I was looking for a simple cozy mystery with lovable characters and a straight mystery recently and that’s what I found in Stolen Past by Tara Randel.
The book is part of the Amish Inn Mysteries from the now defunct Annie’s Attic.
The books were written by a few different authors, but all feature the same characters: inn owner Liz Eckhardt and her friends Mary Ann and Sadie, mayor (love interest but subtle) Jackson Cross and lazy bulldog Beans.
This time around the town of Pleasant Creek is set to celebrate a special anniversary but someone in town is stirring up trouble by stealing historically-related items and threatening to make trouble if a play about the signing of the town charter isn’t presented the way we want it.
This series includes a very slow burn romance between Liz and the mayor with just a few mild hints made here and there but very secondary to the mystery itself.
Liz’s friends Sadie and Mary Ann are “older ladies” who often pop up in the mysteries and in this one Sadie plays a bigger role than usual as a former friend comes out as the front runner for being the possible town thief.
This one may not have you on the edge of your seat, but it will have you pondering who the guilty party is while enjoying reading about the connections between Liz and her friends.
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.
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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.
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I’ve been participating in the Read Christie 2026 Challenge, and for May, I read The Labors of Hercules.
It is a collection of short stories featuring Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.
The stories all connect and follow the theme of Poirot sharing twelve cases to close his career as a private detective. Because he was named after Hercules (though his name does not have the “s”), he decides his final cases will be those that follow the Greek myth of the 12 Labors of Hercules.
I don’t really know a lot about Greek mythology, but I figured it out along the way.
Agatha wrote these as serialized stories in The Strand magazine from 1939 to 1940, with the last one being written for the collection in 1947.
I wasn’t too sure about this one when I started it, but the book, with each chapter focused on a short mystery, grew on me as I kept going. Some of the stories were more serious than the others.
I almost gave up after the second story, since the first couple were not written well to me, but I’m glad I didn’t give up because the stories got better – especially the final one where Poirot ran into a woman he used to have an attraction to – Countess Vera Rossakoff.
There was a lot of humor and just a good story in that one, which was entitled The Capture of Cerberus.
Here are a couple of quotes I enjoyed from that story:
“It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though I was something like twenty years since he had seen her last, the magic still held. Granted that her makeup now resembled a scene-painter’s sunset, with the woman under the makeup well hidden from sight, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring.”
When Poirot first sees her again after so many years, it is on an escalator and she shouts back at him to meet her in hell. He later learns from his secretary, Miss Lemon, that Hell is a nightclub, and he later learns the countess owns it.
At first, though, he is totally baffled.
“But what had she meant by it? Had she meant London’s Underground Railways? Or were her words to be taken in a religious sense? Surely, even if her own way of life made Hell the most plausible destination for her after this life, surely—surely her Russian Courtesy would not suggest that Hercule Poirot was necessarily bound for the same place?”
Then, when he finally does get to the club…
“The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, Hell had caught on.
“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?”
“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.
The Countess laughed. “Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.”
I was surprised by how much Agatha wrote about cocaine use and its destruction in these stories. Sometimes I am very naïve and forget that cocaine and drug abuse was a very real thing even back then.
If I didn’t think it would bore both you and me, I would go through each story and tell you why I did or didn’t like it, and share some quotes. Instead, I will simply reiterate that there were good stories and not as good stories, in my opinion, but that I would read them all because what one person doesn’t like, another person might like.
My mom and I share a Kindle/Goodreads account and I noticed when I finished it that she gave it a three star. I bumped it up to a four, but without that last story I might have given it a three too (or 3.5), even though the idea behind it was very ingenious.
Have you read this collection yet?
Up next for me for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).
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Aloha Betrayed, a Murder, She Wrote book by Donald Bain and “Jessica Fletcher,” is the 41st book in the 63-book series. Bain wrote 47 of those books.
This is the fifth book I’ve read from this series and, no, I have not read these books in order, and I don’t feel you need to.
This was a fun, slower paced mystery and my only complaint is that there were a couple of plot points left hanging at the end and that Bain seems to have done that on purpose.
He left us not totally sure if the victim was a totally good person or not but mainly making us think she was being manipulated in some way, while not totally confirming if that was true or not.
