Hallmark Mysteries and....Lemony Snicket?

Wanted to let you know there are two new mysteries on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries.

Garage Sale Mystery: Art of Murder with Lori Laughlin started Sunday 1/8/17 BUT it is showing again Friday 1/13/17 at 8 p.m. CST.




A brand new series starts Sunday, 1/15/17 at 8 p.m. CST.

Framed for Murder: A Fixer Upper Mystery starring Jewel (the singer? yes)  and Colin Ferguson.

 


This new series is based on the Fixer Upper book series by Kate Carlisle. Here is what I found out about it:

"The “Fixer Upper Mysteries” movies are based upon New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle’s novels. In the small resort town of Lighthouse Cove, everyone knows that the best man for the job is a woman. And that woman is Shannon Hughes (Jewel), owner of Hughes Restoration and an expert in Victorian home restoration. Through her work, she stumbles across clues hidden in the old homes, uncovering past secrets and becoming an unlikely sleuth to crack unsolved mysteries.
In “Framed for Murder: A Fixer-Upper Mystery,” the premiere movie in the franchise, Shannon Hughes, gets a partner in crime-solving when her new client offers to help hammer out the details of her friend and neighbor’s untimely death. "

I have watched all the Hallmark mysteries on Movies and Mysteries and liked all of them.

Lemony Snicket. A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Did you read the book series several years ago? Looks like a children's series but may not want your children to read it? Not young children anyway. There was a movie with Jim Carey playing Count Olaf. I found the books to have quite a wry sense of humor and loved them. And I saw the movie.




Netflix has produced an 8 episode series which will be available January 13th.

This is from MSN and will give you an idea of what the stories are like. I find it hysterical.

"With a lugubrious whimsy that becomes characteristic, Netflix’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” starts by going to great, ironic lengths to convince the viewer to not watch the show. Narrator Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton), who wanders in and out of scenes like a melancholy Rod Serling, begins the series with a long, odd disclaimer that is part comedy, part tragedy. The theme song’s chorus is simply “Look away!” repeated over scenes of the perils the main characters have encountered. Lead Neil Patrick Harris, who plays the villainous Count Olaf, brazenly breaks the fourth wall to comment on the poor quality of streaming television drama. And periodically, just to remind the viewer what they’re in for, Warburton’s Snicket returns to re-up his warning: “Hello, my name is Lemony Snicket, and I am sorry to say that the alleged entertainment you are watching is extremely unpleasant.”

Enjoy!

Gun by Lee Hayton

I recently read and ARC of Gun by Lee Hayton. This is a pen name for Katherine Hayton who writes the Ngaire Blakes series I have talked about. She is writing books of a different genre as Lee Hayton, specifically thriller/horror set in the United States. The Ngaire Blakes series, and I believe Katherine's other books, are set in New Zealand. Interesting.



"Gun" is the first book in the Gun Apocalypse series. Here is the summary:

"Seven customers shot dead in a coffee shop. Thirty shoppers cut down by an assault rifle at the mall. One hundred and eight pupils killed by high-school students on a rampage.

It’s just reached 10:00 a.m. on a beautiful spring day.

When a neurological virus triggers an epidemic of gun violence, a modern US city fractures into chaos. Annie’s husband shoots at commuters while his son is buckled in a carseat. Frankie and Becca desperately try to hide from a deranged shooter at their school; Robert runs headlong into the midst of a lopsided gun battle; and Blain…? None of them know Blain’s true story.

Thrown together—their families dead or missing—these survivors struggle to escape the newly-dangerous city. Hoping to find a place of safety. Somewhere they can bide their time until the violence subsides, the authorities seize control, and good once again triumphs over evil.

They’re in for a long wait."

What would you do? Random shootings apparently all over the world. People with a virus that has driven them to shooting anyone they see. All communications have gone out; cell phones, land lines, television. Annie, Becca, Frankie and Robert try to get to safety and locate their families, if they are still alive, meeting up with other victims such as Blaine, and other people taken hostage by gangs of people gone mad. But who are victims and who aren't? The characters find out pretty quickly what they are made of and have to push their limits in order to survive. 

Many years ago, I read quite a few books by Robin Cook who wrote books about various viruses that created chaos and trying to save mankind. Those seemed like it probably wouldn't happen. Although, now I would probably think differently. Gun bothered me a bit living in the US and we have several crazed gunmen shoot many, many people. That made it kind of hard for me to read. But what is different in that it is a virus that has caused people to do these things. Book 2 does sound interesting to me because it looks like it is going to show the other side of it, what is happening with the people infected and the medical aspect of it.

Here is the summary for Gun 2.

"One o’clock in the morning, a full ER. Two o’clock in the morning, a full hospital. Three o’clock in the morning, police barricade the street outside to prevent patients from overrunning the facilities.

Welcome to the day before the apocalypse.

When Dr. Rachel Harraday is called upon by the CDC to catalog and treat a fast-developing epidemic, she thinks her worst problem will be overcoming her agoraphobic panic long enough to travel to the assigned hospital.

