Lomb are recommended and I got mine on Amazon.

Between surgeries (2 weeks apart) I really couldn’t read much and frankly reading before had become a challenge.  But I’ve been playing catchup and plowing through print and ebooks.  So hoping you all had excellent holidays and are ready to check out what new – or at least new to me – in books!

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Big type, easy reading, mindless, predictable plot, short book.  Perfect for getting back in the game with my brain still in neutral.  Turbo Twenty-Three was better than her last book – which I remain convinced was written by someone else.  That’s it, that all the good to mention.

Evanovich is stretching her reader’s credulity more and more with each book as they get more and more like an I Love Lucy episode – but less funny.  Let’s face it, it’s tough to be Lucy and Ethyl packing chocolates, but she gives it a shot in an ice cream factory.  Sorry, that’s just visual comedy she can’t quite pull off.  Vaguely amusing is about it.

The plot is just painfully obvious, the trip to Disney was pointless except to give Ranger and Steph a reason to climb into bed.  And Ranger was insulted in the last book and this one she insults Morelli.

The eternally young Steph Plum has grown old, tired, and retreads dialogue and plots till you’re just so damn glad you got it through a book swap site and didn’t pay a dime is it a relief.  Frankly, a dime is about the fair price.

Turbo Twenty-Three gets a D+ to C- (2.5*) for a waste of perfectly good paper.  If it takes more than 3 hours to read, try staying awake more.  I know it’s kind of a snoozefest, but it’s fairly painless and you won’t be wincing at the continuity errors like those in her last book.  Highly missable and get it from your library.  Buying this is a waste of money.

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The new young adult Steampunk series by Shanna Swendson is a new genre for the humorous fantasy romance author.  Rebel Mechanics is the series and the book title is All is Fair in Love and Revolution.  Verity Newton is the ‘daughter’ of a Yale University professor who knows she’s not his own.  She is very well educated at 17 and gets a second class ticket to New York City to find a job as a governess.  In this world, England has kept hold of the colonies and conveniences are supplied by their ruling class, magisters, magic users who are titled and act pretty must like all aristocracy.  After being turned down for every job she interviewed for, she finds she must go into the heart of the magister area.  Much to her surprise, she is offered the job, complete with room and board.  Her charges youngish uncle bears a striking resemblance to the gang that held up her train and stole the crown’s money.

These improbable coincidences plague the book’s setup, including the way she meets the Mechanics. The plot is largely simplistic, Mechanics vs. Magisters, as the audience is young adult, and the prose matches that.  The pacing plods along at times and seems to race to cover her bald spots.  Verity is no fool and figures out both sides of the game but is now caught in the web while being governess to the grandchildren of the Duke who rules the city.  Set in 1888, it combines some historic elements with her Steampunk NYC, but at limes seems lacking the verve that make the best book have a sense of life.  I was always outside the story, never really engaged.

All is Fair in Love and Revolution gets high marks on Amazon, where I bought it for under $7 (but buy the ebook or borrow from the library -this is not a keeper).  Despite that, the best I can do is C- (2.8*)  It’s short and fairly fast read for an adult and not a struggle for kids 11 and up.  Not as well imagined as some of the recent Dystopian books and certainly no Harry Potter.  An uninspired read.

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Poison is the New Black is the most recent entry in the entertaining humorous mystery series Eat, Prey, Die by Chelsea Field.  In this, Izzy and her neighbor, overactive senior Etta, get involved in proving the innocence of Mr Black, the legbreaker who threatened Izzy in book one about paying off her ex-husband’s debt to some mob loan shark.  Turns out, Mr Black is just a family man trying to make a living after losing his job, house, and life savings caring for a sick wife and exceeding bright daughter.  Etta, convinced Izzy is a ‘honey trap’ for some secret government agency – not a Shade, a paid food taster highly trained to detect poisons, is convinced they can prove the cops are wrong.

She also has the assignment from hell, being a Shade masquerading as a PA to one of the obnoxious ‘Housewives of Beverly Hills’ type who is competing with other backstabbing females for a position in the annual nude calendar.  Apparently, poisoning the competition is a well-established tradition, all the while maintaining that brittle civility that masks bone-deep loathing among the rich and useless.  Another Shade – one that hates Izzy, is also on the job for another club member.  She makes Izzy’s life miserable.

Worse, her honey, the taciturn Connor, has become even more remote and she about ready to throw in the towel on him – except she needs access to his security company to help Etta and Mr Black.

Altogether a fun, fast-moving story that includes the Christmas short Taste of Christmas.  The author balances the 3 plots lines rather well, with a few bobbles here and there, but mostly dead on.  A good entry if a solid and entertaining series, one I recommend to anyone who enjoys a light, humorous mystery with well-done characters.

Poison is the New Black gets a B- (3.8*) and is recommended to fans of the Miss Fortune series, Whiskey Bayou series, and the Davis Way series.  I purchased the ebook online.

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We go back to Reacher’s past in the Military for this installment in the series, which was an improvement over the usual trope he’s kind of exhausted.  Night School is set in 1996 and takes place mostly in Europe.  It opens with Reacher finding himself sent to ‘school’ with just 3 other men, each coming off an equally highly successful case, one from the FBI and from the CIA.  Someone is trying to sell something for $100 million dollars – who, where, and what are the questions.  Lee brings back Sgt Neagley, who has made several appearances in the Reacher books past and present.

Each man in the class is briefed by members of the National Security Council.  This premise is off to a weak start and frankly, the plot is lame in many ways.  A high-level Iranian asset is at risk and these guys putter around Hamburg, but Reacher becomes convinced a murder in Hamburg is tied to the deal and does his usual off-grid independent routine with Neagley’s help.

The story complex, yet oddly flat and lifeless.  The bad guy – yes military – is no genius yet seems to defeat all the systems.  Even he is two-dimensional.  Yes, there are the usual fight scenes, yes, Reacher gets laid – and not by Neagley.  Yes, the day is saved.  And the whole thing was lackluster with occasional reminders of how good Child can be when he really tries.

Night School gets C- (2.8*) from me.  It good enough for a plane read or an evening’s diversion so long as you don’t ask for too much.  For fans only and borrow it from your library.  My copy of Night School came through the PBS book swap site and will go back out the same way.

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One Fell Sweep is once again one of the most original books I read in months.  Ilona Andrews’  Innkeeper series, of which this is book 3, just gets better and better.  I count it one of my top 5 series.  Unlike some, there is no over-arcing plot that must be advanced.  Each book is a complete story, the characters and secondary plot lines might move on a bit, that’s about it.

Ilona Andrews (a husband and wife team) started this series online on the author website.  A practice they continue.  But the final published book gets rewritten and polished and occasionally changed a bit.  You want to know how much I liked it? I bought the ebook AND the print book.

Dina DeMille’s Inn has been quiet since the ‘peace’ conference she hosted, but the sense of someone brushing her boundary wakes her and she goes to her balcony to find Sean, an alpha strain werewolf and neighbor/sort of boyfriend, is out and about.  He feels uneasy.  And they both soon know why.  A boost bike screams down her road, turns and comes back.  She hits it with EMP that kills the bike.  She and Sean just manage to hide the bike and it’s alien rider before her neighbor gets there.  Her anger at the disturbance is real, but when they get inside and she starts on the Ku rider, it’s lost when he gives her a necklace and a note with coordinates – to a hellhole in the Holy Anocracy – Kahari.  There’s nothing she can do but call Lord Arland Krahr, Marshall of House Krahr for help.  And she gets it – and him and his ship to take them to ‘the anus of the universe’ to get her sister Maude and niece Helen.

As usual, the rescue is the beginning and Arland is taken with Maud and decides to stay at the inn for a much needed ‘retreat’.

The story that unfolds is rich, complex and has multiple plot lines involving a race near the brink of extinction, the Hiru, seeking her help and in return offering her the chance to ask the Archivarius one question about her parents – who disappeared along with their Inn.  But they bring with them another race that declared a holy war on them for no know reason generations ago.  It’s the Hiru’s last chance at survival and the Draziri’s chance at reaching paradise.  Between them stands Dina, her Inn, Sean, Maud and daughter Helen, Arland, the ever-cunning Caldenia, Orro the drama king chef, and Wing the small Ku on a hero’s quest.

With a great story, humor, grief, fighting, adventure, and a touch of romance, this quirky group is as real as any characters you’ll meet.  One Fell Sweep earns an A (4.8*) rating and the whole series is highly recommended to lovers of original, well-plotted and written urban fantasy.

ON SALE To Be Released EBOOK – Belle Chasse -UPDATE!

Belle Chasse, the latest installment of the Sentinels of New Orleans by Suzanne Johnson is right now on sale on Amazon in ebook for only $2.99 Regular price, $16.99. You’ll never get it cheaper, so grab while you can. Release date 11/6

Apparently, this price is only good for those who bought the HC book, which I did some while ago.  Why it is back (HC and ebook) at full price is now explained – well, the ebook part.  I have no clue why the print book price is not discounted.

Witness Protection?

No, not hiding and not on vacation and I am not incarcerated for attacking any presidential candidate, though both have provoked me to rages at various times.  (Though I wish I was able to avoid our election coverage, it seems impossible.  It makes me want to move Australia, except they too have a huge problem and turn prime minister over faster than pancakes.)  I have been enjoying the expensive pleasure of a hard drive crash – from which they thankfully were able to save my data, followed by getting a keystroke logger that kept crashing the OS.  So it had to be lobotomized.  And it happened again.  And again.  And finally, I had them reformat the SSD and start from scratch, changed a bunch of settings, passwords, my firewall, and – much to my eternal joy – my bank account.  In all, it took almost 3 weeks and I did buy a rebuilt backup computer JIC.

Now getting a new checking account is more fun than root canals without Novocaine.  The banker was surly and treated me like scum, and despite her pinstripe suit, the young customer service person had attitude to spare and NO understanding of the bank’s rules.  I did discover my driver’s license had expired 5 days earlier and landed at DMV with 5,000 pieces of ID to prove I’m me.  Not a seat in sight (and they have over 100) I point out I’d be happy to wait, but cannot stand that long.  I end up over in an area for mobility impaired and basically get first rate service – after I filled out a form that had been copied to many times the print was pale gray on white and just barely legible if you sort of tilted it the right way.

You know, the day you can say the DMV treats you better than your own bank says so much about how big banks now treat customers.

The upside to so much computerless time, I did a LOT of reading.  The downside, I’m still fixing all the damn EFT autopay accounts.  Technology cuts both ways.  (And that damn snotty bank associate didn’t fall in a ditch.)

Well, here go the books.

