The Weekenders

The Weekenders
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250065940
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Pages: 451
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Some people stay all summer long on the idyllic island of Belle Isle, North Carolina. Some people come only for the weekends-and it's something they look forward to all week long. When Riley Griggs is waiting for her husband to arrive at the ferry one Friday afternoon, she is instead served with papers informing her that her island home is being foreclosed. To make matters worse, her husband is nowhere to be found.

She turns to her island friends for help and support, but each of them has their own secrets and the clock is ticking as the mystery deepens. Cocktail parties and crab boil aside, Riley must find a way to investigate the secrets of Belle Island, the husband she might not really know, and the summer that could change everything.

As I’ve said elsewhere recently, I’ve found Mary Kay Andrews’ last few years of output to be hit or miss, with more closer to ‘miss’ than ‘hit’, but she’s been setting her stories in Florida, and the type of stories she writes is a known quantity and, well, hope springs eternal.

So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to see that The Weekenders was much closer to hit than her recent average. In might be in part because this story revolves around a mystery (Andrews used to write murder mysteries under the name Kathy Trojek, if I remember correctly), but even without the mystery co-plot, it’s a much more solid story than quite a few in her list. There’s decent character development of both the MC and the side characters, including her spoiled brat of a daughter.

I was tickled when the ‘grand reveal’ of the murderer was done; not only did I not see it coming, but the way Andrews did it was a little bit inspired.

The romance was … choppy. I liked the romantic interest well enough, though he wasn’t memorable, but the MC’s flaws (or the flaws in the writing of the MC) shined in the romantic co-plot. She was too hot-and-cold without sufficient (for me) justification to make me believe or support it.

The book was still a pretty uneven effort for Andrews, even if it was vastly more enjoyable than others; while the main POV is the MCs, we do occasionally get POVs from other characters; some of them made complete sense, but some of them did not. A few times we get her BFF’s POV and it made me think there was a story there but it just sort of never happened. Those POV sections could have been omitted entirely and absolutely nothing would have been lost.

Overall, I was looking for a post-op distraction that didn’t require too much thinking through the haze of pain-killers, and I got that, plus a story that kept me reading because I wanted to, not just because it was what was in front of me.

The Moonshine Shack Murder (Southern Home-brew, #1)

The Moonshine Shack Murder
by Diane Kelly
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780593333228
Series: Southern Home-brew Mystery #1
Publication Date: July 6, 2021
Pages: 295
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

The Hayes family has made moonshine in Chattanooga since the days of Prohibition, and Hattie is happy to continue the tradition, serving up fun, fruity flavors in mason jars for locals and tourists alike. All signs indicate her new ‘shine shop will be a smashing success. What’s more, mounted police officer Marlon Landers has taken a shine to Hattie. For the first time ever, the stars seemed to have aligned in both her work and romantic life. But when a body ends up on her store’s doorstep alongside a broken jar of her Firefly Moonshine, it just might be lights out for her fledgling business.

The homicide detective can’t seem to identify the person who killed the owner of a nearby bar. The only witness is Hattie’s longhaired gray cat, and Smoky isn’t talking. When the detective learns that the victim and Hattie had a heated exchange shortly before his murder, she becomes her prime suspect.

Lest Hattie end up behind bars like her bootlegging great-grandfather a century before, she must distill the evidence herself and serve the killer a swift shot of justice.

Sadly average, even for modern cozy mysteries.

I was drawn in by the premise – brewing is all the rage in cozies at the moment, but this was the first moonshine book I’ve seen, and I liked the cover.

Unfortunately, the characters were just a little too storybook-dimensional; the good ones were just too good and the bad ones were ridiculous. The MC started off being determined to ‘find the killer’ – which turns me off; I prefer the sleuths that are more inadvertent in their investigations. But Kelly then puts the MC in a perfectly plausible situation for investigating, so I thought it might be ok – and then she activates the TSTL trope and I was back to irritated. Top this off with a very childish grandfather and the whole thing just didn’t ring my bell.

Diane Kelly has written several previous series, and at least one of them was enjoyable, but this one is, despite its premise, just too formulaic.

