BOOK REVIEW: Hazardous Duty by Christy Barritt

Buying a gun to kill your wife: $3,000
Hiring Trauma Care to clean afterward: $1,500
Having that same cleaner uncover evidence that frames you: Priceless

On her way to completing a degree in forensic science, Gabby St. Claire drops out of school and starts her own crime scene cleaning business. “Yeah, that’s me,” she says, “a crime scene cleaner. People waiting in line behind me who strike up conversations always regret it.”

When a routine cleaning job uncovers a murder weapon the police overlooked, she realizes that the wrong person is in jail. But the owner of the weapon is a powerful foe . . . and willing to do anything to keep Gabby quiet.

With the help of her new neighbor, Riley Thomas, a man whose life and faith fascinate her, Gabby plays the detective to make sure the right person is put behind bars. Can Riley help her before another murder occurs?

Gabby St. Claire is quite a name to accompany quite a character.  I liked her, partly I think because of her slightly flippant attitude toward life and her ability to recognize her own shortcomings without taking herself too seriously.  You have the interesting neighbors, including Riley, you have the police officer she is constantly butting heads with, and you have a killer who is all about shutting Gabby up...for good.  Gabby's problem is that she has just enough background with forensic science to not know quite enough about a current investigation.  She has enough gumption of how she sees the case to constantly throw herself into the fray.  Which indirectly puts her right back into the real killer's sites.  Every.  Single.  Time.

The story was engaging and I was very entertained by it.  However, I would be remiss if I didn't also share what I saw as shortcomings.  There were a few situations that I felt were just to pat.  It seems like at every turn with every crime someone was being 'setup'.  You would think that every crime committed was always a setup. And it also seems as though at every crime scene in the story the forensic teams missed something so that Gabby could find the 'smokin gun' so to speak.  Though one crime in the story was dropped but I was never told how it really happened which drives me nuts!  And don't tell me it's a series and there's more books.  I don't see the next book going back to a previous story to wrap up the details of one crime that was pushed to the wayside before the bigger crime the story was actually about was solved.

Another thing I struggled with with the faith based part of the story.  And before you yell at me that it's a Christian book and I knew that, it's not that it was a Christian book that I had issue with.  I felt like the attempts to bring faith and God into the story were contrived.  They popped up at weird moments that didn't make a lot of sense to me and it just felt forced.  I think the faith part of the story could have been better integrated.  Just my half a nugget or so on the topic. 

All in all though I really liked the story.  Promise I did.  I would like to read more in this series as well as more by the author.  And plan to do so in the future!

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble
 
About Christy Barritt

Christy Barritt is an author, freelance writer and speaker who lives in Virginia. She’s married to her Prince Charming, a man who thinks she’s hilarious–but only when she’s not trying to be. Christy’s a self-proclaimed klutz, an avid music lover who’s known for spontaneously bursting into song, and a road trip aficionado. She’s only won one contest in her life–and her prize was kissing a pig (okay, okay… actually she did win the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Suspense and Mystery for her book Suspicious Minds also). Her current claim to fame is showing off her mother, who looks just like former First Lady Barbara Bush.
When she’s not working or spending time with her family, she enjoys singing, playing the guitar, and exploring small, unsuspecting towns where people have no idea how accident prone she is.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads

BOOK REVIEW: I'm Still Here by Kathryn Biel

It started out as an ordinary day for Esther Comely-Cox, if you consider simultaneously totaling your car, smashing a Ho Ho in your face and meeting a handsome doctor ordinary.
Estranged from her family over her sister's mental illness and death, Esther can't help but feel alone. And when Esther hears the voice of her twin sister who committed suicide seven years ago, she begins to question her own sanity, leading her to wonder if anything is what it seems. Searching for answers, Esther must confront her past while looking towards a new future—one in which she is finally accepted.
Through humor and heartbreak, Esther learns that blood does not mean family, that absence does not make the heart grow fonder and that silence can speak volumes.

