Review: The Cat, the Professor and the Poison by Leann Sweeney

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This book is very close to my ideal cozy mystery, and I almost missed out on reading it!

I’m not very good about keeping up with series that I enjoy, and I’ve been particularly out of the loop with cozy mysteries.  I was offered The Cat, the Lady and the Liar for review, and jumped on the opportunity, since I liked The Cat, the Quilt and the Corpse.  I didn’t realize it was book 3, and when I realized I had missed book 2 (this one), I almost skipped over it.  I’m very glad I didn’t.

Summary via Goodreads.com:

Between her kitty quilt-making business and her three beloved cats, Jill has her hands full. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to solve the mystery of the milk cow that’s gone missing from her friend’s farm. But imagine her surprise when a stolen cow leads to the discovery of fifty stray cats and one dead body-a victim of cold-blooded murder…

Amateur sleuth? Check. Jillian, the main character is interesting in and of herself. She’s got a good back-story, and is living a quiet life that allows here the flexibility to follow up on cats in trouble when she finds them.

Supporting characters? Check. They were great this time around. OK, Tom might be a little too perfect in his role as love interest (smart, tech savvy, tough, emotionally aware, good looking… yum!), but beyond that… I like that Jill’s link to the Police Department is her good friend Candace, lending some girl power to the sleuthing. And Kara, with her link to Jill’s past, lent a nice bit of depth to the relationships here.

Bad Guys? Yep. There were kinda-bad guys, and really-bad guys, and it was hard to tell one from the other until the end. My one real issue with this book was the attempt to, in the end, redeem a really-bad guy into the kinda-bad camp. Sorry, his actions leave him firmly where he was for me.

Mystery? Yes! Clues were left and followed up on, and the final result and the track taken to get there all made sense. It was a little lightweight, as is to be expected from a cozy, but I don’t see that as a problem.

Hook? Yes, the cats are the cute hook that gives this series that something extra that cozies usually have. There were cats everywhere, wonderful pets, brand new kittens, kitties needing rescuing. There are smart cats, but not overly so– no cats knocking books off the shelf to spell the name of the murderer.

I’m really looking forward to reading the next book,and spending more time with all these characters– particularly the cats :-).

 

Review: Written in Bone by Sally Walker (audiobook)

Hey, this is post #500 on this blog!!!!

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listening to this book was so cool!

On a hot summer day in 2005, Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution peered into an excavated grave, carefully examining the fragile skeleton that had been buried there for four hundred years. “He was about fifteen years old when he died. And he was European,” Owsley concluded. But how did he know?

Scientists discovered this grave inside the remains of James Fort, in Jamestown, Virginia. They were excavating the site with the goal of better understanding the Europeans and Africans who lived in Jamestown and the Chesapeake Bay area during the 1600s and 1700s. Who were these people? How did they live? And how did they die?

Just as forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve crimes, they use similar skills to solve the mysteries of the long-ago past. From the skeletons, the burial practices, and remnants of objects found nearby, scientists can determine gender and ancestry, along with probable age, what the person ate, what lifestyle he or she lived, and the cause of death. In some cases, further research helps scientists speculate on who the dead were.

Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside the scientists who use state-of-the-art methods to decipher clues from America’s colonial past. As you follow their investigations, Walker will introduce you to what scientists believe are the lives of a teenage boy, a ship’s captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an African slave girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.

I’ve been a fan of fictional forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan since long before the TV show Bones. I like what she’s able to do with contemporary bodies, but I’m always interested in the asides about her ventures with older, more historic graves.

This book goes into many of the details of this process, using some bodies from colonial Jamestown.

The book goes into details of isotopes, of bone measurements, and of soil composition. It then takes this information as well as details as to how the body is positioned, and what is found nearby, and builds a portrait of the life of this individual. An attempt is made to match this portrait to the historical record, trying to identify who has been located.