Hello, Summer

Hello, Summer
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250272195
Publication Date: April 27, 2021
Pages: 472
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Conley Hawkins left her family’s small town newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rearview mirror years ago. Now a star reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or so she thinks.

When the new job goes up in smoke, Conley finds herself right back where she started, working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon afloat—and she doesn’t exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip column, “Hello, Summer.”

Then Conley witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local congressman—a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the summer.

Mary Kay Andrews has been really hit or miss for me the last few years, with a couple of very average efforts, and one downright bomb coming across my shelves, but Hissy Fit is one of my favourite reads, so I keep coming back for more.

I found Hello Summer at the library and I expected another meh read, but I find myself in the mood for the quirky characters and the Southern setting she writes in, so I sat down with it thinking I’d set the appropriate expectations.

And found myself a little bit surprised. It’s chock full of the quirky characters, and the North Florida setting is par for the course; it’s definitely not up to Hissy Fit standards, but it’s also a lot better than her other recent efforts I’ve read. There’s a bit of mystery here, a very solid plot, and although the book is labeled “romance”, I think romance readers would be disappointed. There is a romance, but it’s really back-burner stuff – the congressman’s death is always front-and-center.

The story starts slow, and much like her most recent release, The Santa Suit, the character does not come across sympathetically. Fortunately for Hello Summer, it had about 350 pages more to make Conley (the MC) relatable. I was feeling ambivalent about her and the book until the car wreck/death occurred, but from there the story hooked me.

Still, this was not a great book. It might have been a great book, had the characters been better developed, something that might have been possible had there been fewer of them, and better editing overall. I found at least half a dozen inconsistencies spread out in the story that jarred me out of scenes, and what little romance there was felt lukewarm at best.

I went 3.5 stars because the plot was really good. Had this been a first book, I’d even be a little gushy about it. But it’s not even a 10th book and I know Andrews is capable of much better writing; she’s certainly had enough practice.

I have another couple of her recent titles, and this one was good enough that I’ll keep on reading and hoping.

Molly Harper Audio-fest

With the end of the school year approaching, I needed to listen to something light and fun while battling traffic and disinfecting iPads – Molly Harper is sure bet in this department, no matter whether it’s one of her series, or a standalone.

Since all three of the reads, which would fall under the novella category, were solid 3.5 stars, I’m just going to put them all in one post.

Shifters in the Night
by Molly Harper
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Mystic Bayou #5
Publication Date: January 1, 2021
Pages: 403
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Audible Originals

Lia Doe came to Mystic Bayou for one simple reason: to get her job done. Namely, to build a housing complex for all the new residents flocking to town since word of its supernatural population got out. But from the moment Lia arrives, it’s clear that nothing about the job is going to be simple.

First, there’s the mysterious guy she meets in the middle of the night while they’re both cavorting in their alternate forms. Spending time with shape-shifters is nothing new to Lia, but there’s something special about Jon Carmody…and the magical pull she feels whenever he’s near. There’s also a sense of homecoming and belonging in Mystic Bayou that makes her want to stick around - despite the dangers brewing from mysterious forces.

Will Lia complete her project with her heart unscathed, or will her life shift forever?

Probably the one I enjoyed least out of all three, though it still held my attention. I really like Amanda Ronconi’s narration, but Jonathon Davies is not a favourite. I have to say, in fairness, this was one of his better performances. Mostly, I just enjoyed visiting Mystic Bayou again.

Peace, Blood, and Understanding
by Molly Harper
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Half-Moon Hollow #15
Publication Date: January 1, 2019
Pages: 410
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Audible Originals

Ever since Jane Jameson took over running the Vampire Council for Half-Moon Hollow, things have been a little unorthodox, and that doesn’t sit well with the head office. Who would have thought vampires were so into bureaucracy and tradition?

Enter a vamp from corporate who’s determined to unseat Jane and get the council back on track - which means no more of this Kentucky neighborliness and mixing with humans, werewolves, witches, or anything else.

