Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt by Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker

Description from Amazon:

Maia, Ally, Star, CeCe, Tiggy, Electra and their long-lost missing sister are gathered together for the first time, on board the Titan, to say a final goodbye to the enigmatic father they loved so dearly.

He has entrusted each of them with a clue to their past. But for every truth revealed another question emerges. How did Pa Salt amass his fortune? Why did he choose to adopt the sisters and why were they chosen from such different parts of the world? Have the answers been there all along, if only they had known where to find them?

The sisters must confront the idea that their adored father was someone they barely knew – and, even more shockingly, that his long-buried secrets may still echo through the generations today.

 

Oh how I wanted to love this book and it’s binding of the parts, but alas.

There are two feelings about this: one is that an explanation was given for each sister and the reason for Atlas’s run was clarified. But the other is complete incredulity at what the reader is supposed to swallow.

 

So Atlas has a diary that pretty much laid it out, and where entries were missing over the years, he summarized it later. It explains his start and about the kind people who adopted him. After travelling nearly 6,000kms from Siberia to France on his own, with something very valuable around his neck, as an eight-year-old boy. Um… wow… Then we move through his childhood where he refuses to speak to protect himself from someone after him (and the people around him all seem to feel he wants to tell them something but are quite happy to wait years for it) but manages to prove his extraordinary violin-playing ability. He also meets the love of his life. At eleven years old. Fast forward and a series of amazing links to the next countries drag him along, all while he is in fear of the person who might be just behind him.

 

Now bear in mind that this diary is being read by the sisters on the boat. Dear old Georg couldn’t just summarise what happened and tell them. Nope, each had to have a copy of the diary, go off and read it on their own, and not read any further than where they would stop for the day. A tad unrealistic. Fair enough, the relationships that get revealed within the diary are quite interesting and how people who worked for Atlas came to be. And we won’t (cough cough) focus on the bow and arrow or what aided in the mine in Australia.

 

Then we go through all the ways he adopted the girls and there are tons of parts in it that make no sense and don’t drive the story forward. Why he would go to certain places and see certain people seems like padding for nothing in a book already far too long. This could have been culled in so many places and dialogue made to sound much more natural.

 

But then the ending... oh my word. Worst villain ever. And worst villain’s son who is also a villain ever.

 

So yay that the girls got their origin story and learned how they fitted together as well as understanding the backstories to those aligned with Atlas. But gosh... I was disappointed in it.

Sweet Fall by QK Petty

Description from Goodreads:

Every storm leaves scars. Some never heal.

The House of David has fallen—fractured, betrayed, and cast into the shadows of a world teetering on the brink of ruin. But amid the wreckage, Tennin Aiden Yeager stands with the last of his allies, determined to stop Seditio from finishing what they started.

As a new threat emerges in the form of Mary Denau, a chaos-seeker with a dark obsession, old enemies and unlikely allies collide in a final confrontation that will decide the fate of both the living and the damned. And when a mysterious child with blood tied to the relics enters the fray, every choice becomes a gamble between redemption and destruction.

Sweet Fall, the breathtaking finale of A Series of Four Seasons, delivers a raw, emotional climax where healing hurts, redemption cuts, and survival comes at a cost.

The seasons are ending. Only the strongest will see the dawn.

The House of David versus Seditio. But each side has suffered its share of losses and wants the fight over. So when a child with a special blood ability comes along, it’s going to be a fight to the death – but whose death…

This is the fourth book in the series, so it was initially a little difficult to understand the roles of the characters within the story and to each other, but the main theme that stuck out to me was redemption. While certain things became clearer later, some of the weapons and their abilities never came through. I found the idea behind the relics and the bacteria in Alexander the Great’s body that allowed for regeneration intriguing. Then added to the mix were those whose blood had special abilities.

You have Aiden on one side, who is conflicted about being able to lead yet still show compassion. And you have Mary on the other, who is hellbent on destruction and whatever chaos and physical destruction she can cause. But she is conflicted too, and is starting to make decisions very contrary to her evil nature. And in the middle is Dallis, a young girl with blood that has regenerative properties. There are quite a few characters in the story, but the author has been able to convey each unique identity well, and you become invested in each one.

The writing style seemed to change right after the beginning of the book. It was very (almost too much) descriptive and airy in a way, and then as soon as it changed to the present, the writing became a lot more to the point. The action sequences were well detailed, and the quieter moments held gravity.

What a pity this story had so many proofing errors, though. They ranged from things like missing or doubled-up quotation marks, to commas missing before direct address, to missing words in sentences or sentences being repeated right after each other. A character’s name changed spelling throughout, and at one stage, a character had a dress on that suddenly changed into pants.

This will appeal to fans of clever fantasy stories that don’t hold back on the action. There is a trigger warning for this as there is physical torture, and some of it happens to children, so take that into account. But overall, a great read…

The line between good and evil can be blurred… sometimes…

Thanks to Reedsy Discovery and the author for the opportunity to review the book:
https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/swe...

Snap by Belinda Bauer

Description from Goodreads as Amazon’s description only had half of it!

On a stifling summer's day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack's in charge, she said. I won't be long.

But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever.

Three years later, mum-to-be Catherine wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note that says: I could have killed you.

Meanwhile Jack is still in charge - of his sisters, of supporting them all, of making sure nobody knows they're alone in the house, and - quite suddenly - of finding out the truth about what happened to his mother.

But the truth can be a dangerous thing ...

So with a description like that, you’ve just got to get excited about what will happen, right?

Oh boy. This descended into a comedy at times and was definitely not an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller.

