A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

This is Hood's fifth novel, but The Obituary Writer is the first Ann Hood book that I've read.  In theory the premise of this story is more interesting than the story actually turns out to be, and I guess I don't really have strong feelings one way or the other over this book much the same way I didn't really have strong feelings about the book in the previous review.  While one story is resolved and wrapped up, the resolution to the other part of the story is left ambiguous--like for me, I couldn't tell if it was going to go one way or the other way after the story was over and that bugged me a little bit. Claire (same name, different spelling than the main character from the book in the previous review, a coincidence I didn't notice until I started writing up some notes for this review) is a housewife in 1963.  The mother of a toddler girl, Claire doesn't realize how unhappy she is in her marriage or how much she dislikes her husband until she meets, ...

I know it's been a while since my last post.  It took a while to find another book to read.  I went through a few before this one stuck.  Sometimes that happens and it's annoying.  So here we are with The Drowning House , the first novel by Elizabeth Black, and I feel like it could have been more than it was.  This novel is about many things except for what the book jacket says.  According to the jacket, it's a novel about a woman who returns home in the wake of a family tragedy to put together some photography exhibit and then is drawn into some historical mystery about whether or not the daughter of the rich family next door died in the big hurricane in 1909 (or 1906, but I could be mixing that up with the earthquake in the current book I'm reading... I know it happened at the turn of the twentieth century, okay?) and what role the woman's family played in the death.  Except this mystery plays a minor role in the story and (SPOILERS) the woman's ...

I have now read all the books in The Graveyard Queen series by Amanda Stevens, The Prophet , being the third one; there is a fourth due for release later this year.  I always read a series in order, and I always recommend others do too.  With most series you can start anywhere and then go back to the beginning to read them in order and be able to follow the developments because generally speaking events from previous books might be referenced but not integral to the current book's story.  Some series, such Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series, can be read in any order because main characters don't recur from book to book and thus the developments from previous books have no bearing whatsoever on later installments.  With The Graveyard Queen series it is really imperative to read them in order.  Elements in the first one set up the main stories for the second and third (especially the third) and events in the second one inform changes in Amelia's character ...

Deep Down is the second installment in the series by Deborah Coates that features Hallie Michaels, the Afghanistan War veteran who died in an IED explosion, was resuscitated, and now sees dead people.   (See the review for the first book here .) If I'm honest with myself, I need another book series to follow like I need another hole in the head, but this one has me hook, line and sinker.  Coates does the supernatural, ghost stuff extremely well and her characterization of her heroine is vivid and full of personality.  This new book takes up about two months since the events of the last book in which some crazy, psycho dude tried to use some dark magic hoodoo stuff to control the weather (yeah, you should really read that one first and then read this one).  As this story progresses it appears that the previous events' aftermath and effects are still being felt and dealt with in this novel and may be slightly more connected to the current events detailed in this sto...