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Murder at the Mushroom Festival
Murder at the Mushroom Festival
Janet Finsilver | 2018 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Murder is Mushrooming
The community of Redwood Cove is getting ready for the annual mushroom festival. It includes a mushroom hunting contest that is bring out the worst in some of the residence. Kelly Jackson witnesses several fights, including between the people attending a mushroom class she is hosting at her bed and breakfast. However, she is still surprised when a dead body is found. As she and the Silver Sentinels, a group that works to solve problems in the community, start to investigate, they find motives beyond the mushroom festival. Can they figure out what is happening?

It was nice to get to reconnect with Kelly and her friends. They make a great group of characters, and I love seeing their relationships grow in this book. It was also interesting to watch the suspects evolve as the book progressed. The book managed to surprise me as to who the victim was going to be, something that doesn’t often happen. It kept me guessing on the killer until Kelly figured it out, too. If you are looking for a light cozy, this is the book for you.
  
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ClareR (6256 KP) rated Madam in Books

Jan 13, 2023  
Madam
Madam
Phoebe Wynne | 2021 | Gender Studies, LGBTQ+
7
6.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Rose Christie is a young Classics teacher who gets a teaching post at an elite public boarding school in Scotland: Caldonbrae Hall.

But this school isn’t as it first appears. Rose loves her subject and wants to share that love: the girls don’t want to learn, and they frankly can’t see the point. Frustration radiates off the page - or perhaps as an ex-teacher I was just projecting! Honestly, this part nearly made me stop reading! I was so angry with the students behaviour!

It would seem that the senior management team at the school very much agree with the girls though, and want Rose to become more like them.

Not likely!

And then there was Rose’s predecessor and her strange disappearance, which of course Rose has to find out more about.

I’m so glad that I read beyond my 3 chapter cut off, because I did enjoy this. I will say that there’s a fair bit of age-inappropriate sexual behaviour, so if you find this problematic, it may be best to steer clear. But it was all in keeping with the ethos of the school - I KNOW!!
  
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
Ellery Lloyd | 2024 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a complex, clever and thoroughly enjoyable mystery set over three timelines and three destinations: Paris, Cambridge and Dubai.
I haven’t read Ellery Lloyds second book, The Club, but I have read People Like Her - and its completely different stylistically and thematically to that.
This starts in Paris in 1938, when artist and heiress Juliette Willoughby dies in a fire in her Parisian apartment/ art studio. We then jump 50 years in to the future to Cambridge where two art students discover that the fire appears not to have been an accident, and indeed is linked in some way to a murder in present day Dubai.
This is so complex that there is no way that I could try and describe the storyline beyond this - and I wouldn’t want to. It’s for the reader to find out what happens and how - and what a ride it is! I was carried along by the fantastic narration of the three voice actors, and the journey to the end was exciting and wholly surprising. I didn’t see it coming at all. Great characters (even the unlikeable ones!), interesting destinations and a riveting mystery. Recommended!