Some In Death J. D. Robb Eve Dallas STUFF

I must’ve put my name, email address, and home address down somewhere recently. I got this neat-o supreme-o In Death/Eve Dallas/J. D. Robb t-shirt in the mail the other day. Along with the cute Connections in Death Pop Out Christmas Tree ornaments. I kept trying to wrack my brain on any recent activities I’ve participated in about my fave, J. D. Robb. Anyway, super surprised and super gleeful. And, most of all, I’m ready for Connections in Death. Though I rather live in the present and not press the future, February 5th seems too far away for its release. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH! Waiting is a BITCH! Equally stressful now that I know the following book is titled Vendetta in Death. And we won't see that one until September 2019!

By the way. The books featured in the image DID NOT COME WITH THE SHIRT. LOL. Wanted to make that clear. I ordered the hardbacks from Turn the Page Bookstore earlier this year. I placed them here for decorative... or... festive... purposes...?

So thanks to the publishers St. Martin's Press. J. D. Robb. And my girl, Eve Dallas.

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"Homicide cop Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband, Roarke, are building a brand-new school and youth shelter. They know that the hard life can lead kids toward dangerous crossroads―and with this new project, they hope to nudge a few more of them onto the right path. For expert help, they hire child psychologist Dr. Rochelle Pickering―whose own brother pulled himself out of a spiral of addiction and crime with Rochelle’s support. 

Lyle is living with Rochelle while he gets his life together, and he’s thrilled to hear about his sister’s new job offer. But within hours, triumph is followed by tragedy. Returning from a celebratory dinner with her boyfriend, she finds Lyle dead with a syringe in his lap, and Eve’s investigation confirms that this wasn’t just another OD. After all his work to get clean, Lyle’s been pumped full of poison―and a neighbor with a peephole reports seeing a scruffy, pink-haired girl fleeing the scene. 

Now Eve and Roarke must venture into the gang territory where Lyle used to run, and the ugly underground world of tattoo parlors and strip joints where everyone has taken a wrong turn somewhere. They both believe in giving people a second chance. Maybe even a third or fourth. But as far as they’re concerned, whoever gave the order on Lyle Pickering’s murder has run out of chances…"

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PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON TODAY (AFFILIATE LINK)

Thought for the Day

CHOP IT UP: Stealing Shadows by Kay Hooper

"What if you can enter a madman's cruel mind as he plans his vicious crimes? 

What if you can see the terrified face of his prey as he moves in for the kill -- but you can't stop his frenzy once he strikes? 

Psychic Cassie Neill helps the L.A. police catch killers -- until she makes a terrible mistake and an innocent child dies. Cassie flees to a small North Carolina town, hoping that a quiet life will silence the voices that invade her unwilling mind. But Cassie's abilities know few boundaries. And she's become certain -- as no one else can be -- that a murderer is stalking Ryan's Bluff. 

It's his fury that Cassie senses first, then his foul thoughts and perverse excitement. Yet she doesn't know who he is or where he will strike. The sheriff won't even listen to her -- until the first body is found exactly where and how she predicted. Now a suspect herself, she races desperately to unmask the killer in the only way she knows: by entering his twisted mind. Her every step is loaded with fear and uncertainty... because if he senses her within him, he'll trap her there, so deep she'll never find her way out."

Stealing Shadows is the first book in Kay Hooper's Noah Bishop series. And the hook to her Bishop series is he’s a psychic detective. Specifically, one who runs a division of psychic detectives thriving as FBI agents. Interesting and exciting stuff, right? Well, in Bishop's 2000 debut, he played a secondary role to a pretty stringent romance.

Which almost stuck an ice pick in my poor balloon of new series hope.

SNARKY DNF: An Uneasy Death by Charlaine Harris

"The beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, the inspiration for HBO’s True Blood, and the Midnight Crossroad trilogy adapted for NBC’s Midnight, Texas, has written a taut new thriller—the first in the Gunnie Rose series—centered on a young gunslinging mercenary, Lizbeth Rose.  

