A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Charles Todd is a pseudonym for an American mother/son writing team.  Todd writes two series, the Ian Rutledge series and the Bess Crawford series.  Bess Crawford is a British, World War I nurse, who has an inexplicable knack for getting caught up in murder mysteries.   A Duty To The Dead is the first novel in the Bess Crawford series; it is also the first Charles Todd novel that I've read.  Someone donated a paperback copy to the library recently that I borrowed and read after some initial confusion over whether it was the first or second in the series (because we all know I like to read a series in order!).  A promise made to a dying soldier is what leads to the mayhem as it were (although, really there isn't mayhem related to the mystery until a bit at the end), and when the smoke clears a family is left in shambles with hardly anyone left to pick up the pieces. Bess promises a dying soldier named Arthur Graham that she will personally relay a message to...

The Winter People is the newest release from Jennifer McMahon.  I think I've read one of her previous novels, but it wasn't reviewed here on the blog, and I don't remember which one it was.  This is one of those books of spooky strangeness in which you're not really sure what is happening in some parts of the book because the narrator isn't really sure what is happening.  I'll admit that things sure looked like they were going one way when instead they ended up a different way that was far worse.  Basically cold blooded vengeance visited upon a family by a person who helped raise the family's children pretty much spawned the events that happened in the present.  It was sad because the person took it out on the children--children who had no control over what the adults in the situation were doing. Strange things happen in tiny West Hall, Vermont.  People die strange, gruesome deaths.  People vanish into thin air.  Livestock is murdered.  ...

I finished this book earlier this week.  It's the fourth book by Patti Callahan Henry that I've read.  If you click here , here , and here , you can read the three previous novels that were reviewed on the blog.  I've now exhausted the Henry books available in the local library system.  I may request some of her others from outside the county, but I have a pile of books at home to read (or not read as the case may be) before I do that.  The novel has similar themes to the later novel, Coming Up For Air : relationships, mistaking controlling tendencies for love, keeping secrets from those we love, etc.  There were some parts of this novel that were hard for me to read because I was worried that things would go to hell in a hand-basket before they got better, but they didn't, and I was glad for that. Annabelle has spent the last two years mourning the death of her husband, Knox, a pilot whose plane went down in flames in the isolated wilderness of Col...

So in the last review I had lots of opinions, mostly because I think that book really chapped my ass.  I also have opinions regarding this book, specifically about the two younger sisters who spend about half the book being insufferable, self-centered wenches.  (That's right.   I said it. )   Driftwood Summer is the third book by Patti Callahan Henry that I've read and reviewed on the blog.  You can read the other reviews here and here .  I've become a fan of her books.  This one has family drama--specifically prickly, resentful sisterly relationship drama. Riley's mother takes a tumble down the staircase of the family home and breaks several bones in the process.  As a result Riley's sisters, Maisie and Adalee, must come home to assist with their mother's convalescence as well as the huge, week long bicentennial celebration of the cottage that houses the family owned bookstore.  There's much more riding on this celebration than the fam...

I told you I've been reading.  I had about three reviews backlogged and waiting to be typed up and posted of which this review of The Siege by Stephen White is the second.  I don't normally read books like this... and by books like this, I mean, high stakes thrillers that feel generic.  I put this book in the same category as the conspiracy theory/intrigue/black ops/historical-discovery-of-global-importance-that-will-shatter-all-our-notions-of-history/religion/life-as-we-know-it thrillers that star spies or other former elite special forces operators.  Not that there's anything wrong with those books, they just usually aren't my bag of tea when it comes to reading, and so I tend to shy away from them.  So why I read this one, I don't know except that it's been on my reading list forever, and I thought there must be some reason why I put it there, so why don't I give it a shot because I'm sure it'll be a quick read.  Well.  I read the first 100 pag...