Here is a quick description of the book from the publisher:
Jessica is on the Hawaiian island of Maui, giving a lecture at Maui College on community involvement in police investigations—a subject she knows well. Her co-lecturer is legendary retired detective Mike Kane, a behemoth of a man who shares his love of Hawaiian lore, legends and culture with Jessica.
Sadly, all the talking stops when the body of a colleague is found at the rocky foot of a cliff.
Mala Kapule was a botanist and popular professor at the school, known for her activism and efforts on behalf of the volcanic crater Haleakala. The high altitude crater is already the site of an observatory, but plans to place the world’s largest solar telescope there split the locals, with Mala fiercely arguing to preserve the delicate ecology of the area. Was someone trying to muffle the protestors? Or was Mala’s killer making a more personal statement?
Now, it’s up to Jessica, along with Mike, to uncover who was driven to silence the scientist…and betray the true meaning of Aloha.
I read some reviews of this book that said the Hawaiian history mixed in with the story slowed the book down but I actually thought the history was naturally woven into the story with information being given to us through conversations between Jessica and the other characters.
It was not an “info dump” by any means.
Donald Bain wrote Jessica very naturally. He was a ghost writer for many years, and he clearly learned how to write from the point of view of a woman very well. All the books are in first person (from what I have read so far) and I often forget that Jessica is being written by a man.
He writes Jessica as tender, but not too tender, sensitive and concerned, but not too much of either, and more concerned about the feelings of victims and the perpetrators than a male sleuth would most likely be — or at least show.
He also wrote her as someone who thinks deeply about the issues of the world.
“I’ve had many discussions with Seth Hazlitt, and other friends in Cabot Cove about how today’s frenetic lifestyle, fueled by all the technology that surrounds us, takes away from precious time to think. I needed think time. We all need think time to avoid making some of the mistakes we humans are prone to.”
This is a good one to read if you are looking for a quick escape and not anything super deep — similar to the show.
I’ve heard about the book The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim, and the movie based on it, in the past, but didn’t know what it was about. I wanted to give it a try after I read up on what the book is about earlier in the year.
I ended up really enjoying the book, so I rented the movie this week and liked it as well. The book was released in 1922 and, to me, was progressive in the idea of women needing to have their own free time.
The 1991 movie dropped the “The” and is just called Enchanted April but was exactly like the book, which was nice. They didn’t “modernize” it or add anything inappropriate. It was just subtle with wisps of suggestions of difficult or hard subjects but nothing blatantly dark or heavy, just like the book.
Both the book and the movie left me with a hopeful, uplifted, and relaxed feeling. They were both just sweet escapes that I would definitely read and watch again.
The book and movie are about four English women who rent a medieval castle in Italy for a month. The stay starts as a way for our two main characters, Mrs. Lotty Wilkins and Mrs. Rose Arbuthnot, to escape their mundane lives and dying love life with their husbands.
The two women have seen each other around their part of London but officially meet when Lotty approaches Rose at a ladies’ club after she sees Rose looking at an ad Lotty also saw for the opportunity to rent the castle. Lotty bluntly tells Rose she knows she is also miserable and needs to do something for herself and suggests they split the cost to rent the castle for a month.
Rose is taken aback and initially declines.
In the book, Lotty pesters Rose a few more times before Rose finally relents and agrees to do it. The movie condensed that timetable a bit.
Lotty is married to a solicitor who is very strict about money, and she feels like he loves money and his work more than her. She’s going to pay for the castle out of her nest egg.
Rose is married to an author who writes memoirs about the mistress of kings and writes under a pen name. Rose is very religious and feels her husband’s work is a sin and she also feels he cares more about it than her, which he does. They have money so she’s going to pay for her part on her own
In the movie, he is attending a party held for him to honor his new book and meets Lady Caroline, which will come into play later.
The two women decide they can’t actually afford the castle on their own and invite two other women to join them – Lady Caroline, who wants to get away from the grabbing paws of lecherous men and Mrs. Fisher, an elderly widow who clings to the past and likes to name-drop all the famous poets and writers she’s known over the years.
One thing I will suggest whether you read the book or watch the movie, is to not go to worst-case scenarios. If you think something “untoward” is going to happen — it isn’t.
There are moments where I worried something painful was going to happen but, thankfully, it didn’t. Despite that there was still enough plot twist in the second half of the book to keep me interested.
This was not a fast book or movie by any means.
They are both very slow but still engaging, at least in my opinion.
