book reviews

Book review: The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie is the first of two books which feature Superintendent Battles and in the autumn my husband picked me up a gorgeous copy of it during a trip to a Barnes and Noble about 90 minutes away.

I had looked at the copy the year before so the gift was exciting and I enjoyed reading it as my third book this year.

Anthony Cade dominated the majority of the story, more so than Battle, and I was fine with that. He was a blast and had all the best lines. For some reason, I kept picturing Cade as Hugh Fraser, who plays Colonel Hastings in the Poirot TV show and movies, as I was reading.

From what I have read about this series, this is also where we Agatha readers meet Bundle – real name Lady Eileen Brent, but I also didn’t feel she dominated much of the story either. I read that she is even more in the second book of this duology, Seven Dials, which was recently released as a mini-series on Netflix. No, I haven’t seen it as I don’t a subscription to Netflix.

Sh was a fun addition who I would have liked to seen more of in the book really. So many Agatha fans seem to love her. This is not a complaint in anyway. Just an observation of a character I liked and wanted more of. I believe I will get that in the second book.

This one features a ton of political intrigue and some call it more of a thriller than a detective/crime fiction book, like many of Agatha’s other books. There is also a bit of romance, though, and I found the romance so sweet and the romantic lines swoon-worthy.

A quick description from the Agatha Christie site: A young drifter finds more than he bargained for when he agrees to deliver a parcel to an English country house. Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centerpiece of a murderous international conspiracy.”

Chimneys, by the way, is the name of the house/estate – not an appendage on a roof.

Here are some quotes from the book that I enjoyed:

“Detective stories are mostly bunkum,” said Battle unemotionally. “But they amuse people, he added, as an afterthought. And they’re useful sometimes.”

“In what way?” asked Anthony curiously.

“They encourage the universal idea that police are stupid. When we get an amateur crime such as a murder, that’s very useful indeed.”

***

‘Lord no. It’s the red signal again. When I first saw you—that day in Pont Street, I knew I was up against something that was going to hurt like fun. Your face did that to me—just your face. There’s magic in you from head to foot—some women are like that, but I’ve never known a woman who had so much of it as you have. You’ll marry someone respectable and prosperous, I suppose, and I shall return to my disreputable life, but I’ll kiss you once before I go—I swear I will.’

***

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve got a plan. But I’ve got an idea. It’s a very useful thing sometimes, an idea. – Superintendent Battle

***

“You understand well enough, I dare say,” said Anthony, breaking the silence. “You know when a man’s in love with you. I don’t suppose you care a hang for me – or for anyone else – but, by God, I’d like to make you care.”

As for the mystery, I didn’t fully guess the guilty party but was starting to get an idea of who certain people really were toward the end of the book.

Have you read this one? What did you think?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review: My Beloved by Jan Karon

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

I declared I was not finishing a Jan Karon book for the first time ever a couple of weekends ago when I was more than halfway through My Beloved, the 15th book in the Mitford series.

The book was released in October, a little over a decade after the last one was written, and my husband purchased it for me for my birthday. I was so excited to read it but let my mom read it first.

She wanted to tell me about it but decided to wait to see what I thought.

Last week, after pushing through the first half of the book due to my loyalty to Jan, I gave up and tossed the book onto the floor.

I snapped out a quick complaint on my Instagram stories. Then I went to Goodreads to see if I was alone. I wasn’t but I was in the minority.

I don’t like to criticize books because I write fiction and my books are not award winning in the least. Also, books can be subjective. Every reader has different tastes.

So what I’m going to say in this post about My Beloved is simply my feelings about a book I was looking forward to and was mostly disappointed with.

First, the description from Goodreads:

As snow blankets the quaint town of Mitford, Father Tim pens a list of Christmas gifts for his loved ones. But what present could possibly come close to relaying the depth of his affection for his wife, Cynthia? After all, she has changed his life—made him laugh more, feel more, love more than he ever imagined possible.

He decides to write a personal love letter to his beloved, but soon after he finishes, he discovers that it has gone missing. In ways extraordinary and unexpected, the letter makes its way into the hands of each of the townsfolk—the Kavanaugh family, Esther Cunningham, Miss Pringle, Puny, and others—bringing healing, hope, and a touch of Christmas magic to the people who need it most.