We start off with the three kids being left in the car while their mom goes to call for help from an emergency phone on the side of the road. But the mom does not come back. So off they go to try to find her but no luck. Fast forward and they get picked up and taken home, their mom’s murdered body gets found, and their dad loses it and goes out to get milk one day and never returns. Jack is now in charge and does whatever he can to get food and money for them.

On the other side of the coin is a pregnant Catherine who wakes up with the note next to her and freaks out but doesn’t tell her husband about it. Cue the confusion about pregnancy brain and not being able to take care of herself.

In the town (which is boring and where murders don’t happen enough according to the new police arrival Detective Marvel) the hunt is on for the Goldilocks vandal – someone who breaks in to empty houses and steals things and sleeps in a bed for a night. And obviously these two plots are going to intersect.

The plot at this point is still somewhat going in the right direction. BUT… the execution. You have another cop (Reynolds) working with the team who is an absolute stickler for rules and will not deviate from the straight and narrow. Until he makes an error or two that derail things and then all of a sudden there can be grey areas. You have Marvel who tries to set up a capture house for Goldilocks by “remembering” that if you put bait in the right place it can capture the thing you want. What???

So Goldilocks has found the knife linked to the murder and is trying to get someone to get the cops to see it. The knife is an extremely expensive one-of-a-kind item that apparently the original cops on the case didn’t follow up on. Weird. And now it’s just the path to proving who did it.

You have coincidence after coincidence, a laughable fight scene at the end, the cops being given breadcrumbs to the witch’s house and still nearly missing it (figuratively obviously), and a highly improbable homeless man rescue.

All these elements together just made it a story coasting on a path where you know the killer from relatively early on and are merely waiting to find out what happens. The snap? Hmmm… that was pushing it. Plus the story is not finished off. And what made it worse were the number of exclamation marks and derogatory descriptions of people. I dived into this book really excited for a gripping crime story and closed it with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.

The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley

Description from Amazon:

From the vineyards of New Zealand to the majestic landscape of Ireland, The Missing Sister is the penultimate instalment in the multimillion-selling epic Seven Sisters from Lucinda Riley. A breathtaking story of love and loss, inspired by the mythology of the famous star constellation.

They’ll search the world to find her . . .

The six D’Aplièse sisters have each been on their own incredible journey to discover their heritage, but they still have one question left unanswered: who and where is the seventh sister?

They only have one clue – an image of a star-shaped emerald ring. The search to find the missing sister will take them across the globe; from New Zealand to Canada, England, France and Ireland, uniting them all in their mission to at last complete their family.

In doing so, they will slowly unearth a story of love, strength and sacrifice that began almost one hundred years ago, as other brave young women risked everything to change the world around them . . .

 

It’s been quite a few years since I read the first six novels in the series, but I remember they seemed very formulaic and I was hoping that all would be solved with this “final” book which, as it turns out, is not the final one and does not answer much but leaves yet more mysteries to be solved.

I’ll be honest… it was a slog getting through this. So incredibly long with so much unnecessary info in it. The bits that were interesting were the historical retelling of the trouble in Ireland and the stories behind the sides of the family that you get to see through the eyes of generations. The childhoods and turmoil the families went through and the political angle thrust on them made for intense reading.

It was so odd that these sisters all thought it was a great idea to find this missing sister and pursue her across the world even though she had told them to stay away and that she was scared, thinking she was being stalked. Why would she take any interest in attending a funeral for someone she didn’t know and that she (and technically the others) were not even related to? Imagine someone pitches up and says I’m somehow related to you and now you must come with me to honour someone you’ve never heard of? Especially when you know who your family is? I’d run a mile.

But what was tedious was the repetition of things like people telling others how tired they looked, or someone saying they were perfectly capable of doing something, or the same event that had happened repeated by the other person from their POV. Or even the number of times food and drink were brought into the story – we know Mary likes toast as breakfast so please don’t tell us ten times! Or that Mary was called Merry so many times? And for goodness’ sake – do we have to have a summation of each sister’s backstory again?

Georg the lawyer could have solved all this early in the book yet chose to disappear “to find something out” and couldn’t be contacted. Really? With all this going on and the money being spent from the estate to track the sister down? Not to mention the “secret” Mary was hiding. Again, really? In this day and age, and considering she was on the other side of the world, why couldn’t she have done something about it or told her husband of thirty-five years? Thirty-five years and she couldn’t share something that “terrified her every day of her life”? Nope. The ending with Peter was not necessary. The whole meeting just took up space and could have been over and done with in one conversation. Ambrose and Father John, however, now that was a lovely part of the story.

I’m looking forward to having all the loose ends (and there are a lot) tied up as the premise behind the series is great but the execution has been so hard to get through. Pa Salt here we come…

Hunting Time by Jeffery Deaver

Description from Amazon:

THERE ARE TWO FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF SURVIVAL.
#1: NEVER BE WITHOUT A MEANS OF ESCAPE.
Allison Parker is on the run with her teenage daughter, Hannah, and Colter Shaw has been hired by her eccentric boss, entrepreneur Marty Harmon, to find and protect her. Though he’s an expert at tracking missing persons—even those who don’t wish to be found—Shaw has met his match in Allison, who brings all her skills as a brilliant engineer designing revolutionary technology to the game of evading detection.
#2: NEVER BE WITHOUT ACCESS TO A WEAPON.
The reason for Allison’s panicked flight is soon apparent. She’s being stalked by her ex-husband, Jon Merritt. Newly released from prison and fueled by blinding rage, Jon is a man whose former profession as a police detective makes him uniquely suited for the hunt. And he’s not alone. Two hitmen are also hot on her heels—an eerie pair of thugs who take delight not only in murder but in the sport of devising clever ways to make bodies disappear forever. Even if Shaw manages to catch up with Allison and her daughter, his troubles will just be beginning.
SHAW IS ABOUT TO DISCOVER RULE #3:
NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING.
As Shaw ventures further into the wilderness, the truth becomes as hard to decipher as the forest’s unmarked trails…and peril awaits at every turn.