The only slight complaint (very slight) I have about the book is how many times Lady Caroline and everyone around her point out how pretty she is. We got it. She’s gorgeous! Sheesh!
It’s an important plot point, though, because Lady Caroline is sick of only being pretty. She’s sick of men always grabbing at her and flirting with her and being all ridiculous around her because of her beauty.
One of the reasons she’s so snappy and snarky during the book is because of a side of her she calls “Scrap”, which is what Von Arnim calls her in the book when her mean or ‘saucy’ side comes out. It was a little confusing when she would switch back and forth with the names but I caught on fairly quickly and thought it was a very creative way to show the reader that Lady Caroline knows she’s sad and twisted upside, that she has this dark side to her, and doesn’t like it.
Yes, there are times the book seemed slightly repetitive (about Lady Caroline’s beauty and her hatred of her beauty — I kept thinking of that shampoo commercial from the 1990s… “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”), but I found the characters and their development so lovable I was willing to skim those paragraphs so I could find out it all turned out.
Polly Walker played Lady Caroline and, well, she is gorgeous.
Joan Plowright was absolutely perfect as Mrs. Fisher and I think that subconsciously I was picturing her already during the sections with Mrs. Fisher as I read the book even though I didn’t even know until I watched the movie that she was in it.
Josie Lawrence plays Lottie and Miranda Richardson portrays Rose. Alfred Molina portrays Lotty’s husband and reminds me of a nicer version of his character in Chocolat. Jim Broadbent is Rose’s husband.
There is a 1935 movie called Enchanted April but after reading about it, I don’t think I’ll watch it. It is based on a play that was based on the book and switches the occupations of the two husbands for some reason.
According to TCM, Von Arnim, who was born in Australia but lived in England, wrote the book while going though a rough time in her life.
The castle in The Enchanted April is called San Salvatore and Von Arnim named it after a castle she was staying in to recover from a domineering marriage to a German count who went to jail for fraud. The movie was actually shot in this same castle, which I just thought was so cool.
After the count died, Von Arnim started an affair with H.G. Wells and later with Sir Francis Russell, who she married impulsively and which ended in disaster. It was after the marriage with Russell ended that she wrote The Enchanted April.
Here is some advice for you if you decide to read Crooked House by Agatha Christie: If you think that you know who the guilty party is, but you’re uncomfortable with who you think the guilty party is, go with that feeling and your choice.
That won’t make sense until you read the book, so here is a little background on this one, which does not feature one of Christie’s famous detectives.
This book is a standalone novel that starts with the main character Charles Hayward planning to marry Sophia Leonides who he met in Egypt toward the end of the war. They hang out while in Eqypt and correspond some afterward, but drift apart until he returns to England two years later. It’s after his return that he reads in the paper that Sophia’s grandfather has died. He knows it is her grandfather because she once told him all about her family.
“’We live in a crooked little house . . .’”
“I must have looked startled, for she seemed amused, and explained by elaborating the quotation. ‘And they all lived together in a little crooked house,’ That’s us. Not really such a little house either. But definitely crooked — running to gables and halftimbering!”
In this case the crooked little house quote is a play on the nursery rhyme “There Was a Crooked Little Man,” but I am not familiar with that nursery rhyme.
Due to the blitz, Sophia’s extended family was all living in the house with the patriarch, Aristide Leonides, a short Greek man who commanded a lot of presence. Her family includes her younger brother and sister, her parents, her uncle and an aunt by marriage, her grandfather, a great aunt, and a step-grandmother.”
Charles reaches out to her by telegram, and she asks to meet that night at a local restaurant. The connection they had two years ago is still strong, and he still wants to marry her, but she says she can’t marry him now, and maybe never. She believes her grandfather has been murdered, and she doesn’t want to ruin Charles’ reputation as a member of the Diplomatic Service because she feels certain the murder was committed by someone in her family.
The main suspect is her step-grandmother, Brenda, with the tutor for Sophia’s siblings a close second because the family believes the two were having an affair.
In the first part of the book, we get to know the entire family, and it isn’t very pretty. Many of them are selfish and bitter people looking out for themselves, and the ones who don’t seem that way may be putting on an act. Maybe even Sophia is putting on an act. Figuring out who committed the crime will baffle Charles and Scotland Yard, and when you get to the ending — oof. It’s definitely a plot twist, one I saw coming, but still had to find out how and why.