This book was a jump into something a little different than my last few reads.  Ester, youngest of 7 children, of her 'crunchy' hippy-dippy parents wasn't just the youngest, she was a twin.  Said twin had left a suicide note 7 years ago and disappeared from the face of the earth.  No body was found so Mom and Dad, wait no sorry Dean and Cheryl, refused to believe she was dead.  Mom and Dad didn't want to be called Mom and Dad, so Dean and Cheryl it was.  Ester, however, was not convinced that her sister was alive and said so.  Slowly but surely her family cut her out of everything, throwing a birthday party for Aster (the twin) and inviting Ester without caring that it was also her birthday.  Parenting Win?  Needless to say massive estrangement, not actually initiated by Ester.

Through an initial series of unfortunate events, you know Ho Ho encrusted car accident, Ester's life takes a dramatic turn.  Think sideways falling in love with a charming nee perfect hero who also happens to be a doctor that's apparently pretty delectable, and sweet, and kind, and...  Ester negotiates the idea that she is more than everything her family convinced her she was.  Ester learns that you can find love.  Ester learns that things aren't ways what them seem.  And sometimes, you get second chances.  And sometimes second changes aren't all they are cracked up to be and were never on the table to begin with.

Truth is there's some typos and editing issues with this book.  Truth is the story line is a bit over the top for me.  A little too pat you could say.  But I appreciate that you don't always get the total package happy ending that this book provided to me.  I read a review that questioned the age of the writer due to some of the pop culture references and dialogue in the story.  I appreciated it.  As a *cough* middle age *gag* woman I appreciate the fact that not everyone tells there story like a matron.  Personally notorious for my own interesting way of communicating with the world I appreciated the offhandedness that was in this book as well.  Biel did a good job of educating about the impact of mental illness on a family without feeling like it was a lecture that pushed off responsibility onto someone else.  She also did a great job of telling a story that offered redemption while also making it perfectly OK to not find the gold at the end of the rainbow.  Because sometimes, it's not the gold you need by the trip through the rainbow to find the treasure.  It's not always what you thought it was nor where you expected it to be.

Love doesn't conquer all, but then again not all things need conquering.  


Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble

About Kathryn Biel

Kathryn Biel hails from Upstate New York, and is a spouse and mother of two wonderful, but exhausting kids. In between being Chief Home Officer and Director of Child Development of the Biel household, she works as a school-based physical therapist. She attended Boston University and received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from The Sage Colleges. After years of writing countless letters of medical necessity for wheelchairs, finding increasingly creative ways to encourage the government and insurance companies to fund her client's needs, and writing entertaining annual Christmas letters, she decided to take a shot at writing the kind of novel that she likes to read. Her musings and rants can also be found on her personal blog, Biel Blather.

Website | Twitter | Facebook  | Goodreads

BOOK REVIEW: Rolling Thunder by Mark Berent

Rolling Thunder is an historical novel about the decisive role politics played during the Vietnam war. Its characters range from men on the battlefield to the Pentagon and the White House. Fighter pilots and Special Forces warriors try to do their best but are hampered by President Johnson, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and their staff members who despise the military. Only one aging USAF general, who fought in Korea and WWII, is on their side. His clashes with his Commander in Chief, Lyndon Johnson, are epic in proportion and startling in content.
In Rolling Thunder, the time is late 1965 and 1966 in war zone places such as Saigon, Hanoi, Bien Hoa, Da Nang, and Tahkli. While back in Washington, LBJ sits over lunch and personally picks bombing targets in an attempt to fight a limited war. In Vietnam the war knows no limits.
There, as the hostilities escalate, the fates of three men intertwine: USAF Captain Court Bannister, overshadowed by a famous movie star father (who fought in WWII as a B-17 gunner), driven to confront missiles, MiGs, and nerve-grinding bombing raids in order to prove his worth to his comrades -- and to himself...Air Force First Lieutenant Toby Parker, fresh from the States, who hooks up with an intelligence unit for a lark, and quickly finds his innocence buried away by the lessons of war...and Special Forces Major Wolf Lochert, who ventures deep into the jungle to rescue a downed pilot -- only to discover a face of the enemy for which he is unprepared.
Four airline stewardesses fly the civilian contract flights that bring American soldiers to and from the war zone in Vietnam have difficult love affairs with G.I.s and fighter pilots. After one flight they come under attack while on an airbase.
Through their eyes, and those of many others -- pilots, soldiers, lovers, enemy agents, commanders, politicians, profiteers -- Rolling Thunder shows us Vietnam as few other books have, or can. Berent captures all the intensity and drama of that searing war, and more, penetrates to the heart and soul of those who fought it. Rolling Thunder rings with authenticity.
 
