God’s Junk Drawer
Mix Alice in Wonderland with Jurassic Park. Add a dash of every science fiction sub genre but especially time travel. Voila, you have God’s Junk Drawer! Twelve-year-old Billy is found in Thailand after being missing for five years from Maine. He has wild tales of the missing years including encountersContinue Reading
The Encyclopedia of Soups and Stews
The Encyclopedia of Soups and Stews has over 300 recipes. Every soup or stew you have ever heard of, and many that you haven’t, grace these pages. About 25% of the recipes have pictures. Unfortunately, none have nutritional information or allergen warnings. Even though the book states it is forContinue Reading
Secret Sauce
Who doesn’t love a fast food or restaurant’s special sauce? Secret Sauce contains a huge collection of copycat recipes from McDonald’s Big Mac to Olive Garden’s Alfredo and marinara sauces. The recipes are easy enough for anyone to follow. The ingredients can be found in most grocery stories. I madeContinue Reading
Cursed Daughters
I loved the author’s first book, My Sister, the Serial Killer. It was completely original and hilarious. The dynamics between the sisters was the best part. Seven years later, the author’s sophomore novel, Cursed Daughters, was released. I couldn’t wait to read it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. While this bookContinue Reading
Best of “The Strand Magazine”
The Strand is a British mystery magazine known best for publishing the first Sherlock Holmes story well over a century ago. The Best of “The Strand Magazine” anthology collects 29 tales published within the last twenty-five years. Their authors are as diverse as Michael Connelly, Shirley Jackson and H.G. Wells.Continue Reading
With Friends Like These
A group of five women met at Harvard as college roommates. For the past twenty years, they have been playing essentially a game of tag once a year. Each player draws a name and must retrieve that person’s medallion by shooting each other with water pistols. The winner got braggingContinue Reading
The Cornish Christmas Pantomime Murder
Are you ready for a fun little Christmas mystery set in a rural English village, where everyone knows your name, and all your business? The Cornish Christmas Pantomime Murder provides all that while also managing to be gently humorous too. It really is the perfect cozy mystery when you needContinue Reading
Portals to a New Reality
Physics is at an impasse. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity works well to explain the world on a macro level. Quantum Mechanics works great at the subatomic level. But the two have never been reconciled into one giant universal law. Portals to a New Reality suggests five experiments that mightContinue Reading
The Midnight Knock
Seven people on the run from the police, a Mexican drug cartel, and/or the local human trafficker stop at a small motel in the desolate Texas desert. They are in for the longest night of their life in The Midnight Knock, a new paranormal thriller/locked room mystery genre mashup. AreContinue Reading
Death at the Door
In Death at the Door, twenty-something Ruby has recently moved to Boston. Unfortunately, her apartment has the ghost of a recent suicide, or was it murder, named Cordelia, living there too. Luckily, they become best friends even though their communication method, a magnetic alphabet on the fridge, is difficult atContinue Reading
A Guardian and a Thief
This book is literary fiction about A Guardian and a Thief. It’s part of Oprah’s book club so I knew I was getting more than simply plot. I was going to get a lesson in here somewhere too. It is Kolkata, India in the near future. Climate change has hitContinue Reading
Murder in Constantinople
Murder in Constantinople had a great potential that was spoiled by an unlikeable and one-dimensional main character, multiple anachronisms, and worst of all an uneven pacing. I kept plugging through it but it never seemed to get better in my opinion. If you like historical mysteries, there are much betterContinue Reading
The Hitchhikers
The Hitchhikers is an adrenaline fueled ride through rural Canada in 1976. Alice and Tom are on an RV adventure to see the Montreal Olympics. While traveling from their home in Washington state, they pick up two hitchhikers who call themselves Blue and Ocean. Little do they know that BlueContinue Reading
The Art of Spending Money
So what is The Art of Spending Money? It is being content with what you have. It’s using your money to buy once-in-a-lifetime experiences rather than just upgrading your everyday life. It is consciously deciding that whatever you want is worth trading your time that could be spent with familyContinue Reading
Christmas People
If you have watched any sickly sweet Christmas romance television movies, you are ready to read Christmas People. Whether a fan of holiday romances or not, this book is a hilarious sendup of all the tropes of those movies, while still activating the feel good feeling they always impart. JillContinue Reading
Sharp Force
A serial killer uses Sharp Force to kill his victims on major holidays. But first he terrorizes them with a ghostly vision that seemingly can pass through walls without triggering alarms. It’s Christmas Eve. Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta is just finishing up an autopsy on a man found floating inContinue Reading