So, honestly, with the blurb giving us excitement about Allison on the run and Colter tracking her, it sounded like a good setup. I’d read one or two of the Colter Shaw books before, and they weren’t too bad. I figured since this was Deaver it’d be good too.

But I really don’t feel the same about Shaw as I do about Rhyme! There is something about Lincoln’s character that is a lot deeper and Shaw feels underdeveloped to me. I appreciated his survivalist backstory and how he integrates it and the fact that he works for “rewards” now but he doesn’t feel like he has enough substance. I think maybe Lincoln’s methodology and each piece of evidence makes it feel as though the cases are really solved through clues, while with Shaw’s case it wasn’t what he was looking for but more of what he was bringing to the party.

Okay, so the story has Allison and Hannah on the run from Jon after his prison release and him threatening to kill Allison. We know Allison has some secret about Jon and is some engineering tech genius, but her using these skills to evade a tracker? I think her skills were highly overrated and more often than not, she just used instinct and good sense. Hannah’s petulance and reliance on the internet was to be expected, and then her about-turn when she was learning all these new skills from Shaw and becoming one with them? Maybe. Just felt forced to me. The thugs following them must have been the dumbest hitmen out. Yes they could kill people but their conversations and actions (and the whole itchy skin thing!) were silly.

Deaver makes plot twists a thing. Then he started creating twists on twists and now he has so many twists in his books that from the beginning you suspect everyone and thus cannot get close to characters or invested in the books. It takes the fun out of loving or hating a character and at the end going “Oh no!” And this twist? Very flat I’m afraid.

When I closed the book, I battled to remember what the beginning was about, and two days later I actually had to read a few reviews to remind myself of parts of the book. That’s never a good sign. I want a book that blows me away to the point where days later I’m still asking why I didn’t see it coming. Oh well… I guess I’ll keep reading his books, hoping for a new one that is amazing. Not even Justin Hartley will save this one.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson

Description from Amazon

 

It’s always awkward when five thousand kronor goes missing. When it happens at a certain grotty hotel in south Stockholm, it’s particularly awkward because the money belongs to the hitman currently staying in room seven. Per Persson, the hotel receptionist, just wants to mind his own business, and preferably not get murdered. Johanna Kjellander, temporarily resident in room eight, is a priest without a vocation, and, as of last week, without a parish. But right now she has two things at her disposal: an envelope containing five thousand kronor, and an excellent idea . . .

Featuring one violent killer, two shrewd business brains and many crates of Moldovan red wine, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All is an outrageously zany story with as many laughs as Jonasson’s multimillion-copy bestseller The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

 

I had never read any of this author’s books but I was drawn by the font and the colour of the cover (not the one pictured here) so I figured I’d give it a go. According to other reviewers, this was not as good as the other books by the author, and based on this book, I wouldn’t read the rest.

 

Granted, there were a couple of moments I did have a laugh but I felt like I could have skipped over quite a bit. So in essence you have the receptionist and the priest. They are referred to by those names more often than not so I’ll leave them as such. The money destined for the hitman lands up with the priest and she decides there is a better way of the hitman receiving money and for her to skim as much as possible.

 

The hitman doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself other than be in jail, so tends to do things to get himself incarcerated again and again (but only in the maim not kill category). But now he has people after him and the receptionist and priest decide that, to save themselves, they need to work together and go into the world of marketing. After all, what better than to advertise the services of a hitman on TV? This will control the mobsters and hopefully bring in money, which they will handle (read into that take as much as possible). (The authorities seem to have no issue with this?) Until… the hitman discovers religion and decides that being a hitman is no longer for him. The problem is that they have taken money for hits that he now will not do. So… how do you use religion to make money? You start a church and ask for donations, of course…

 

And the plot goes from there. Some funny moments – the communion wine was quite something – but it fizzled out for me and I started hurrying just to get it finished. Then, when it was done, I actually didn’t even realise I’d read the last page as it was just over. Maybe it was the lost in translation part. Maybe it was the interesting first idea that spiraled and made the characters more and more silly as time/pages went on. Absurd or satire I can laugh at. This just didn’t hold my interest enough for the characters or the story. It feels like time taken from me I could have spent on other books. This might appeal to some, but to me I was never invested enough…

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

Description from Amazon:

Dexter Morgan has always lived a happy homicidal life. He keeps his dark urges in check by adhering to one steadfast rule...he only kills very bad people. But now Dexter is experiencing some major life changes - don’t we all? - and they’re mostly wrapped up in the eight-pound curiosity that is his newborn daughter. Family bliss is cut short, however, when Dexter is summoned to investigate the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl who has been running with a bizarre group of goths who fancy themselves to be vampires. As Dexter gets closer to the truth of what happened to the missing girl, he realizes they are not really vampires so much as cannibals. And, most disturbing...these people have decided they would really like to eat Dexter.

 

So I admit I’m very late to the Dexter scene. Had heard of the series but didn’t start watching it until recently. And I never realised it was based on books! So when I found this book (dumb of me to start on #5) and started reading and saw that Dexter is having a baby at the same place I am at in the series, I laughed. But the difference in which characters are living (or what physical state they are in) between the series and book makes it confusing. Plus the number of people who know his secret is odd. I don’t get why the kids would understand and agree with his “dark passenger” and both think it’s fine. It’s hard not to compare the series to the book because I don’t have the understanding of characters in the previous books, so all I can picture is how they were on the screen.