The audience clearly is middle grade, but the information isn’t so simplified as to be uninteresting. The age of the intended audience is clear when the narrator gives a brief explanation of negative numbers, but it usually is fairly universal.

I came at this book interested in the scientific aspect, but the historical viewpoint also grabbed me. While listening, I kept thinking of the opportunities for a classroom unit featuring a truly integrated curriculum. I’m going to suggest it to the 5th grade teachers at my daughter’s school, since they cover Colonial America as well as basic human anatomy that year.

Audio Notes:

Narrator: Greg Abbey was a competent narrator, and I enjoyed listening to him.  For the target audience, I wonder if a somewhat less deliberate narration might be more engaging.

Production:  Good.  There was a disc of bonus material that I never looked at– My CD drive is broken, so I used another computer to load the book onto my MP3 player.  I suspect that would be interesting to explore, but I didn’t do so.

Print or Audio: I think that the print would be such a different experience that I can’t even begin to guess without actually looking at the book!

 

Review: Guilt by Association by Marcia Clark

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes, the author is that Marcia Clark, from the OJ Simpson trial. She’s written a very readable mystery with a great set of characters.

Summary via Goodreads.com:

Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is a tenacious, wise-cracking, and fiercely intelligent prosecutor in the city’s most elite division. When her colleague, Jake, is found dead at a grisly crime scene, Rachel is shaken to the core. She must take over his toughest case: the assault of a young woman from a prominent family.

But she can’t stop herself from digging deeper into Jake’s death, a decision that exposes a world of power and violence and will have her risking her reputation—and her life—to find the truth.

What stands out for me was the team of smart, competent women friends, each with her own strengths, putting those to use solving a mystery that the establishment doesn’t think needs to be solved. Rachel and her friends were interesting, although Rachel herself was the only character that I felt had a lot of depth at this point. I think that will change in future books– I hope these characters will be back.

I admit, all I know about the legal system I’ve learned from books and television. Marcia Clark draws a picture that feels real, and she certainly has the credentials to back it up. She could be adding aspects that make a better story, and I’d never know. I do know that her world fits together and it works.

The mystery also holds together, and held my attention. The writing was clear and readable, even funny at times.

A very successful first book, and I’m looking forward to more!

Guilt by Association marks the first book by Hachette’s new Mulholland Books Imprint!  Thank you to Miriam for sending me this book and others that I’m looking forward to reviewing.

 

Mailbox Monday

Welcome to Mailbox Monday!

Mailbox Monday is a place to share all the wonderful books that have come to live in your home– including paper books, e-books and audio books.

Mailbox Monday was started by Marcia, who is now blogging at A girl and her books. When Marcia was ready to move on from being the weekly host, she was kind enough to set up the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour,

Amy at Passages to the Past is this month’s host!  Next month, Mailbox Monday moves on to Mari @ Mari Reads.

As for my mailbox:

Books for review:

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson

Publisher’s summary:

“Housekeeper or housewife?” the soldier asks Silvana as she and eight- year-old Aurek board the ship that will take them from Poland to England at the end of World War II. There her husband, Janusz, is already waiting for them at the little house at 22 Britannia Road. But the war has changed them all so utterly that they’ll barely recognize one another when they are reunited. “Survivor,” she answers.

Silvana and Aurek spent the war hiding in the forests of Poland. Wild, almost feral Aurek doesn’t know how to tie his own shoes or sleep in a bed. Janusz is an Englishman now-determined to forget Poland, forget his own ghosts from the way, and begin a new life as a proper English family. But for Silvana, who cannot escape the painful memory of a shattering wartime act, forgetting is not a possibility.