Set in a fractured United States, in the southwestern country now known as Texoma. A world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, especially by a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose. Battered by a run across the border to Mexico Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards to be their local guide and gunnie. For the wizards, Gunnie Rose has already acquired a fearsome reputation and they’re at a desperate crossroad, even if they won’t admit it. They’re searching through the small border towns near Mexico, trying to locate a low-level magic practitioner, Oleg Karkarov. The wizards believe Oleg is a direct descendant of Grigori Rasputin, and that Oleg’s blood can save the young tsar’s life. 

As the trio journey through an altered America, shattered into several countries by the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, they’re set on by enemies. It’s clear that a powerful force does not want them to succeed in their mission. Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie who has never failed a client, but her oath will test all of her skills and resolve to get them all out alive."

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(Originally posted on Goodreads)

I. Could. Not. Love. Nor. Appreciate. The. Voice. And. Tone. Of. This. Book.

Dry. Static. No flavor. No personality. No salt. No cinnamon. Not even a little gun-toting gristle and marrow–despite its promise of such. Unnecessary rape to heighten an already inert story. And each "gunnie" bullet fired may as well been a sponge cake thrown. I DNF'ed at page 22. Grateful I had the forethought to check it out from the library. You see, I learned from my last investment in a Harris series post Sookie.

THIS BOOK ISN'T ENGAGING ENOUGH!  TAKE IT!

Thought for the Day

CHOP IT UP: The Plot is Murder by V. M. Burns

"The small town of North Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan is about to have a new mystery bookstore. But before the first customer can browse its shelves, the store’s owner is suspected of her own murder plot . . .   

Samantha Washington has dreamed of owning her own mystery bookstore for as long as she can remember. And as she prepares for the store’s grand opening, she’s also realizing another dream—penning a cozy mystery set in England between the wars. While Samantha hires employees and fills the shelves with the latest mysteries, quick-witted Lady Penelope Marsh, long-overshadowed by her beautiful sister Daphne, refuses to lose the besotted Victor Carlston to her sibling's charms. When one of Daphne's suitors is murdered in a maze, Penelope steps in to solve the labyrinthine puzzle and win Victor.  

But as Samantha indulges her imagination, the unimaginable happens in real life. A shady realtor turns up dead in her backyard, and the police suspect her—after all, the owner of a mystery bookstore might know a thing or two about murder. Aided by her feisty grandmother and an enthusiastic ensemble of colorful retirees, Samantha is determined to close the case before she opens her store. But will she live to conclude her own story when the killer has a revised ending in mind for her?"

I promise I’m not trying to sound like a book snob when I write what I have to write. Hell, I don’t believe I could write a book any better. So I don’t want to sound ostentatious when I say The Plot is Murder was weak. It's one of those books you wished someone had let you at months before the final edit. Still, my resounding observation is this: the book reads like someone attempting to write a contemporary cozy mystery. While attempting to write a 1930's English mystery. Simple as that.

CHOP IT UP: Them Bones by Carolyn Haines

"No self-respecting lady would allow herself to end up in Sarah Booth's situation. Unwed, unemployed, and over thirty, she's flat broke and about to lose the family plantation. Not to mention being haunted by the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's nanny, who never misses an opportunity to remind her of her sorry state--or to suggest a plan of action, like ransoming her friend's prize pooch to raise some cash.

But soon Sarah Booth's walk on the criminal side leads her deeper into unladylike territory, and she's hired to solve a murder. Did gorgeous, landed Hamilton Garrett V really kill his mother twenty years ago? And if so, what is Sarah Booth doing falling for this possible murderer? When she asks one too many questions and a new corpse turns up, she is suddenly a suspect herself...and Sarah Booth finds that digging up the bones of the past could leave her rolling over in her grave."

This.  Book.  Was.  Hard to put down.  Really, this buster was hard to let go of once I got started.  It was nothing like I'd anticipated when I initially picked it up at my public library used bookstore.  The Mississippi setting, I wanted. A poor and single and interestingly unconventional Southern Belle playing detective, delivered me. Old family murders to uncover, I needed. Good ole boy threats, a plus. But an actual and active ghost communicating with the protagonist in a blase fashion took me completely off guard.  And it was soooo good. 