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Cash Landing was on my PBS wishlist and came through quickly.  It didn’t take long to understand why.  I was a good 70+ pages into it and kept muttering, “How many times have I read a variation on this trope?”  Too many.  It was at best a pedestrian and uninspired book from a usually decent author.  The story arc was such a familiar tale I know what each character would be before it happened.  It made a tedious and unexciting read.  I mean a robbery staged by a chef, a criminal, and druggie with the IQ of a turnip was a train wreck waiting to happen.  Making them Cuban does NOT make then interesting.  Even worse, he used names that confused characters.

Cash Landing was a crash and burn and certainly not up to Grippando’s usual level.  My grade D+ to C- (2.4*) and with nearly 40% of the Amazon reviews and 3* and down, you’d be better off reading an old Hardy Boys book.  Free through PBS and will depart that way or to the food pantry.

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Stealing the Countess was the second disappoint Housewright delivered in his last 2 books.    When Paul Duclos approaches Mac about helping him ransom his stolen Stradivarius, you can tell immediately what’s wrong.  No insurance company would pay a claim on a violin of that value with offering a reward, no questions asked, for its return.  But the violin belongs to the Foundation his wife runs with her family money.  Like all Strads, it has a name, the Countess Borromeo, or Countess, for short.  Duclos is a local boy who ended up a world class violinist was asked to do a benefit in his hometown.  The violin was stolen from the suite at the B&B where he stayed and someone wisely unloaded the case with the GPS tracker on the property of one of the now richest women in the town, and Paul’s old HS flame.

Mac gets a letter forwarded from his old address that warns him away and learns the insurance investigator he knew from his initial windfall and occasionally shows up in the books, Vincent Donnatucci, sent it.  But why?

You can figure out who has the violin fairly fast, but the rest of the story, including murder and infidelity (that was obvious) and well-drawn characters keep it interesting along the way.  My score, C (3*).  Borrow the book from the library, though I bought the print book and thought it way over priced.  Stealing the Countess is NOT a keeper, just a very a very average read.

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Book 4 in the Laura Black series, Scottsdale Scorcher, is another good outing for Laura and her police and mafia love interests as a major drug gang war starts brewing and she gets caught in the middle.  Billed as a ‘romantic humorous mystery’, it all 3 elements, but the mystery part does take center stage.

Laura gets hired by Mistress McNasty, Scottsdale’s leading Dominitrix and a friend of Laura’s as well a college professor part time, to find her favorite client.  Then Tough Tony DeCenzo her to find is long time friend, former bodyguard, and now driver who has gone missing – the same man she’s already hunting for Suzie.  Hot on her trail is the Mexican drug Carlos.  She and her friends at the law office when Ms McNasty (Suzie Lu, a neighbor to Laura) is officially a client of her sleazy boss and the girls are on the case.  Using the super-secret DEA software left behind, Sophie finds four very hidden accounts that suggest the Mexicans have been paying him to tip them off.

As is often the case, there are plenty of twists and turns and the whole thing ends in a shootout that ruins Maura’s decision between Reno the cob and Max the mobster that kind of had my ‘shallow bitch’ alarm going ding ding ding.  Even with that annoyance, Scottsdale Scorcher gets a solid B (4*) rating.  Read the ebook, like did.  Available on Amazon and the author is NOT prolific.

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Yet another entry in the seemingly bottomless well of paranormal cozy mysteries to hit the market is Tonya Kappes’ Spies and Spells.  She also authors the rather blah and uneven Ghostly Southern mysteries.

Let’s summarize the whole mess this way, Maggie, our ‘heroine’ suddenly can’t make the gravy for the biscuits, sausage and gravy sold at the family restaurant.  That means her ‘witchy hour’ is there whatever her powers are, they won’t include taking over the restaurant.

Then she gets recruited by some secret agency called SKUL (no, I did not make that up, so don’t blame me.) and ends up posing as the top saleswoman for a privately held cosmetics company, a loosely cloned copy of Mary Kay with red as their signature color.  The whole thing is akin to asking a dog groomer to do brain surgery.  Seems her Witchy Hour was this hottie guy in the diner.

Oh yeah, her ‘familiar’ is her car,  Vinnie, who does NOT like the hottie SKUL agent Mick, the guy that triggered Maggie’s Witchy Hour.

Now the Amazon readers LOVED this book.  Damned if I know why.  Even for a fluff read, it was not well done.  A slight, silly, not especially entertaining, except for Vinnie, Spies and Spells gets a C- (2.8*) from me.  If you must read it and like chick lit fluff, you’ll enjoy it more.  Bought the ebook from Amazon for an insanely overpriced $4.99.  It’s now sells for $2.99 and is worth about 99 cents as a beach read.

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J. C. Daniels is one of Shilo Walker’s pen names, so Blade Song carries her usual style, just in UF.  Her lead character, Kit Colbana, a one woman all-purpose crime player, assassin, thief, investigator, whatever work come her half-breed way.  Being half human makes her an outcast, but her sword makes her damn dangerous one.  Except she also has panic attacks that all but paralyze her thanks to her abusive family upbringing.  This is classic Shilo Walker trope, a strong woman with a fatal flaw that keeps interfering with her life.

The other problem is the Walker inability to fully command her world building.  She sketches it in as needed, but never fleshes it out and breaths life into it.  It becomes a 2 character drama, Kit and Damon, her shifter ‘bodyguard’, watcher, and apparently love interest.

But no matter what name she writes under, Shilo Walker goes for the traumatized heroine and the ‘hero’ who tends to infantilize her.  It does not sit well with me.  Neither did the angsty plot.

Blade Song gets a D+ to C- (2.5*) from me because I found Kit just not a very believable character and the romance bit more icky than romantic.

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Another Neurotic Hitwoman book for JB Lynn, Hitwoman Under Pressure.  One again, the whole, ‘white hats’ and black hats’ secret organizations as well as one angry mobster, are all converging on Maggie.  It’s a very convoluted tale that bordered on incomprehensible at times with all its various detours.  In fact, too convoluted for here without a lot of spoilers.

Suffice it to say that Maggie’s sister’ kids, and her whole family are in danger over a code in a book Maggie has.  Her supposedly dead sister’s  kids are kidnapped and Maggie had to get them back while keeping the rest of her family safe – with the help from her lizard, cat, dog and now a bird that talks like he too many Soprano’s episodes.

Unfortunately, there is a sameness to these plot lines that regular readers will like or find tiresome, especially all the family crap she puts up with and unanswered questions about her brother – the one she never knew about and no one will talk about.

Hitwoman Under Pressure was a quick, light read and moderately entertaining, though I hear, One more, “We can’t discuss that,” and I’m DONE.  this overarching plot is an endless loop of non-answers.  My score is C+ (3.5*) and suggested for series fans in ebook, preferably borrowed from the library.

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 The First Hostage is the second outing for news correspondent J.B. Collins.  Covering the President’s secret visit to Jordan he is in the convoy that is returning the president to Air Force One when they are attacked by a well-organized group of ISIS soldiers who take the president hostage.

OK, that part might faintly be possible, but who gives a journalist automatic weapons and trusts his instincts over their own intelligence service?  And Collins immediately falls under suspicion as the leak to ISIS or ISIS i trying to get even for his provocative and incendiary articles about them.  One exception is a Jordanian Captain who tends to believe him that the leak is somewhere in the US chain of command.  Very few people knew the president was there, so the list of suspects is short and very high ranking.

An untrained journalist fighting with battle hardened elite soldiers is a bit of a tough sell.  SO was convincing me saw things no one else saw in his ‘reporter instincts’.

The initial pacing, taking place mostly in various intelligence bunkers in Jordan, is slow, and it doesn’t pick-up speed till the end.

While plot has some credibility issues with me, especially at the end, Rosenberg’s skill as a writer shines and his knowledge of the area and the key people, including the King of Jordan, gives it authenticity most books lack.  He writes fiction and non-fiction, so his style is professional and finely honed.  It’s the plot I found issue with.

The First Hostage gets amazing endorsements from Action/Thriller fans on Amazon with over 1,000 reviews with 85%+ at 5*.  It gets a B- (3.7*) from me because honestly, a newspaper reporter did all that?   I bought it on pre-order for just over $13.00.  Some used copies are less + shipping and Amazon’s current price is just under $18.  The paperback is tentatively set for Sept 6 and is over $9.  My suggestion, buy used or get it from your library to keep cost down.

More Books – Playing Catchup with Short Reviews

SAD NEWS:  Jim Laverne, widower of Joyce Laverne, died suddenly on May, just a few months after his wife of 44 years passed away.  Jim and Joyce were prolific authors of cozy mysteries under a variety of names, paranormal mysteries,  and other books.  Alas, many of their series will never wrap up now, but we have a large collection of books to enjoy in their memory.

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Yes, I read too much.  SIGH.  Here are some short reviews for MORE BOOKS.  Gad.  I’ll need a part time job just to support my habit soon.

The latest in the Novel Ideas series by Lucy Arlington, Off the Books, was a ho-hum effort that was too formula and predictable.   I won the book on a PBS game because I’ve stopped buying the series.  I hate being able to write a plot in my head within pages of starting a book.

Writing quality is good and characters and some depth, but nothing special.  No ‘oomph’ factor.  Off the Books gets a dull C (3*).  Not good, not awful, just blah.

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Melissa F Olsen is one of those decent, yet not exceptional, UF writers that live in the area where their books are good, but never reach rave review territory.  Boundary Born, the third and possibly last or the Boundry WItch series, wraps up the primary story arc of ‘Lex’ Luther, one of the adopted twin daughters of the Luther shoe fortune.  Her twin, Sam, died in an accident and Lex should have died in the deserts of the Mideast, but survived, much to the puzzlement of the military doctors.  Back in Boulder trying to get over PTSD and spend time with her niece, she learns she’s a witch.  Not just any witch, a boundary witch that deals in death.  In book 1, Boundary Crossed, she learns what she and her niece are and the plot to kidnap the child ends up in an unexpected place.  In book 2, Boundary Lines, she battles an ancient magical creature eating random hikers and other poor souls and uncovers a plot to break a compact that ended a war between vamps, witches, and shifters.  In book 3, Boundary Born, she battles yet another problem – someone killing vamps with an ancient form of belladonna.  And it all turns back to Lex’s undiscovered parents – until dear old dad shows up on her porch.  What happens from there is part personal discovery and part action thriller.

Basically, the whole series is about Lex’s finding of who and what she is as well as the evolution of her powers.  I read Boundary Born as a free ARC in ebook and it’s a good read, wraps up a whole bunch of questions, but the series felt unfinished.  Judging by the afterword, Olsen is leaving room to revisit these characters in the future despite saying the series is wrapped.

