I have enjoyed Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swenson series so far. She gave one of my favorite reading/author’s talks I’ve ever been to. Which is why I was surprised at how much Double Fudge Brownie Murder disappointed me. This 20th installment in the series opens where that last left off: Hannah is about to go on trial for a vehicular homicide that wasn’t really her fault. Before the trail starts, she and her sisters go to Vegas to attend their mother’s elopement (all planned by Doc, […]
Cupcakes, Magic Stones, Monkey Burps
This is my first Evanovich novel. I usually avoid this kind of book because I don’t usually like first-person narratives, and I find that the notion of high volume = lower quality is often correct (except for Terry Pratchett). The writing quality isn’t great, but I gotta say, I enjoyed this. The basic story is pretty simple. Lizzy, our cupcake-baking heroine, is getting comfortable in her new job in Salem, Massachusetts after some rough personal times. Cue disruption in the form of two men. Diesel, […]
Bad Harry Potter goes to Narnia Hell Makes for Creepy Dirty Bad Reading
I was intrigued by the first third of The Magicians, hated the second third, and the final third was weird and I’m not sure it was enough to redeem the book from the middle part. The first part is dark Harry Potter, the second is existential and dirty in a creepy-bad way, and the last is Narnia gone to hell. Overall, The Magicians reminded me of The Secret History (which I liked parts of but overall didn’t like for many of the same reasons I […]
Scary Picklemen Want Robots to be Evil
Manners & Mutiny is the fourth and final installment of The Finishing School series. The school in question is Madame Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Yong Ladies of Quality, a flying dirigible where the young lady students study manners and spycraft. The heroine is Sophronia Temminick who, along with her friends Agatha and Dimity, must save the school, London, and probably England from the evil pickle-themed villains, the Picklemen. Much of the action concentrates on discovering and thwarting the Picklemen. There is much less classroom time […]