Review: 4:50 from Paddington

4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5 Stars for another Agatha Christie book. This was a very fun, quick. and enjoyable read.

Miss Marple's friend, Elspeth McGillicuddy is on her way to visit her ol' friend Jane Marple. Once she gets on the train, see falls asleep for a little cat nap. When she wakes up she see out of her window another train parallel to her train, she see's a man from the back chocking a woman. She reports it to the steward of the train, he informs her he will check it out, but she doesn't think he believes her, so she reports it to the station master. Once she arrives at Miss Marple's house, she tells her all about it.

Miss Marple is intrigued by what she is hearing and believes her friend. She asks her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to go undercover as domestic help to help her prove that a woman was murder. As Miss Marple has discovered, after riding the train where the murdered woman was on that there was a way to dispose of the body and it lands somewhere on the property of the Crackenthorpe family's estate.

However, Lucy is a stand in for Miss Marple, she does keep her in the loop, and Miss Marple pieces all the puzzle together, but not before two more murders take place, and the prospect of one of the oldest son's wife suddenly wanting to be welcomed into the family with open arms, since her husband, the oldest son and heir to the family estates sends a letter to the family.

As in true Christie fashion, this book had twist and turns at every corner, you weren't quite sure who the actual murder was, and was shocked when you found out.

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Review: Before the Snow

Before the Snow by Danielle Paige
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars. Before the Snow's a novella, it tells a fully realized story of complicated love between Nepenthe, a River Witch and Prince Lazar, a Snow King from Algid.

When first met, Nepenthe and Lazar are young children. Nepenthe and her mother are called to the castle to help Prince Lazar wipe his memory of ever knowing how to produce snow, freeze the people around him, and create snow monsters. After Lazar’s memory is wiped, a horrible accident kills Nepenthe’s parents and she goes and lives with her mother’s sister in the coven. Once there she meets a young fire witch apprentice, Ora, and they become more like sisters.

As time passes all three children grow up and one day Nepenthe and Ora are summons to the castle. They are there to teach Price Lazar his craft. Ora is so excited to be there and she wants nothing more than to catch the young Prince’s eyes, while Nepenthe fights her feeling for the young Price. The time that Nepenthe and the Prince spend together the more she hides her feeling for him, because she knows that Ora wants him and she has chosen her life as a River Witch. But when Ora is kidnapped, Nepenthe puts her feelings aside to go with the Prince to save her sister, but can their feelings stay within themselves?

Nepenthe’s character is strong, fierce, independent, and has a good head on her shoulders. She has to make hard decisions and she makes them wisely, no matter how she feels. The author, Danielle Paige does a great job of pulling the reader into the story and describes the scenes beautifully. I can’t wait to read Stealing Snow, the next one in this series.


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Review: Crewel Yule

Crewel Yule by Monica Ferris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 Star reviews for Crewel Yule, the eighth book in A Needlecraft Mystery. I hadn’t read any of the other books in the series, and I was able to follow along nicely without feeling like I’ve missed a lot from the previous books. The characters were developed well, the story line moved on a nice pace, and the mystery wasn’t bad at all, it was a nice light mystery, however, I was bouncing between three suspects and I kept going back and forth, and when the perp was disclosed, I was pleased that they were one of the three that I suspected.

The big annual needlework show happens every year in February, but the hotel that books them had a conflict and moved it to December. Betsy Devonshire, the owner of Crewel World and her assistant Goddy are heading to Nashville for the convention. Their friend Jill, a police officer is also heading there to attend a conference for the police department. After they all arrive a huge snowstorm shuts down the town and everyone is snowed in.

But things start heating up when a fellow shop owner, Belle, falls from the ninth floor of the hotel. Jill is on hand to secure the scene since the local police department can’t get to them, she takes it upon herself to start gathering information, and questioning people, and looking for clues. When the hotel manager calls the police station to inform them of the “accident” they are thinking that it is a possible suicide, but Jill and Betsy doesn’t think so.

While Betsy and Jill start questioning people, they come to find out the woman that died wasn’t such a nice person after all. The three main suspects that would have motive to kill the woman is, Cherry Pie (yes, that’s her name in the book) she co-owns the shop with Belle, Lenora, a stay at home mom that is trying to break into being a designer, and an ex-employee of Cherry and Belle. All three have motives beyond means.


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Review: The Grownup

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 Stars Review. I really enjoyed reading Gillian Flynn's book, I loved Gone Girl and recommended that one to others, but I was somewhat disappointed in this one. It lacked that peak interest that the author usually has in her books that keep you intrigued. To me this was almost like a rough draft that needed to edited, rewrote, and explored more.

The character's seemed under developed and at times they didn't seem to have a personality. The main character works as a fortune-teller, psychic, who preys one gullible rich people, mainly women. But she's actually a con-artist. When one walks in the narrator who is nameless, see's big dollar signs, Susan walks in and claims her house is haunted and she fears for her and her child's life. The narrator jumps at the chance to cash in on a big payday and does a house cleansing, for a price of course. When the narrator gets to the house she also meets Susan's step-son, who happens to be a typical teenager that is finding himself, in other words he just down right creepy. This is where the story goes off track and things actually become weird as through the author didn't know where to go from here and put in whatever she thought she could to wrap the story up.

This is a very short book with only about 65 pages.

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Review: Deck the Hallways

Deck the Hallways by Kate Carlisle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 Star Review! This is the fourth book in the Fixer-Upper series, and I must say this one has that Christmas charm of long ago.

Shannon Hammer has taken on a huge project with just a few short weeks before Christmas. She is the General Contractor for the Forester House project. The mansion is one of the longest standing mansions in Lighthouse Cove and instead of the city tearing it down, it will be remolded to into apartments for people in need, to give them a home. Several contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters, and a host of volunteers are donating their time to see this project through and for the people to be able to move in on Christmas Eve, complete with Christmas trees, decorations, and food for a holiday meal.

