Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
A book about a female serial killer? Um, not really. This is the story of a lonely little girl who bad things happen to and she turns into a lonely old woman. But heartwarming? I’m giving this a grudging 3.75 stars, bumped up 0.25 from 3.5 because it wrung salty tears out of me. They were dripping down my face, but I was upset about it. This book was so great until the ending, when it did three things I didn’t like (and almost never […]
The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Volume 1 by Beth Brower
Volume 1 of this multi-volume series is set in March and April of 1883. Emma M. Lion is 20 years old, nearly 21, and has recently returned to her family home, Lapis Lazuli House in the St Crispian’s neighborhood of London, a quirky place with fine homes, a Roman ghost, a handsome young pastor with rowdy friends, and some charming neighbors. The novel is set up as a series of diary entries that introduce us to Emma and the various dilemmas she will face over […]
The Dorothy Parker Murder Case (Jacob Singer #1) by George Baxt
On the day after Rudolph Valentino’s death, a showgirl’s body is found in George S. Kaufman’s hideaway, and Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott enter an unfamiliar world of murder and mayhem. Helped by semi-corrupt cop Jacob Singer, the two try to get to the bottom of it all, in an affair that starts with someone modeling themselves after Jay Gatsby, and ending with a little known Chicagoan named Al Capone. I’m not 100% sure what I thought of this book. Don’t know if anyone was […]
The Monstrous Murders: An Alewives of Colmar Mystery (#3) by Elizabeth R. Andersen
Appel, Gritta, and Efi, the three alewives of Colmar, are enjoying the calmness of brewing after solving the deeply unsettling mystery of the severed hands (Sleight of Hand, book 2). But as to be expected in Colmar, peace is not destined to last for long; two novice monks in the care of Brother Wikerus have disappeared, and a lowly street sweeper is terrorized. All signs point to a mysterious monster that has been spotted, driving the town into a frenzy of fear and suspicion. Theories […]
“E” is for Evidence: A Kinsey Millhone Mystery (#5) by Sue Grafton
It’s the holiday season; the one time of the year that being a twice-divorced, independent loner does not work for P.I. Kinsey Millhone. With everyone she’s reasonably close to with their own holiday plans, she needs something as a diversion to ward off the blues. She gets that (and more) with a case that places her career on the line; what started out as a simple look into an industrial arson case for California Fidelity (the insurance company Kinsey used to work for, and who […]
Hungerstone: A Novel by Kat Dunn
It’s the height of the Industrial Revolution, and ten years into Lenore’s marriage to steel magnate Henry, their marriage is basically in name only. Unable to bear Henry an heir, Lenore has fallen into a resigned depression, not helped by the severe cramps that every month brings. (Lenore ignores that “every month” seems to translate into “non-stop”.) When Henry’s ambitions to be excepted in society as more than nouveau riche drive him to purchase an estate in the remote British moorlands, a shocking carriage accident […]