The inner monologue/voiceover is Dexter to a T, and really adds to the turmoil he is going through now that his baby Lily Anne has completely changed his life. A lot of reviewers said it made him too soft in this book but I think the concern he has that he could pass his genes to his child or that someone like him could “happen” to his child would make him more worried. I did find, though, that the story seemed to happen around him. He didn’t really do a lot in the story himself. And that is very different from what I would expect of Dexter, considering his willingness to make a plan to ensure something happens to the bad guy (I use guy as a turn of phrase here).

So... teenagers go missing and this leads to a club of vampires and eventually a group of cannibals, where we learn of fetishes to eat human flesh but also fetishes to be eaten. Deborah is fixated on rescuing these girls no matter the cost and also has no qualms about putting a toe over the line. I found this Deborah very overbearing and judgmental, and her constantly punching Dexter in the arm? Annoying. It might have been a sibling trait that ran through the books, but come on. Use it once or twice. Deborah also has someone she loves in this book and her feelings about Dexter’s baby bring up her maternal instincts. Deborah? Maternal instincts? Oh yes. And this leads to a revelation that will take Deborah on a path not quite expected.

Rita’s character is even more simpering in the book. On screen she is wishy-washy and her “powerful” moments are soggy at best. But in this book? Falling for Brian’s “dear lady”? Barf... I suppose she will be Lily Anne’s light to Dexter’s dark. But not an inspiring character at all.

Bad guys, rescues, getting off because Daddy has money... all part of the endgame. But sadly, the ending is easily guessable. Dexter’s drug-induced physical scene? Waste of space. Not necessary at all. And a certain character at the end wanting to help another after the stunts they pulled with them previously? Doubtful. Still not a bad book to read though, but not in the blood splatter/will he or won’t he realm of the on-screen series. I’d read the next book just to see Deborah’s path and whether Dexter’s mojo is darkened again, but wonder if characters are losing the plot...

Hunted by the Past by Jami Gray

Description from Amazon:

She’s a reluctant psychic. He’s the man who walked away. Can they see beyond their painful past to survive a sadistic killer’s lethal game of revenge?

No matter how far she runs, she can’t escape…

Changing the past is an impossibility ex-Marine, Cynthia “Cyn” Arden, understands all too well. Struggling in the aftermath of a botched mission, which cost her two teammates, her military career, and a fledging relationship, her world’s upended once more by a panicked phone call. The psychic killer behind her nightmares has escaped military custody and is hunting down her remaining teammates, one by one. Up next on his murderous list—Cyn.

Unless she can trust the one who walked away…

The killer’s game brings her face to face with the one person guaranteed to throw her off kilter—the unsettling and distracting man she left behind, Kayden Shaw. Once she believed he’d stand by her side, then he chose his job and secrets over her, leaving her heart scarred by their tumultuous past.

Can Cyn overcome her past to trust the man she loves and master the psychic ability she spent years denying before it’s too late?

Granted, it took me a while to finish this book as I was reading physical copies of others and doing book reviews, etc. so I had to come back a couple of times and reread things. The idea was great: a military unit with psychics and other supernatural-type abilities – sounds intriguing, right?

 

In the beginning there is quite the dramatic episode and you get to witness what Cyn can do. An interesting ability indeed. And you hear of her backstory and what happened to her leg and how she just wants to stay away from it all. But then the past comes back and people she never wanted to speak to again are once more in her life as a madman is after them and taking them down one by one. It seems the villain is in her head and she is struggling to differentiate reality from the past.

So the action is pretty uptempo and the fights are pretty believable (especially the physical damage afterward) but then the intimacy after the physical damage sounds, well… anyway…

Besides the dreadful punctuation and grammar mistakes, was Cyn’s constant anguish. Her being on the verge of tears and curling into a ball on someone’s lap to be held with his head on her head and his arms around her just became repetitive. I never felt a synergy between the team, and in fact, never felt close to any of the characters. They came and went and even the villain was one-dimensional.

The ending was over in a flash and it was, unfortunately, just not a book I would have sat down and been so engrossed in I could read from start to finish. I was hoping for more, considering the plot, but it was not the spectacular psychic thriller I expected.

 

The Girl Before by JP Delaney

Description from Amazon

Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.

The request seems odd, even intrusive—and for the two women who answer, the consequences are devastating.

EMMA
Reeling from a traumatic break-in, Emma wants a new place to live. But none of the apartments she sees are affordable or feel safe. Until One Folgate Street. The house is an architectural masterpiece: a minimalist design of pale stone, plate glass, and soaring ceilings. But there are rules. The enigmatic architect who designed the house retains full control: no books, no throw pillows, no photos or clutter or personal effects of any kind. The space is intended to transform its occupant—and it does.

JANE
After a personal tragedy, Jane needs a fresh start. When she finds One Folgate Street she is instantly drawn to the space—and to its aloof but seductive creator. Moving in, Jane soon learns about the untimely death of the home’s previous tenant, a woman similar to Jane in age and appearance. As Jane tries to untangle truth from lies, she unwittingly follows the same patterns, makes the same choices, crosses paths with the same people, and experiences the same terror, as the girl before.

 

Again… too many people singing this book’s praises and yet it’s flawed in so many ways.

So it starts off with a very intriguing premise and the idea that the very same things are happening to another person makes it feel as though there is something about the house that catches our attention and makes us want to know more. The story does pull you in in the beginning, but it becomes a bit confusing to jump between the two women as you go between chapters. Sometimes when you think you are in the same character’s POV, you have to go back to the start to find out which person it is as so many settings and scenes involve the same people or places.