Boundry Born gets B- (3.6*) from me and read only if you’ve been following the series.

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Book 1 and 2 in the Geek Girl mysteries (not to be confused with the Lexi Carmichael books) and feature’s Mia Conner’s Falls, her hippy parents, mini-mogul grannie she helped make rich and her sex-obsessed sister and brother-in-law who basically get grants to do studies on things sex related.  A Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder starts with some kind of hacking issue that has mysterious emails going to residents in an exclusive gated community of mostly retired folks – including her grandmother.  Despite being well to do thanks to her computer skills setting and running an online store for grandma’s homeopathic beauty aids, she lives in kind of a dumpy place in town and drives to work – to find a huge pick-up taking her space and then some.  The truck and obnoxious owner turn out to be the strangely over-qualified new head of security.

The mystery that unfolds ends up centered around Mia herself.  All the emails setting up fake appointments and such are just a prelude to other events involving her off-beat family and grannie’s all natural skin treatment business.  The ending is a mix of obvious and odd – with more obvious than anything.

In A Geek Girl’s Guide to Arsenic, Grannie’s very business is threatened when police and Ren Faire goers all think the death of a arist is linked to their products.  The ex-security head, real FBI agent, now US Marshall (Yeah, I don’t get that either), so once again, with her family involved, Mia gets nosey and does her own investigation – easy to so when you’re Queen Guinevere and someone burned Grannie’s business set-up at the Faire.  With an endless supply of costumes for various community events where she works, and running the online store for grannie and the IT department for the community, you wouldn’t think mia had enough time meddle in an investigation – but you know you’re wrong.  The resolution is once again an odd mix of good and bad as the victim is revealed as a person in Witness Protection as well as a womanizer and a likable scoundrel (possibly cheat) who pretty much screwed everyone – ummmmm – physically and financially.

A Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder and A Geek Girl’s Guide to Arsenic are both quick, decent reads that try to be too complex and too simple at the same time.  It’s like the author isn’t quite sure where she’s going with all this.  Parts are very well dome and then segues into a side road that has nothing to add to the story or characters.  Despite being fairly decent compared to the paint by numbers cozies out there, both get a C+ to B- rating (3.5*) and suggested reads for those tired of the trite cozy books.  I bought and read both as ebooks.

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The latest installment in the Neurotic Hitwoman series has a LOT going on.  The story of her sister Darlene.  The truth about Patrick, Maggie’s nutso mom once again breaking out of the home, thanks to her criminal father, and Katie having a major meltdown over not having a real mommy.  The Hitwoman and the Mother Load was more about family and friends than Maggie’s part time job as a hit woman.

JB Lynn writes a fast paced book that crams a lot of different stories into a fairly short novel and as usual has a neat hook at the end.  This one is kind of hard to discuss without giving the key plot elements away, but I can talk about Katie acting out at school over not having a ‘real’ mommy and the suggestion both maggie and Katie see a psychologist for counseling.  (Which end hysterically.)  Finding out the truth about Patrick was painful, but seemed inevitable for the last few books so not dramatic.  Angel is taking a bigger role, but that leaves Maggie in a quandary given the fact she does work for his gangster uncle.

The Hitwoman and the Mother Load is solidly plotted, has good characters, and breakneck pace.  It gets B (4*) from me and highly suggested for readers of this series or the Housewife Assassin books.  Purchased as a Kindle ebook.

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I have been waiting FOREVER for the latest Addison Holmes book to be released and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was a little disappointing given the wait.  Like many ebook series, this suffers from what movie makers would call ‘continuity gaps’, that is mixed up details about people, events, and other things, that tend to be distracting.  The last Steph Plum book was riddled with them, so somewhere editors are not doing their jobs.

The story itself isn’t bad, basically, it’s a very clever con game that Addison isn’t aware of.  She and her Great Aunt Scarlett – who is a hoot and the best part of the book – and Rosemarie try balancing a real case and special assignment as half payment for a tricked out van for surveillance.  I like the surprise ending for the bad guy.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot gets a C+ to B- (3.5*) because it was sloppy in continuity and plot, but entertaining enough that I could forgive most of it.  Purchased as a kindle ebook.  Like the Neurotic Hitwoman series, this id for those who enjoy humorous mystery.

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The paid or mysteries by Kait Carson features a SCUBA diving paralegal who gets mixes up in murders.  In Death by Blue Water  protagonist Hayden Kent is recovering from a sudden break-up with her live-in boyfriend when she goes diving to clear her mind and instead finds a body caught in a wreck she’s dived dozens of times before.

It gets more complicated when the body turnout to the older brother of her ex and she becomes suspect #1.  Many of the supporting characters don’t get fleshed out much here, but the plot has good twists and turns and an unexpected outcome – rare for a near cozy style mystery A little heavy on the whole migraine thing and SCUBA diving, but very decent first book and a nice departure from the all too predictable cozies.

Book 2, Death by Sunken Treasure, the mother of a friend, and her kind of surrogate mother, Dana Kirby, a museum operator, finds her own son’s body floating in the reeds near the ferry dock as she heads to work on Pigeon Key.  She and her son had a recent falling out and becomes a suspect.  More importantly, her son made a major treasure find and was a very, very experienced diver, so she is convinced, despite the police claiming his pain-killer drug addiction and diving lead to an accidental death.

The sheer number of characters involved make following the plot a bit of a challenge at times as she keeps introducing more and more variables with people and lies that are hard to separate from truth, an ex-wife and ex-boss (who lost his fortune to Mike in a workplace accident lawsuit), now lovers, seeking a share of the treasure, partners telling different stories about what Mike owned and who had title to the treasure – and more deaths – including twice nearly dying herself.

Once again, despite the sometimes rambling plot and overuse of migraines, the culprit is a surprise.  The plot unspools in a choppy fashion and is only tied together at the end, but once again, it was better than the typical cozy and the mid-Keys setting is a big draw for me.

My grades are Death by Blue  Water is C+ (3.4*) and Death by Sunken Treasure is C+ to B- (3.6*).  Since she has to create a whole new base of characters, I will buy book 3 and see how she manages the transition.  Good reads, but not great.  Far better than the typical cozy and worth the ebook price.

New Releases in Print and Ebook Reviews

OK all you savvy readers out there, in case you missed it, the number of books being released per month is dropping like a stone.  I know there are more and more budding epubs out there even as many of the older, more established ones, like AmberQuill, are closing for good.  Others, including Samhain, have drastically cut back on the releases per week.  Since half of what they sell is novella-length ebook smut, it’s something of a surprise to me, but it could be the market for that genre is shrinking.  I checked out what was on Siren and the quality of what was on offer was way below the material they offered even 3 years ago.  I almost never read smut anymore myself, except for a few of the funny authors.  Meanwhile, Gemma Halliday’s light mystery/romance publishing effort is going strong, but some of her ‘new author’ releases are just awful lifeless junk reading while others are OK to good.  She needs a much better editor to approve manuscripts, yet some are really good and her $0.99 specials encourage folks to get books a try.

Romance, especially historical romance, cozy mystery, and even UF/paranormal are also seeing serious cuts in books released – print publishers are quick to cut any series that does not sell up to a certain level no matter how loyal the readers.  That makes it hard for authors to build readership through word of mouth, a generally slow process.  I just read the latest Jenn McKinley Hat Shop book (reviewed below) and found that like too many other ‘bankable’ authors, she’s spread too thin over too many series and the quality is suffering.  On top of that Alyssa Day is delaying her Dead Eye paranormal mystery books from SilverHart Publishing due to family issues and two other series disappeared (one historical mystery, one UF) and the authors had to write and publish their final books through services like CreateSpace.

Then Barry Eisler, with a new female lead thriller in what might be first in a new series is staying in Amazon’s playhouse.  He seems to have passed his zenith as an author and is now coasting on a shrinking fan base – or trying to get the best of both worlds – more money/book, but fewer buyers.  I just bought his new release on sale for $0.99 as an ebook while the print is going for $14+ in hardcover.  That’s not a lot of bank for the author or publisher – Amazon’s Mercer division.

There’s no question that self-promoting is a huge deal for authors as publishers put out less money for advertising and promoting books.  It can consume so much of an author’s time they lose their fan base by not writing.  Kaylana Price is a perfect example if that, plus that was compounded by health issues.  Her lastest in the Grave Witch series is over 3 years late, which for a mmpb is a LIFETIME.  There are various fan conventions and writers and genre association conventions that are ‘must do’ to keep the fan base happy, but I know from experience that kind of thing is a huge distraction from work and the flow of your thoughts.

Most writers I’ve met and seen speak, and it’s only few, seem more extemporaneous than practiced, but breaking your thoughts while writing can often mean taking a long time to get back into the right mindset,  If that happens during an especially key area of a story, you might have a huge rewrite on your hands.  I found most writers friendly and thrilled to meet fans – and it’s kind of fun to meet them.   I enjoy the experience, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of money doing it.  Other fans are the kind who wouldn’t miss a chance at meeting their favorite author and are happy to spend lots of money to travel and stay conventions.  It’s a big business and book signings give authors a shot at a HUGE and loyal fan base – but at a price in their productivity.

Not many authors get to be multi-millionaires like the James Patterson or JK Rowling.  Most toil away for the sheer love of writing and making a living.  A few make a very good living.  A tiny number get rich.  But most keep their day job.  I know how much time it takes me to just do a few thousand words for an RF story installment, or one of these blog entries, and it is not easy.  Creating stories for RF and the gang is harder as I actually need a plot, at least here, all I need is a kind loose theme and opinion.  And we all know what opinions are like!  I spent a career writing technical reports, white papers, and journal articles and believe me, it takes TIME.

So why am I discussing this?  I whine a lot about waiting on books in a series.  It’s not entirely fair, especially since I know better.  Yes, I do prefer quality over quantity.  Am I anxious for the next book?  Of course.  But I also what it to be just as good and just as creative as the first few.  There is nothing more disappointing than an author who writes half a dozen great books and rather than wrap up the series, rides the characters popularity into the ground, slowly losing fans with each book.  An epic fantasy writer was asked why he always stopped at 3 books when his fans wanted more.  His reply was along the lines of he’d rather leave then wanting more than wishing the series would END.  I only wish more authors felt that way instead of milking popular characters till people are sick of them and just stop reading.

So let’s get to the reviews and see what wonders – good and bad – came our way recently.

The First Order is the latest in Jeff Abbott’s Sam Capra series could only have one ending.  That was obvious from the beginning.  Still, I had been hoping for a better thrill ride along the way. Abbott does deliver plenty of twists and turns in his plot using Seaforth, an old CIA contact of Sam’s as a key character.  Mila, becomes equal parts friend and foe as a hidden group, the ones responsible for Sam spending time in a black site prison, starts pulling strings of plots within plots.