I would definitely recommend this one if you’ve never read Agatha before or even if you have. I think it’s one of her best, and I read today that she called it one of her favorites to write. It is definitely a book that will stick with you over the years, making you think (and shudder a bit) long after you’ve put it down.
Some quotes from it I enjoyed:
“Curious thing, rooms. Tell you quite a lot about the people who live in them.”
***
“I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you.”
***
“I’ve never met a murderer who wasn’t vain… It’s their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten. They may be frightened of being caught, but they can’t help strutting and boasting and usually they’re sure they’ve been far too clever to be caught.”
***
“Murder, you see, is an amateur crime… One feels, very often, as though these nice ordinary chaps, had been overtaken, as it were, by murder, almost accidentally. They’ve been in a tight place, or they’ve wanted something very badly, money or a woman – and they’ve killed to get it. The brake that operates with most of us doesn’t operate with them… They continue to be aware that murder is wrong, but they do not feel it. I don’t think, in my experience, that any murderer has really felt remorse… Murderers are set apart, they are ‘different’ – murder is wrong – but not for them – for them it is necessary – the victim has ‘asked for it,’ it was ‘the only way.”
I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie for the first time this month as part of Read Christie 2026 with the Official Agatha Christie site.
I’ve read plenty of Christie’s books already but have always steered clear of the “big ones” that everyone knows because I’ve usually seen the movies and know the stories. I have learned, though, that there can be changes in the movies and sometimes they aren’t always for the better.
One example was And Then There Were None. If you have not read that one, you really need to, even if you saw any of the movies. It was the first Christie I read and … whoa. I sat there at the end feeling horrified and in awe at the same time. What a twisted, but well-written story.
(An aside…anyone who doesn’t think Agatha disappeared for 11 days as a way to get back at Archie and buys the whole “temporary amnesia” story hasn’t read enough of Agatha’s books. The woman had a million ideas how to get back at someone and how to kill them. If you don’t know what I am talking about – do a quick online search. It’s like the plot of one of her books but actually real life.)
For those who have never read this one, here is simple summary: a group of people end up stranded on the Orient Express (a train in Europe) during a blizzard when one of them is murdered. Too bad for the murderer, renowned detective Hercule Poirot has hopped on at the last minute and is working hard to solve the case while everyone waits for help to arrive.
What is so funny in the Poirot books is how Poirot always expects everyone to know who he is, and most people look at him in confusion when he introduces himself.
It’s always like, “Surely you must know me,” and then the other person looks confused and says, “No, I’m afraid not.”
Here are some actual quotes from the book that I enjoyed:
“Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole and if the rabbit is there he runs. That’s all I have done.”
***
“When he passed me in the restaurant,” he said at last. “I had a curious impression. It was as though a wild animal — an animal savage, but savage, you understand — had passed me by.”
“And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable.”
“Precisement! The body — the cage — is everything of the most respectable — but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.”
***
“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”
***
“You’ve a pretty good nerve,” said Ratchett. “Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?” It will not.”
If you’re holding out for more, you won’t get it. I know what a thing’s worth to me.”
I, also M. Ratchett.”
What’s wrong with my proposition?”
Poirot rose. “If you will forgive me for being personal – I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,” he said.”
***
“All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.”
***
I’ve already read my Christie for this month, but I’ve tossed Crooked House in the mix as an extra Christie read because my husband recommended it.
In April, I’ll be reading a Miss Marple — A Caribbean Mystery.
Have you read this one or any Christie books? If you have read her books, do you have a favorite?
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.
This is the month when adults read chapter books that were actually written for children. Middle Grade March. Sometimes, they are so good that we don’t even realize they were written for children.I read a lot of middle-grade books throughout the year because I have a middle-grade child. She and I have already read many of the books other readers have on their lists each year.
If you participate or want to participate in Middle Grade March, I have a few suggestions of books you can choose from to read. Many of these are “lesser known” middle-grade books that don’t always get a lot of attention in bookish circles.
Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
Return to Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Children of the Longhouse by Joseph Bruchac
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Good Master by Kate Seredy
Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry
Children of the Longhouse by Joseph Bruchac
Freedom Crossing by Margaret Groff Clark
Miracle on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson
The Moffatts by Eleanor Estes
The Middle Moffatt by Eleanor Estes
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Spear
The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
King of the Wind by Marquerite Henry
Do you participate in Middle Grade March, or have you?
