Planting Pearls by Virginia King (Book 1 in The Secrets of Selkie Moon series)

 Planting Pearls is the recently published prequel/book one to the Selkie Moon series by Virginia King. I have read all of the books in the series and really liked Planting Pearls. If you have already read some of the other books in the series, you will like reading more of the story as to how Selkie got to Hawaii and her new start and how she met several of the recurring characters that you love. If you are new to the series, Planting Pearls will really grab you and I am sure you will move quickly to the next book.

The Selkie Moon series is a good combination of women's fiction, mystery/supernatural.

About: 

"A new name and a new home.

A scary ex-husband ...

And a ghost.

When Selkie Moon escapes her controlling husband to start a new life in Hawaii, she's under pressure to support herself, stay hidden from her ex, and trust her new friends. But when she encounters a so-called haunting, Selkie delves into the mystery surrounding the old Honolulu house. Are there dark forces at work and is a young child in danger?  Or is something else going on?"

My thoughts: As the story begins, Selkie has planned her "escape" from her controlling husband. As she travels from Australia to Hawaii, she receives threatening texts from him. The suspense begins there as we can feel how he is stalking her. 

Selkie finds a room mate under serendipitous circumstances. Wanda is an artist in Waikiki. She makes "fish art." The one room apartment is also shared by Doris, Wanda's shop dummy that she collected. Plenty of room for Shona, Selkie's statue from Zimbabwe that she has brought all the way from Australia.

As Selkie is setting up her new life, she becomes involved in a mystery. Her new friend Derek, has a business investigating "surreal" phenomena and she accompanies him on an investigation. Is a ghost haunting the property that Hudson and Gracie have bought to begin their new life and is their 5 year old daughter Sage, in contact with the spirit of another young girl? All the while, Selkie continues to receive threatening texts from her husband.

This book is full of suspense and danger that will keep you turning the pages. 

I really like the other books in the series that follow Selkie as she becomes more and more independent. Selkie's seminar business takes her to other countries in the books. In each one, she becomes involved in a local mystery. We learn about different folklore and the countries where the books are set in.

Bonus! Tuesday February 23rd, Planting Pearls free and all the books in the series are on sale.  The First Lie is $2.99 and the rest of the novels are $3.99. 

About the author:

When a voice wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you to write a fiction series, what’s a writer to do? That’s how I came to create Selkie Moon, after this nocturnal message. I sat down at the keyboard until Selkie Moon turned up -- a modern woman with a mythical name. Soon I was hooked, exploring far-flung places full of secrets where Selkie delves into psychological clues tangled up in the local folklore.

Before Selkie Moon invaded my life, I'd been a teacher, an unemployed ex-teacher, the author of over 50 children’s books, an audio-book producer, a workshop presenter and a prize-winning publisher. These days I live in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with my husband, where I disappear each day into Selkie Moon’s latest mystery. Bliss.

I really think you would like this series!

 

Here's what happened....

 Looking at my last post, I had no idea it was January since I posted. 

We got so busy at work, (at home) that I was working an hour longer each night.  Then we were all warned of the Polar Vortex. Cute cartoons came out, spoofs on children's show with Mr. Freeze popped up.

I went to the store on Tuesday to get some groceries so I could make "hearty meals" when PV showed up.

Thursday at 1 p.m., PV's sent his helper, Mr. Freezing Rain, while taking my lunch break, power loss #1 happened. Came on middle of the night then off. Couldn't work Friday. This went on all weekend with power off more than on. Then Sunday night - Monday early a.m., PV made an appearance. Snow, rain, sleet, on and on. And it got cold. Power went off and stayed off. The night time temps were 18, 9, 6 and daytime 20. Hadn't been able to get fire logs the week before when we tried. We were told at several stores, "We don't have anymore. It is supposed to be spring here now, so we don't order anymore". 

We had some propane and a heater so we used that and made fires from real wood. Not that easy. Drove the car around the block when we could to charge phones and make sure the car would start. 

Yeah! The power came on Wednesday night. We had really been without steady power for 6 days at that point. Oooops. No water and still no water. So we have been collecting snow before it melted and filled up every water type pitcher, thermos, pot and pan when I noticed the pressure didn't seem right. 

Here we are 1 1/2 weeks later. 50 degrees, sunny, everything melting. Still no water but things don't seem as bad in the sun and now that PV and bag of tricks have left.