The Ridge by Michael Koryta

Publisher’s Summary:

On an isolated ridge in the Kentucky woods stands a homemade lighthouse, hundreds of miles from any substantial body of water. Local reporter Roy Darmus has always found it an amusing oddity- until he is selected as the recipient of a suicide note from its builder. Roy enters the bizarre structure to find the walls covered in maps bearing the names of the dead–including his own parents, who were killed in a car accident when he was a boy. Roy soon has a storytelling assignment more daunting than anything he’s seen before: convincing people that an age-old legend has in fact come to life. With haunting atmosphere and tension-coiled plot, The Ridge is a terrifying journey into the heart of darkness.

Your turn

What came in your mailbox this week? Let me know, then go to Passages to the Past to check out others!

 

Review: Heart of Deception by M.L. Malcolm

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This review was a very tricky one for me to write.  I had trouble capturing my feelings about this book in general.  More of an issue was that while I liked Heart of Deception, I’d expected to love it.  I really enjoyed Heart of Lies, and I thought the next book was going to be even better.  I also really enjoyed meeting M.L. Malcolm at BEA last year, and hate the thought of saying anything less than glowing about this book.

I need to be clear here. Overall, Heart of Deception was a good read for me. I just was hoping for more. I liked all of the aspects that I wanted more from. If I didn’t like them, then I could have just written them off.

So for every issue I have, keep that in mind.

What was this book about?  Here’s the publisher’s summary:

A man of many contradictions, Leo Hoffman is a Hungarian national with a French passport, a wealthy businessman with no visible means of support, and a devoted father who hasn’t seen his daughter in years. He is also a spy.

Recruited by the Allies to help lay the groundwork for their invasion of North Africa, Leo intends to engage in as little espionage as possible—just enough to earn his American citizenship so he can get to New York and reunite with his daughter, Maddy. But while Leo dodges death in France and Morocco, Maddy is learning shocking truths about her father’s mysterious past—haunting knowledge that will compel her down her own dangerous path of deception and discovery.

Part of the problem was that I couldn’t figure out what kind of book it was, so I could set my expectations accordingly. I love books that bend genres, but they have to blow away my expectations for all areas they touch.  That’s probably not a fair expectation, but there it is.

I really didn’t get enough of a feel for the time and place of Maddy’s world to see this as straight historical fiction.  Leo’s world was full of those details, but primarily as they related to the spy story.

The spy story is great for a subplot, but isn’t enough to sustain the book. Given the description of the book, I expected Heart of Deception to be more about Leo, but his sections weren’t what dominated the book, at least for me.

I continue to find Leo an fascinating character, able to negotiate any deal except the one that will reunite him with his daughter.

The other characters were interesting, but there weren’t enough of them with the depth for an all out family drama.

Maddy was almost enough to carry the book for me. While I didn’t always like her or her actions, she did make an intriguing character to follow.

I’m conflicted over whether I felt she was justified in her behavior toward her father (given what she knew, not what I as the reader knew). I don’t know if I ever quite bought into her grand love affair, particularly her lover’s side of it. I do think that there was depth to the book here that I didn’t quite latch on to; a comparison between Maddy and her mother, and the difference in the way they handled a sudden, all consuming passion.

The other characters weren’t as well fleshed out, and the only one I liked at all was Maddy’s old Katherine.

The various stories that made up the plot were good, but scattered. They didn’t necessarily connect up in a way that compelled me to see this as a cohesive book.

In the end, I think much of this book is a bridge between the first book in the series and the next one, which I believe is the last. I’m certainly looking forward to reading it, and hope that it redeems the issues I had here.

Would I recommend reading Heart of Deception?  Read Heart of Lies first.  If you enjoy it, go on to this one, but adjust your expectations better than I did.

I read Heart of Deception as part of a TLC Book Tour. Thank you to TLC and Harper Collins for the opportunity to participate, and for providing me with a copy of the book to read and review.