Filled with Jan Karon’s signature blend of humor and warmth, My Beloved invites old and new readers alike back to the cozy world of Mitford, where love and community shine brightest during the holiday season. Because sometimes, the greatest miracles come in the most unexpected packages.

Now, back to my thoughts:

After I tossed the book to the floor, I picked it back up. I tried again. I must have misunderstood some of what I thought was awkward or weird.

Maybe things flowed better than I thought but —  no! There it was – one character who is supposed to be a Christian saying, “Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”

And he wasn’t talking to Jesus so all I could read it as was a swear word.

Even if it wasn’t meant that way, the rest of the book was all over the place.

Flowery, clipped paragraphs made so much of the book vague and unclear. I guess we were supposed to read between the lines on many topics and storylines that weren’t really storylines but little excerpts about people.

There were too many of these excerpt storylines, which there often is in a Mitford book, but this was beyond ridiculous. The main storyline got lost in the shuffle so bad that part way through I wondered if we’d ever hear about it again.

We did read about it again eventually but the contents of this letter Father Tim writes for his wife and loses was never revealed to us, which made the book feel a tiny bit pointless. On the other hand, I suppose the idea was to show the letter was too personal and intimate to be revealed.

There were little excerpts from the points of views of 19 people in this book, by the way. There are no chapters in the book. Instead, every page few pages or every other page there is a name at the top of the page and then their “perspective” which was often a list of dialogue written like an author who is getting the conversation on the page but plans to go back later and give the reader some idea of who was saying what.

Only no one went back to fix any of the dialogue so all we got was a stream of conversations back and forth with no attributions, which made it very confusing and convoluted.

There were so many tidbits of stories about characters we love but so many of them weren’t really expounded on our wrapped up.

I was shocked how many good reviews there are for this book on Goodreads. I think people are blinded by their love for Jan and the series and all Jan has gone through the last few years with the death of her daughter and brother.  I really do understand that. I almost fell into that too. At times there were glimpses of the old Mitford within these pages that made me pause and say, “Maybe it’s not that bad.” There were beautifully written sentences or sections.

But then Buck Leeper says the Lord’s name in vain, Jessie Barlow tells her brother Dooley, “I think I’m gay…” and then that subject is never broached again, and Father Tim lets loose and says things so out of character for him I was floored. And Pauline, the  mother of the Barlow children had gotten clean, sober, and much better in past books. Now here we were more than halfway through the book without time to seriously elaborate on her storyline and Jan is taking her back to the beginning and making her to be a total crazy person who never changed.

Did the woman forget that she’d already addressed Pauline’s changes in past books?

I feel like editors did not look over this book despite Jan thanking them at the end of the book.

So much of this book was left open ended and some readers hope that means there will be another book.

I certainly hope there isn’t another one if it is anything like this one.

I do, however, recommend all of the ones before this one.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book recommendation: Christmas in Harmony

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

I have only read one of the Harmony books by Phillip Gulley, but I loved it, so I last week I looked to see if there was a Christmas one in the series, and there are two Christmas novellas. I downloaded Christmas in Harmony to my Kindle and breezed through it. It was short, yes, but it was also so charming, sweet, and funny that I couldn’t put it down!

The Harmony series is about Sam Gardner, the pastor of a Quaker Church in the town of Harmony. In the first book, each chapter was essentially its own story, with some connections, but this book was connected a great deal as it relayed the story of troublemaker church member Dale Hinshaw, who decides the church should sponsor a “Progressive Living Nativity” for the Christmas season.

His plan keeps getting more out of hand when he suggests, first, that different parts of the nativity be held on the front lawns of church members, so participants will have to drive around town to get the next part of the story. Then he suggests sponsors for the event.

“This is what came from putting Dale Hinshaw in charge. The birth of Jesus was now compliments of Grant’s Hardware. . . . ‘Why don’t you see if Kivett’s will donate a toy doll,’ I suggested. ‘They look pretty close to the real thing.’ As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I had a vision of Dale painting This Year’s Messiah Compliments of Kivett’s Five and Dime on the other side of the manger.”

The relationship Sam has with his wife comes up more in this cute book and they are so funny together. She’s definitely not a pushover. She tells Sam she will not write his Christmas cards for him this year and also lets him know he’s not very good at gift giving, which is a theme throughout the novella.