But Jane’s not interested in going back to the bad old days when the council was mired in corruption and tended to "accidentally" eat people now and again, but she might be in over her head this time. Good thing there’s a pretty new face in town who just might be the perfect distraction and help save Jane’s career.

This is the one I enjoyed the most out of the three, because I’m a long time fan of not only Half-Moon Hollow, but the general format of the books. Each chapter starts with an excerpt from the book that shares its title with the current story. So Peace, Blood, and Understanding is the name of the book within the book, and its excerpts are relevant to the theme of the story. I’m not sure that was coherent, but suffice it to say I enjoy the extra boost of wry wit these bring with them.

Pasties and Poor Decisions
by Molly Harper
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Audible Originals

Anastasia Villiers has hit rock bottom. And that rock is named Espoir Island.

Abandoned by her disgraced investment banker husband who liquidated all of their assets and fled the country, Anastasia is left with nothing - except for Fishscale House, a broken-down Queen Anne in the Michigan hometown she swore she’d left for good.

If Ana quickly renovates and flips the dilapidated building, she can get back to Manhattan and salvage her life. The problem? The only person on the island with historical renovation cred is Ned Fitzroy - Ana’s first love - who insists she help him with the labor herself. As Ana gets reacquainted with Ned, and her hometown, she realizes home may be just what she’s always wanted.

Previously published in the I Loved You First anthology.

This is a stand alone novella, apparently original to a multi-author anthology. It’s also a little bit of a diversion for Harper. The character is older, with grown kids, and living the B-list reality star life in New York City when her husband is indicted by the Federal Government and takes off with her Pilates instructor to an island lacking a US extradition treaty. There’s no Southern anything here; it’s a solidly mid-western character, and Ronconi did a great job with it. The story goes exactly the way you’d predict it would – absolutely no surprises – but it was a pleasant diversion.

The Folio Book of Christmas Ghost Stories

The Folio Book of Christmas Ghost Stories
by Various Authors
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Pages: 288
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Folio Society

The 20 tales gathered together here range from the familiar - Charles Dickens, Walter de la Mare and MR James - to stories even the most ardent fan probably won't have come across before.

Howling winds and winter snows, rambling old houses and isolated inns, characters whose apparently ordinary lives hide guilty secrets and murky pasts, even a sinister Punch and Judy show - all the classic ingredients are here. Wonderful, spooky, full-colour illustrations by Peter Stuart add the finishing touch.

I started reading a few stories from a new (to me) anthology, Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, and became frustrated by the lack of ghosts in the stories I chose, which prompted me to pull this down off my shelves, to re-read a few stories. All I can say is that should you ever run across this in a used bookstore – and you enjoy a good ghost story – you cannot go wrong splashing out on it. The ghost stories are good and the book is just gorgeous, with full color illustrations throughout.

I re-read three stories for this Christmas season:

Afterward by Edith Wharton: I’m not actually sure why this story is included; it must take place during Christmas, but the holiday is not even a bit player in drama. But it is a great ghost story; the subtle kind that creeps up on both the characters and the reader, so that it isn’t until Afterward that you know you’ve been haunted at all.

When Satan Goes Home for Christmas by Robertson Davies: Not quite a ghost story but come on, it’s Satan. And it’s a funny and oddly touching story in the most unexpected ways.

The Shop of Ghosts by G.K. Chesterton: This is a short one that starts off rather heartbreakingly, but ends not only with hope, but left me chuckling as well. A masterful reminder that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

There are so many others I’d like to re-read this season, and I might, but with my to-do list being as long as anyone else’s this time of year, I’m calling it read and again recommend this for anyone who would enjoy an excellent collection of ghostly holiday cheer.

The Twelve Jays of Christmas (Meg Langslow, #30)

The Twelve Jays of Christmas
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250760180
Series: Meg Langslow #30
Publication Date: October 12, 2021
Pages: 320
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Another successful Christmas instalment of the Meg Langslow series. Finishing this, I’m now officially ready for the Christmas season.