Some people still don't have power in the state, most of our city does not have water and the stores are out of food because they lost power also. People bought what they could ahead and then the stores probably had to throw out a lot of frozen food. But they say the trucks are out delivering to restock and the water tanks are filling up. I am still leery of using too much electricity, for fear of blowing it out again.

No I didn't get a lots of books read because there was a lot of effort trying to keep warm, make some kind of food on the grill and do some crosswords by candlelight. 

I also wasn't able to record Scarlett and the Duke, Creatures Great and Small and Nancy Drew! I think I can find them "on demand".

Back to books! Coming up, Planting Pearls by Virginia King.

The Case of the Canterfell Codicil by P.J. Fitzsimmons

 Codicil per Miriam Webster: "a legal instrument made to modify an earlier will".

The Case of the Canterfell Codicil is the first book in the Anty Boisjoly Mysteries.

About: "There’s a literary niche for all tastes including those who think that either Agatha Christie wasn’t funny enough or that PG Wodehouse didn’t feature anywhere near as many baffling murders as he could have. The Case of the Canterfell Codicil is a classic, cosy, locked-room mystery written in the style of an homage to PG Wodehouse. The result, for those familiar with Wodehouse or Jerome K Jerome and Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers, is either an inexcusable offence to several beloved canons, or a hilarious, fast-paced, manor house murder mystery.

 In The Case of the Canterfell Codicil, Wodehousian gadabout and clubman Anty Boisjoly takes on his first case when his old Oxford chum and coxswain is facing the gallows, accused of the murder of his wealthy uncle. Not one but two locked-room mysteries later, Boisjoly’s pitting his wits and witticisms against a subversive butler, a senile footman, a single-minded detective-inspector, an irascible goat, and the eccentric conventions of the pastoral Sussex countryside to untangle a multi-layered mystery of secret bequests, ancient writs, love triangles, revenge, and a teasing twist in the final paragraph."

My take: This is a good locked room mystery reminiscent of an Agatha Christie mystery and Clue. With the calm of Poirot and deduction skills of Sherlock Holmes, Anty Boisjoly helps his school mate, Fiddles, try to find out how his Uncle Sebastian came to be thrown/or fell out of an upstairs window from a room that was locked. Colorful characters, a wealthy aristocratic family in England, Earls, seats in Parliment...who stands to gain from Sebastian's death.

Anty is good at letting the local police and investigators work on the case but all the while is figuring it out himself as the locals try to solve it all in a day and lock up the first person they can think of. Just when things appear to be wrapping up, Sebastian's father is found dead by apparent suicide, again in a locked room. Anty is pretty sure these deaths are related to the Canterfell Codicil written 30 years ago. Anty calls everyone staying in the house to the conservatory a few times for his own questioning, pointing out what rooms everyone was in at the time of the "accidents", things in the room etc. Hence the reference to Clue. 

The story seems to take place in the 1930's, based on events mentioned. The dialogue is what I imagine to be aristocractic English (if that is a thing)of that time and I did have a little trouble following it sometimes. Anty does make some very funny comments and observations throughout the book. 

The story is very good, methodically unraveling  "who dunnit" peppered with hilarious quips. I look forward to book two.

About P.J. Fitzsimmons: "I’m a freelance ghost for mainstream genres but when I’m my own man I write strictly for the laughs. I dream of an alternative reality in which PG Wodehouse wrote locked room mysteries, and in which I’m PG Wodehouse." 

I received a free copy and voluntarily provided this review.

Open Season by C.J. Box

 I read three very different books in the past month. Two were mysteries, one was a historical woman's fiction. The great thing about belonging to a book club and read and review sites, is the exposure to books I may not pick up on my own. I will do separate posts this week or this would be really long.

Open Season by C.J. Box - Joe Picket #1

Our Mystery Book Club read C.J. Box for our January meeting, any C.J. Box book. I had not read any books by this author so I chose the first book in the C.J. Box series. Several of the members of the book club had recommended this series for years.

About: "Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts, and the game warden--especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way--is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police. As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear."

My take: I actually listened to this as an audio book. I will say at first I didn't think I would like it. Some of the characters are a bit too rough and crude for my liking and that is accentuated  when it is spoken words. But I ended up liking the book. Joe is a nice guy and great family man. His wife is a special person as the ending shows. I loved their daughter Sheridan. I believe she is 10 years old in the book but she is very smart, has a lot of common sense, brave and able to think things out way beyond her years. The main characters are very likeable but the other characters were pretty despicable. The ending was good - bittersweet. I would like to read more of this series. 