This story centers on Sam’s hunt for Danny, his older brother supposedly killed by terrorists in Pakistan – but apparently still alive.  Who and what Danny has become is obvious from the outset, but with each bother getting betrayed by the very people that supposedly support them, it is obviously headed for disaster.

The ending was about the only way Abbott could end the book given Danny’s character.  That was obvious early on, but it was still a good read with an interesting conclusion as hidden powerbrokers get exposed.

I’m giving The First Order a B- (3.7*) as a good, but not a great read.  Fans should make note, unlike the other books, this one was written in the third person.  Some prefer that, some do not.  It did not affect the quality of the story ar all and given the larger cast, was probably his best choice.  At nearly $18 in print and $14 in ebook, borrow this one from the library or wait for a cheap used copy.  No urgency here.  Purchased from an online book store.

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Another of Jenn McKinley cozy mysteries, the Hat Shop books have been one of her better series, but I found Copy Cap Murder predictable.  I like her characters and a lot of other things, but I knew who would die, who would be implicated, and who was guilty by page 50.  When I can essentially write the book in my head, that’s not good news.

Yes, I realize cozy mysteries have limited scope and drama, but even Agatha Christie wrote better puzzles just by creating wonderful characters.  Unlike Ellery Queen, who did Byzantine puzzles and dared readers to solve the crime by presenting all the clues, she did character studies, an art that seems lost with today’s cozie writers.  And I am suffering from Jenn McKinley fatigue.

The murder takes place at a Straw Man burning at Harrison’s boss’s mansion when his arch rival at the firm is killed and substituted for the straw man.  Obviously, Scarlette’s love interest is #1 on the suspect list and for some reason, a normally fair police Inspector seems very biased and willing to impede certain discoveries.  The ending was well done and did have a few surprises.

Copy Cap Murder was far better written than A Likely Story and had a much better-developed plot, some drama, and a bit of ingenuity.  The best I can do here is a C+ to B- (3.6*) for the book and a suggestion to wait for a used copy unless you’re a diehard fan unless you can find a good discount off the $7.99 list price.   Purchased from an online book store.

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OK, the biggest problem here is the book reads like it was drafted by Evanovich but written by someone else entirely.  Not a single character in the long-running series stayed fully true to form.  Not one.  In addition to that, Tricky Twenty-Two had many ‘factual’ errors in basic things, like where Ranger’s office was, the building size, and also subtle things, like how Steph saw her relationship with Ranger and the fundamental character of both Morelli and Ranger and even Steph’s mother.  It was a reflection in a fun-house mirror – distorted.

As usual, Steph and Lula had their escapades with the ‘Bacon Bandit’ – anyone recall the naked guy who smeared his body with Vaseline?  Yeah, me too.   And Gobbles – a Rider College student who is FTA and his protective frat brothers, a nutty professor, and Dean of Students with a giant grudge supposedly assaulted by Gobbles.  Morelli breaking up with Steph after sex with nothing but, “We should date other people.”  I was surprised to find that by page 55, I had laughed just once.  In fact, I was bored and annoyed.  And became more and more convinced she’s either lost it, her editor quit, or she’s hired a ghost writer.

Naturally, after the highly unlikely plot unfolds (This was less believable than the giraffe running down a main street in Trenton.) and Steph gets in the middle of what could biological warfare (yeah, seriously) we end with – a you guessed it! – car explosion!  (I know, done so often it’s not even amusing anymore.)  Oh, and Mrs Plum tackles the bad guy.  Well, there’s a groundbreaking change.

Tricky Twenty-Two will be hard for old fans to take.  I began reading this series when she published her first book. now I stopped buying them and wait to get a copy from an online book swap site.  I am beyond glad I did NOT waste money on this.  Yes, it was past time for her characters to evolve, but this was not character evolution, it was complete personality transplants.  Tricky Twenty-Two gets a D+ (2.4*) and a strong suggestion to real fans to go reread and enjoy books 1-8.  If you MUST read this get it free.  I’ll pass my copy on fast.

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This is one of the better entries in Ms Painter’s Nocturn Falls paranormal romance series.  The Vampire’s Fake Fiancée has a rather predictable start with Sebastian Ellingham, the eldest, most reclusive, and serious of the 3 Ellingham brothers, learning his sort-of-ex-wife who left him 300 years ago is staying in town and wants to reconcile.  To Sebastian, that means, “She wants a LOT more money.”  Unwilling to seem easily available, the sister of the town deputy – and a Valkyrie – librarian is there for a job interview for what seems to be a dream job as head librarian at the local academy.  Much to a sister’s surprise, Tessa agrees to play the role providing it gets her the librarian’s job.  It’s just a couple of days.

Sebastian’s romancing skills, if he ever had any, are long gone, so his businesslike approach makes Tess feel comfortable and she’s rather surprised at how at ease she feels with him.  They have a trial kiss that’s way more than either expected.  And then get in deeper when what was supposed to be a dinner to prove he had another love, becomes a challenge to allow the ex to live in the mansion and watch them to make sure she can’t ‘win’ Sebastion back.

The pacing is quick, the action mostly light and humorous, and the selfish, self-absorbed ex turns out to want something else entirely than Sebastian.  The ending was good and realistic and I liked both Tessa and Sebastian and enjoyed watching them get more comfortable with themselves and each other.

For a paranormal romance, I give The Vampire’s Fake Fiancée a B (4*) rating.  I bought the ebook for $4.99 and it was worth it.  Print is $10 and since this is not a keeper kind of book, get it at the library and enjoy!

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Gemma Halliday Publishing offered this new release, first in a series featuring female PI, Barb Jackson.  Bubblegum Blonde by Anna Snow is in the same humorous mystery vein as Steph Plum.  It’s a short read, under 200 pages, and it moves fast enough that the many shortcomings get missed.  A few too many.  The it ended with a thud.

First, aside from being prone to the same silly accidents as Steph Plum, I’m not sure I have a clear mental picture of Barb beyond short, busty, blond, and not dumb – though given her actions, I have my doubts.  All the guys but one are hunks, including Tyler Black the detective who apparently falls for her at first sight.  Barb gets hired by

Barb gets hired by he ex-fiancée, Jason King, who is the prime suspect in the murder of the wife of his boss, a powerful agent in town.  Jason swears he was NOT doing the wife (yup, sure), but his jacket and money clip were found in the bedroom.  Barb wants to put the agency on the map for things other than cheating spouses, so she reluctantly accepts.  At this point, her IQ drops and she commits felony illegal entering into the Hastings estate and house to investigate the crime scene because she’s so experienced she’ll find things CSI didn’t!

By golly, she DOES find a hidden compartment in the drawer of a bedside stand – along with a porn DVD.  (Like cops wouldn’t take that!)  Then gets caught my the maid, makes an escape, and gets beaten by a frozen chicken and rips out the seat of her jeans dashing bare butt to her inconspicuous red VW beetle getaway car.  The motel receipts lead her to a small town, a lying night clerk, and a house the victim bought which turns out to be a brothel – one full of hunky guys and horny women.  My goodness, it’s a miracle the police ever solve a crime without her help!  On the way back she gets run off the road and is lucky to live.

OK, just let me say, at this point, the author lost steam and wrapped the book up with a deus ex machina ending that was as improbable as any I ever read.  The bad guy was barely a shadow on the wall, much less a character.  I LOATHE that trick.  It means the author could not think of a plausible way to find the killer.  It’s lazy and insulting to readers.

Oddly enough, this book – short novel – long novella – gets a really high score from Amazon readers.  I am assuming they are not actually mystery fans, just chick lit readers.  Bubblegum Blonde gets a D+ to C- (2.5*) as the first half was almost decent.  Amazon readers give it 5*.  To be honest, it wasn’t worth the $.99 I spent for it.

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Tom Corcoran is the author of the Alex Rutledge mysteries based in Key West expands his to add Southernmost Aristocratic Investigations featuring his friend Dubbie Tanner and former street person Wiley Fecko in Crime Almost Pays.  They guys share a house and in home office, but Wiley is too soon off the streets to be fully at home in Dubbie’s spare room.  Kim Salazar is a local taxi driver and something of a love interest for Dubbie.  Alex is their friend and sometimes crime scene photographers for the cops who is involved with a homicide detective, the same detective that gets mixed up in what becomes a perfect example of “no good deed goes unpunished.”

It’s Tuesday night and Sloppy Joe’s has as many tourists as always, but Dubbie spots a good looking young woman at the bar who seems to be getting too drunk for what she had – and 3 Hispanic men around her, chatting her up and waiting.  The whole thing looks like they slipped her a roofie.  With the help of the bouncer, Dubbie gets her out and Kim, who was driving that night, helps get her to his place and settled on the sofa.

Morning brings out the nasty side of the woman, Lauren, who thinks everything is his fault and he’s kind of glad to see the back of her – and her multiple passports and the guys who were starting to look more like kidnappers than rapists.  When he sees Harpoon, the bouncer, he learns the 3 men sounded like they were Cuban and from the east end of the island.  Then Lauren leaves money and asks him for his professional PI help and Dubbie and Fecko are butt deep in murder, Cuban military criminals, and a lying client.

Corcoran is a Key Wester, photographer, buddy of Jimmy Buffett, and Mustang enthusiast.  His writing is the classic brisk, PI style of short sentences, quick exchanges, and fast pacing.  If you’ve read his Alex Rutledge books, this is the same style,  He knows Key West inside and out and his knowledge and love for the island with all its warts comes through.  The story has his trademark twists and turns and keeps readers guessing.  The ‘Homeland Security’ agent becomes quite a character himself.  The extra twist at the end is completely unexpected.

I give Crime Almost Pays a solid B (4*) rating.  I broke my cardinal rule on this one and spent $5.99 on the ebook and it was worth is.  I’ve missed Tom Corcoran and classic style of mystery writing.  He is now self-publishing.  Get the ebook if you like classic style PI stories, especially Florida-based ones, despite the price.  Yes, I’m a sucker.  You could try your library, but most won’t carry such a niche author.

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The last review for this installment and another book I enjoyed more than expected.  I bought the ebook of Boundry Lines at $4.99.  I read book 1 where ‘Lex’ Luther, the sole survivor of an attack on her platoon in the Mideast learns she’s a ‘Boundry Witch’, one who works between life and death.  They’re rare and mostly feared by other witches.  While the local head of the coven tries to be friendly and her one daughter is a close friend to Lex, the other witches are very unwelcoming.  Made worse by the fact that Lex works for Maven, the head vampire in Colorado.