On arrival, she’s subsumed by an avalanche of patients displaying signs of infection from the uncharted disease. As time passes, each new symptom triggers with clockwork precision—counting down toward an unthinkable final-stage.

As the disease catapults its sufferers into a spree of gun violence, Rachel struggles to navigate to safety through the unfamiliar hospital. Every life-or-death decision she makes, weighed down by her responsibility for each hand-picked patient and their relatives.

The one thing she can count on — help isn’t on its way."

If you like fast paced stories about survival and people thinking on their feet, you will like this book.
Book 1 comes out January 31, 2017. You can preorder on Amazon for .99 cents.

Here is Katherine/Lee Hayton's website. There are tabs which shows books written under both names.

http://katherinehayton.com/books/gun

I received a free copy.

Lake House by Kate Morton

2017 has begun!
Our Mystery Book Club selection for this month is The Lake House by Kate Morton.



Here's what it is about:

"Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure…

One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. What follows is a tragedy that tears the family apart in ways they never imagined.

Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as an author. Theo’s case has never been solved, though Alice still harbors a suspicion as to the culprit. Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather’s house in Cornwall. While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old estate—now crumbling and covered with vines, clearly abandoned long ago. Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone...yet more present than ever.

A lush, atmospheric tale of intertwined destinies, this latest novel from a masterful storyteller is an enthralling, thoroughly satisfying read."

The story goes back and forth between 1933 with the Edevane family and 2003 with Sadie Sparrow. I always like stories set in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Even as a child, I liked to read about "the pioneers" and how people lived in " the old days".

Kate Morton is very good at keeping the stories from the past and present separate enough to not confuse but gradually intertwine them. 

Alice and Sadie are both living with secrets. Sadie is haunted by her last case, a little girl left alone in her apartment for a week. It appears her mother just ran off. The case is closed, but Sadie can't accept it. Something keeps niggling at her. She won't drop it, talks to the press and gets an extended vacation. Sadie goes to Cornwall to stay with her grandfather and when exploring the countryside, stumbles upon an empty house. It appears the people who lived there just walked out the door and never came back. As she starts asking about the house, she finds out a tragedy occurred in 1933, the family left, the case was closed. Again the niggling.

This book definitely plays with you. There are lots of parts where I said "oh that's what happened", only to have that theory dashed, all the way up to the end. Lot's of "oh no why did that have to happen" only to take a new turn. Then there is a "thing" Sadie is trying to push back in the past.

There were a couple of things that it didn't seem were going to go the way I wanted them to. That is the playing with you part. Almost at the end, with the book due back to the library the next day,  I thought "Oh my gosh. I am just going to jump to the end and drop it in the return bin. Good grief." But I didn't. I read it and was glad I did. I would say I really liked the book, and it is very well written.

Everyone in the MBC liked it too.

I read The House at Riverton may years ago, also by Kate Morton, and really liked it. If you like historical fiction, with mystery, intrigue and a dash of serendipity, I recommend The Lake House.

Mystery Book Club's Top Picks of 2016

2016 is coming to a close. We had our last Mystery Book club of the year, earlier in December. We didn't have book that we all read for this month. Instead we brought snacks and treats and our favorite books that we read in 2016.  Here we are.




Our book club leader, Kay, took notes for us and compiled the list of favorites. Thanks Kay! I have done that in the past. It isn't easy. I am sharing them with you in case you need some new books to read. You will notice, they are not all mysteries or fiction.

Alice Quentin series - Kate Rhodes – first book is CROSSBONES YARD

Bell Elkins series - Julia Keller – first book is A KILLING IN THE HILLS

CAN’T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT? – Roz Chast – graphic novel

DISPLACEMENT – Lucy Knisley – graphic novel

BRAIN BRIEFS: ANSWERS TO THE MOST (AND LEAST) PRESSING QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR MIND – Art Markman and Bob Duke

MY STROKE OF INSIGHT: A BRAIN SCIENTIST’S PERSONAL JOURNEY – Jill Bolte Taylor

THE ENGLISH GERMAN GIRL – Jake Wallis Simons

NEWS OF THE WORLD – Paulette Jiles

THE REST IS SILENCE (Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Book #9) – James R. Benn

THE GREAT RECKONING – Louise Penny

MY BELOVED WORLD – Sonia Sotomayor

GOLD OF OUR FATHERS – Kwei Quartey

THE SUSPECT – John Lescroart

BLOOD DEFENSE – Marcia Clark

THE BODY IN THE WARDROBE – Katherine Hall Page

UNDONE – Karen Slaughter

THE THREE DEATHS OF MAGDALENE LYNTON (Book #1) – Katherine Hayton

THE SECOND STAGE OF GRIEF (Book #2) – Katherine Hayton

DAWN GIRL – Leslie Wolfe

THE WARBLER GUIDE – Tom Stephenson & Scott Whittle

MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND – Helen Simonson

ME BEFORE YOU – Jojo Moyes

A MAN CALLED OVE – Fredrick Backman

THE WHISTLER – John Grisham

THE WOMAN IN BLUE – Elly Griffiths

WHAT SHE KNEW – Gilly Macmillan

ESCAPE TO EDEN – Rachel McClellan

Jason Stafford series – Michael Sears

Cormoran Strike series – Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)

THE DOG WHO DANCED – Susan Wilson

A GOOD MONTH FOR MURDER: THE INSIDE STORY OF A HOMICIDE SQUAD – Del Quentin Wilber

BORN TO RUN – Bruce Springstein

John Ceepak/Danny Boyle series – Chris Grabenstein

 

These aren't even the books we read during the year for our monthly selections. Would you say we all read a lot? Did you find a couple in that list that were mine?

