Mort by Terry Pratchett

Mort by Terry Pratchett
Fantasy

Death has been working for a very long time and he's starting to get lonely. He has a wizard to make him food and an adopted daughter to keep him company but he feels like he needs a break. Death goes in search of an apprentice and finds Mort, a clumsy young man. Death teaches Mort how to usher souls to the next world and other aspects of the business then leaves him to take over. What he doesn't anticipate is that Mort falls in love with a princess he's supposed to help die and instead saves her, altering the world. The world does not like being altered though and will do everything to set things straight again.

This isn't the first Discworld book I've read but I think it's my favourite one so far and one that has made the most sense. Given the chance, I would start with this book first as I think it introduces Discworld in the most gentle way.

There were some parts to this novel where Pratchett would get in to the intricacies of Discworld and I have to be honest I started glossing over. I was more interested in the characters and how they were going to get out of their trouble.

First Line: "This is the bright candlelit room where the life-timers are stored - shelf upon shelf of them, squat hourglasses, one for every living person, pouring their fine sand from the future in to the past."

Rating:
(4/5)

Memory in Death

Memory in Death by J. D. Robb
Mystery
Trudy Lombard, one of Eve Dallas' foster mothers shows up in Eve's office. This sends Eve in a 'tizzy' because of her wretched past. Trudy is not there to renew old times but to blackmail Eve and especially Roarke. Trudy was a cruel foster mom who abused Eve. Roarke refuses to pay and threatens right back.

Trudy is found murdered the next day and it is up to Eve to find the killer.

In this story the reader pretty much knows who the killer is but along with Eve is constantly searching for what will trip the killer up. On a personal note, Christmas is getting in the way of the investigation but Eve is doing some soul searching and finding out the true values of love, family and friends.

This was not one of my favourites but still a decent story and loved Eve coming to terms with a bit more of her personal life.

First Line: "Death was not taking a holiday."
Rating:
(3.5/5)

Origin in Death

Origin in Death by J. D. Robb

Mystery
 
Dr. Wifred Icove is found dead in his office. Who would have possibly wanted him dead? He was Dr. Perfect. He and his son ran a very successful cosmetic and reconstructive surgery practice. Everybody loved him.

Eve Dallas, police lieutenant in the year 2059 believes everything is a bit too perfect. No one is a saint. This looks like a professional hit but who would have wanted the good doctor dead? Dalllas starts out with her dogged persistence and wonderful gut instinct and follows through until she nails the killer.

I loved this book the best so far. The subject matter is very creepy and the reader is pulled down into the 'what if' scenerario which makes for some interesting hypotheses. As always Robb brings these characters to life and more than a mystery the repartee is just fun to read 

First Line: "Death smiled at her, and kissed her gently on the cheek."
Rating:
(4.0/5)

Terrified by Kevin O'Brien

Terrified by Kevin O'Brien
Mystery

Lisa Swan thought she had the perfect marriage until her husband beat her one night. He swore it would stop but instead it got worse and worse. When Lisa found out she was pregnant, she staged her suicide in to a river and left for Seattle with a new alias. What she didn't know is that someone followed her and wants her all to himself. Over the course of the next 14 years she notices things go missing but thinks its her son or just misplaced items. Then she starts getting calls asking for her by her real name. Lisa is scared and with good reason.

The plot was pretty unbelievable. Why would someone wait more than 14 years to make their move? He could have done something much sooner so why wait? The worst part of this novel, however, was the manufactured suspense at the end of what felt like every paragraph. I felt like the author was using cheap tricks to keep my interested and it started bothering me after the first 60 pages or so. Every trick in the book was used. It's his reflection, not a person coming after you. It's an animal's eyes in the woods, not a person coming after you. Give me strength. The cherry on the cake was that I determined who the villain was early in the book and the whole thing ended with a fizzle rather than a bang.

First Line: "Her son was awfully quiet."

