• Contemporary Fiction
    • Families
    • Historical Fiction
    • Humor
    • Mystery Novel
    • Suspense
  • Romance Fiction
    • Sara Craven
    • Susan Fox Romance
    • Mary Burchell
    • Daphne Clair
    • Kay Thorpe
    • Roberta Leigh / Rachel Lindsay
    • Penny Jordan
    • Other Authors
    • Paranormal Romance
  • Science Fiction Reviews
    • Near Future
    • Space and Aliens
    • Alternate History
  • Fantasy Reviews
    • Action and Adventure
    • Fairy Tale Retelling
    • Dark Fiction
    • Magic
    • Urban / Modern Fantasy
    • Young Adult Fantasy
  • Non Fiction
  • Ads, Cookie Policy and Privacy
  • About Us
    • Who Am I and Should You Care about My Opinions?
    • Where to Find Fantasy and Science Fiction Books

More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Fantasy, Horror and Suspense All In One: The Reckoning by Carsten Stroud

June 21, 2016 by Kathy Leave a Comment

The Reckoning is that rarest of books, a trilogy finale that stands on its own merits.  It is Book 3 in The Niceville Trilogy yet I found it easy to follow, enjoyable and readable.  I have not read either of the first two books in the series.

The Reckoning combines mystery with horror and a strong dash of supernatural fantasy.  People in Niceville are dying in horrific, gruesome ways, whole families are murdered, their killer dies cut in half by a shifting stalactite.  Thankfully author Carsten Stroud spares us details – no gory scenes or dripping blood – leaving the horror part secondary to the mystery.

Stroud has a gift for bringing disparate elements together and making the whole into a readable novel. Setting and characters are interesting and realistic.

The setting is Niceville, well described and the book includes a map, a ranch several miles out and a Florida beach house.  Stroud describes the settings well enough that you understand and follow the actions as characters travel around town and between the town and ranch, and town and beach house.

The main character is Nick Kavanaugh who is responsible to investigate a horrible murder of a Niceville family, and who with his wife Kate is fostering a 14-year old boy, Rainey Teague, brutally kidnapped in a prior book.  Rainey acts like a normal 14-year old but Nick can’t quite shake the idea that Rainey is far more than he appears.

One of the most interesting characters is Coker, an ex-cop wanted for murder and robbery.  He and his girlfriend are enjoying their beach house under an assumed name when they hear screams on top of an already-raucous party.  Reluctantly they call the police who find the usual, drugs, booze and underage girls.  The young men decide to revenge themselves and attack Coker.  Bad move as he disables and nearly cripples two of them.  This spirals into a game of cat and mouse with the mob, the FBI, a smart widow and assorted stupid side kicks.

Characters reference past events from the first two novels but Stroud provides enough back story that we can fill in the blanks without reading the earlier books.  He does an excellent job, the “bring them up to speed” parts are transparent, let out as part of the story, not patched in with some obvious add on.

Stroud’s writing style is good, with good pacing, reasonable dialogue, interesting characters.  I didn’t care for the events on the ranch or former asylum – nor did they seem particularly germane to this novel.  I think Stroud may have included them to tie up loose ends from the first two books.

Overall I recommend this if you enjoy suspense novels or supernatural suspense.  The fantasy elements are there to serve the plot and let the supernatural suspense lead the show.

4+ Stars

Filed Under: Action and Adventure Tagged With: Contemporary, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense

Old Money – Outdoors, Mystery and Suspense in Mississippi by Bobby Cole

February 12, 2016 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Old Money combines an old plot line, the search for missing cash, with new twists.  Jake Crosby is our hero, but instead of the usual private investigator or detective, Jake is a game warden charged with enforcing Mississippi’s game laws not with handling stolen cash or murderous siblings.

Jake and his partner Virgil are called in to help the local sheriff investigate who assaulted a doctor in the woods after a day hunting and left him nearly dead.  This assault happens early in the novel and we circle back to it only later.

Respected federal judge Rothbone asks Jake to keep an eye on the Bolivar twins whom he suspects of trying to get revenge on him for sentencing their father to prison.  Judge Rothbone has an ulterior motive for keeping tabs on the twins.  He knows they are searching for their father’s reputed $3MM of fraudulent money and he would like some of it to pay for his wife’s grey market kidney transplant.

Jake and Virgil enlist help to bug the Bolivar twins’ home and discover that the twins are trying to sell a helmet from the De Soto expedition back in the 1500s that they claim their dad found on federal property.  The helmet is a fake and the twins are just trying to scam the buyer but Jake and Virgil don’t realize this and are pursuing the case because it’s illegal to take artifacts from federal property.  The FBI is interested in the sale because the buyer will use his own counterfeit cash to pay for it.

Plot

We have 6 players:  The two Bolivar twins (who are not above scamming each other), their dad’s old cellmate whom they suspect knows where the cash is, the wanna be helmet buyer, the FBI, the judge and our two game wardens.