Lex just returns from LA where she tried to learn about her magic (apparently that’s a novella 1.5 or something I missed, so there seems to be story gaps to me) and she immediately notices something seems ‘off’ about the magic in Boulder.  Then there are these unexplained attacks on humans, werewolves being driven to attack the borders, and an ancient creature – somewhere between a land Nessie and worm-snake – and only Lex can kill it, but she needs to heal her mind.

Let’s just say the plot of too convoluted to go into here, but the three key elements are the behavior of the werewolves, the appearance of a long dormant monster, and Lex getting all her memories back so she can fully use her witch powers and the fact that Maven was key to locking down the coven’s powers after a supernatural war between the wolves, vamps, and witches years ago.  And, of course, her niece (a rare magical null) is a piece of the puzzle.

Olsen’s world building sometimes defies logic, but the book was much better than book one, moved key character development along, and began laying more groundwork to flesh out this patchwork world.  Boundary Lines gets a C+ to B- (3.5*) from me and a read if you like Olsen’s work, but it’s not the best UF out there, so a series that can be safely missed.

 

 

 

Ebook Binge – cont’d

Yes, there are actually MORE ebooks to get through. When I binge, I BINGE! And after those football games yesterday (Just kill me now and put me out of my Fantasy football misery.), it was more ebooks or take up drinking something stronger than Fresca.

I hope everyone had a good holiday – or at least one that did not include tornadoes, blizzards, floods, or sleeping in airports or shelters.  The folks in Texas and other parts of the Great Plains and deep South sure have had a rough few days.  Our Christmas felt more like Easter and even though I did not make it to my brother’s this year, we did ‘tele-Yahtzee’ – playing Yahtzee by phone.  It was just as well I was home as I got sick as a dog Christmas night and 2 days later my SIL’s mother landed in the hospital.  Circumstances kept me home and apparently that was a good thing all the way around.  Funny how that happens.

I’m also starting to look for a new laptop or something like the Surface Pro 4.  Kind of pricey on that second option.  And naturally, ANOTHER crown fell out 2 days before Christmas and my dentist was nowhere to be found.  While I had one missing tooth over the holidays and a lovely hole where I am healing from my LAST oral surgery in October, I might just celebrate my New Year with another visit to oral surgeon.  YIPEE!  Then I KNOW my dentist will want a fixed bridge and ……………. dear God, the money makes me faint.  That expense must be handled before new computers of any type.

So solace was found in real Scotch shortbread – yes REAL, all butter so I can fail my bloodwork in January in style.  (Dr T – you will ignore that sentence!!!!!!!  I ate fruit and vegetables and saltines and have no idea why my bad cholesterol is so high!)  Then tele-Yahtzee and ebooks.  Football, my usual drug of choice, is best left undiscussed as I am still in mild shock and very close to the edge of murdering my TV – though what the poor innocent TV has to do with BAD OFFICIALS AND POOR CALLS I’m not sure.  But I seem to have this primal urge to cause it harm.  Dark chocolate covered figs from Spain have helped stabilize me.  Very high therapeutic value.

On the upside, no ebooks were damaged in the process of trying to pacify myself with harmless, entertaining books.  Though the whole ‘entertainment’ thing gets a bit shaky.  Anyway, here we go.

                           

         

We’ll start with the Lucky O’Toole series by Deborah Coonts set in Las Vegas.  Touted as humorous romantic mystery series supposedly similar to the Steph Plum books.  I can tell you they have only slight elements in common – mostly off the charts insanity.  Lucky is a much more complex, competent, mature character – or so it seems at the start, so the hapless fumbling, nutty sidekick, and crazy grandma are out.  Lucky does have a bordello owning mother, Mona, and a competent assistant, Miss P (Miss Patterson) in her job as head of Customer Relations at the swankiest, most coveted casino resort on the strip, the Babylon – and access to complementary Ferrari’s.

There are also numerous downsides.  The author seems attached to using antiquated technology, calls the casino owner ‘The Big Boss’ (yeah, that was original), she all but runs the whole operation and somehow manages to investigate murders when she has perfectly competent staff to handle such things.  Reality never had much to do with Vegas, so readers mostly gloss over all these annoying improbabilities and go along for the ride.  Hey, if Steph Plum can have giraffes running around Trenton, I guess Lucky O’Toole can have the only dinosaur Nextel in the state of Nevada – though one would think an iPhone would be more probable.

If the author’s last name sounds familiar, it should.  Her husband is NY Times best-selling author Stephen Coonts of the Jake Grafton/Tommy Carmelinni action thrillers.  I wonder how many reviews of this series were from his friends?

Anyway, let’s look at the books and keep in mind the highly improbable events in most cozies – and this would be closer to that than real mystery – so it’s like Steph Plum not having grown older during the 20+ years of the series.  (If you wonder why her sister and her kids disappeared, Evonavich had to get rid of them from the stories or they too would be ageless, despite state of the art electronics everywhere.  Robert B Parker made the same choice for his ageless Spencer.  It’s one of the wonders of FICTION.)

Wanna Get Lucky was free for Kindle to I gave it a shot.  Lucky OToole and the Babylon’s new security guy have a mystery to solve when a Vegas ‘working girl’ ends up getting dumped out of the Babylon’s helicopter into the Treasure Island Lagoon and killed.  And someone just ‘happened’ to be there to film it in high resolution.  Then there’s the 400-pound naked man by main staircase, and missing security tapes from certain floors and …….. well, a whole bunch of other stuff.

Lucky inserts herself into the investigation with the help of a very young, very green detective named Romeo.  The fast pace can’t quite cover the many flaws in logic, even for a lightweight mystery, and yes, it is cliché ridden.  If you can suspend your common sense long enough, it’s a decent read, albeit very annoying with its characters right from a TV script – including the female impersonator who is NOT gay and is interested in Lucky.  I will give Wanna Get Lucky a C- (2.8*) because it could have been really good with more attention to reality and fewer borrowed characters from all too familiar movies and TV.  It’s free, so try and see how you feel about it.

Lucky Stiff once again finds Lucky in the middle of a murder, problems with her now former female impersonator boyfriend, a convention of entomologists who bring in thousands of bees, sharks eating a Vegas odds maker with a shifty rep, and everything short of a circus act.  If book one was pushing credibility, this one entered comic book zone with a dose of soap opera thrown in – and if you didn’t see the ‘big reveal’ coming, you have to turn in your Nancy Drew card and promise to never work the Psychic Hotline.

Lucky Stiff had its amusing moments, but in many ways seemed to imitate the worst elements of the Steph Plum books with too much TV show Vegas.  You half expect James Cann to grab someone’s throat.  Anyway, it gets another C- (2.6*) and the same warning as above.  It’s heavy on the angst in parts too.  In fact, that’s true of this whole series.

 So Damn Lucky had a plot so over the top I actually enjoyed it.  You had Area 51, secret psychic warfare studies the government denies, a missing magician, a murder on the loose – or maybe not if Dimitri isn’t dead, boyfriend ‘Teddy’ now with a singing contract thanks to Lucky out on tour, a break in at her condo complex one floor blow her 30th floor unit, a French chef who looks even better than his food tastes – and he wouldn’t mind getting a taste of Lucky, and then there’s the whole, “How do I deal with Vegas knowing who my daddy is?”   Just to make life complete, Teddy shows up in Vegas unexpectedly – and so do his obnoxious parents.

OK, this one is hard for me because I kind of got a kick out of the magicians and the whole Area 51 thing, but you will have one of two reactions – SHE’S INSANE TO LIKE THIS (and many believe I am) to OMG THIS BOOK IS JUNK!  I give So Damn Lucky a B- (3.7*) because of the above points and despite the whole Teddy drama.  Plus I’m a sucker for mysteries involving magicians.

Lucky Bastard is the point at which I started giving up on this series.  Yes, it’s lighthearted fun, but there are just so many romance crisis I can stand before I hit a wall.  This is one of the problems with binge reading a series, the flaws leap out and start choking you.  Lucky’s waffling attraction to men in a kind of serial monogamy with no serious timeouts between them left me wondering how shallow she was.

Lucky O’Toole’s murder du jour is a body on the hood of a Ferrari on the showroom floor stabbed in the neck with the heel of her own Jimmy Choos – bringing a whole new meaning to ‘blood red sportscar.’  Lucky’s first thought was, “Where’s the other shoe?”  Then she learns the woman in question, well, DEAD woman in question, is actually the wife of one of the men who had been pursuing her since book 1 – former Babylon security man, undercover Gaming Commission Agent, now PI and partners with the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, Paxton Dane.  (Yeah, it really is that convoluted.)

Enter Detective Romeo, Lucky’s go to homicide cop who is showing the kind of growing as a character that makes his passingly interesting.  Too bad he’s always a bit player.  And the fact that Sylvie was cheating in the Babylon’s poker room, knew both the security code and the secret password to enter the Ferrari dealership after hours, and told Dane she had to speak with him about something urgent …………….. ok, we are now in ‘this is getting silly’ territory. Oh, and even though Lucky is moving on from Teddy to Jean-Charles, the famous gourmet chef The Big Boss hired, but is pissed at Dane (whom she rejected) for not telling her all about his marriage.  (All together now – EYE ROLL!)

Unlike So Damn Lucky, Lucky Bastard wanders in the personal wilderness of Lucky’s life and the mystery kind of just bobs and weaves in and out of her story.  And that’s my problem.  The books are half women’s fic romance/humor and half mystery and billed as the ‘Heartfelt Series’.  Being neither fish nor fowl, they probably appeal more to romance and romantic suspense lovers than mystery lovers.  Not a good genre for me to binge read after having finished the Savannah Martin series that fell into the same emotional quagmire, but with less humor.

The Lucky Bastard murder is not complex or exciting, but the surrounding endless distractions make it seem more than it is.  And how anyone can be responsible for largely running the biggest casino resort in Vegas AND have time to play amateur detective baffles me completely, especially since her only professional help is a PI and very young police detective is beyond comprehension.  Pacing is fast and if the lack of a real mystery plot and reality don’t bother you, it’s a decent read   I gets a C- (2.7*) from me.

We have now reached Lucky Catch – and in case you’re wondering, here’s the tally to far – Book 1, clear The Big Boss, book 2, clear the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, book 3, no close associate blamed (PHEW), book 4, clear Dane, book 5, clear new boyfriend Jean-Charles and his sister Desiree.  (And book 6, not reviewed here because I got fed up, clear Teddy, the ex-lover, who is back in Vegas.)