He reminds her that when they were first married he bought her a bracelet that turned her wrist green. Instead of understanding that meant the bracelet was cheap, he thinks she’s allergic to jewelry.

There is a hilarious scene in the local store where the female owner tries to steer him toward a gift his wife would like but he’s completely oblivious.

“Racines suggests a silver picture frame to hold a picture of the boys. Levi and Addison don’t think so. ‘She spends a lot more time washing dishes than she does looing at pictures,’ Levi points out. I look down at my sons and beam with pride. That they have mastered the subtleties of gift giving at such a tender age thrills me. Racine sighs and wraps the pot scrubbers.”

There are so many funny moments in this short book but also so many poignant lessons.

“He grew quiet, remembering. You close your eyes in a dead-still room and rewind the tape. Revisit snatches of time. A late summer day with your father on the porch. You are eight years old, he is your world. Spin forward. Taking your daughter by her hand, setting her on Santa’s lap. Sorting through the Christmas trees, searching for perfection. Coming home after midnight from the Christmas Eve service, carrying your little girl up the stairs tucking her in, then staying up to set presents under the tree.”

“Christmas, I tell my wife, is not the time to hold back. It is the bold stroke, the song in the silence the red hat in a gray-suit world.”

I loved so much of this book. The sweet messages about what Christmas is all about is wrapped neatly in a package of humor, lovely prose, and heartwarming narrative.

Bonus points? If you are trying to meet your goal of the year and need a short book — this should be your choice.

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Book Review: The Tale of Hill Top Farm

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

My feelings about The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert are mixed, and part of that is because I listened to others who had read it and said it was something it actually isn’t.

Many who recommended this book, and even a couple of the descriptions, suggested it was about Beatrix Potter — the children’s book author — acting as an amateur sleuth.

If you read the description on Goodreads, though, which I did not read before I read the book, Beatrix isn’t the sleuth. The pets in town are, however.

Here is that description:

The author of Peter Rabbit and other creature tales, Beatrix Potter is still, after a century, beloved by children and adults the world over. In this first Cottage Tale, Albert introduces Beatrix, an animal lover who has just bought a farm in England’s beautiful Lake District. As Beatrix tries to win over the hearts of her fellow villagers, her animal friends set out to solve a mystery all their own.

And that is what happens in this book. We read about Beatrix getting to know the villagers, trying to overcome a tragedy in her life, and trying to figure out where she is going to live in the village after the farm she’s purchased is already being lived in by the family that runs it. Meanwhile, there has been a possible suspicious death and the theft of a couple of objects and some money and the pets in the village decide to solve the crimes.

I had expected Beatrix to be the main character and for her to do some of the sleuthing. Instead, she is more of a background character when it comes to the mystery, though she does throw in a couple of tips to the other three or four characters from the village who are also subjects of this book. The animals, who talk amongst themselves but aren’t understood by the human characters, solve the crimes while the humans seem to mainly ponder things.

Beatrix actually doesn’t solve anything. In at least one case, the mystery is solved while she is there, but she is simply told what has happened.

And you know what? It just needs to be said. There are too many characters in this book. There were four or five points of view going on with just the humans and several more with rabbits, mice, cats, and a dog.

It was confusing. I couldn’t remember who said what to who because two of the female human characters seemed so similar. If even two characters had been dropped, it would have made things a lot easier to keep track of.

I have to agree with what a reviewer on Goodreads said about the book: “Less of a mystery and more of life in a small town with well-drawn characters and a sentimental fantasy of Beatrix Potter’s life in Sawrey.”

Does it being “less of a mystery and more of a life in a small town” make it a bad book?

No, but having too many characters and too much background information about characters that never coincided with the overall plot, did make it a less of an enjoyable read for me.

Even with not being a fan of all of the POVs and with it not being as much of an enjoyable read as I hoped, I am willing and interested in reading another book in the series.

Book Review and Nancy Drew November: The mystery of the fire dragon

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

The first book I read for Nancy Drew November was The Mystery of The Fire Dragon. The cover of this one caught my attention a while ago, so I was excited when I was able to get a copy of it and start it.

This one takes Nancy and her friends (Bess Marvin and George Fayne) first to New York City and then Hong Kong, to investigate the disappearance of a young Chinese-American woman named Chi-Che Soong.