The side scams complicate the plot and make the book more interesting, especially when we readers know that Jake and Virgil are hot on the track of basically nothing and meanwhile the judge has set Jake up to spy for him and the twins plan to murder their father’s old cellmate once he tells them where the money is.

The Judge subplot felt the weakest and could have been edited out to make a tighter, faster paced book. Cole added it to give Judge Rothbone rationale to point Jake at the Bolivar twins but the original cover story – that the Judge feared retaliation – was reason enough.  The Judge’s family problems didn’t add anything to the story.

The pace is fairly slow initially and accelerates the last 20% of the book with a super fast finish that mostly ties up the loose ends.  The good guys win and the bad guys don’t.

Pacing

I remember my 10th grade English teacher telling me to show, not describe, and it’s hard.  Unfortunately author Bobby Cole describes far too much.  The novel would be better is Cole replaced the descriptions of what the characters think and feel with actions that shows us those thoughts and feelings.

For example, Jake’s wife Morgan worries about the family finances.  Cole shows Morgan with her checkbook trying to pay bills and thinking of cost cutting she can do.  Then he gives us four paragraphs describing the situation and and Morgan’s worries about Jake’s career change from stockbroker to game warden.  We could have seen the tension with a short scene between the two of them.

I wonder whether Cole would have needed much less description if he had shrunk the plot.

Characters

Jake, Virgil and the ex-cellmate are the best done characters.  We can feel Jake’s ambition to make good as a game warden, to protect the wildlife and serve the outdoors.  Cole lets us see Jake’s chagrin when he discovers that game wardens get caught up in plenty of non-wildlife situations, including helping people cope with the weather.  It’s easy to see why Jake gets excited when he thinks he’s on the track of artifacts looted from federal land.

Virgil is coasting through his career but he isn’t dead wood and he too wants to serve the countryside and people.

The ex-cellmate is interesting because he’s an authentic con man himself, recognizes the twins want to get the secrets out of him then kill him, but decides to gamble on finding the cash himself.  Cole got the balance nicely between the con artist’s risk vs. reward equations.

The Bolivar twins are left as nasty enigmas without any positive qualities and the judge feels lifeless.

Overall

I didn’t realize Old Money (A Jake Crosby Thriller Book 3) was part of a series until several pages into the book.  I don’t think it affected my enjoyment of the story since Cole gives us plenty of look backs to set up the plot and people.

While I won’t be looking for more books by Cole or more of the Jake Crosby novels, this was a decent read.  Kudos to Cole for creating an unusual setting and characters.

For myself, 3 stars.  For someone more fond of mystery and suspense, 4 stars.

I received an advanced E book through NetGalley in expectation of an honest review.

Filed Under: Suspense Tagged With: Book Review, Mystery

Missing Pieces – Suspense and Family Drama – Heather Gudenkauf

December 6, 2015 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Suspense and mystery novels aren’t my favorites but every once in a while one catches my eye. Recently NetGalley offered Missing Pieces, a “chilling page-turner” from Heather Gudenkauf.  Well!  That sounded too good to pass up.

The book seemed reasonably decent, but I couldn’t get into it, just lost interest.  I gave it up after about 25% and flipped to the back to find my theory as to the villain was completely wrong.

I think if you enjoy suspense and family mysteries you would like this.  The writing was good and the setting, a small town in Iowa with family secrets, was intriguing.  Perhaps had I stuck with it I may have enjoyed following the lead character, Sarah Quinlan, as she delves deeper into her husband’s past and family secrets.  But maybe not.

I’m going to give this 3 stars on NetGalley because it would be a good read for those who enjoy the suspense / mystery genre.

Filed Under: Suspense Tagged With: Book Review, Did Not Finish, Mystery

The Santa Klaus Murder – English Country Home Mystery

October 25, 2015 by Kathy Leave a Comment

If P. G. Wodehouse had written murder mysteries, they may have read like The Santa Klaus Murder), except without the ongoing humor and deft dialogue we hear from Jeeves and Bertie.  The The Santa Klaus Murder is set in an English country home during the annual and dreaded Christmas family visit of the Melbury clan to Flaxmere.

The Melbury family includes four grownup children, three daughters and one son, the unmarried older aunt, two invited guests (one the fiance of the only unmarried daughter), the secretary and assorted servants and the patriarch, Sir Osmond.  Sir Osmond is rich and capricious, wanting his children and grandchildren to do as he wants.  He is considering changes to his will to leave more to his secretary and one granddaughter but has consistently refused to discuss his intentions with anyone in the family so none of the children knows who is in line to get what.

The older children are afraid the secretary, Miss Portisham, may have undue influence over Sir Osmond, perhaps beguiling him into marriage or at least a substantial bequest.  The youngest daughter, Jennifer, wants to marry Philip Cheriton but her father insists she remain at home, unwed, to care for him and of course her siblings all favor this too, thinking she would be a counterweight to Miss Portisham.