Peter Potter, who is the town Scrooge, is the oversee that is representing the bank, he keeps showing up unannounced, causing problems with everyone, including Shannon and her father. Not only is he trying to interfere with the workers and the work being done on the house, but he's also threatening the volunteers, by telling them he can take their business's away from them, causing distress for all.

One morning when Shannon gets to Forester House early before anyone show up she discovers the body of Potter, killed with the ax owned by her dad. But with the whole town as suspects, including herself, Shannon must get this murder wrapped up pronto so they can finish the house on time for the new residents by Christmas Eve.

With Shannon's love life in limbo, she hasn't heard from Mac, the guy she's been seeing and a best selling author in 42 days, planning the annual Christmas parade, overseeing Forester House project, the murder of Potter, someone has left a new baby girl in Shannon's truck, one more thing Shannon doesn't need to deal with, nor does she know how to take care of a baby. She turns the baby over to the only person she knows, her friend Lizzie, who not only is a mother of two and willing to care for the baby until they can either find the mother or find a couple that is willing to adopt her, but Lizzie herself is a suspect for making a threat about killing Potter herself, right in front of Potter's assistant. All of these things need to be wrapped up tightly and with a bow on top by Christmas Eve. Can Shannon get this all done in time.

I did try and get a couple of my book groups to read this one for the holidays, but no one seemed to be interested in it. I really think they would of enjoyed this one as much as I did. This was an entertaining book, with plenty of suspects right off the bat, before the murder had even taken place. Which made it a nice change of pace and you learned why someone wanted to kill the person, instead of not knowing them until the end. There were some laugh out loud moments, character's were easy to follow and get to know them, the lead character, Shannon is strong, feisty, smart and likable.

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Review: Honeymoon With Murder

Honeymoon With Murder by Carolyn G. Hart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars Review. I normally love the Death On Demand series, and can’t wait to dive into one of these books, but this one felt a little flat to me. Now, I’m sure there are others out there that will disagree with me on this, and that’s OK, we all have our feelings about what is a good book and what isn’t. I’m not saying this is a bad book, but it fell short for me, as if this was a rush to get this one out. With that said I was glad to visit with Annie and Max again.

Annie and Max find a dead body in their friend Ingrid’s cabin, but there is no Ingrid. A search is set out to find Ingrid, while the police are dispatched to see to the dead man’s body. Of course Posey, sees only one possible suspect, Ingrid. Her friends don’t see it that way, they know she isn’t a killer and Annie, Max, Laurel and Henny set their minds to solving this murder before the police find Ingrid and charge her with murder.

While the four are searching for Ingrid, they soon discover that the murdered victim was also blackmailing several people. The list is growing as more suspects are introduced, which means that the foursome must find the actual killer. While they are trying to figure it out, Betsy Raines goes missing, and Annie finds another body in the river, could it be Ingrid or is it another murder.
This isn’t the honeymoon that Annie and Max had dreamed of taking, but it is making for an interesting story to tell in the future to their families.

The mystery part was pretty easy to figure out about half way through the book, and I do like the author’s knowledge of incorporating the classic mystery books and I’ve even gone to my local library and checked out the books that she tells a little about in these books, so to me that’s a bonus! One can never have to short of a TBR pile.


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Review: Chile Death

Chile Death by Susan Wittig Albert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars. China Bayles is back to continue her story. While her fiance Mike McQuaid is recovering from being shot and having to do physical therapy, there's still a chance that he might not ever walk again. China is standing by his side.

Mike is asked to be a judge in the town's chili cook-off, he's at first reluctant to do it because he's afraid that everyone will stare at him, feel sorry for him, but China encourages him to do it. She's already going to be there since she's going to be writing a story for the local newspaper about the cook-off, gathering the recipes from the contestants, and incorporating about the peppers and other spices and herbs that people put in their chili. Once they arrive, Jerry Jeff Cody another judge for the contest comes to talk to Mike about a problem that he is having, someone is threatening his life. Mike and China think that he's making it up since he's in the middle of a divorce and his soon to be ex-wife is trying to get more than her fair share. While Jerry Jeff is telling Mike and China why he feels his life is endanger, his soon to be ex walks up and starts threatening him with the assumption that she knows where he's hiding his money that he hasn't disclosed to the lawyers. Before she leaves she tells him that she will be getting more than he's willing to part with over his dead body.

Once the judging of the contest start Jerry Jeff start choking and the other judges think he acting like the chili is way to hot for him, soon he collapses and it's Mike that steps in and tells them to call the ambulance. Jerry Jeff is dead.

Naturally China starts her own investigation along with Mike and her trusted side kick Ruby. But while China is helping with Jerry Jeff's case, a nurse at the nursing home where Mike is recovering comes to her and asks for her help, since China is an ex-lawyer. The nurse explains about a situation that she saw between the nursing homes director and another patient. China gets involved with that as well, and she gets Mike to help her since he's recuperating there. China has her hands full with these two case and trying to keep Mike's spirits up and she knows that with him helping it will make him feel more useful.

The author has a way of pulling you into the story and keeping you entertained all the while your trying to figure out who the murder is. This is the seventh book in the series and with each book, you get to know more about China along with Mike. However, Ruby wasn't in the story much and we didn't get to learn more about China's herbalist. This book was centered more around Mike's recovery and the Chili cook-off, which I was fine with that, not every book has to be centered around China's shop and herbs. It was refreshing to see China out and about in her sleepy little town of Pecan Springs, Texas. Can't wait to read the next book in the series.

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