Chi Che’s grandfather, Mr. Soong, doesn’t know his granddaughter is missing. He thinks she’s gone on a trip with friends, so he buries himself in writing a manuscript about – actually I don’t remember what the manuscript about, but I think it was about Chinese artifacts or something.

Chi-Che worked at a bookstore of antique books when she disappeared. Nancy wants to help her aunt Eloise, Mr. Soong’s neighbor, find out what happened.

At the same time, her lawyer father, Carson Drew, is preparing for a trip to Hong Kong and wants to take Nancy along.  He sends her to New York to help his sister first though because he won’t be leaving for a week. I often wonder, by the way, where Carson Drew is going to investigate cases because sometimes the books don’t say. I always imagine he’s actually the lawyer for the CIA or something and is on big spy cases. I find it weird he often sends Nancy to solve cases on her own while he goes to investigate something else. She is often sent into very dangerous situations with just herself and her friends and this one is no different.

Anyhow, as soon as Nancy and her friends arrive at Aunt Eloise’s someone sets a large firecracker off in the apartment building hallway. Nancy and her friends try to find who did it but are unable to.

While at her aunt’s, Nancy notices how much her friend George Fayne, looks like the photos of Chi Che. She decides it will be a good idea to have George dress as her and then take her to the college campus and see if anyone thinks she is Chi Che and acts suspicious.

They will eventually meet one of Chi Che’s friends who is confused when she thinks Chi Che is on campus because Chi Che also told her she was traveling. The friend, Lili Allis, will work with Nancy and her friends by taking a job at the bookstore where Chi Che used to work.

Nancy is knocked out at least once in every book and this one is no different when she gets hit in the head with a flowerpot that falls out of a three-story window during this one. Ouch.

A friend, who studied Nancy Drew books in college told me that the Stratemeyer Syndicate only allowed for one knock out per character and only for a certain number of minutes. That absolutely cracked me up. I don’t care what the rule was, Nancy Drew definitely had some major brain damage from all the hits she took to her head over the years.

Eventually, Nancy’s investigation leads her to Hong Kong to search for the missing girl and find out if she found out about a crime that was going on in New York.

Two boons to her having to travel to Hong Kong for this case is that she will travel with her dad and that she will be able to meet up with her boyfriend Ned Nickerson who is studying at a college in Hong Kong. So many coincidences in this one — like Ned going to college there and when Mr. Soong’s brother is actually the ex-police chief in Shanghai so Nancy can meet up with him when she travels to Hong Kong.

I really enjoyed the history in this one. It was released in 1961 and mentions a lot of history about Hong Kong and China which I believe is accurate, though I didn’t look all of it up to double check. What I did look up is when China received control of Hong Kong again after British rule. In this book, the island is still controlled by Great Britain and the people have a great deal of freedom. The control of island went back to China in 1997, though I thought it was much later.

While Hong Kong was able to remain mainly separate from China even after control was handed back, the People’s Republic of China has begun to assert more control in the last five years.

The relationship between Ned and Nancy is cute with Ned always excited when her sleuthing stops and they can spend time together.

Some of the history was dropped while Nancy and Ned were spending time together. At one point they take in a Chinese opera and then visit a houseboat restaurant in a village called Aberdeen, which I thought was odd since it sounded Scottish.

I did look this up online and there is a real Aberdeen on the southwest side of the Island of Hong Kong. It is a fishing village and features a floating village and floating restaurants. It turns out the town is named after the former UK Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, which explains the name.

There is a scene where Ned and Nancy visit the floating village and unlike other books that don’t focus as much on descriptions, there is a more lengthy description of the village and the lights and how beautiful it all is. This makes me think that whomever the ghost writer for this book was, had visited Hong Kong at some point.

There are some rather “odd” sections in this book, such as when Grandpa Soong asks George and Bess if they believe in transference.

“They both admitted that they did. Then Grandpa Soong said” There are men in this world who are more dangerous than fire dragons. I am sure my Chi Che is being held by one or more of them and really was calling out in her thoughts to me and Miss Drew for help.”

Mmmmmkaaaay.

I also  didn’t understand the end of the book and why Chi Che was found where she was (maybe I’ve read too many darker mysteries and figured that in reality the ‘bad guys’ would have just killed her) but it was still an intriguing mystery with a lot of interesting characters.