I understand that the women were so happy to have this upscale, minimalistic place at the incredibly low price, but the 200-plus rules they had to follow about no curtains, no mess, no books, no carpets, etc. was just bizarre. And that they had to fill in surveys about how they feel in order to have the amenities in the house continue working (read water or electricity here) was mind-boggling.

As the story moves on and you, as the reader, realise what Edward (the architect) wanted from the women (and what they gave him), especially after finding out what happened to his family, you start moving away from the credibility of the story more and more (and take that with a pinch of salt). He buys them the same dresses and necklaces, then takes them to the same restaurants (and the description of the living fish they eat pieces of as it’s dying… just no) indicates just how messed up he is. So when Jane starts putting these pieces together (and by the way, the two women look almost identical) she just has to know what happened to Emma.

It’s really odd how Emma’s character changed and the lies emerged and how Edward chose her, yet when she changed 180 degrees, he wanted her even more. And the “Yes, Daddy. Yes.” (insert facepalm here).

By the end of it, with the really rushed ending (that ended with a sliver of reality holding it together), I felt nothing but contempt for all the characters. A psychological thriller that strung you along and had you gasping at the end? NO… It tried too hard to be like a mix of books before it and fell short in so many ways.

The Milk Tart Murders: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew

Description from Amazon:

Who knew a Marilyn Monroe movie could kill you? When Oom Frik of Oom Frik’s Fantastiques dies during a vintage movie screening in Ladismith, Tannie Maria and her policeman boyfriend Henk are on the scene.

Ja, the old thrift-shop owner had a heart condition, but was there more to his demise? It’s rumoured that among Frik’s junk are valuable treasures, and the grumpy, paranoid old guy frequently altered his will.

When a second body turns up, there’s a clue: a letter addressed to Tannie Maria asking for advice – and a milk tart recipe. Fifty-plus agony aunt Maria and feisty young journalist Jessie conduct their own treasure hunt and murder investigation. The police are looking for the perpetrator too, but the amateur detectives have unique skills, and Tannie Maria’s food is a powerful incentive to get people to talk.

Maria and Jessie step into deep danger, but all is not doom and gloom. Spring has arrived in the Karoo, and Henk and Maria discuss moving in together, even though his home is full of his late wife’s stuff. Maria knows food has a way of filling the dark spaces, for better or for worse. Perhaps, once the Klein Karoo crime-buster’s work is done, she might follow her own advice and try a healing recipe.

 

And with that, the series ends. My oh my, but Ladismith certainly is a town filled with mystery and crime! For such a quiet Karoo dorpie, there is a lot of action there.

Maria and Henk’s relationship definitely took a battering in this one, with each believing the other had eyes for someone else. This takes a toll on Maria’s ability to give sage advice to those who write in to her column. After all, when love is being questioned and the past interferes, how are you supposed to help others? And when Maria felt her love of food was becoming for more than pleasure, she had to take a serious look at herself and what she felt was important in life. When she looked into Overeaters Anonymous, this gem was in the book:

Overeaters Anonymous came from far away, probably America. They wouldn’t understand about rusks. If you live in South Africa, you know that rusks are not stuffing your face – they are a way of life. It’s just bad manners not to have one with your coffee.

I shall miss Hattie with her perfect hair, excellent Excel system, and lack of ability to make a cup of coffee, and Jessie, with her gecko tattoo, red scooter, and enthusiasm to help everyone.

The story itself was as outlandish as ever, with murders, mystery, sneaking around, wills, treasure, a pink lacy bra, and Karoo Zoo biscuits. And the recipes look as good as before – I’ll be trying Zaba’s Harissa paste for sure.

A great end to a fun series – what a pity it’s over!

Death on the Limpopo: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew

Description from Amazon:

Tannie Maria might be the Karoo’s favourite agony aunt, but when it comes to matters of her own heart, she doesn’t have all the answers. Why is she having trouble telling her beau – the dashing Detective Henk Kannemeyer with the chestnut moustache – that she loves him?

There are other, more pressing problems too. A tall, dark stranger zooms in on her Ducati motorbike: she is Zabanguni Kani, a journalist renowned for her political exposés, who, after receiving threats, moves in with Tannie Maria for safety.

And who could tell that a trip to the country’s northern parts was on the cards? The journey plunges Maria and her friends into pools of danger, amid water maidens, murders, and Harley Davidsons.

Ladismith’s famous crime fighter is back – with a tin of buttermilk rusks in hand – to restore peace from the Klein Karoo to the great Limpopo River.

 

Well I got my paws on the third and fourth book so am currently working my way through them. The third was not what I expected at all, as it leans quite heavily into politics and the ramifications of apartheid and not the murder mystery we had come to expect.

 

Initially I did not like Zaba as she seemed to arrive already having decided that things would go her own way. But as a murder happens close to them and Zaba is desperate to keep some letters that point to a killer safe, Maria realises there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

 

Maria has some childhood memories of her father, but mostly that she didn’t get to see him a lot as he was murdered up North when she was young. However, he did introduce her to the concept of the “great grey-green greasy Limpopo” from the famous Kipling book Just so Stories. And when Zaba asks Maria to accompany her to the Limpopo, Maria’s newly awoken wanderlust comes into play (and a long trip in a bakkie that size is going to play hell with your butt).

 

The two head off to solve a mystery that somehow ties them together, but on the way are stalked and nearly killed a number of times. Henk wants Maria back ASAP, but this is her time – she needs closure on something she didn’t even know was coming. And she needs a bit of time away from Henk, who has professed his love for her. Something she can’t quite say back yet.