Rating:
(2.5/5)

Virgin Earth

Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory
Historical Fiction
John Tradescant the Younger is gardener to the King, Charles I just like his father before him. But this is a time of unrest and the king is battling the rebels. John does not know where his sentiments lie, with his country or his king. So he takes off for the New World, Jamestown to avoid the issues. He leaves behind his children.

On this first journey he collects plants and is introduced to Suckahanna, a Powhatan Indian whom he falls in love with. He returns to England to find his father dead and a woman dedicated to his children. John is torn but marries Hestor. Soon however he is wanting to return to Virginia. He returns hopefully to build a plantation and live with Suckahanna. He ends up living with the Indians.

This story like the Civil War bounces between England and Virginia as John is torn. At the center core is his gardening but he just can not make up his mind where his loyalities should lie: with king or country, with Hestor or Suckahanna.

I enjoyed the story and never knew that England was without the monarchy for such a length of time.

First Line: "He woke to the sound of the moving ship, the creaking of timbers and the aching sigh of the full sails spread, the sudden abrupt rattle of a pulley as a sail was reefed in, the drumming of booted feet on the deck above his face, the holler of an order, and the continual attack of the sea - the bang of the waves against the prow and the groan of the tiny ship as she climbed up one wave and then wallowed and turned to confront another."
Rating:
(4.0/5)

Affinity

Affinity by Sarah Waters
Historical Fiction
A young upper-class woman, Margaret Prior, just recovering from a suicide attempt starts to visit the women in Millbank prison. There she meets Selina Dawes who is jailed because of a seance gone wrong. Selina is a spiritualist.

As the story progresses Margaret seems to be more and more drawn to her. At the same time Margaret's home life is becoming more and more difficult. Her siblings are all married and she is hounded by her mother. She is taking more and more drugs for her 'spells'

I disliked this story. It is dark and forbidding just like the prison. I have read Waters before and loved her stories but this just did not ring at all true. Who in their right mind would allow a young person who had just tried to commit suicide to visit in a dark place like a prison or to be left alone for any length of time at all? Wouldn't her mother try to keep things light and not depressing? Also this concept of Victorian ladies having to faint, have headaches or swoon is beyond my thinking. Oh yes, and let us overcompensate these conditions by handing out drugs or better yet letting these young ladies take whatever amount of drugs they wish. I guess the best thing I took away from this book is that all Victorian ladies have no brain cells.

First Line: "I was never so frightened as I am now."
Rating:
(2.5/5)

11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King
Time Travel
Jake Epping is a thirty-five year-old school teacher in Maine. His friend Al, who owns a small diner, tells Jake that the storeroom of his diner contains a portal to the past-- to September, 1958. Al says that he's spent the last four years living back in the late 1950's and early '60s in an effort to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Al has a fatal disease now and asks Jake to use the portal to take his place and stop the assassination.   Al believes that maybe the Vietnam War may never occur and lots of good will come from this action.

Jake willingly complies and does a test travel where he is able to kill one of his students' father before the father kills everyone else in the family.   He comes back to plan with the help of Al's notes and return to 1958 which resets actions.  Jake must again kill his student's father and live for the remaining 4 years planning his actions to counter the assassination.  

King does a masterful job of setting the scenes with obvious research.  Were there conspiracies?  Where the book falls short is that Jake was a non-descript person going through the motions of life and all of a sudden is the big hero.   He is able to murder with no qualms and seems to handle all the ugliness of the situation having had no prior experience at all.  I did enjoy Jake going through the ordinary life of the early 60s.  I particularly enjoyed King's take on what would happen if we were able to change past events.

Rating:
(4.0/5)

City of Light

City of Light by Lauren Belfer
Historical Fiction
City of Light is set in 1901 in Buffalo. The advent of electricity and the Pan World Exposition are setting the city ablaze in glory. There is much excitement and Buffalo is a happening place.

Spinster headmistress (Louisa Barrett) of an upper crust girls' school is godmother to industrialist Tom Sinclair's daughter. She does not know what to do when an important man is found dead in Delaware Park. Is Sinclair involved? Was it suicide, accident or murder?