I seem to like the books where Nancy travels out of the country or away from River Heights more than those that take place in River Heights. I think that is because the books away from River Heights feel more rounded or flushed out due to the addition of historical elements.

Another one of my favorites, before this one, was The Case of The Whistling Bagpipes, which took Nancy to Scotland.

I know a lot of my blog followers have not read Nancy Drew before but if you have read this one, let me know in the comments.

I enjoyed what Avery from True Drew Podcast had to say about this episode too. You can find that here.

Book recommendation: Murder, She Wrote Gin and Daggers

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I’ve recently started reading the Murder, She Wrote books, based on the TV show, of course.

There are currently a couple of authors writing the books, but I believe the original person to write them was Donald Bain. I like the books of his in this series that I have read so far which is exactly two. Ha! I am currently reading my third by him.

My husband bought me a copy of the first book in the series — Gin and Daggers —  after I read Killer in the Kitchen and it was better than I expected.

This one doesn’t take place in Cabot Cove but takes us straight to England where Jessica has traveled to visit with good friend of hers – a famous mystery writer. Think Agatha Christie level.

The woman —  Marjorie Ainsworth  — isn’t in great health, though, and some are speculating she could pass away. That’s not all they’re speculating. She’s just released a new book and some staying at the mansion for the celebration don’t believe she even wrote it because of her declining health. Marjorie Ainsworth

It isn’t her declining health that leads to her death, though. It’s murder. Now Jessica must figure out who among the guests at her mansion killed her while avoiding being blamed herself.

One thing I’ve noticed about these Murder, She Wrote books is they take their time getting to the mystery. This gives the reader time to get to know the characters and really feel like they are invested in the story before the crime occurs. A lot of more modern mysteries rush right into the crime without letting the reader create an attachment to the potential victim and the possible suspects. Some readers like this and some find it boring and tedious. Whether I like it or not depends on what mood I am in. For this book, and the other Murder, She Wrote books I have read, I have not minded.

I like how these books make Jessica even more real than the show – in this one she cries over her friend passing away and when she remembers her late husband. She seems more vulnerable in the books than on the show.

The world of Jessica Fletcher is more in depth and real in the books, in other words,  unlike the surface level portrayal from the show. Jessica’s close connection to Dr. Seth Hazlitt is also more pronounced in the books. Though a romance isn’t suggested, it is clear that she and Seth are very close.

This is very clear in this book where Jessica is accused of Marjorie’s murder and Seth hears about it back in Cabot Cove and hops a plane with Sheriff Mort Metzger to bring a bit of Cabot Cove to London.

There are a number of suspects in this one and while the story does drag at times and it gets a bit convoluted at the end, it held my interest and was a solid mystery. I wouldn’t say I would read this one again and again but I enjoyed it as fun, and well-written (prose wise) book.

One thing I find interesting about these books is how well Bain writes a female character. He isn’t perfect at it, but he does write Jessica as someone who is strong and bold, but also connected with her feelings more.

The bottom line on books based on shows is that they are never amazing literature but they are a good escape and some (usually clean) fun. What these books with Donald Bain have going for them is an extra cozy feel and solid writing.

Have you read any of the Murder, She Wrote books? If so, which one? If not, would you ever try one?

Book recommendation: A Fatal Harvest

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

A Fatal Harvest is an Amish Inn Mystery. This series is written by a few different authors but this particular book was written by Rachael O. Phillips. So far I have enjoyed the books she writes in the series the most.

The series focuses on Liz Eckhardt, the owner of an Amish Inn called the Old Mansion Inn, in Indiana. This is Amish country and Liz has many connections to the Amish community, mainly through her mother. If you want to know more about that you’ll need to read the first book in the series, Secrets of the Amish Diary.

Liz’s friends, Sadie and Mary Ann and Naomi, form a group called “The Material Girls” and they knit and sew together. The women in the group also occasionally help Liz who always seems to get herself involved in a mystery. Liz’s group of friends also includes the inn’s resident bulldog, Beans, who Liz inherited when she bought the inn.

In this book, one of Liz’s guests is murdered at a community Halloween party in a corn maze and Liz not only wants to find out why he was murdered but who he really was.

Things get even more complicated when a mysterious and handsome man arrives, threatening Liz’s budding romance with town mayor, Jackson.