 

The story ends with a bit of an improbable scenario but who am I to argue with what a baobab can do? And who would kill to save their reputation? The family tie-in makes for an interesting connection and shows just how deep love is and has no boundaries.

 

As usual there is food involved – a lot of it. And the recipes at the back of the book sound fabulous yet again. Bring on the last book!

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Description from Amazon:

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.

Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

Read between the lies.

 

With 19 “warnings” on Amazon and many before you even start the book of twists on twists, well… you can see where this is going. As soon as people start saying there are twists you don’t see coming, you start looking for them, and then pretty soon it’s easy to spot where the twist starts.

 

Granted… it was a good idea, but similar to ones I have read before. The first part has you looking for clues and keeps you captivated, but as the layers start unfolding, it becomes very drawn out with subplots that don’t feel necessary. So you have Nellie, who is engaged to Richard, who feels as though his ex-wife Vanessa (now struggling with alcohol and life itself) is trying to ruin the upcoming wedding.

 

Red flags are everywhere and should keep you questioning past and present decisions by the characters. This is one of those books that is difficult to explain where it goes wrong without giving it all away, but suffice it to say, I’m really not feeling the “let’s blame bad actions on our childhoods” or “oh gosh, my plan to ruin another’s life was all for the greater good”.

 

You’ll either love this book or hate it, and since part of it actually made me want to read more, I’m in the middle. Would I read it again to go back and see the trail of clues sprinkled to explain the ending? No.

A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern

Description from Amazon:

Ever wondered where lost things go?

 

Ever since the day her classmate vanished, Sandy Shortt has been haunted by what happens when something – or someone – disappears. Finding has become her goal.

 

Jack Ruttle is desperate to find his younger brother who vanished into thin air a year ago. He spots an ad for Sandy’s missing persons agency and is certain that she will answer his prayers and find his brother.

 

But then Sandy disappears too, stumbling upon a place that is a world away from the only one she has ever known. Now all she wants, more than anything, is to find her way home.

 

Having never read a Cecelia Ahern book before, I was intrigued first by the cover, and then by the description. Yes – the elusive socks and Tupperware bases or lids are all too familiar.

 

It is a lovely story indeed. Some might say twee but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Sandy Shortt (who is anything but) comes across initially as an obsessive, self-absorbed, unlikable person, but once you understand her desire to help and how far she is willing to go to find people who have vanished, you realise what a heart of gold she has.

 

Jake was also an interesting character as his obsession in trying to find his brother showed his attitude in not wanting to give up but also that it became destructive as he was willing to let go of relationships to find answers.

 

The Here was a fascinating place, and the way missing people had come together to create communities was quite something. Their attitudes about staying put were quite strange, though. Sandy’s role in the Here and her desperation to get back made for some fun reading.

 

At the end of it all, you came to the realisation that missing can mean many things – it’s not just something physical. And at the end of the story, I longed for a place to exist where missing things do indeed go to.

I’ve looked at more of her books and while the rest might not be what I’d continue to read, this one was light-hearted fun.

 

The Doll's House by Evelyn Anthony

Description from Amazon:

A female Intelligence agent is dispatched to spy on a group of retired spooks engaging in international terrorism in this post–Cold War thriller

 

After three decades serving king and country, fifty-one-year-old Harry Oakham is put out to pasture with a miserly pension. But the former civil servant has his own ideas for his so-called retirement. He settles into a luxury hotel in the English countryside and rounds up a disgruntled crew of the world’s most brilliant ex-spooks, including a German expert in counter-espionage and interrogation, a KGB tactician, a former Mossad terrorist, and a lethal blond killer. Hiring themselves out to the highest bidder, their first job is the assassination of a Saudi prince.

 

Meanwhile, still smarting from a recent divorce, undercover diplomat-turned-agent Rosa Bennet has been dispatched to the Doll’s House to spy on Oakham and make sure the retired agent is adapting to civilian life. The last thing the Intelligence agent expects is to fall in love with her target. And when Oakham’s recruits get wind of his affair with Rosa—and her true identity—they will devise a plan to eliminate the traitor in their midst.

 

This was a DNF for me. I was in the library about to check out another book when it didn’t want to go through the system so I grabbed the next book under “A” and just took it because of the title. It didn’t even have a dust jacket so I had no idea what it was about.

 

I can’t believe it was only written ten years ago as the writing feels very old. It’s set post-Cold War, so I see where the interactions are supposed to fit in with the time period but the dialogue is just odd. Straight away it starts off with enemies about to work together against the countries that no longer had use for them, couples unhappy in marriages and either having affairs or about to divorce, and women being resented for wanting to pursue careers. Lots of characters and situations to keep up with from the get-go.

 

I hate not finishing books as the author has taken the time to write them and it’s usually a labour of love but in this instance I’d rather read something I know I’ll enjoy to the end and not regret having spent “wasted time”. This might be fabulous for others but just not for me…

Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan

Description from Amazon

Madame Burova – Tarot Reader, Palmist and Clairvoyant is retiring and leaving her booth on the Brighton seafront after fifty years.

 

Imelda Burova has spent a lifetime keeping other people's secrets and her silence has come at a price. She has seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Her cards had unmasked them all and her cards never lied. But Madame Burova is weary of other people's lives, their ghosts from the past and other people's secrets, she needs rest and a little piece of life for herself. Before that, however, she has to fulfill a promise made a long time ago. She holds two brown envelopes in her hand, and she has to deliver them.

 

In London, it is time for another woman to make a fresh start. Billie has lost her university job, her marriage, and her place in the world when she discovers something that leaves her very identity in question. Determined to find answers, she must follow a trail which might just lead right to Madame Burova's door.