If you have, what did you read or if you are this month, what are you reading?
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.
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.
This was my first Margery Allingham book, and I was very impressed with her writing style and storytelling.
This book is called by Golden Age mystery enthusiasts one of her best. It is the fourteenth book in the Albert Campion series, but Campion isn’t really in this book as much as I expected him to be.
First, a little bit of a description that I pulled off Goodreads:
A fog is creeping through the weary streets of London—so too are whispers that the Tiger is back in town, undetected by the law, untroubled by morals. And the rumors are true: Jack Havoc, charismatic outlaw, knife-wielding killer, and ingenious jail-breaker, is on the loose once again.
As Havoc stalks the smog-cloaked alleyways of the city, it falls to Albert Campion to hunt down the fugitive and put a stop to his rampage—before it’s too late . . .
This one is more of a psychological thriller than a detective mystery with Allingham walking us through the story through action but also a lot of mental contemplations of four different characters, Campion being one but on a smaller scale.
Our characters are Havoc, Geoffrey Leavett, Canon Avril, Inspector Charlie Luke, Campion, and Meg Elgenbrodde.
Points of views are offered for most of them but not consistently, which sounds confusing, but it really isn’t.
If you have read detective or Golden Age mysteries from the 1930s to the 1960s, then you know there is a lot of what we writers call “head hopping.” The author hops in and out of various characters heads, telling us what each one is thinking in the same scene. These days we writers are told to never head hop. Stick to one character’s point of view per scene. If you want to show the thoughts of another character, then wait until a scene break of a new chapter.
Back in the old days, there were less rules, so authors just wrote whatever they wanted to and however they wanted to and readers just went with it. Sure, it could get confusing,s but if the story was strong enough no one cared.
I found myself nervous through a lot of this book as characters seemed to put themselves in the most precarious situations.
We start the book with Meg and George in a car together, talking about Meg preparing to go to a meeting with a man who insists he is her husband who died during World War II, which ended several years before. The man has been sending her letters. Meg and George are supposed to be married soon, so of course this development is unsettling to them both.
Meg takes her cousin, Campion, a private detective, and London Police Inspector Charlie Luke to meet with the man.
I won’t tell you if the man is really her husband or not, because I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that there is a mystery involving her husband and a treasure and it is tied to Havoc, an evil man who has killed many, just escaped jail, and will kill again to get what he wants.
I loved opening this book up on my Kindle when I had time to read it and had a hard time putting it down. I hope to get a paperback copy at some point so I can reread it.
There are some really well-written lines and paragraphs in it.
Here are a few I enjoyed:
“He was watching her, trying to appraise her reaction. The face she turned to him was both disappointed and relieved. Hope died in it, but also hope appeared. She was saddened and yet made happy.”
The rumbling ceased abruptly and a clipped schoolmasterish voice remarked acidly: “Very tood of you to bother about my immortal soul, Chief Inspector. I’m afraid I’d ceased to concern myself about yours.”
“Then he dropped lightly to the ground and a smile split a wide thin-lipped cat’s mouth in which the teeth were regular and beautiful.
‘Dad’s back,’ he said, and his voice was smooth and careful. Only the shadow flitting like a frown across his forehead and his pallor, which was paper-like, betrayed his weariness. His spirit danced behind his shallow eyes, mocking everything.”
His beauty, and he possessed a great deal, lay in his hands and face and in the narrow neatness of his feet. His hands were like a conjurer’s, large, masculine, and shapely, the fingers longer than the palms, and the bones very apparent under the thin skin.”
He was a man who must have been a pretty boy, yet his face could never have been pleasant to look at. Its ruin lay in something quite peculiar, not in an expression only but something integral to the very structure. The man looked like a design for tragedy. Grief and torture and the furies were all there naked, and the eye was repelled even while it was violently attracted. He looked exactly what he was. Unsafe.”
When he came to the part which was most important of all to him that night, he paused and said it twice. ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’
That was it. That was what he meant. Lead us not into temptation, for of that we have already enough within us and must resist it as best we can in our own way. But deliver us, take us away, hide us from Evil. From that contamination of death, cover us up.”
I am looking forward to reading more of this series.
Have you read any of Allingham’s books?
Also, I just found out there was a movie based on this book made in the UK in 1956. You know that I am going to have to find it and watch it!