Romantic French chef, a renowned restaurateur, and new boyfriend Jean-Charles is the lead suspect in the death of his brother-in-law’s conniving mistress who helped him run J-C’s high-end food truck where chef tested potential new food offerings for yet to be opened restaurant at the completely rebuilt Athena – soon to be Cielo and run by Lucky.  (By the way, this will be fastest rebuild in the history of all hotel renovations.)

 Romeo focuses on the spurned wife – a wife with someone trying to sabotage her ultra high-end food supply company that specializes in truffles.  (Not the chocolate ones, the fungus ones.)  Too bad he did think to look closer to home ………….. Jean-Charles’ late wife.

You get a fair smattering of the ins and outs of behind the scenes food supply for top end eateries and enough French drama to fill several foreign language film festivals.  You know, the smoldering, moody, self-sacrificial, tragic crap.  Had this been a paper book, it would have gotten pitched against the wall about half way through.  I have no intention to wrecking my laptop for a cheap ebook, no matter how badly I wanted to stick a knife through the screen.  GAH!  The weakest entry in the series, (until book 6) with enough melodrama to fuel a month of soap operas.  Lucky Catch gets a D+to C- (2.5*) and read only if you’re following this series for the romance, not the mystery.

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 I received The Dirt on the Ninth Grave as an ARC ebook and hoped against hope that Darynda Jones would manage to set the story back on track after the ridiculous ‘amnesia’ ending on Eighth Grave.  You have no idea how hard I was pulling for Charley and Reyes.  SIGH!  I feared I was doomed to disappointment.  I was right and man, does that make me sad.

The Dirt on the Ninth Grave finds the still amnesiac Charley waiting tables at a diner in Sleepy Hollow, NY.  Yes, THAT Sleepy Hollow.  (It’s a scenic real town on the east side of the Hudson just north of Tarrytown where Sleepy Hollow author, Washington Irving, lived.)  Eye roll.  Reyes is now the cook there, Cookie, her PI business associate and best friend, a waitress, Detective Uncle Bob – all with obvious variations on their names and none willing to tell her about her past because she must remember on her own.  No, I am not making this crap up.  Oh, if you’re worried about Beep, the newborn from Eighth Grave, don’t bother.  Mr Wong has that handled.  Well eventually he was going to do SOMETHING.

We labor through pages of Charley seeing ghosts but not getting freaked out, serving coffee, food, and getting it on with handsome cook Ray.  And after several hundred pages, the evil demon inhabiting the body of the man who tormented Reyes and his sister comes back and kidnaps her and yes, hauls her off to a spooky house.

I will not tell you how she gets her memory back, but let me just say it ranks up there with Christina Henry’s Black Wings series ending with “Mother’s awake.”  Oh, she’s not at all freaked out about Beep being cared for elsewhere.  Not a single tear.  But she’s hot for Reyes.

OK, you’ll have one of two reactions – series lovers will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book.  People retaining some semblance of sanity will go WTF?  Yeah.  The ‘most powerful being in the universe’ not only got amnesia but is OK with her newborn being raised by strangers and ready to make out with Reyes after once again turning the tables at the last minute.  I simply cannot reconcile the contradictions in the supposed powers of the characters and the pedestrian troubles that they should easily fixed.  The rationals don’t mesh and the baby gets whisked away because it will hinder the romance angle.  Whisked away from ‘the most powerful being in the universe’ because ‘others’ can keep him safer – DOES NOT COMPUTE.  These persistent contradictions in logic just cannot be ignored.  ……….. Let me amend that.  I cannot ignore them.  Apparently fans have unlimited tolerance for such things.

Long sigh.  Time to wrap this up Ms Jones.  You’re pushing the plot well past the sell by date.  I will be a contrarian and give Ninth Grave a C- (2.7*) and acknowledge in advance I will be hated by CD fans everywhere.  The hardcover is very overpriced even at a discount given the short length of the book.  The ebook is insanely over-priced as well.  It does have better verve than Eight Grave, but not enough for me to overlook the basic flaws in logic.  If you’re a serious, SERIOUS fan, buy it.  If Eighth Grave put you on the fence – get it from your library for free or wait for a used book discount in a couple of months.  Regardless, spend as little as possible.

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Alyssa Day is famous for her paranormal romance books featuring Atlantis and an alternate version of our world where vampires attempted a takeover of the US.  In this hybrid reality, in modern Florida swamp country mystery, Dead Eye, Tess Callahan runs a pawn shop half of which she inherited from her former boss and father figure, Jeremiah Shepherd – a man who was murdered some months earlier.  The other half of the shops and Jeremiah’s house and personal belongings went to his nephew Jack Shepherd.  Jack left Dead End 10 years ago and was involved in the vampire wars.  Now he’s back and looking to just settle his uncle’s estate …………… until he learns Jeremiah didn’t just die, he was murdered and Tess has a tiger shifter by the tail.

Tess has a gift too.  One she’d rather not have.  She can ‘see’ a person’s death when she touches them or they touch her skin.  It doesn’t happen every time, but enough that she doesn’t touch folks.  Like witches and shifters, such gifts are not uncommon in Dead End.  Jack makes himself at home all too fast and decides to ‘get this over with’ and touches Tess.  She realizes he’s already ‘died’ – kind of a first for her.  She also learns that he was one of the two top people leading the rebellion.  Jack is also a really nice guy – but bossy.

Dead Eye is a bit different from Day’s usual trope, it’s more in the UF/paranormal mystery mash-up category like Sookie Stackhouse.  Although it is tangential to her other series, you do NOT need to have read them to follow this book as works as the start of a new a different series, but it does help to fill in the background.  The series will carry on more in the UF/paranormal mystery series with the Jack and Tess romance angle.  The plot, unfortunately, was obvious and the characters, especially Tess, lacked depth.  It just came off shallow on all key elements.  There was a sense of deja vu because the characters and dialogues and plot were so familiar it felt trite.  Much as I wanted to really like it, it was too cliché, including the corrupt town sheriff.  It gets a C (3*) rating and for Alyssa Day fans, buy or borrow the ebook.  It’s much too short to justify the price of the print copy.  A miss-able series, but fun for those who like paranormal mystery in the Sookie Stackhouse style, just shorter.

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 Here is my best advice to fans if the Miss Fortune series by Jana DeLeon – RUN AWAY NOW!  DO NOT LOOK BACK!  DO NOT SPEND ONE DIME ON THIS TRIPE!  This whole Sinful World novella craze has spawned some real garbage and but this one – good grief.  You want an example of how allowing other authors to write stories set in a world you created can go wrong – here is the perfect example.  Some of the Sinful World novellas have been good, most mediocre, one other awful, but this was Outer Limits Meets Sinful and almost singlehandedly trashed the series.

I understand that many of these novellas are little better than fan fic.  OK, that’s fine.  I remember back when multiple author series were all the rage in sword and sorcery fantasy and yes, different authors perceived the same character very differently.  But there is a HUGE difference between accomplished authors writing stories using common ‘worlds’ and characters from amateur hour in ebook-orama.  Sinful Science is almost a criminal offense.  A not believable overlay of poorly thought out science fiction/horror using characters who behave totally out of character, banal dialogue, and a plot that’s little short of an insult to both science fiction/horror fans and Sinful fans alike – and even managed to throw in shapeshifting swamp rat Federal Agents at the end.  I can’t believe I just wrote that.  I think I need to bleach my brain.  My WTF gauge just exploded.

Can you guess my rating?  Yes, Sinful Science gets an F (0*).  A rare and not at all coveted award.  I’m confident this author writes far better pieces than this, I just wish she refrained from inflicting this insane mashup of Outer Limits/Twilight Zone/Sinful on Sinful fans.  If I want to read Dystopian or horror, I’ll grab Sandman Slim or one of the other many UF/paranormal/horror mashups available.

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OK, I think I’ve aborted my near cranial meltdown and can manage one more ebook novella review – another entry in Thea Harrison’s Elder Races paranormal romance series.  Pia Does Hollywood is book 2 in a novella series that started with Dragos Goes to Washington.  In this, a pregnant Pia is required to go spend 1 week as a guest of Queen of the Light Fae, who seems oddly anxious to put the timing off.  But Pia is pregnant and unwilling to wait and risk exposing her condition.  Dragos plans to skirt the rules that forbid him to go with Pia by going to CA on his own and staying up the coast to be near.

But Pia sees a problem as soon as she arrives, it’s high security and watchfulness by the Light Fea that has Pia’s own bodyguards on edge.  Dragos arrives early thanks to a favor from a djinn and flies out to grab some fresh fish before heading to Rodeo Drive.  A spectacular necklace, bracelet, and earring catch his eye.  But when he announces himself, the usual sudden appearance of owners doesn’t happen, just a confused and near hysterical sales woman.  Something is obviously wrong as she explains how Light Fae have been disappearing.  But he’s Lord Dragos Culebre, so he takes the jewels, tells he to stay secure and send the bill to his NYC office and goes to investigate.  He finds packs of rabid, mindless Light Fae who attack and try to kill him despite his fire.

Pia is struck by the fact the Light Fae queen and her whole household is armed as if they expect a massive assault.  It seems some infection has struck, perhaps deliberate bio attack, the Light Fae.  Only Dragos, who arrives at the mansion in a stolen vehicle – and he’s been bitten by an infected Fae.

Ms Harrison, who is quite capable of drawing out a slender story to a tedious novel length, manages to write excellent novellas.  Funny how the shorter format seems to bring out the best in some authors and the worst in others.  She managed to create enough plot for a decent book into an excellent, tightly written, action-packed novella.  Pia Does Hollywood is not at all what I expected, but it was actually much better and gets a B+ (4.3*) and suggested read along with Dragos goes to Washington.

With that, I will wrap the ebook binge and hopefully get back to print books for my next entry.  As I sit writing this and watching the end of the Alamo Bowl (which became quite exciting in the second half), I want to wish you all Happy New Year and Good Reading in 2016!

 

 

 

Making Cents – Thanks to Dear Author

No, that’s not a mistake on my part. When it comes to print and ebooks, most readers have definite price limits.  I often comment of the value of both print and ebooks vs their purchase price.  I have also said numerous times that I have decidedly mixed feelings about Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited as I feel authors should receive some payment for their work – and I have no idea what, if any, royalty they get from Kindle Unlimited downloads.  While a part of me still feels that authors are shortchanged by a behemoth like Amazon, I also had to revise my opinion after reading an editorial in Dear Author.