Someone shoots Sir Osmond while the grandchildren are playing with their gifts and enjoying the crackers (small firecrackers).  Colonel Halstock, head of the local police, then arrives to solve the mystery.

This novel is from the Poisoned Pen Press, released as part of their British Library Crime Classics, and is a fun, enjoyable diversion.  (The Santa Klaus Murder was originally published in 1936.)  

Author Mavis Doriel Hay does a nice job weaving in the family skeletons and dissensions by having Colonel Halstock interview each of the family and the lead servants.  She shows us the motive each of the family may have had without simply telling us, and she also lays several false trails and red herrings.  (Personally I suspected the actual culprit from the beginning because of the way he was introduced.)

I’m not crazy about murder mysteries but do enjoy the odd British country house weekend novel and this was a fine example, but with the twist of a dead body in the study with a gun!

The publisher provided a copy in exchange for a review.

Three stars.

 

Filed Under: Mystery Novel Tagged With: Book Review, Mystery

Three Not to Finish – Two Mysteries One Fantasy

February 12, 2014 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Normally I give a novel at least a few pages before deciding it’s not for me. Two of these I read about half but the other fell off my lap after about 20 pages. All three of these books had great reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble but they just did not work for me.

Pies and Prejudice (A Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery) felt like a rerun. Heroine Ella Mae runs from her cheating husband back home to a small Georgia town and starts a pie shoppe. Of course her arch enemy from kindergarten on through high school shows up, her former crush shows up and she is suspected in a murder. With me so far?

Ella Mae makes pies to fit her mood and the person and bakes a bit of enchantment into each one. It’s a little like Garden Spells but without the charming eccentric characters and real-feeling fantasy element.

Despite Pies and Prejudice having 4 1/3 stars on Amazon I simply could not finish. Characters, setting, plot, dialogue were flat, uninteresting.

I got further with Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia), over half way through. I was not particularly enjoying the story but it wasn’t so bad that it made me get up off the couch to read something else. At least not until my tea mug ran out and I needed a refill!

Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia) isn’t a bad book, it just didn’t have enough oomph to keep me reading. This one also has 5 stars on Amazon so my blah feeling might have been me not the novel.

The second murder mystery, Leave No Stone Unturned (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 1), was the best of the lot, good enough that I could have finished had there not been something else to read. The story is a cute combination of suspense and romance, with late 40s widowed Lexie Starr concerned about her daughter’s new husband, Clay. Lexie doesn’t like the guy but is determined to put a happy face until she stumbles across a newspaper article that he is the prime suspect in his first wife’s murder. Lexie’s daughter doesn’t even know Clay had been married before.

Lexie makes up a story for her daughter about meeting up with a jeweler she met online and takes off for Schenectady to research the murder. This is where Leave No Stone Unturned lost me. Lexie tells the police detective she’s writing a novel about the case and that she could help. Really. No police detective who ever saw a single episode of Murder She Wrote or any of its imitators is going to be too excited about that and a clever woman like Lexie could surely come up with a better reason to talk to him.

The romance is sweet without being maudlin and is the best part of the story. It just was’t good enough to keep me reading the rest. Leave No Stone Unturned has 4 1/3 stars on Amazon too, so once again my opinion is the minority. I’d give it 3 stars.

Filed Under: Suspense Tagged With: Book Review, Fantasy, Mystery, Not So Good, Romance Novels

Review: Her Royal Spyness Drawing Room Comedy Mystery Rhys Bowen

March 1, 2013 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Her Royal Spyness should have had it all:  Cute premise, 1930s setting in upper (way upper) class England, murder mystery, likable heroine.  For some reason I could not get into it.  I stuck it out and managed to finish but the book dragged for me until about page 100, then it slowly picked up and managed to lumber home.

The reviews on Amazon were enthusiastic and Amy Peveto highly recommended this on her Bookzilla blog. So why didn’t it work for me??

The main character Lady Georgiana, aka Georgie, a minor member of the British royal family, wants to set her own life, away from her penny pinching sister in law, away from her family’s drafty, cold castle and most definitely, away from the cold suitor hand picked by her cousin’s wife, Her Majesty.

Sad fact is girls in her class – especially royal family members however minor – did not do that in the 1930s. It simply Was Not Done.  Despite the problems, Georgie is completely broke and needs cash now.  She manages to start a business opening homes and doing light cleaning while living in her family’s equally cold and drafty London mansion. That’s a cute premise and the book should have, could have been loads of fun.   The romance part of the book worked better than the mystery, with Georgie overcoming somewhat predictable problems.

Maybe part of the problem was Rhys Bowen took so long to establish the setting, characters and backstory. Her Royal Spyness is the first in a series that has at least four newer novels.

All in all, I’ll give this 3 Books. Cute, nice but just missed the mark.

Filed Under: Mystery Novel Tagged With: 3 Stars, Book Review, Early 1900s Novel, Mystery

Subscribe by Email

Save on Shipping!

Copyright © 2025 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in