For other viewpoints on Heart of Deception, see the other tour stops:

• Tuesday, April 5th: Unabridged Chick
• Wednesday, April 6th: My Two Blessings
• Thursday, April 7th: Diary of an Eccentric
• Monday, April 11th: Rundpinne
• Tuesday, April 12th: Amused By Books
• Wednesday, April 13th: Book Journey
• Tuesday, April 19th: Reading Through Life
• Thursday, April 21st: I’m Booking It
• Monday, April 25th: Man of La Book
• Tuesday, April 26th: Chocolate & Croissants
• Thursday, April 28th: BookNAround
• Friday, April 29th: Booksie’s Blog
• Friday, April 29th: Chefdruck Musings

 

Review: Science Fair Season by Judy Dutton

Science Fair Season: Twelve Kids, a Robot Named Scorch . . . and What It Takes to Win by Judy Dutton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m already thinking about all the people I know that need to read this book.

Science Fair Season strikes a wonderful balance between the stories of the 11 competitors it follows, each with a different set of challenges to overcome and support to get there, and the research and science of their projects.

It’s the story of a science fair, but not one like what you would see at your local elementary school every year. This contest is nationwide, and has exhibits from teens that take their science very, very seriously. They produce patentable work and research breakthroughs that get the attention of adults working full time in their field.

Each of these kids has a story.

In some cases, it is a story of true genius that needs to be directed in a productive direction, before it explodes (that was a little too literally true in the case of the young man obsessed with building his own nuclear reactor).

Others are kids who have shone in some other area, never dreaming that science would call to them (One girl had a well established acting career that she thought would be her future!).

Some are just average kids, up until the moment they found a question that caught their interest, and an adult willing to help them look into it.

And a few are kids with the deck stacked against them– a girl with a diagnosis of a terrifying disease, kids from a school at a “juvenile correction facility”, kids from an Indian reservation with a terrifyingly high poverty rate.

Science Fair Season takes the science seriously, and it takes these competitors seriously. It is a book which is extremely readable by anyone with an interest in the next generation of scientists, as well as anyone that likes a good story of determination and effort, and where it can get anyone that really, really tries.

I requested an electronic galley of Science Fair Season from the publisher through NetGalley.  Thank you to Hyperion Book and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book!

 

Mailbox Monday

Welcome to Mailbox Monday!

Mailbox Monday is a place to share all the wonderful books that have come to live in your home– including paper books, e-books and audio books.

Mailbox Monday was started by Marcia, who is now blogging at A girl and her books. When Marcia was ready to move on from being the weekly host, she was kind enough to set up the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour,

Amy at Passages to the Past is this month’s host!

As for my mailbox:

Book bought:

The Cat, the Professor and the Poison by Leann Sweeney

A cozy mystery involving cats!

I read and enjoyed the first book in the series.  I have the third for review.  I decided to buy and read the second book, and I’m really glad that I did!

My review is scheduled to post on April 26.

Books for review:

An embarrassment of riches once again from Candlewick on Brilliance Audio– several books I’ve had on my radar, hoping I had a chance to read someday, and even more that I didn’t know about previously, but that sound really good (and a few that aren’t to my tastes, although I can identify people I think will be interested).

1. The Luck of the Buttons by Anne Ylvisaker (Age 8)
2. Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge (Age 9)
3. Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker (Age 9)
4. My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen (Age 9)
5. What Happened on Fox Street by Tricia Springstubb (Age 9)
6. Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes (Age 9)
7. Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson (Age 10)
8. Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins (Age 12)
9. The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor by Alison Croggon (Age 12)
10. Flip by Martyn Bedford (Age 12)
11. Eona:The Last Dragoneye by Alison Goodman (Age 12)
    
12. Eli the Good by Silas House (Age 12)
13. After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick (Age 12)
14. Down Sand Mountain by Steve Watkins (Age 12)
15. Keeper by Mal Peet (Age 12)
16. Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones (Age 14)
17. The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta (Age 14)
18. Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court.. by Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith Jr. (Age 14)
19. Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton (Age 15)
20. The Taqwacores m by Michael Muhammad Knight (Age 15)

Your turn

What came in your mailbox this week? Let me know, then go to Passages to the Past to check out others!