Dear Author is primarily a romance book blog written by a team of very knowledgeable and educated women.  Anyone who knows anything about books knows the largest selling genre – by a WIDE margin – is romance.  The buyers are almost exclusively women.  Dear Author is a very popular blog with heavy traffic that is widely recognized as one of the ‘movers and shakers’ in the industry.  They have branched out some into mystery and espionage and fantasy, but the vast majority of their reviews are romance of all types.  But they also offer insights on publishing trends and industry issues.  One of their columns this month concerned Amazon Kindle Unlimited and the controversy around it – naturally much of it coming from authors themselves.

Read the column by Jane here.

Jane makes several excellent points – some I hadn’t considered and a few I did.  I had a dear friend who was a dedicated and voracious romance reader.  I used to joke that when we went into a bookstore she went looking for the steamy bodies in romance and I went looking for the dead ones in mystery.  But I read a much wider range of genres than she did as she rarely strayed from romance while I went for fantasy, non-fiction, urban fantasy, action thrillers and we’d cross at romantic suspense.  She did get me into some romance, but I could not budge her beyond romantic suspense except with a few ‘crafty cozies’ with knitting and other crafts as the unifying theme.  While I had a bigger budget thanks to the fact I held a higher position in the company, we were BOTH price conscious.  I was just more willing – and financially able – to buy something if I really wanted it.  Now on a more fixed income, I look more closely at value than I did then.  And yes, value has driven me to buy and read more ebooks.

While my friend died several years ago, no doubt leaving her sons hundreds of books to clear out, her health kept us from visiting bookstores and used bookstores for years before that.  The explosive growth of Amazon put paid to my store shopping, except by accident.  While my friend did live long enough to see the beginning of the evolution of ebooks as a major player, we were still mostly reading the books in PDF format, not as NOOK or Kindle – and nearly all were small press ebooks bought online from the publisher.  What we were BOTH pleased with was exactly the point Jane made in her editorial, the books were relative bargains.  While mass market paperbacks were rapidly climbing in price, there sat the early versions of ebooks at half or less than the cost of print.

In the last 6 years or so, the growth of ebooks has opened places like the Brooklyn Public Library to people who live in California or North Dakota or just down the street from the actual library.  For $50 a year, you have a vast library of ebooks at your command.  No doubt your local library has a similar plan, but maybe fewer titles.  Many local libraries are more willing to buy ebooks patrons request too.  And there is the beauty of ebooks.  Value and convenience rolled into one.  At 2AM the library might be closed, but you can borrow an ebook.  Or I can shop Amazon and grab something and start reading it minutes later.

And that brings us back to Kindle Unlimited and the arguments authors use against it.  Namely that their work is ‘devalued’ by making it free.  Once I read Jane’s editorial, I began rethinking my attitude about Kindle Unlimited (and I am NOT a member of that service) and how it was or was not different from the far most cost effective Brooklyn Public Library, other than you can keep the download?  Do libraries and used bookstores ‘devalue’ books?  Used bookstores have been around as long as there have been printed books.  That doesn’t stop people from buying the umpteenth reprint of Jane Eyre or King Solomon’s Mines or Tarzan.  Now the heirs of Agatha Christie might retain rights, but who has rights to Voltaire or Thoreau?  So, I must revisit my own thoughts of services like Kindle Unlimited.

As time passes, I find a larger percentage of my reading is now ebook, around 40-50%, well up from the 10% of just a few years ago.  I read mostly on my laptop, but I did buy myself a small Kindle Fire as a Christmas gift this year.  I was unwilling to pay for an iPad or similar tablet as I wished to use it mostly to read books in bed.  In the great ebook debate, I find I am smack in the middle.  On one side are two good friends, one in California and my doctor in NJ who read almost exclusively ebooks.  On the other side sit people like my brother and sister-in-law who want ONLY print books.   All are voracious readers and all like different genres.  And there I stand squarely in the middle.  My old eyes get tired reading LCD screens, yet my friend in CA loves the fact she can scale the fonts to accommodate her vision, not exactly an option with print.  My brother and SIL like the ease of print and dislike dealing with expensive technology that breaks easily and takes time and effort to learn.  (Yes, they are rather proud Luddites.)  I read on a laptop for a totally different reason – I multitask too much for a tablet.  At the moment, I have 5 tabs open in my browser, a word processing program with 3 documents open, and an e-reader program all open at once, and that’s pretty typical.  I can’t do that on a tablet.

I did find Jane’s comments both enlightening and balanced.  Thinking of Kindle Unlimited as a ‘value based’ option, something that has a strong appeal to any voracious reader, and looking at the arguments against it by authors ………. well, Jane made very valid points.  Kudos.  I like it when someone presents an argument that makes me reassess my opinions and I was glad to revisit my evaluation of Kindle Unlimited with a different perspective.  I might not be a great romance fan, but I am certainly a voracious reader and like everyone, I want value for my money.  Kindle Unlimited might not work for me right now, but I am now willing to keep checking to see if that value pendulum swings my way.   Thank-you, Jane.

Hot Off The Press

This installment is mostly recent releases of ebooks and DTB’s in various series and one that can be viewed as a stand alone, and a few ebooks.  I’ve noticed I’m gravitating to more humorous mystery in ebook than paper.  Only a few series are worth the cost of a print copy for my bedtime reading.  And since it’s summer, I will also tell more about Reacherfan Groundhog and Trey Dupress – their first major adventure – Murder at The Myrtles Plantation.  It’s a long story that had many authors about half written by me and then I edited the tale into a finished product.  I’m doing another polish and then I’ll post installments during those lazy summer months.

But right now, it’s all about books.

Many times I’ve said how good this series is and how creative and funny Darynda Jones can be spinning multiple story lines at once.  I supposed that’s why I was so disappointed in Eighth Grave after Dark.  Jones set the bar high and held it there through seven books – then she wrote this.

Eighth Grave has several issues – first was the stagnant setting.  In the other books, Charley was moving around, checking on things.  Her she’s near her delivery date for Beep and essentially trapped in an old nunnery on hallowed ground to keep the Hellhounds from killing her and Beep.  Second is the rather insubstantial mystery plots that run thru this book.  ‘Kit’ Carson is working on a serial kidnapper/killer case involving an old lover’s niece.  There’s nothing there, just ordinary data checks.  Next is the crying nun’s ghost and what she wants. (Jones always runs a ‘live’ mystery in tandem with a ‘ghost’ case.) And then there’s the elephant in the room – Beep.  And there was the whole Beep’s birth scene, not to mention the sob story from the evil step-mother explaining her DECADES of bad behavior.

Now al lot of information is finally disclosed in this entry, but it’s done without excitement or tension.  But the worst part – and I mean ‘throw the book at the wall’ annoyance level – is the ending.  I won’t spoil it for you, but I sat there yelling “WHAT?  WTF IS THIS CRAP?” at about 3AM when I finished it.  I just hope none of the neighbors heard me.  Between her father’s ghost and his not believable tale, to “You really don’t remember!” – I wanted to set the book on fire.  Since this was about the over-arching plot of Charley’s existence that’s key to the whole series, it’s unforgivable.

OK, my seething anger aside, the book was far from her best effort.  Tension levels were off, the whole pregnancy plot kind of fizzled, so did the wedding, and bland ‘mysteries’ that could have been solved by any armchair Nancy Drew, resulted in the kindest description of this effort as LAME – and the ending insulted the intelligence of the readers.

Eighth Grave After Dark gets a D+ to C- (2.8*) from me.  It is nowhere near the quality of the first seven books and the ending has me wondering if I want to pay the HC price for the ninth book that’s already on order.  Fans will love this book despite all the plot, the data dumps, and character issues.  Try and get it cheap because it’s far from her usual quality.  My copy is off to the next owner in Hawaii.

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Cold Burn of Magic is the first book in Jennifer Estep’s latest young adult series.  Young Adult is a very hot market for paranormal writers as The Hunger Games and other proved.  Her previous YA series, the Mythos Academy books, I never read, so I can’t say how they compare, but here, her 17 yr old female and 19 yr old male leads acted more like adults than teens.

Lila is a 17-year-old thief who is stealing a necklace to order for her sort of friend, mentor, and fence, Mo.  We catch her as she eludes guards armed with swords – why not guns and swords, but apparently only swords.  Like her Elemental Assassin series, people here often have ‘Talents’.  And like her Spider assassin, Lila has two talents.  She is also a high school student trying to avoid getting put back in the foster care system.  After school, she heads for Mo’s pawn shop and ends up getting in the middle of an assassination attempt on the heir to one of the two most powerful families, Devon Sinclair.

Lila’s interference saves Devon’s life and forces her to change her own and take a job as his bodyguard.  Lila hates the Sinclairs because her mother died as a result of protecting Devon years earlier during a chance encounter in the park.  Now here she is doing the same thing and risking exposure of her rare Talent to people powerful enough to rip it from her.

The plot of Cold Burn of Magic is basic and had limited tension.  At just over 300 pages in trade size, it was a very fast, easy read.  Too many of the ‘world building’ elements had common ground with her Elemental Assassin series, and Lila was a bit too much like Gin Blanco – tough, talented, independent, and shrewd – and the setting just adds ‘magical’ creatures to the list.

While not impressive, Cold Burn of Magic is suitable for young adult readers while having just enough substance for many older adults.  I give it a C+ (3.3*) and suggested read if you can find it cheap.

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I admit that Craig Johnson is a favorite mystery author and Walt Longmire is a marvelous character, so I am predisposed to love his writing and sly wit.  Dry Bones delivers plenty of entertainment but is far from his best mystery.  Johnson’s biggest weakness is the emotional elements between Walt and his daughter, home to visit with his granddaughter.

At the heart of Dry Bones is the discovery and ownership of a huge T Rex skeleton found on disputed land and a dead Native American found by Walt’s enigmatic friend Omar while out fishing.  Danny Lone Elk’s status in the tribe means no autopsy can be performed, but Walt is convinced the old man was murdered.  Caught in the middle of the dispute between the tribe, the family, the discovery of the bones, and the state, Walt also has to deal with his exhausted, cranky daughter and granddaughter.

Johnson creates characters that seem so real that you feel you know them, but Walt’s emotional disconnect from his daughter is on full display.  When the call comes about her husband, Vic’s brother, Walt is, as always, tied up with the case.  Fossils of T Rex skeletons sell for big bucks (Johnson acknowledges he used the fight over another fossil as his inspiration here, so if that seems familiar, that’s why.) – money all different parties are claiming.  And murder is usually about money – only this time, not from the auction of the skeleton.

While I figured out who did it early on, Johnson’s writing and characters made the story too entertaining to put down.  The ending had a very clever twist.  “Save Jen!”

I give Dry Bones a C+ to B- (3.6*).  My SIL who also read it, voted it higher, but I’m tougher on books than she is.  We both liked the ending.  A short read, it really isn’t worth the nearly $20 discount price, so wait any buy used or borrow from the library.  My copy went right to my brother and SIL and then off to the book swap games.