I enjoyed the coziness of this one because mixed in with the mysteries in this book were heartwarming and fun moments between Liz and her friends. This book was a slowed down mystery with some parts that didn’t have anything to do with the mystery but were instead like a leisurely and relaxing walk through Liz’s life with her friends.

I didn’t feel those brief detours took away from the mystery or the book overall, but instead made the book even more cozy. I felt as if I was getting to know the characters on a deeper level which I welcomed. I have about twelve more books to read in this series and I hope we find out even more about the personal lives of Liz’s friends as we continue.

An aside about the physical book — I love that each of the books produced by Annie’s Fiction are hardcover and include their own bookmark. It makes it easier to mark my place without having to find a bookmark!

Sadly, when I went to the website for Annie’s Fiction, I learned that the site is down so the company may have folded. Luckily, you can still find copies of many of their books on various sites online, especially used book sites.

Have you read any of the books in this series?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review: The Antique Hunters Guide To Murder

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that she thought I had mentioned somewhere that I was going to read The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder. I had not but it looked interesting to me so she suggested we do a buddy read. I’ve never done a buddy read so I said I could try it with her.

Having someone to talk to about the book and bounce ideas off of about what was going to happen next was fun.

This book takes place in England and is about Freya Lockwood who used to be an antique hunter. I wasn’t sure what the term “antique hunter” meant until I got into the book. It turns out it isn’t only about finding antiques that are worth something and can be sold in a store. Antique hunting is also about finding stolen antiques and returning them to their rightful owners.

What I knew from the beginning was that a man named Arthur Crockleford had died and it upset her. It is actually suggested in the prologue of the book that Arthur was murdered.

We will spend most of the book trying to figure out not only why but who.

Freya and Arthur haven’t talked in almost 20 years and we will learn more about that as we read too.

Freya’s aunt Carole, who cared for Freya when her parents died, introduced Freya to Arthur and was also good friends with him. After Freya and Arthur’s falling out, Freya married and had a child, who is now grown.

From the book description: Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions, and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?”

Arthur leaves behind a series of journals for Freya that he calls the Antique Hunter’s Guide.

My thoughts:

This book was … okay for me. It wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read. It wasn’t the best. Overall, though, it was a fun escape – at least until about 60 percent when things got a bit confusing for me and sort of fell apart in my opinion. That totally could have been just a me thing, though. Maybe my brain wasn’t clicking as well with the second half as it did  the first.

The book was clean and free of swearing and graphic descriptions so I would consider it a cozy mystery.

The one big thing this book had going for it was the characters. They were interesting and I got attached to them, though I was attached more to Carole than Freya.

The mystery is decent too, but the characters are interesting and fun to learn about.

Freya’s aunt Carole is a highlight of the book for me. She was eccentric, funny, and always on the brink of either blowing their investigation or getting them deeper in trouble. She was there to add some humor to the book it seems and I liked that.

Freya is getting her life back and finding the woman she used to be in this book, but don’t worry, if you forget that fact, the author will tell you about 50 more times before the book ends. She will also remind you that Freya has a scar on her hand about 50 times. I’m joking a bit, but those two things were repeated a bit too much for my liking. I got the point the first three times we were told Freya wanted her old life back. Though I thought we were told this too much I liked that Freya worked toward finding her former passion for antique hunting.

Here are a couple of quotes I highlighted as I read:

“This plate is different than before, but it’s still precious,” said Arthur. “Most of us have been broken in one way or another. We don’t need to hide the scars, for they make us who we are. This bread was mended with real gold.”

“I saw for the first time that I was me again — that person hadn’t left me; I’d just dived into the safety of my London home and become shrouded with the world of being a wife and mother.”

“Your journals are called the Antique Hunter’s Guide. But my hunting hasn’t been as straightforward — your guide led me on quite an adventure.”

“You can be so dramatic. He offered tea, and murderers don’t offer tea, do they darling?” Carole tutted at me.

“Carole appeared at my side and rubbed my arms like she used to do after we’d come in from a long, cold winter’s walk. “I want to show you what I meant about the vases. Come.” She handed back my phone and led me away from the darkness, just as she had always done.”

Erin mentioned when we were talking that she thought this book was a good introduction to a series and I think she’s right. There was a lot in it and a couple storylines going on, including a possible romance, but in the end they all converged, luckily.