About the author: "C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017. The novels have been translated into 27 languages. Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small town newspaper reporter and editor, and he co-owns an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie. They have three daughters. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. Box lives in Wyoming."

Next: The Case of the Canterfell Codicil

Happy 2021! Hallmark and Masterpiece Mysteries

 Gosh it has been a month since I posted. Didn't go anywhere. Quiet holidays. Not sure where the time went. 

Looks like television mysteries are back!

Hallmark

January: Ships in the Night - A Martha's Vineyard Mystery  Sunday January 17th 7 p.m. central

When an art gallery robbery leads to the death of the contemptible gallery manager, former Boston detective Jeff Jackson teams up with local Doctor – and old flame – Dr. Zee Madeiras, to catch the killer. Starring Jesse Metcalfe and Sarah Lind.

February: Crosswords Mysteries - Terminal Descent February 14 at 7 p.m. central

After volunteering to participate in a crossword solving competition with a new supercomputer, crossword puzzle editor Tess Harper finds herself swept into the investigation of the bizarre murder of a tech CEO. Starring Lacey Chabert, Brennan Elliott, Barbara Niven, and John Kapelos.

Masterpiece on PBS

January:

Miss Scarlet and the Duke Sunday January 17, 7 p.m. central

Six episodes in this new series. clap clap 

Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders) stars as the headstrong, first-ever female detective in Victorian London, who won’t let any naysayers stand in her way. Stuart Martin (Jamestown) plays her childhood friend and professional colleague Scotland Yard Detective Inspector William Wellington, a.k.a., The Duke.

Eliza Scarlet goes to work as a private detective to get out of debt. Luckily, a family friend is willing to help.

Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie - January 17, 9 p.m. central (check your local PBS station  for this)

A profile of Agatha Christie with access to the author's personal notebooks, letters and diaries as well as never-before-seen documents.

CW

Nancy Drew Season 2 January 20, 8 p.m. central

I did end up liking this show. Not really like the book series, but the characters have the same names as the books. It took on a paranormal twist but I like some of that. I will be watching it.

What about Big Sky you may ask. The t.v. series based on the novel The Highway by C.J. Box. I have not read The Highway, but others have told me the t.v. series is loosely based on the book. I watched the first episode, well half of it. Then I thought, oh maybe I should finish it. I watched some more. Then I said no this is not for me. I stayed quiet about it though. We had our Mystery Book Club meeting soon after that and guess what? Those from the group that has watched it turned it off also. 

Yes I did read a couple of books during the holidays. I will post those soon. 

Christmas Themed Mysteries, MBC Best of 2020 and Subscription Box 2

 

Happy Holidays! 

This will be my last post for this year. Always such a busy time of year even when we can't really go anywhere it seems. 

For our December Mystery Book Club (MBC) this year, our theme was mysteries with a Christmas theme. Usually we have a wonderful pot luck, book exchange and just share our favorite books for the year. Luckily we have been able to meet virtually but we missed our usual festivities.

Here are the Christmas themed mysteries and our favorites from 2020.

Remember I told you about a subscription to Strand Book Store in New York that I got? Here is a picture of my second quarterly box. 

There is actually three books. One is a hardcover. The larger book is two paperbacks in one. When you turn it over, it is another book. 

In The Cage Where Your Savior Hides and A Lind of Forgotten Blood by Malcom Mackay.

About: Saviours: (Two Novels in One)

An unlicensed private investigator fights crime and corruption in a Scottish city, burdened with a history that is compellingly different from the one we think we know. SAVIORS is two novels in one volume, a thrilling new series by award-winning author Malcolm Mackay.