 

In a story spanning over fifty years, Ruth Hogan conjures a magical world of 1970s holiday camps and seaside entertainers, eccentrics, heroes and villains, the lost and the found. Young people, with their lives before them, make choices which echo down the years. And a wall of death rider is part of a love story which will last through time.

 

What a magical tale! I absolutely loved it! The easy-to-read writing conjured up visions of the holiday camp at Larkins and the fabulous people who worked there. From a gin-drinking contortionist, to the enchanting mermaids, to the smoky-voiced singer, to the people who run it all behind the scenes. Each character had their place and they all fitted in perfectly.

 

The main story is around Imelda and Billie and the quest to find answers and the way that people are brought back into the picture from so many years ago who somehow still fit together is delightful. The main theme has so many side themes including bullying, sexual harassment, reaching for your dreams, and simply love, that makes the time jumps between chapters feel like you are living it all with them.

 

It was a light holiday read, which meant that sometimes things were not gone into as deeply as I would have liked, but it was still fun to read, nonetheless. A happy ending? I'm not sure... but the journey was good.

The Satanic Mechanic (Tannie Maria Mysteries #2)

Description from Amazon: (Yes I know I’m getting lazy doing my own descriptions – just been super busy!)

Tannie Maria, our crime-fighting, food-loving heroine, returns to solve another delicious caper: the mystery of her own romantic future.

Tannie Maria—recipe writer turned crime fighter—barely has time to return to her cooking and advice column for the local Gazette when she finds herself embroiled in another whodunnit—Slimkat the Bushman’s life is being threatened, and Tannie Maria is determined to find out who wants to kill him. The nature reserve beside the Kuruman River has been awarded as ancestral land to the Bushmen, also known as the San people, and a host of greedy parties, like diamond miners and cattle companies, are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them from claiming it.

Add to the mix that Tannie Maria is also trying to overcome her own hangups in love with her boyfriend, the rugged detective Lieutenant Henk Kannymeyer, and—for the first time in her life—to go on a diet, there is no shortage of conundrums personal and professional for an amateur sleuth to confront in this delightful, warm-hearted sequel. 

 

I watched the series Recipes for Love and Murder not realizing it was based on a book, and when I found the sequel (plus another two) in the library, I was so happy! It was odd reading it, though, seeing as the characters were different from how they were portrayed on tv and the main character was from Ireland and not South Africa!

I could picture the Karoo sunsets with some moerkoffie and a beskuit (I am rather partial to rusks, myself) and hear the sound of the birds in the background. Okay and the chickens too. The scenes around the fire where they were doing the healing and Maria’s visions were very well described.

I liked the relationship between Henk and Maria and the ups and downs it went through in him trying to protect her and her trying to face her past and protect herself. In fact, the relationships between all of the characters and how their pasts fitted into the present was quite the little puzzle. So many external factors played a part like mental health, nature conservation, ancestral land, and responsible journalism.

I still love the way Maria links a recipe to each of her “Agony Aunt” letters and how the contents of the letters might not be what they initially seem. That the recipes are included after is great, but some of the ingredients (while yes, they can be picked up at Spar,) are rather expensive to be using them as she uses them, plus sometimes eating them in one go would definitely put strain on a reporter’s salary! I like her advocating for the use of a Wonderbag™ in place of a hotbox.

The basis of the story about ancestral land and rights is an important underlying story and the “South Africanisms” used are just so lekker local! A glossary might help some people – and, as always, the inevitable explanation of now/now-now/just-now.

I can’t wait for the next two!

Sleep by MK Boers

Description from Amazon:

A marriage made in heaven, a murder made in hell.

Why kill the man you love?

A whydunnit rather than a whodunnit, Sleep follows a woman on trial for killing her husband and his lover. Was it premeditated, a crime of passion, or a moment of madness? Told through a series of flashbacks and testimony, the struggles that Lizzy Dyson faced are revealed.

A suspense-filled psychological thriller, domestic noir, and courtroom drama. Sleep is a story about heartbreak and betrayal, and reveals what can drive a woman to murder.

 

Plenty to love in this and plenty to be iffy about too. I thought the story was very well done and going into the understanding of why Lizzy did what she did made you really wonder what kind of place she was in to feel like that. How far a person had to be pushed to do what she did. Don’t get me wrong – she still committed murder and did some dodgy actions herself, but it is interesting to see exactly where the breaking point was. It makes you question what you would do if everyone around you was laughing at you knowing your husband was sleeping around and telling you to “get over” five miscarriages.

 

The things that were iffy were, first, the grammar and punctuation mistakes. Gosh, but they were off-putting. Nothing like interrupting the flow of reading when things jump out at you. Then, as other reviewers mentioned, a lot of conversations were repeated and you ended up skipping over sections. The court proceedings could have used a bit of an overhaul too.

 

But overall I enjoyed the story as it was a different take on a woman who knows she is guilty and how she got there. I guess the title had to do with her being asleep her whole life and only waking up when she is finally ready to face the truth.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

Description from Amazon:

Frances Adams always said she’d be murdered. She was right.

In 1965, Frances Adams is at an English country fair where a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. It is a prediction that sparks her life’s work—trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet.

Nearly sixty years later, Annie Adams is summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is found murdered, just like she always said she would be. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder.

Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer? As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

 

So this started off as a rollicking good detective mystery, and I loved the time changes where we got to see Frances’s diary and the events of 1966 as well as the shift to present times. The fact that some of the characters were still around and how their personalities had stayed the same or changed made for a good competition to solve the murder.

