Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of The Queen of Thieves (The Moonwind series Book 2) by Johan Rundberg

 In this second book of the series, Mika is curious about the extended absences of three other children from the Stockholm orphanage where she’s lived her entire. Her investigation shows they’re working for a woman who performs in the squares. Mika suspects she trained the kids to be pickpockets who operate while she has the audiences attention. But it’s more complicated than that. Mika is a wonderful spunky character. It was good to see some of the others from the first book in the series. The mystery behind her own background and that of an infant delivered to the orphanage is woven into the story and provides additional motivation for Mika.

Tuesday Book Review

Five-star review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

This book provides brilliant insight into how the mind of its first person narrator works. Christopher John Francis Boone is a fifteen-year-old autistic boy who needs a concrete understanding of what goes on around him. He can’t deal with abstracts or intangibles. The teacher at his special school asked him to write a book about the death of a neighbor’s dog, Wellington, since Christopher discovered the skewered body of the standard poodle late one night. He uses the book to detail his investigation of the murder the way his favorite detective, Sherlock Holmes might. When things get tough, rather than think about them, he does math puzzles in his head. He especially likes prime numbers and knows them up to 7057.

 Years before, Christopher’s father told him that his mother went into hospital and died from a heart attack. Since then, it was just Christopher and his father. And his pet rat. But as secrets are revealed, including who killed Wellington, Christopher must be brave enough to face some of his hardest tasks, including a solo trip on a crowded train and facing reality. His ability to cope with life increases throughout the story. A can’t-put-down book that left me feeling proud of him. 

Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House Book 3) by Charlie N. Holmberg

In the third book of the series, Merritt, his now fiancée Hulda and Owein (in the body of a terrier) travel to London at the request of Queen Victoria who offers to put Owein and his magical abilities into the body of a boy who will one day marry Lady Cora, who is a relative to the Queen. As usual, many of the large cast are well-developed characters. Moral issues involved in the story, and that Merritt in particular wrestles with, forced me to downgrade this novel from a full five-star review, but the writing, as is usual for Holmberg, is excellent. I do enjoy reading about Merritt and Hulda and the development of their relationship, their magical abilities and uses. And I do love how Owein’s soul continues to grow no matter what form it’s in. I’ll look forward to more books in the series. 

Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

This was a fun paranormal/horror story, or rather two stories intertwined. One is the story of super-nice guy Benny Catspaw’s childhood filled with psychopathic people including the wife of the headmaster of the boarding school he was sent to. The other is his present day where he’s just lost his job and was about to lose his girlfriend. In the second, the intervention of a seven-foot tall Craggle named Spike as well as a girl named Harper Harper help him through a series of confrontations with people who abhor his niceness. I always enjoy Koontz’s books, but this was one of, if not THE best ones.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

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Five-star review of The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle Book 1) by Patrick Rothfuss

 

This first in a two-book series is a prime example of a story within a story. We spend the first five or six chapters firmly in the current time for innkeeper Kote, his student Bast and Chronicler before we begin to get into the main history of Kvothe. Some would say it’s not the main story, but I read it as such. We only get his boyhood and early teens in this book, but so much happens. His early days with a band of Ruh, his efforts to stay alive in Tarbean, and his time in Imre and at the University with his first love Denna weaving through. But the last chapters show how important the framing of the story is. The writing is excellent, the way it plays out the story kept me reading when I should have been doing other things. Every time I picked the book up, it transported me to the world that Rothfuss created, a world filled with magic and magic users, myths and legends. 

Tuesday Book Review

 Four-star review of Last Night by Luann Rice

 

Really, this should be three and a half. It was a good enough story about the search for who killed artist Maddie, known as MC and abducted her little daughter CeCe. Detective Conor Reid and his girlfriend Kate arrive at the legendary Ocean House on the Rhode Island shore for a romantic getaway but instead follow Maddie’s sister Hadley so they’re witnesses to her discovery of the body in the snow not far from the hotel. I most enjoyed the parts from the little girl’s point of view. Some of the dialogue is stilted or at least pedestrian. I was routing for the good guys, but I didn’t care a whole lot about any of them.

Tuesday Book Reviews

Four-star review of Night Owl by Andrew Mayne

Retired spy Brad Trasker is hired to protect Kylie Conner, CEO, designer and pilot of a next-generation aircraft. But when the plane blows up before Kylie can board,  all threats against her become real. Most of the action is fast paced, the main characters (Brad and Kylie) are developed if not entirely likeable and there is some sense of satisfaction at the end, but the big baddy pulling the strings gets away, forcing readers who care enough to read the next book in the series. I’m not sure I do. Trasker’s use of a memory palace to discover who’s behind the events is intriguing.