OK, before I jump into this book I've got to give you a little background.  First I will date myself and secondly I will show you how lacking my education was while growing up.  Born just after Vietnam I don't have any personal memories or ties to this period of American History.  A few years later memories I do have are much more about being a kid than stuff that was happening.  In general there is not much I do know about this period of time outside what I see in movies or read in books.  I have a couple of uncles and cousins that fought in Vietnam but never had an opportunity to talk to them about it. In school, even through college, I never had a history class that encompassed recent American History.  I swear, I think every single year of history in school started with the Revolution and let's see how far we get so to speak.  I've never studied history more recent than the Civil War.  Let's get going.

Before I tell you why I really liked this book I'm going to share a few tidbits I didn't.  I want to end this time together on a positive note so let's start with the less thans.  All the acronyms and military lingo that I struggled to pretend to be able to follow.  My memory is less than stellar so even though I read it once and knew what it stood for a paragraph later when it came up again I was clueless, I played along.  The technical information, such as briefings, that seemed to take up multiple pages throughout the book.  Don't get me wrong, they were kinda interesting in theory but so many acronyms and abbreviations and military lingo that I was hopelessly lost on impact.  I feel like in saying this I'm creating an incomplete picture.  I work with the military community and some things I am comfortable with and am not hopelessly clueless.  However, I am also part ditz and so am in fact occasionally hopelessly clueless. The final drawback for me, though really also an enrichment, is the sheer number of characters.  I have a hard enough time remembering the names of people around me. I struggled to remember who was who and where they fit in as different names were dropped off and on throughout the book.  This was enriching as well though as the different individuals from different areas crossing paths added real life to the book.  That part of it I appreciated

Looking at my list of drawbacks one might believe I didn't care for the book.  Actually, the complete opposite.  Half the locations I just made up pronunciations in my head but that's OK. This book, while fiction, felt very real.  Real people, real situations, real politics, and unfortunately real war for an 'engagement' that we didn't belong in.    These characters drew me into this conflict, they drew me into their experiences, and even when I didn't understand them I felt them.  Throughout this cast of characters I also found a little bit of representation of some of the more common ways that different personalities react to war.  Not everyone is a stone cold soldier like Wolf or driven like Court.  There are still way to many Parkers.  Remember back where I started all this, I wasn't really around during this time.  My knowledge is from books, movies, and TV shows.  Pop culture so to speak.  One thing that continues to hamper the US and our soldiers is the reception these men had upon returning home.  The interchange with Wolf and the group in the airport is a prime example, splashing the group with red liquid and calling them murderers, pigs and baby killers.  I can't begin to imagine being in those men's place.  But Wolf, whom I grew to admire and adore throughout the story, had a reaction that truly fits.  "I am not a murderer, Young Lady, I am a Killer.  There IS a difference."  Our soldiers do not go to war because they want to murder.  They go to war to defend our country.  They go to war to defend an ideology they believe in.  They go to war knowing that they may be in a position to kill.  There IS a difference.


Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble

About Mark Berent

MARK BERENT served in the Air Force for over twenty years, first as an enlisted man and then as an officer. He has logged 4,350 hours of lying time, over 1,000 of them in combat. During his three Vietnam tours, Berent earned not only the Silver Star, but two Distinguished Flying Crosses, air medals, a Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and Legion of Merit.

Website | Goodreads

BOOK REVIEW: The Murder at Sissingham Hall by Clara Benson

On his return from South Africa, Charles Knox is invited to spend the weekend at the country home of Sir Neville Strickland, whose beautiful wife Rosamund was once Knox's fiancee. But in the dead of night Sir Neville is murdered. Who did it? As suspicion falls on each of the house guests in turn, Knox finds himself faced with deception and betrayal on all sides, and only the enigmatic Angela Marchmont seems to offer a solution to the mystery. This 1920s whodunit will delight all fans of traditional country house murder stories.

I'm just gonna say it.  I liked this book.  Yes it was a bit cheesy, yes it was formulaic (and hopefully you remember how I feel about formulaic books), yes it was predictable (see the previous yes), yes lots of yeses.  And you should say yes to this story as well if you like a simple easy-read mystery.

