Tuesday Book Review

3 star review of Excelsior by George Sirois

Teenager Matt Perry has written a comic strip about the hero Excelsior ever since he touched a sword, found during an archaeological dig. Turns out the sword holds the essence of the actual Excelsior, who saved his world Denab IV from the Krunations. And Matt was chosen to absorb the essence as many have before. He’s needed to free the Denabians. This novel is full of exciting adventures and situations, dear to the hearts of teenage boys. Aside from occasionally lapses, the writing was good, but I knew how it would end, especially since it’s the first of a series.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

5-star review of A Conventional Corpse by Joan Hess

I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed reading the Claire Malloy mysteries. Somehow I’d missed this one in the past. Claire, a bookstore owner, is roped into hosting a mystery writer’s convention in Farberville at the local college and a quaint old house turned hotel. The chaos that ensues is unavoidable, given that the four female and one male writers are frenemies, and that few of them get along with an editor who crashes the party. Taking a back-seat to all this is Claire’s relationship with police detective Peter Rosen. Toss in a cat, Claire’s daughter and her friend, a vegan hotel owner, and a few others, making this a fun story from start to finish, the kind of book I need at a time like this. I understand the Kindle version of the book has many spelling errors, but I didn’t notice any in the print version.

Tuesday Book Review

4 star review of Drop Dead Crime: Mystery and Suspense from the Leading Ladies of Murder

An anthology of stories from four writers I hadn’t read before and one of my all time favorites in this genre, Julie Smith. I enjoyed a couple more than the others, but overall, these were good stories with female protagonists and intriguing plots. These are obviously experienced writers who know how to write. The one I particularly liked was the last one by Leslie Wolfe featuring FBI agent Tess Winnett.

Tuesday Book Review

Four star review of The Girl at the Border by Leslie Archer

I would have given this book five stars, because it was well-written and engrossing, but the author didn’t seem to know whether this was a psychological thriller, a murder mystery, action-adventure or something else entirely. It didn’t help that we jump without warning between the main characters, not only in distance but time. I enjoy modular stories like that, but usually there’s some indication at the beginning of a module that there’s been a change. The blurb begins: Renowned archaeologist Richard Mathis is half a world away on the island of Crete when he learns his daughter, Bella, has gone missing. Within twenty minutes, hes on his way back to the States. Two days later, hes dead. But in the end, it’s really about the parallels between Richard’s assistant Angela and Bella.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

4 star review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I tend to find epistolary stories either boring or confusing, particularly when there are multiple people writing to each other, but the underlying story totally overcame those problems. Perhaps it was the different ‘voices’. During World War II, Guernsey, one of the islands in the English channel, was occupied by the Germans and the citizens underwent enormous hardships. This takes place soon after. As the citizens tell their stories to writer Juliet Ashton, we come to know a few. When she travels to the island, we learn more about them as well as her. In the end, it’s a charming love story.