I will warn you that this book switches from a few points of view to introduce us to each suspect or to Aunt Carole. The tense changes when the POV changes so we go from mainly first person for Freya to third person for everyone else. I thought Miller did this well so the changes didn’t bother me like it has in some other books I’ve tried in the past.

There is one more book in the series that is out — The Antique Hunter’s Death on the Red Sea. The third book, The Antique Hunter’s Murder At The Castle is scheduled for release in March of 2026.

The bottom line for me is that this is a fun read, something to pick up when you need an escape from the world. Don’t expect it to blow you away, but do expect to be sufficiently entertained.

You can view Erin’s thoughts here.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review/recommendation: Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Title: Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down

Author: Dave Barry

Genre: Comedy/Humor

Description:

Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry is a pretty amiable guy. But lately, he’s been getting a little worked up. What could make a mild-mannered man of words so hot under the collar? Well, a lot of things–like bad public art, Internet millionaires, SUVs, Regis Philbin . . . and even bigger problems, like

• The slower-than-deceased-livestock left-lane drivers who apparently believe that the right lane is sacred and must never come in direct contact with tires
• The parent-misery quotient of last-minute school science fair projects
• Day trading and other careers that never require you to take off your bathrobe
• The plague of the low-flow toilets, which is so bad that even in Miami, where you can buy drugs just by opening your front door and yelling “Hey! I want some crack,” you can’t even sell your first born to get a normal-flushing toilet

Dave Barry is not taking any of this sitting down. He’s going to stand up for the rights of all Americans against ridiculously named specialty “–chino” coffees and the IRS. Just as soon as he gets the darn toilet flushed.

My impressions:

Dave Barry’s columns are hilarious and keep me laughing when I probably would otherwise be crying. I had a weird summer with a lot of up and down emotions so this book, with its bite-sized chapters, (which are made up of column reproductions from his years at the Miami Herald) were just what I needed. I read two or three columns a night and tried not to laugh too loud so I didn’t wake up anyone else in the family.

I love Dave’s sense of humor. The sarcasm and quick whit and play on words. Even the puns. This book was written in 2000 and still holds up with so many topics and thoughts that many of us still (sometimes sadly) can relate to.

What I also liked about this book is that it was clean, with only an occasional off-color comment or joke. There is no swearing other than a hell or damn from time to time.

I have never read Dave’s fiction books so I can’t comment on if those are clean or not. I will let you know if I ever read one. My husband has read them and always seems to laugh through them, so I guess they are funny at least.

Some of Dave’s non-fiction comedy books focus on one specific topic, like computers, ,but the topics in this book include everything from politics to regulations on toilets, always managing to make the topic light and giggle-inducing.

Some quotes I liked from this one:

“Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It-consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art. I’m the type of person who will stand in front of a certified modern masterpiece painting that looks, to the layperson, like a big black square, and quietly think: “Maybe the actual painting is on the other side.”

“The public should enjoy what the experts have decided the public should enjoy. That’s the system we use in this country, and we’re going to stick with it.”

One that hits home for me, a former newspaper reporter whose husband is still in the business: “Here in the newspaper business, we have definitely caught Internet Fever. In the old days we used to — get this! — actually charge money for our newspapers. Ha ha! What an old-fashioned, low 0tech, non-digital concept! Nowadays all of the hip modern newspapers spend millions of dollars operating Web sites where we give away the entire newspaper for fee. Sometimes we run advertisements in the regular newspaper, urging our remaining paying customers to go to our Web sites instead. “Stop giving us money!” is the shrewd marketing thrust of these ads. Why do we do this? Because all of the other newspapers are doing it! If all the other newsapes stuck pencils up their noses, we’d do that, too! This is called “market penetration.””

(Aside: It’s been fun to see newspapers try to shut the barn door after they already opened it on the Web site payments. Most people are fighting it and I can’t blame them. After so many years of getting everything for free, it’s quite a shock to be told you now have to pay for it.)

It was fun here to discover he’d worked at a newspaper I’ve heard of and is in my state: “I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s,, when, as a “cub” reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pennsylvania, I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three liquids squired out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I’ve had several cups. (I can’t do anything useful afterward, either; that’s why I’m a columnist.)”

 The bottom line is that if you need a good laugh, this is a good Dave Barry book to choose. I can’t vouch for all of his books, but this one is a good choice.