Tag Archive: mystery



Crumbs and Misdemeanors (Great Witches Baking Show #6)Crumbs and Misdemeanors by Nancy Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Because of the availability at Libby, I am reading this series out of order. After the fun of GingerDead, I found book 6. I dislike reading things out of order, but I figured Nancy Warren does such a nice job of filling in the needed details from the previous books. I didn’t feel I’d get lost. And I don’t think I did.

This book went nearly as fast as the Gingerdead novella. It was a fun ride.

Hollis McCarthy narrated this one, also. She could voice all the characters so well that I often forgot it was just one woman reading aloud.

Nancy Warren’s series are all so light and cozy, yet engaging. I don’t like that mysteries are always about murder. But everything else is fun. It’s always an adventure.

It was one of those sleepless nights, so I not only finished this one, but I went on to the other one Libby had available. Again, way out of order. On to number 5!

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Gingerdead HouseGingerdead House by Nancy Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the month it took me to read the Complete Oz book, I needed something light and short. This one was available to listen to on Libby just when I needed it.

Do you need a fun little who-done-it with a fun character who happens to be a witch? It took three hours. The bad side is that it created a crazy desire for gingerbread cookies. Luckily, we don’t have any, and I don’t like cooking.

Hollis McCarthy is a fun narrator who can act out the various characters that show up. And she was able to make me laugh at the main character, Poppy Wilkinson, with her foibles and sense of humor.

For this reason, and that I know I can’t be let down by any Nancy Warren book, I picked up a few other Great Witches Baking Show novels to brighten my sudden depression. This is not the time to get caught up in that. Right? On to the fun stories!

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The Guest ListThe Guest List by Lucy Foley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With this cast: Jot Davies (Narrator), Chloe Massey (Narrator), Olivia Dowd (Narrator), Aoife McMahon (Narrator), Sarah Ovens (Narrator), Rich Keeble (Narrator), Lucy Foley’s story plays out like an old radio mystery theater.

I finished a book before I was ready to go to sleep. Since it was a Libby audiobook, I tried to find something else to get me to sleeping time. I saw this one about a wedding guest list. The blurb made it look interesting. I don’t much like murder mysteries, but with the setting in Ireland, I thought it would at least whet my travel desires. It worked!

All the actors gave such depth to the story that probably, in a paper book, it would still be great. The accents enriched each character. And what a single narrator-type book would do, I never felt lost as to who was talking.

There were so many types of people at this wedding. And life-like relationships that we learn about that happened and caused some incidences at the wedding that one doesn’t expect. We don’t start with a body and try to figure out who did it, but the other part of the mystery is who will die and why, then asking the who. This makes it the best mystery I have ever read/listened to.

This was readily available on Libby. If you get the chance, I think you’ll like it, too.

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Mother-Daughter Murder NightMother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, I was reluctant to read a book. I don’t like books about murder. And that is the reason I usually don’t read mysteries. They are rarely about missing glasses. True mysteries. And I don’t know where I heard about this book, but thanks to whoever suggested this. It was a lot of fun!

Jane Oppenheimer, narrator, read this with such spirit that I didn’t want to put it down. She was about to change her voice for every character, and I was never lost as to who might be speaking.

The author was clever in shifting a book about the younger women (daughter and granddaughter), and soon, it is the grandmother who speaks the most in the book. Her viewpoint is a little annoying but fun.

Yes, there is a murder or more, but as a team, the three women risk their own lives, careers, and their relationships with each other. Tricky at first, but by the time it all falls apart, each woman searches for strength and wisdom.

Ah, I am not saying what I want to. Just know that this is a fun book, despite the murders and bad guys. I was lucky to pick it up on Libby. Enjoy!

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Finding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents' Murders, and Saved by PrayerFinding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents’ Murders, and Saved by Prayer by Holly Marie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was worried about reading this. I thought it would add to the stress of the day. But actually, I found it relaxing and positive. Thanks to Libby for making so many books available to the poor for free.

If you don’t mind a person expressing their religious points of view, this is a good book. But some might find it a bit heavy in the beliefs end of things. I always feel we see a unique person’s point of view in an autobiography. The best way to understand others is to start with their belief system.

The narrator, Stephanie Richardson, was easy to listen to and displayed humor and love throughout.

The end of the book is a bit of a cliffhanger. Since there is no answer to what happened to Holly’s parents, the ending that would be most satisfying would be someone out there who reads this and might get a spark of memory that they witnessed something they didn’t know might be a clue to solve the case.