In the last book, Murder Most Fowl, one of my complaints were that there was very little in the way of birds in the background – or really, any of the delightful menagerie of animals that have made appearances throughout the series. Andrews made up for it in spades with this book as we not only get 2 mockingbirds and 12 bluejays, but 2 wombats as well!

Meg’s family was back in force too, although it seems gone are the days when we could delight in the same level of eccentricities that were so amusing in earlier books. Still it’s always fun to read about the seemingly endless family and their ability to organise themselves and create massive buffet meals at the drop of a hat.

The murder mystery was mostly average; even thought the focus of the book was whodunnit, I imagine most readers will be more caught up in the holiday cheer and family togetherness that’s surrounding the murder. While it wasn’t a badly crafted murder plot, I think the narrow suspect pool just made it difficult to be really stumped, and if I wasn’t willing to commit 100% to who the murderer was, I was absolutely certain about the plot twist. Well, the second one anyway – I didn’t see the first one coming at all and I thought it was a very nice touch.

While I would never want Andrews to be the kind of author that phones it in for the sake of production, I have come to see these Christmas mysteries as an integral part of my personal season tradition, so as long as she has it in her to write them, I’ll continue to look forward to them.

God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen (Her Royal Spyness, #15)

God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen
by Rhys Bowen
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780440000082
Series: Royal Spyness #15
Publication Date: October 7, 2021
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

What to say? This is one of Bowen’s books that has layers. On the one hand, it’s very Christmassy, so it ticks that box; on the other hand, I was ready to say that the mystery really wasn’t much of a mystery.

The first half of the book focuses on Christmas at Sandringham, with casual mentions of accidental deaths that took place the year before on Boxing day. Another death occurs half-way through the book that smacks of accidental death, even though readers know it won’t be. But it’s not until the final 25% that the story gets really interesting. The author takes the story in a direction I wouldn’t have said most cozy writers had the courage to go, and ends it in much the same way. I liked it, and it bumped my rating .5 star.

It might have been a higher rating but the book wraps up with cliched character development. I suppose it’s part of the natural order of things for most people, but I’ve rarely read murder mysteries that make procreation work to the advantage of the series. I say rarely, but I can’t think of one mystery series that brought babies into the mix that I can do more than tolerate.

The author, as usual, involves a note at the end, detailing the parts of the story that are historically accurate and the parts where she mixed the real people with fictional events – I always appreciate these clarifications, because sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

Conan Doyle for the Defence

Conan Doyle for the Defence
by Margalit Fox
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781781253564
Publication Date: July 25, 2018
Pages: 318
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Profile Books

Just before Christmas 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old spinster, was found bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. A valuable diamond brooch was missing, and police soon fastened on a suspect - Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was rumoured to have a disreputable character. Slater had an alibi, but was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment in the notorious Peterhead Prison.

Seventeen years later, a convict called William Gordon was released from Peterhead. Concealed in a false tooth was a message, addressed to the only man Slater thought could help him - Arthur Conan Doyle. Always a champion of the downtrodden, Conan Doyle turned his formidable talents to freeing Slater, deploying a forensic mind worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

Drawing from original sources including Oscar Slater's prison letters, this is Margalit Fox's vivid and compelling account of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Scottish history.

4 stars for the writing, but I bumped it up .5 star because I learned a lot I didn’t know before I started.

The title is something of a misnomer, as it implies that Conan Doyle was an active participant in the defence of Oscar Slater, and he wasn’t – he didn’t involve himself until several years after Slater’s conviction and incarceration. Once he did, however, he did it to devastating effect, but to no avail; it wasn’t until he renewed his efforts some 15 years later, in partnership with an investigative journalist, William Park, that the gears of justice finally started to grind.

As much as this book is about the gross injustice served upon Oscar Slater (it was indeed Scotland’s Dreyfus affair), it’s also a revealing look into Scotland at the turn of the century, when science was just beginning to gain its capital “S” but society still stood firmly in the class and morality rigid past. The level of anti-Semitism was profound, something I would never have associated with Scotland, such is my ignorance of history.