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In the latest installment of the Lexi Carmichael series, No Woman Left Behind, Moffet opens with a hysterical scene where a nervous Lexi is trying to explain to Slash why having dinner with her parents will be a disaster.  The part about her father looking at them and knowing they were having sex, including that ‘innovative maneuver’ he did on the table cracked me up.  But dinner is interrupted by gunshots and Lexi and Slash are drawn into a battle of wits with arch villian Broodryk from No Test for the Wicked – a man she defeated and deprived on millions of dollars.

Xavier is in a Greek hospital fighting for his life and twin, Elvis Zimmerman, is being held captive by Broodryk and only Lexi and can play the game to free him.  From a private chat room, Lexi finds she must swallow her fears and go to Africa to get the next clue.  Broodryk wants to play on his home turf.

Slash and Lexi fight about her going, but she feels responsible for what’s happened to Elvis and if she doesn’t play his game, he’ll just kill him and kidnap another person, maybe her brother or mother.  She knows even with SEALs and the help of Grayson, the CIA analyst, she probably won’t live, but off she goes.

There are several hysterical scenes – the one finding Gray and ‘Hands’, the SEAL sniper team leader, in flagrante delicto while running from a ‘spider’ and then the tandem jump from 12,000 feet with Hands are both priceless.  The plot has tension and wit and is just a damn fun read.

No Woman Left Behind gets a B+ (4.3*) from me.  Available ebook only and worth the price.  This is a fun series.

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Book one in a new series my Melissa Olsen, Boundary Crossed was offered free in the Prime First plan on Amazon.  Can’t beat free, so I gave it a shot as ebook.

Allison Alexis Luther ‘Lex’ to her Army buddies, spent two tours in Iraq until she walked out if the desert after an IED got her squad in the Humvee.  The Army gave her an honorable discharge and funny looks, because she should have died.  Now, the only living child of the Luther family, second largest employer in Boulder,CO, is a night clerk at a convenience store building a floor display in soda 12 packs when she hears a young couple debating diaper sizes.  When she goes to help them, she sees the baby is her niece – and the couple has kidnaped her.  She screams for the other clerk to call the cops and proceeds to use her best combat skills against them.

Something strange happens in the fight and even though she gouged out the mans eyes, he seemed to grow them back.  Badly wounded, Lex dies.  Again.  Then 4 more times in the OR, but each time she comes back.  She wakes in the hospital getting the same strange looks she from the Army doctors.  Her world goes sideways when ‘Detective’ Quinn comes in to question her and she relates everything to him.  Then she feels the same pressure on her mind she felt from the kidnapper.  Quinn tells her she’s a witch, so does a young man name Simon, who is also a witch.   he’s a vampire Welcome to the brave new world.

Finally grudgingly accepting the whole witch thing, she seeks protection from the vampire ‘dominus’ for the state.  Her niece is a null.  The story centers around Lex’s slow acceptance of her power and the fact most witches hate and fear her – she’s a Boundary witch, or death witch, with a special affinity for vampires, since technically, they’re dead.

In print, the book is just about 300 pages.  It’s a fast, easy read and the UF world building minimal since it all happens here and now.  Lex is an interesting character, but only she and Quinn are well-developed.  The supporting cast is minimal and kind of sketched in.

Boundary Crossed gets a C+ (3.3*) from me.  Not essential, but give it a try if find a cheap print copy or buy the ebook.  At $5, the ebook is pricy for what you get.

Trolling thru Ebooks

Like I don’t have enough to read with stacks of books clogging my floor space, I go trolling through Amazon ebooks and get special offers from some author websites for $0.99 specials for full length books.  I’m a book junkie and have a habit to feed, so ………….. well, I’m weak.

There are upsides to ebooks, some not even available in print, and there are downsides.  One of those downsides of self publishing is things like ‘Set in the World Of ………….’, take your pick of popular series.  The ones that I read we’re set in Sinful, LA, in the world of Jana DeLeon’s entertaining Miss Fortune series.  Thing is, some of the ‘tribute’ stories are more fan-fic than professional writing.  A couple were good.

I also discovered another humorous mystery series – you know me and my love of humorous mysteries – set in Scottsdale, AZ, a place I grew to know well thanks to many long business trips out that way.  And I finally started getting through the Housewife Assassin books as well, and I’m about half way through – but some DTB’s came and demanded my attention.

But ebooks are the topic for this post, so here we go!

                                                                                                     

BA Trimmer introduces Laura Black, a PI who works for a semi-sleazy but very successful lawyer, Lenny Shapiro, in Scottsdale.  I Reviewed Scottsdale Sizzle in a prior post, then read these two, completely out of the order in which they were written, but we’ll just ignore that for the moment.

We have the same cast of characters as Scottsdale Sizzle in Scottsdale Heat and Scottsdale Squeeze.  We do, however, get to know exactly how Laura got involved with Max and Tough Tony, the local mob boss.  Both books were well done with interesting characters, decent plots with Scottsdale Heat (Book 1)  is Laura’s first case.  Here she looks for the missing son of one of Scottsdale’s wealthiest socialites and ends up entangled in an improbable hunt for bag switched by Alex (the grandson) in a resort owned by Tough Tony.  While the series events is almost laughably unlikely, it’s still a good, fun, fast read.

Scottsdale Squeeze (Book 2) tells the story of how Jackie Wade, she has a brief cameo in book 1, came to own Saguaro Sky resort and is another convoluted tale that once again puts Laura in contact with Tough Tony and the handsome and all too tempting Max – whom she again does a huge favor for.

This series is billed as a humorous romantic mystery, and it is fun, but not the laugh out loud kind that Jana DeLeon delivers.  The plots seem to be getting better with each book.  Scottsdale Heat gets a B- (3.7*) from me and Scottsdale Squeeze gets a B- (3.9*).  A suggested read in ebook for any fan of Christine Craig’s books, or Jana DeLeon.  More fun than most boring and predictable cozies.

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 Amazon’s Kindle deal had books 1-3 of the Gotcha Detective series for a great low price so I figured OK, I can do this.  Now remember, I really disliked book 6, Electile Dysfunction.  Buy the early ones was a leap of faith, but worth it.  These are far better than her more recent books with the annoying and pointless changes on POV chapter to chapter, which drives me nuts and adds NOTHING to the overall quality of the story, but still rather lame overall.

Mimi Cappruo is supposedly for Secret Service and protected the First Lady, something a junior member of the SS would never do.  Still, that’s her background – and yet she barfs at a dead body?  Worse, as the stories progress, we learn she married the mob??????  HUH?  The SS does a thing called BACKGROUND CHECKS on any anyone involved with agents protecting the First Family.  And she’s shocked?????  On the upside, books 1-3 were halfway decent and quick reads.  Charles, the gay tech expert who eventually becomes her agency partner gets increasing larger parts.  But as the dynamics change among the characters, the story quality starts falling apart.

Book 1 to 4 and all written in first person from Mimi’s POV.  By book 5, we have Charles interlaced and that’s where she lost me.  The plots and characters simply are not strong to pull off the changing perspectives.  It becomes nothing more than a writers trick.

The Gotcha Detective Series is not that good with books ranging from C+ (3.4*) to D+/C- (2.8*).  Yes, some are free and deals are offered.  The rave reviews elude me.  Anyone who thinks these books rival Sue Grafton’s is delusional.  Very average and frankly, not recommended, even as ebooks.

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The popular Housewife Assassin series is another decent read, but one that requires the reader to buy into the initial concept.  Character, including Donna, housewife turned assassin for a government contractor that her supposed dead husband betrayed.  Jack, another Acme operator sent to play Carl, her dead husband on history’s longest business trip, Carl, her undead lying with every word husband, the mommies of her upscale neighborhood where she pretends she’s just another mom and housewife.

OK, it’s not great stuff, but the characters are well done, the dialogue is realistic and often quite witty, even the ‘mommies’ (and Donna imaging what she’d do to them) are amusing, and the plots are on par with any James Bond nonsense.  Relationship Survival Guide and Vacation to Die For were really good.  Plots were hardly subtle, but held some surprises.  I enjoyed them and they did have some really fun moments.

It should be noted, due to over-arching plot elements, this is a series that needs to be read in order to work out who and what all the underlying subtleties are that are happening.

Books 2 through 5 of the Housewife Assassin series get mostly B- (3.8*) to B (4*) from me – except the Killer Christmas Tips which I found a bit ragged at C+ to B- (3.6*).  A suggested read for fans of humorous mysteries that can take things not too seriously.

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Short stories and novellas really test a writer’s skill.  You have little space or time to create characters, setting, plot, and build excitement.  Mysteries are especially difficult as they are so very character dependent and rely on subtle misdirection.  Using a known setting, like Sinful, known and well defined characters, and somehow come up with an original idea is the baseline.  Some succeed.  Some crash and burn.  We have both here.

OK, Let’s take these left to right.  Body in the Bog was just downright awful and I don’t care what the Amazon reviewer’s say.  It fundamentally changed the characters of Ida Belle, Gertie and especially Fortune – a pragmatic assassin who NEVER would have done what kicked this whole tear-jerker off.  Add to that the fact that everyone spends the story repeating dialogue and crying, if it had been paper, it would have been thrown at the nearest wall.  DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!  Even if it’s free, it’s just awful on every level and a the perfect example of what fan-fic does with characters.  D- (1.5*)  Short story/short novella length and still only good to line bird cages.

Nearly Departed, at around 100 pages, is a longer novella and a fun story that does keep the 3 main characters true to form.  Gertie is throwing her 10th annual Funeral Party, yup, she’s laid out in a casket and all and has hired a transvestite singing group for entertainment and the usual romp – except for the fact someone wants Gertie dead for real.  Well written and plotted and definitely worth reading and more importantly, true to both the characters and spirit of DeLeon’s books.  Gets a B (4*) from me, rare for novella.

Leslie Langtry, author of the Bombay Assassin series and fellow refuge from Dorchester with Jana DeLeon, does her usual professional and stylistic best to combine a character from DeLeon’s Mudbug series with the gang from Sinful, the place her socialite twin sister and batty momma live.  Bloodshed on the Bayou is more about Margaret Ancelet and her posh sister than our Swamp Team 3, but Fortune’s cover is at risk, so they swing into action to try and work out who is selling illegal booze – the favorite of Margaret’s dead father, who’s shooting people, and why there are suddenly Feds all over the place.  Langtry does a very good job of telling a moderately complex story in a novella format under 80 pages.  Entertaining, fast paced and especially good for fans of the Mudbug series as well.  Another B (4*) short read.