 

But then the characters and their places in the story started feeling weird. Like they had been written into spots just for their name to appear so that you, as the reader, think to link them to that section. Some were downright silly and some tried to appear all-knowing yet contributed nothing. So here you have Annie, a wannabe writer, who is somehow able to contribute more to the case than the cops themselves. And, amazingly enough, is able to find the murder weapon the cops missed and removes it from the crime scene to hand it in even though it could do the same to her?

 

The story behind the story alongside the story just became too much. Like someone had taken different puzzles and forced them into each other trying to make it fit as a pretty picture. When I got to the end, I went back to see if pages had been torn out. All of that for that ending? It was a big buildup about what Annie was going to do and then in two pages it was done. With holes in things that were huge and tangents flying wildly in the breeze. So much that was forced together just to say it was done. I almost feel cheated as I really expected something that could rival Knives Out or one of the Murder Club Mysteries… but no… (Edited to add that I wish the author had punctuated direct speech properly, too! Commas before the person being addressed is a must and the missing ones made me cringe every single time!)

Take it Back by Kia Abdullah

Description taken from Amazon:

IT’S TIME TO TAKE YOUR PLACE ON THE JURY.

The victim: A sixteen-year-old girl with facial deformities, neglected by an alcoholic mother. Who accuses the boys of something unthinkable.

The defendants: Four handsome teenage boys from hardworking immigrant families. All with corroborating stories.

WHOSE SIDE WOULD YOU TAKE?

 

I love a good legal thriller, and this one definitely hit a lot of areas, ranging from alcoholism, gender inequality, rape, religion, the media, and the judicial system.

Zara Kaleel makes for a good main character in that she has a very deep sense of justice and is focused on doing what is right, no matter how others perceive her. Her journey, both in the legal and familial sense, shows her desire to help and the lengths she will go to do this. When she is approached by Jodie, a white girl with facial deformities, who admits to her that she was raped after a party by four Muslim boys in her school, she wants justice for Jodie, not knowing the twists and turns she will be facing on her path.

Thereafter starts a she said/he said journey where Zara’s desire to prove Jodie’s story lands her in a world of hate from her own community while Jodie suffers the hostility of a hate campaign from both her mother and best friend. This moves out in waves through broader communities where religion and race take centre stage. As a reader you move back and forth between believing Jodie or not as each piece of evidence comes forward, and you find yourself disgusted by the lies and manipulation.

The depth of the hatred was vivid and made for a harrowing read. So when the end arrives, you aren’t quite sure what to expect. And even after that… well, you’ll have to read it!

Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs

Description taken from amazon blurb:

Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, Tempe is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and when Tempe delves into the property’s history, she becomes suspicious about the ownership.

The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon the duo learns that back in the 1930s and ’40s the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. While interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attack? So many questions.

As Tempe and Ivy dig deeper, an arrest is finally made. Then another fire claims one more victim, and slowly, Tempe’s instincts begin pointing to the obvious. But her moves since coming to Washington have been anticipated—and every path forward seems to bring with it a lethal threat.

 

This was my first Kathy Reichs novel and I saw a lot of reviews saying this was not her best. Based on what I read, I don’t think I’d deliberately go out to look for another. I’d probably only read one if I had nothing else to read (and who has that?). There was nothing inherently wrong with it. In fact, the way she finishes off chapters definitely makes you want to read one more and then one more. I guess it was the explanation of every acronym/abbreviation or technical term (even though it’s woven into thoughts or speech) and maybe just too much info. I didn’t connect with the story and never felt invested in finding out who actually did it. When it started and the girl was on the phone with 911, I felt there was going to be something great behind this, but as it went on and the history was looked at over and over, it just felt like it went on for too long. I started jumping sections and I didn’t even really read the epilogue.

 

I never connected with any of the characters, either. Not sure if it’s because I came in late in the series, or if they didn’t make a mark on me. From the detectives to the boyfriend to the telejournalist or to the MC. As for the twins – really?

 

I was looking forward to the forensic parts of the book but even those felt forced. The solution to the whole thing was odd. And the twist? Well, you could see that coming a mile away. Nope, very sad to say this was not for me.

The Grave Artist by Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado

Grief is what drives him. Grief felt by the relatives and friends of the victims. So Homeland Security Investigations agent Carmen Sanchez and her partner, security expert Jake Heron, find out when the suspect dubbed the Honeymoon Killer strikes again. Not killing for the sake of it, but to feed off those left behind after a bride or groom is killed on the wedding day.

 

Their search takes them between continents, but as more sides to this seemingly clearcut puzzle appear, it seems they might be the ones taken down next. Add in office politics and family members who have their own agenda based on a suicide that may just be murder, well… it’s going to be a ride.

 

I did not read the first book in the series (darn timing was just out!) but it wasn’t 100% necessary in order to understand the backstory here. It would have helped with the familial connections and understanding the Intrusions Investigations as well as a previous nefarious tech character, but otherwise it’s a pretty solid thriller.

 

Lots of twists and turns, the pacing was smooth, and the romantic connection moved the story forward. The things that I didn’t like were the fact that every character had to have some story in the bigger picture – it seemed no one was just a side character – and the fact that sometimes there were too many bows that tied things up. You got fed an idea that something bad would happen or someone would die. But… The fact that you got to know the killer upfront and the reasons behind some behaviour was a good lead in, and the teaser about the blades was intriguing. Then the killer’s romantic connection and the killer going after the killer… too many storylines. The Italian side felt a little added in without being fleshed out and sometimes I got too many Rhyme vibes off this.

 

But in the end, a good thriller, well written, with a bit for everyone, I suppose!