You have Charles Knox, recently returned from 8 years in Africa, meeting up with old friends and a former fiancee at a weekend house party in her home with her now husband.  The husband, a stale older gentleman who ends up dead during the party weekend.  The first question to be asked is murder or accident?  You have Sir Neville's cousin Hugh and his wife who are a bit outlandish, a bit suspect-able, and a bit motivated if you know what I mean.  We have old friend Bobs and his sister Sylvia.  And you have Angela Marchmont, Rosamund's cousin just returned from the States where she's lived the last decade or so.  Who is Rosamund you ask?  The former fiancee turned hostess for the party.  Oh, well and the remaining cast would be the servants of course.  Can't have a house party at an English country estate without servants.  And Angela, she's the one who can't just leave things be or even just leave them to law enforcement.  She's gotta do her own thinking and questioning and putting things together.  Which most likely should eliminate her from the suspect list.  Perhaps?

By the end?  Of course I'd figured it out.  My ah ha! moment will probably also be your ah ha! moment.  And the poor creator of said ah ha! moment doesn't even realize that they created it.  Until it's spilled out to them piece by baby piece by the actual killer.  Which brings another question to my mind.  Why does every single killer in almost every single book/movie/TV show/whatever waste time spilling it all out step by ever loving step to whomever they plan to frame for the murder?  Except of course to buy time for them to get caught.  Can't they spill in interrogation or in their memoirs or something?  It's one of those things that as a writer I understand the concept but as a reader I want to beat my head into a soft pillow or something.

End of the day?  I liked this story and I'm glad that I own it in my Kindle Library.  I've seen that this is just the first of a few by this author featuring Angela Marchmont which is somewhat exciting as well.  Like I said, predictable to a degree but worth the read.

Goodreads     Amazon    

 About Clara Benson

Clara Benson is the author of the Angela Marchmont Mysteries.

Website | Facebook | Goodreads

Fasten Your Seatbelts

So, I've been procrastinating since last I graced these hallowed pages.  I was so behind on everything, so overwhelmed with trying to figure out where to start with all the behindness.  So I did nothing.  And guess what...got further behind.

New Year, New Plan!

So, in the procrastinating for really just over a year now I've had to let a lot of things slide.  With kiddos in and out of the house and job changes and life changes something had to give and this was the thing that was easiest to 'give'.  And I'm finding myself pouring a lot of myself into other passions for a while.  I have a moderately successful Sims blog right now.  If you don't know what Sims is I'm not sure we can be friends.  Or I can explain it to you at request and then you will understand and be part of the magic as well!

Once I had the computer back, which required for them to reset the hard drive completely therefore removing operating system which caused me a few extra days of panic once it was back in my loving arms.  I digress, I was so deep in books that I had read all year that I was having trouble settling in and starting reviews.  Too many books, too much time had passed and I just kept devouring books.  So, I had to make some hard decisions.  I've decided to set this year aside, it wasn't that great anyway, and start fresh.  New year, new blog, new plans, new candles, just lots of new.  Mixed in with the old favorites of course.

Having said that, I feel as though it's only fair to you to also offer a few disclaimers and a few things to bear in mind.  I'm going to be posting book reviews pretty prolifically I hope.  And when it comes to books I'm an anything goes kinda gal.  Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action, Amish, Christian, Young Adult, Supernatural.  Pretty much, if it has words and is not a technical manual or how to put something together I'll read it.  That being said there will be lots of different books reviewed here.  Not all will be your cuppa and that's OK.  However, please don't go after me when I choose to review something that you don't care for, wouldn't read or for some other reason find 'inappropriate'.  You may see conflicting genre's reviewed one after the other.  That's OK, I promise!  There will certainly be something for everyone.  Don't see a book you like, that's OK another will be coming.  Offended by books about witches and paranormal?  Don't read the review.  Don't like mysteries?  Don't read the review.  Don't like... you get the idea.

There will be other things too, don't worry.  This blog isn't going to ever be just any one 'thing'.  Just give me time to reconfigure life for a minute.  Give me time to figure out a schedule that will work for me and allow me to encompass most areas of my life.  I realize I can't do it all but I want to find a way to do the things I am really passionate about.  Journey with me.  When I space out and you see nothing for a while?  That's OK.  Something else is taking it's focus on this journey.  I'll always be back.