So bear with or enjoy the book, but you may be the key to solving this mystery.

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How Could It Be?How Could It Be? by Xiomara Rodriguez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“A senior FBI agent being shot in the precinct’s parking lot is only the first shock in Lieutenant Jane Sparks’s day. The second is Senior Agent Fran Morris is a mirror image of Sparks, an identical twin. After an awkward and confrontational meeting at the hospital while Agent Morris is in recovery, they decide to put their brilliant minds together to not only determine who shot Agent Morris and why but also how they were separated at birth.

How Could It Be? is a fast-paced mystery crime novel filled with lies, deception, and intrigue, and how it all affects a budding relationship between long-lost sisters.”

What better way to explain the story than the blurb from Amazon? I met the author briefly a decade ago, but I see her in the church meetings I Zoom. She doesn’t know me, but I am still proud of her for writing a series!

For a first book, I think this has a lot of promise. The author’s career experience verifies the world the main characters inhabit.

This is a short book—I read it in one sitting—but it was full of promise and intrigue. I can’t wait to read Xiomara Rodriguez’s other books.

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What the River Knows (Secrets of the Nile #1)What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, I never learned what the river knows. Second, I didn’t like any of the characters. It’s supposed to be a Young Adult, and I am three or four times the age of the prescribed reader. Still, I usually like YA books, so…

It is supposed to be about magick and fantasy, but it is not consistent or completely helpful. The history is enough that it might bring a young person to Google Cleopatra, Egypt, or Argentina. There is a smattering of very elementary Spanish, making a language student feel smart. But honestly, I felt I wasted time getting to an unsatisfying cliff. It didn’t make me want to continue.

Okay, it could be me. OR it could be that I listened to Text-to-Speech, and I could have used a live narrator who could read all the languages presented.

I hope others will read it and like it. It seems promising, but I don’t plan to read the next part of the series. Still, I’m grateful to Libby for the borrow of the Kindle version.

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The Lost BookshopThe Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The blurb pulled me into a wonderful, amazing world. Here’s the one from GoodReads:

‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

I love a book about books and bookstores and the magic that can occur. It can get confusing if you have to listen and not read the words. I would get lost as to whose point of view I was looking through. But after a while, I got it and was charmed.

Avena Mansergh-Wallace (Narrator), Olivia Mace (Narrator), and Nick Biadon (Narrator) made Evie Woods’ story come to life.

If you get the chance, read or listen to this one. It is charming!

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Squeeze MeSqueeze Me by Carl Hiaasen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Curiosity. That is why this book got all of two stars. I wanted to know what was going to happen, where the plot was going to take us.

Sadly, I never enjoyed it and nearly quit reading often. I like my fiction to be enjoyable or intriguing. This was neither. Even without the political leaning, I don’t think I would have liked it. I didn’t like any of the characters except the snake, I guess.

This author is pretty popular, but I should have known I wouldn’t like this. I read Skinny Dip and found it equally boring. And not as annoying. Nor did I like the narrator, Scott Brick. Another male who made women sound like he despised them.

If you like Mr. Hiaasen’s writing, you might like this. Otherwise, go find something you might not feel you’ve wasted time reading.

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The Psychology of Time TravelThe Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Below is a previous review of Kate Mascarenhas’s The Psychology of Time Travel. It was with Kindle text-to-speech. I have to admit that this Audible version rates the same. Ellie Heydon (Narrator) doesn’t vary her voice enough to help the listener tell the differences between characters, places, emotions, or times. One difference was one character sounded like they had a cold, but other than that, it was all the same, and I couldn’t figure out why the nasal voice belonged to who it belonged to.

Even so, it was a fun read with time travel rules bent a little differently than other books of this nature. I think it is worth the read, and maybe, in this case, just a paper or visual read.
~~~

A friend recommended this to me. She knew I loved reading about the concept of time travel. And she was not wrong. This was very interesting and even brought up ideas I hadn’t considered before. A lot of time travel science is included in the book, but I loved the story. I loved reading about all the different women who invented the time machines.

I borrowed this Kindle edition from the library. And for a lot of books, the text-to-speech works quite well. But for this book, it made it more challenging. All the voices are the same one, no matter the time or area the person was from; it was the same voice with no emotion. So I got pretty mixed up with who was who. So I have ordered the Audible version to try again later. I am concerned as there are so many characters I may have to take notes to keep it all straight.

Still, even as it was, I found it engaging every single night. I never wanted to quit reading, even when confused.

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