In my status update, I had gotten just to the point in the book where it looked like the author was going to make an argument for pre-meditation on behalf of the Glasgow police, in framing Slater for the crime, while at the same time detailing the force’s stupidity. Her argument didn’t proceed quite along the lines it looked to be headed, but she did, in the end, paint the force as being results-oriented to the point of gross injustice. It’s clear that the only concern was not only an arrest and conviction, but an arrest and conviction of somebody deemed undesirable; an effort to kill two birds with one stone. That they were willing to forge documents and browbeat witnesses into perjury is clearly documented and the only greater injustice than the one done to Slater is that those most guilty were all dead before they could be held to account for their own crimes.

Because the story of just Conan Doyle’s participation in releasing Slater would have been more a pamphlet than a book, the text is liberally padded with small biographies of Slater, Conan Doyle, and Joseph Bell, as well as chapters detailing the types of reasoning used for investigation, and previous cases where Conan Doyle’s assistance prevailed in either convicting the right man, or releasing the one wrongly convicted. A small detour towards the end is made into Conan Doyle’s foray into the paranormal, and the author tried to tie it into the book by speculating that it might have negated his influence with the Scottish authorities, a justification that I don’t think she really established.

I feel like this book is one packs enough into a seemingly straightforward narrative as to offer almost endless avenues for discussions covering a wide variety of topics. As I said at the start, I learned a lot (granted I wasn’t starting from a very learned position); I found the narrative easy to read and much more engrossing than I originally expected and I came away with an even deeper respect for Conan Doyle than I started with.

Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Vol 1: The Captain of the “Pole-star”

The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories: Volume One
by Tara Moore (Editor)
Rating: ★★½
isbn: 9781943910564
Publication Date: January 1, 2016
Pages: 291
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Valancourt Books

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals

During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.

I love me some Conan Doyle, but not this one. I’m not a fan of Arctic settings, nor of stories that take place at sea, so this was a double whammy against me liking it. Add to that, it isn’t really a spooky ghost story, so much as a second hand account of ghost sightings and their results.

In my opinion, Conan Doyle’s The Haunted Grange of Grosthorpe is a far superior ghost story.

The Night of Fear

The Night of Fear
by Moray Dalton
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781912574896
Publication Date: March 1, 2019
Pages: 195
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Dean Street Press

Together they looked down at the inert sprawling figure of a man fantastically dressed in red-and-white-striped pyjama trousers, with a red sash belt and a white silk shirt open at the neck.

A Christmas gathering of young and old in a great country house in England—a masquerade—and the lights are turned off for a game of hide and seek. Silence—then a man’s cry for “Lights!” The lights come on, revealing Hugh Darrow, blind since the War, standing in the main hall, fresh blood dripping from his hands and covering his white Pierrot costume. He tells the story of having discovered a dead man, stabbed through the heart, lying in a curtained window embrasure next to the one in which he was hiding. The murdered man proves to be Stallard, one of the visitors, and a writer of mystery tales. There follows a thrilling tale in which the life of an innocent man hangs in the balance. A grand and baffling tale for the mystery lover.

After a rocky start, with a choppy narrative that was very difficult to fall into, the book evened out about 1/3 of the way in and once PI Glide showed up, I found it very difficult to put the book down until I’d finished it. I can’t say it’s because I liked Glide – I really didn’t care for him one way or the other, but the I got caught up in the events and the fast pace, of the story, and I warmed to Mrs. Clare. I generally don’t like courtroom dramas, but this one kept a nice edge of tension going; even though I felt confident about the murderer, I had no idea how Glide was going to pull off the proof of it.

I got 2 out of 3 of the murders correct, but I totally missed the Diane prediction I made – or more accurately, I was right, but with entirely the wrong person. I’m laughing to myself because that critical scene towards the end over tea – I knew how that was going to turn out because I’d seen the same thing done way back in the 80’s on, of all things, the soap opera General Hospital. But the scene at the zoo? I didn’t see that coming, and it was a delightful little twist to the story. My biggest complaint about the story is the fate of Sergeant Lane – I dislike being made to like someone only to have them ripped away.

I won’t say no to more Dalton, but I’m not sure I’d make a concentrated effort to get me hands on more of them.