 

2 Years of Blogging!

I posted my first review on this blog 2 years ago today!

I’ve had my ups and downs during this time, periods where I was posting very regularly, and others where I just barely kept it going.

Overall, I’ve posted 494 posts during this time!  I’ve reviewed about 265 books.

I’ve met many cool people, including other bloggers, authors, and publicists.  I’ve discovered amazing books I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

I’ve worked on my writing & technical skills, I’m moved my blog to its own domain (if you haven’t updated your subscription in your feed reader, I’d appreciate your doing so– I’m now at http://blog.imbookingit.com/)

Now I need to figure out where I’m going next with my blog, and I really don’t know.  I’m feeling a little discouraged recently.  Any constructive advice cheerfully accepted!

And now, for the celebration

I’m following the tradition of offering a giveaway for my bloggiversary.

I’ll send a $25 Barnes & Noble e-card to the random winner.

Fill out the giveaway form to enter!

I’ll close the giveaway and pick a winner on May 2.

 

Review: The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey (audiobook)

My rating:3.5 of 5 stars

I picked this up at the Audible.com sale for a fun read, even though it is book 5 of a series.  I enjoyed it and it fit what I was looking for, and I don’t think that coming in late was a problem.

The best part of this book was the magical world presented. It’s an alternate history, set in England in a past much like ours. There was a world of elemental mages, with the power to control an element and the magical creatures associated with that sphere, and those with more psychic gifts– like speaking with the dead as well as various battle related skills.  There were enough details to make it rich without growing tedious.  The magic tied into mythology, bringing in The Snow Queen, Robin Goodfellow and the Wild Hunt, among other references.

The characters were also interesting, particularly David Alderscroft. He’s a basically good guy being lured by the pull of power, led by a mentor who is much more than she appears.  He has the potential to wield enormous influence and power, but has to decide what’s important to him.

Isabelle Harton also had an intriguing story, linked long ago with David’s. After their relationship ended, she went to India, and found her husband. Together they have built a very satisfying life, including a school for children of British citizens living abroad– particularly those with magical talents of the non-elemental variety.

At the center of the action are two very talented young girls, attending the Harton School. I had a problem when reading that if their age was given in the first part of the book, I missed it. If I’d been reading a print version I would have gone back to check, but that’s much harder when listening. I kept trying to guess, and my estimates ranged from 8/10 to 15/17. I did figure it out (11/13), but I think I would have liked the book better if they had been older. As it was, it felt more like events were happening to them, and they weren’t mature enough to make good decisions about their involvement.

I’m planning to go back and fill in earlier books in the series. I don’t think they are particularly tightly linked, but I’d like to explore this world a little more.

Audiobook Notes:

Narrator: Michelle Ford was an effective narrator, with a pleasant voice and enough differentiation between characters to make the book easy to follow.

Production: I didn’t have any issues with it, but it didn’t bring anything extra to the book.

Print vs. Audio: Whatever is more convenient.  I don’t think the audio added to or detracted from the experience.

 

Book Blogger Hop

I’m participating in this week’s Book Blogger Hop!

This week’s question is

 “Pick a character from a book you are currently reading or have just finished and tell us about him/her.”

My answer–

I’m currently reading The Cat, the Professor and the Poison by Leann Sweeney (The second in her Cats in Trouble series).  Jillian Hart is a fairly typical cozy mystery heroine.  She’s in her 40’s, and lives alone with her cats.  Her husband died last year, shortly after they moved to a new community, and she’s trying to find a place for herself there.  She makes her living by handcrafting quilts for cats, she helps out at the local animal shelter, and it seems like she has a nose for trouble when that trouble involves cats (and humans).

Here’s what the Book Blogger Hop is:

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list!!

Drop a comment and say hello! Point me to your post and check out the other blogs on the hop.