I have some series this year that I am enjoying reading:

The Ngaire Blake series by Katherine Hayton

Onxy Webb series by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz

Selkie Moon series by Virginia King

Jamie Quinn series by Barbara Venkataraman - cozy

Bill and Piper Robins series by Ed Lynskey - cozy

Isabel and Alma Trumbo by Ed Lynskey - cozy

I also really enjoyed Dawn Girl by Leslie Wolfe - not a cozy. I am reading Executive by her which is #1 in a Alex Hoffman series. Ohhh I did not know that until now.

 

And here is different year in books that you might identify with.

 

See you next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone. I know Christmas is almost over. It is a busy time of year isn't it?



I hope you had time to relax and enjoy family as I did. The weather is crazy here; last week we had lows in the 20's (F) and highs in the 40's. Today we were wondering if we needed to turn on the a.c. with 78 degrees. Oh well, it won't last long.

I am enjoying some free time to, as I say, play with my books. :) Just finished a book coming out in January 2017 called Gun by Lee Hayton. Now starting the next Mystery Book Club choice for January, The Lake House by Kate Morton. I have also been catching up on a series called The Librarians. Check it out on TNT if you like a sci fi meets archaeology.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3663490/

I will leave you with this local sign for the holidays:

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

I read In a Dark, Dark Wood this past weekend. It is Ruth Ware's debut book. Yes, two days, probably six hours. It is a quick read and REALLY holds your attention.



"Nora hasn't seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.

There was a dark, dark house

Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?

And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room

But something goes wrong. Very wrong.

And in the dark, dark room....

Some things can’t stay secret for ever."

Here is a Halloween poem that prefaces the book:

In a Dark Dark Wood    In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house;
And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room;
And in the dark, dark room there was a dark, dark cupboard;
And in the dark, dark cupboard there was a dark, dark shelf;
And on the dark, dark shelf there was a dark, dark box; And in the dark, dark box there was a....

Sets a creepy tone.

This is a really good, suspenseful book.

The story goes back and forth between Nora in the hospital with multiple injuries, trying to remember how she got there, to the days before she awoke in the hospital, at her college friend's "hen weekend" aka bachelorette party. The police keep stopping in to question Nora in the hospital but won't tell her anything about what happened to her. She hears two policemen in the hall outside her hospital room, say something about murder. Someone has died but who? And how did she get all these injuries? How is she involved? The story continues with Nora remembering bits and pieces slowly and back to the weekend party that led up to being in the hospital. As Nora remembers more and asks more questions, it appears her life may be in danger too.

It is a very gripping tale. You won't be able to put it down. Really.

 
 


The Second Stage of Grief by Katherine Hayton

"A false accusation. A brutal murder. Can Ngaire find a killer before he finds her?

Ngaire Blakes is trying to put her life back together. The ex-cop resigned from the police after a vicious assault left her battling PTSD. Dragged into a murder investigation, she’s shocked to discover that all the evidence points to her.

When the body count climbs, Ngaire flees to the cold comfort of her estranged father’s hometown. In danger and not knowing who to trust, she severs contact with her closest allies and must learn to rely on herself if she’s going to catch the killer before it’s too late.

The Second Stage of Grief is the second book in a series of mystery novels set in the dark shadows of New Zealand. If you enjoy gritty mysteries, strong women who rise to the challenge, and thrilling psychological suspense, then you’ll love Katherine Hayton’s latest installment in the Ngaire Blakes trilogy. "


I love the Ngaire Blakes series.

In this second book in the series, we learn more about Ngaire's background, her parents and how she grew up. We also get to visit a different part of New Zealand, Te Kauwhata, where her father lives. I have always like learning about different parts of the world and cultures. We learn about New Zealand tribes and which Ngaire's family comes from. I found that very interesting, and looked up more about the area and people. Also many of the names of the characters are very different. That is interesting to me too. (I know I am not pronouncing "Ngaire" correctly in my head when I read, even though I looked it up.)

Ngaire is trying to find out who is framing her for murder from this remote town with barely any technology, and not letting anyone from Christchurch know where she is. Will she succeed in hiding while the police force sort through suspects? As in previous books, right when you think things are all tied up in a nice package, we are thrown a curve. The author is very good at surprises. This book is very suspenseful. Hard to put down.

Oh it looks like some of the bad guys might follow into the next installment....