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!