Tom Sinclair is in charge of the bringing on board of further electrical power. He would like to share it with the world. Of course, some want only businesses to have electricity and others do not want it at all as it will use up all the water in the Niagara River.

I did not know that Buffalo was such a gem of a city. What on earth happened? I loved this story with its intrigue and beautiful descriptions of a bygone era and city.

First Line: "On the first Monday in March 1901, in the early evening when the sound of sleigh bells filled the air, a student unexpectedly knocked at my door."
Rating:
(4.0/5)

Survivor in Death

Survivor in Death by J. D. Robb
Mystery
Nine year old Nixie Swisher gets up in the middle of the night to get a forbidden orange fizzy. While up she catches a glimpse of a shadow entering her housekeeper's room. Thinking they are about to do the naughty Nixie watches only to see her housekeeper murdered. The murderer goes up the stairs and proceeds with another assailant to murder her whole family and her best friend whom she left asleep in her room.

Eve must find out who wanted to kill this upstanding family. This is an ordinary family with no person who holds any grudges against them. Eve has a sense that Nixie is not safe. The killers wanted her whole family dead and she is still alive.

Robb spins it out in this story. The reader does not know what is going on and there are lots of twists and turns. You have to love Eve in that she knows she is no good with children but she does her best and really tries with Nixie. Robb keeps on with great character development in this series and I will be looking forward to the next in the series.

First Line: "A late-night urge for an Orange Fizzy saved Nixie's life."
Rating:
(4.0/5)

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd
Historical Mystery

RBess Crawford is a WWI battlefield nurse in France, treating injured soldiers and those stricken with the Spanish flu. One night, a colleague asks Bess to come visit the shed where the bodies are kept because he has noticed something odd. When Bess visits, she finds the body of an officer who died of a broken neck. Suspecting murder, Bess sets to report to the Matron right away except she too falls ill from the flu and is brought back to England to recover at home.

Once Bess has recovered, she can't remember whether finding the officer with a broken neck was a dream but when she learns that the colleague who informed her of the officer "committed suicide", she still suspects there's a murderer on the loose. What she doesn't realize, is that she too is in the murderer's sights.

This book is the forth book in the Bess Crawford series. I hadn't read the previous three books and for the most part this could be a stand alone. I found the only confusing part is that the relationship of family friend Simon wasn't completely explained, as I'm sure he was introduced in previous novels. For quite a while I wondered if he was a cousin or a love interest or just a friend of Bess.

I really enjoyed reading about what nurses would have done during war time. It seems that they get moved around a lot, it makes you wonder how anyone could keep track of who and what were going where. Bess mentioned travelling back and forth between France and England a lot which would have added more confusion to who was where. There was also the relevant threat of a submarine shooting on these ships crossing the channel.

Bess as a character was also quite refreshing. Typical to novels written in these times, she was very proper and yet independent, strong, and smart. Just the type of female character I like!

Bess worked with friends, family, and fellow nurses and officers to help track down the murderer. When the motive was actually determined though, I found it to be a bit weak. Would someone really kill that many people just for the described motive? I'm not so sure.

On looking in to the author more, I learned that Charles Todd is actually a mother/son writing duo, which is rather impressive. What happens if there's a disagreement in how the plot should progress? It certainly takes a strong relationship to write a book!

Watch the trailer for the book here. A special thanks to TLC Book Tours for letting us be a part of the tour!

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts
Romance
This story is about Ripley, the no nonsense police officer on Three Sisters Island. She has refused to have anything to do with her paranormal powers and just wants to lead an ordinary life.

Enter MacAllister Booke , a paranormal researcher, who wants to find out what is happening on the island. He is very interested in Ripley both professionally and personally. She, of course, fights it.

Ripley is a brash, sometimes caustic young woman who must battle the forces of evil that is trying to pull the island apart. I enjoyed this light fun read

First Line: "She called the storm."
Rating:
(3.5/5)