Darian Ross is a young PI struggling against his family legacy (father in prison, criminal brother) in the independent kingdom of Scotland. In earlier centuries, when the Scottish empire stretched all the way to Central America, Darian's home city was one of the country's busiest trading ports. But Scotland is not what it was, and the docks of Challaid are almost silent. The networks of power and corruption are all that survive of Challaid's glorious past.
In In the Cage Where Your Saviors Hide, Darian takes the case of the fascinating Maeve Campbell: her partner has been stabbed. The police are not very curious about the death of a man who laundered money for criminals, but Darian's innate sense of justice and his fascination with Maeve irrevocably draw him into her world, where no one can be trusted.
In A Line of Forgotten Blood, Police Constable Vinny Reno--both a friend and a valuable contact for Darian's unlicensed PI firm--is desperate for help in finding his missing ex-wife, and clearing his own name. A thread of a clue leads to one of Challaid's oldest, wealthiest banking families, the Sutherlands. But pulling one thread can unravel a whole tapestry, and soon things are moving too fast for even the most powerful people to control.

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Sportswood - A Pentecost and Parker Mystery Book 1

About: [Fortune Favors the Dead has] razor-sharp style, tons of flair, a snappy sense of humor, and all the most satisfying elements of a really good noir novel, plus plenty of original twists of its own.”—Tana French

A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages.

It's 1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of investigation.
    Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home--her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed. But that's easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins--the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca's relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer's next target.

They sound really good. Included in the box was a pair of funny circus socks, a cold brew coffee and a bottle of nice olive oil. I am enjoying this surprise every few month during this trying time.

Today I forgot a webinar I really wanted to take part in because of this same old day to day routine. I forgot what today was I guess even though I got a reminder email yesterday and I talked about the webinar yesterday. All the days are running together it seems. Luckily there is a recording. 

I hope you have a good holiday and here's to a better New Year! 

Don't Look In and The Forgotten Garden

 Happy Thanksgiving all! 

I finished an ebook and an audiobook last week that I wanted to share.

Don't Look In is the first book in a new series, Gus Young Thrillers, by Tom Saric.

About: 

"Psychiatrist Gus Young didn’t always see patients in the back of a hardware store. Before he came to rural Maine, he was a man with a past—past successes, past scandals... and past enemies. 

Now he lives in the woods, struggling with his memory, trying to reconcile with what little family he has left, and learning the secrets of his neighbors. One of those secrets is getting people killed.

When Wanda Flynn turns up dead, the police are interested in a number of Gus’s patients. Gus himself has suspicions, but when the evidence starts pointing in his direction he must discover who would have killed the troubled young woman, and do it without breaking the confidentiality of his practice.

His investigations will take him into the dark underbelly of the otherwise sleepy town, into his own past failings, and into the brutal path of revenge."

This was one of the best books I have read in awhile. The story grabbed me right away. It is very suspenseful and edgy. Gus is damaged. He is trying to lead a quiet life in this small town yet help people who need help. Gus seems to be having some memory problems though but he tries to cover this. When a patient, Wanda is found murdered, some things point to him, but he is sure he was not at her house, or was he? He doubts his memory. As the police seem more and more interested in him, he decides he needs to find out who killed Wanda himself. The key may be in his files and another patient. Fast paced, quick read. The ending was fantastic! Book two is coming out in 2021. 

Tom Saric has written two standalone thrillers also: Indicted and Compromised - international thrillers. 

"Tom Saric is an author from the Canadian prairies. He spent the summers of his youth on the Adriatic coast. During half of the week, he provides treatment to people affected by war. During the other half, he writes thrillers. He also watches hockey, drinks beer, and barbecues a mean beef brisket."

I received an ARC and voluntarily provided this review.

I listened to: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. 

About: 

"A foundling, an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family, a love denied, and a mystery. The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton.

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.

Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself." 

I have read a couple other books by Kate Morton and really liked them. I am a fan of historical fiction. I also like books that have multiple time lines. I think it gives the book a "Somewhere in Time" feel. This story has quite a mystery; what happened to Nell - why was she left on the docks, did no one look for her, how did she grow up; who was Eliza Makepeace and what is her connection to Nell or the family at Blackhearst. (Not sure of the spelling since I listened to the book.)

I liked the book well enough. It is very long and therefore my listening time was broken up quite a bit. I had a little trouble keeping track of all of the characters because that I think. Warning; most of the characters are pretty undesirable. The ending was really good.

I have been watching Road Kill with Hugh Laurie on Masterpiece. It is more of a drama than a mystery, I would say but I am enjoying it. I am a big fan of Masterpiece.

Our Mystery Book Club will meet after Thanksgiving and we will be sharing holiday themed mysteries. I will in turn share those here.

Again, have a great Thanksgiving if you are in the US. Try to not think about you know what but stay safe!