Thought for the Day

CHOP IT UP: Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler

"Leaving behind memories of her late husband, Benni Harper is making a fresh start...Moving to the trendy California town of San Celina, she takes an exciting new job as director of a folk-art museum. While setting up an exhibit of handmade quilts, she stumbles upon the body of a brutally stabbed artist. Hoping to conduct an investigation on her own, she crosses paths with the local police chief, who thinks this short and sassy cowgirl should leave detecting to the cops and join him for dinner. But it's hard to keep a country girl down, and soon Benni uncovers an alarming pattern of family secrets, small-town lies--and the shocking truth about the night her husband died..."

The minute I finished the book and marked it as READ (two stars) on Goodreads.  Using my phone, I wrote this about the book just to "get it out".

Started out with a fair amount of promise, but devolved the further it progressed. All the excitement of a cozy mystery with a quilting and folk-art hook was removed and flushed early on. Instead the focus was on a MC who was not only boldly immature, but adolescent-level illogical in her reasoning and investigative prowess. It did not make her cute. It did not make her relatable. It made her unreliable and irritating to be around during the experience. Further frustration with the story arrived when the author kept (and I mean KEPT) insisting on ushering in a romance between her MC and a moody cop. Cliches. Cliches. Cliches. I kept rolling my eyes, as it was all so desperate to the point of nausea. Yes, there was a mystery. Yet, apparently, the mystery wasn't the book's real point.

   

It just so happens I bought the second book in the series for a dollar the other day.  She's getting one more shot, dude.  

One more...

SHOT...

Hmmm. Help Me Figure This Out, Ebay?

Could've sworn I'd ordered a HARDBACK copy of this book.  Strangeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Thought for the Day

Short Days/Cold Nights Cozy Reading TBR

I don’t know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. You know how it can be; daylight savings, long nights, cold nights, all the drain board attention of the holidays. Then I like this time of year for the complete "cozy comfort next to a heater" thing. Cutting all social interactions out for a period of time being the biggest plus. Because if I’m not out of the house before 5pm, I’m not going anywhere unless necessary. Luckily I can read at work which is from 10pm to 6am. That's the roll of the DICE, girl! Who can beat that? Anyway, lots of coffee, comfort, Korean dramas, and reading.

Which is why I decided to pull some cozy mysteries off my shelves to composite a little TBR for the season. Because, for sure, I can also get lazy this time of year and opt to just chill if I’m not careful. As for the books, some I bought years ago and haven’t gotten into. Some newly acquired. Some staple authors/series. And maybe one is the second book in a series I started some time ago.

So my list is... (the book's links are Amazon affiliate)

Of course, I couldn’t get everything. I still have The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman and Gunpowder Green (book 2 in Tea Shop Mysteries) by Laura Child are waiting in the "alternative" wings.

As for The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames. Yes, I’m tempted to DNF it–having read 50 pages. Yet, instead, I’ll put it on the side for another day. Too many characters too soon. And all which seem forced to exude like and relatability.

My Trip to the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site Back in July

Outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church

The Podium

(Sorry about the hat.  The podium with all the mics King used to deliver his speech was crowded.  I tried to get what picture I could.)

King's Funeral Cart

Memphis to Atlanta

The Dreams and Inspirations of Martin Luther King, Jr.

CHOP IT UP: From Doon with Death by Ruth Rendell

A shy and introverted housewife named Margaret Parsons has disappeared. One day she walked out of her Kingsmarkham, Sussex home–never to return. Her distraught husbands waste zero time seeking help from a neighboring detective. And alongside this detective comes his partner, Chief Inspector Wexford. Then Margaret’s body turns up, murdered by strangulation and abandoned near local farmland.

Who in the world could have committed such a crime? Was it personal? Was it random? Was there something dark in Margaret’s past catching up with her in the now? How could something so horrible happen to this quiet housewife? One who indulges herself in gardening and caring for her husband? Or could it be the husband who is responsible?

Regardless, Inspector Wexford looks closer into Margaret’s past. Trusting this will bring answers to her murder. And it does as a collection of rare books inscribed by an unknown lover points to the culprit.

Discovering Sailor Moon [Storytime] & English Eternal Edition Volume 1 HYPE