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Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England
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A groundbreaking account of the cataclysmic hurricane of 1938 and its devastating impact on New...
Simon Pearce: Design for Living
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Simon Pearce: Design for Living presents the timeless design and enduring style of the legendary...
Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray
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Patience Gray, author of cult autobiographical cookery book Honey from a Weed (and for many years a...
Biography food
Before and Again
4.0
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Mackenzie Cooper took her eyes off the road for just a moment but the resulting collision was enough...
women's fiction
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2357 KP) rated Murder on Devil’s Pond in Books
Jul 11, 2024
Murder of the Town Recluse
Hannah Solace has returned to her small town in Vermont to help her sister run a B&B. The only person she’s really reconnect with is Ezra Grayson, the town’s eighty-year-old recluse that most people want to see sell the house he’s lived in most of his life. Then Hannah finds his dead body on the pond that borders the B&B. When she finds herself on the suspect list, Hannah begins to investigate. Is his death related to a secret from the past? Or was one of his heirs, who are staying at the B&B, too impatient to inherit?
I’ll admit, it took me a couple of chapters to fully get pulled into this new world, but once it did, I was fully hooked. The mystery is complex with a variety of motives. I figured one thing out early, but the rest, including the killer, kept me guessing. The characters, including the suspects, grew more complex as I read as well. There are some relationships I’m looking forward to seeing explored further as the series goes along. The environmental themes are well done, and the recipe at the end sounds delicious. This book is a little more on the serious side for a cozy mystery, but as long as you know that going in, you’ll be fine. If you are looking for a new series you can dig into, you’ll be glad you picked up this book.
I’ll admit, it took me a couple of chapters to fully get pulled into this new world, but once it did, I was fully hooked. The mystery is complex with a variety of motives. I figured one thing out early, but the rest, including the killer, kept me guessing. The characters, including the suspects, grew more complex as I read as well. There are some relationships I’m looking forward to seeing explored further as the series goes along. The environmental themes are well done, and the recipe at the end sounds delicious. This book is a little more on the serious side for a cozy mystery, but as long as you know that going in, you’ll be fine. If you are looking for a new series you can dig into, you’ll be glad you picked up this book.
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated It Happened One Night in Books
Apr 27, 2018
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT by Lisa Dale
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary (From Goodreads): Lana Biel has always wanted to shake the dust of Vermont off her feet and see the world, one exotic country after another. But when a lighthearted spring fling changes her life forever, she turns to the one man whose strong shoulders can lighten any burden: her best friend, Eli Ward.
Eli has always been there for Lana--after all, that's what best friends do. But Lana isn't the only one hiding something. Eli is keeping secrets of his own that threaten their relationship. Yet as summer turns to fall, new desires awaken between them, even as old fears tear them apart. Then, when another Vermont winter fills the valleys with snow, Eli and Lana are given the chance for an adventure greater than they ever dreamed possible...and a love that will last for all time.
Review:
It was really hard for me to give this book time, I felt like putting it down and giving up after the first few chapters. It wasn’t written particularly well, and I didn’t like the characters a whole lot. I still don’t. However, the story ended up being pretty good.
It was hard for me personally to look beyond the bottom line of the story: Lana had sex, got pregnant with a baby from a man she didn’t love, then she fell in love with her best friend. Her sister desperately wanted her to put her baby up for adoption so she could have it, and her father who never fathered them came back in the middle of it all and caused nothing but problems.
There were a few parts that just seemed out of place—Ron (the baby’s father) coming back and proposing, Gene (sister’s husband) walking out, and the apologies from the father. It just didn’t feel realistic. I’m not quite sure why.
But when I did look beyond that, I saw a very realistic story with good strong characters and the choices and words that they make and speak.
I got into the story about a quarter of the way through, and couldn’t put the book down. The events that happened lined up well, the pacing was good, and it was very original.
I really did like this book, I’m just not particularly sure why I liked it. Maybe it was the fact that the characters acted like real people, they weren't just characters. There were no “happily ever after” moments, although the ending was very good. I think, taking into consideration that in real life or fiction, it’s not really going to get better than it did, it was a very good story.
I’ve read a lot of really good reviews for this book, so don’t let my pessimism discourage you. Again, I liked it, but I’m not sure why. I doubt I’ll ever read it again, but then very few books make it to my “repeat” pile.
Content: For a romance book, this was free of details. There were some scenes, but they weren’t described. There was very very little language (I think there was one bad word total).
Recommendation: Ages 15+
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary (From Goodreads): Lana Biel has always wanted to shake the dust of Vermont off her feet and see the world, one exotic country after another. But when a lighthearted spring fling changes her life forever, she turns to the one man whose strong shoulders can lighten any burden: her best friend, Eli Ward.
Eli has always been there for Lana--after all, that's what best friends do. But Lana isn't the only one hiding something. Eli is keeping secrets of his own that threaten their relationship. Yet as summer turns to fall, new desires awaken between them, even as old fears tear them apart. Then, when another Vermont winter fills the valleys with snow, Eli and Lana are given the chance for an adventure greater than they ever dreamed possible...and a love that will last for all time.
Review:
It was really hard for me to give this book time, I felt like putting it down and giving up after the first few chapters. It wasn’t written particularly well, and I didn’t like the characters a whole lot. I still don’t. However, the story ended up being pretty good.
It was hard for me personally to look beyond the bottom line of the story: Lana had sex, got pregnant with a baby from a man she didn’t love, then she fell in love with her best friend. Her sister desperately wanted her to put her baby up for adoption so she could have it, and her father who never fathered them came back in the middle of it all and caused nothing but problems.
There were a few parts that just seemed out of place—Ron (the baby’s father) coming back and proposing, Gene (sister’s husband) walking out, and the apologies from the father. It just didn’t feel realistic. I’m not quite sure why.
But when I did look beyond that, I saw a very realistic story with good strong characters and the choices and words that they make and speak.
I got into the story about a quarter of the way through, and couldn’t put the book down. The events that happened lined up well, the pacing was good, and it was very original.
I really did like this book, I’m just not particularly sure why I liked it. Maybe it was the fact that the characters acted like real people, they weren't just characters. There were no “happily ever after” moments, although the ending was very good. I think, taking into consideration that in real life or fiction, it’s not really going to get better than it did, it was a very good story.
I’ve read a lot of really good reviews for this book, so don’t let my pessimism discourage you. Again, I liked it, but I’m not sure why. I doubt I’ll ever read it again, but then very few books make it to my “repeat” pile.
Content: For a romance book, this was free of details. There were some scenes, but they weren’t described. There was very very little language (I think there was one bad word total).
Recommendation: Ages 15+
Alison Pink (7 KP) rated Cloudland in Books
Jan 15, 2018
So I'm still not quite sure what to make of this book. The language used in it's writing was very poetic & descriptive. I enjoyed that aspect of it a great deal. My real issue with it was the plot. For being a murder/suspense/crime novel, it sure didn't move very quickly. I wasn't kept on the edge of my seat as I usually expect from novels that fall into this category. The "edge of my seat-ness" didn't happen for me until about the last 40 pages or so. :(
This book tells the story of a former New York Times writer & teacher who loses her adjunct professorship because she becomes romanitcally involved with a student. She is asked to leave the university & eventually settles in upstate Vermont in a rural area called Cloudland. While walking home from a neighboor's house, she comes upon the body of a woman who has been missing for months. From there you a sprung into the middle of an investigation of a group of murders taking place in the area & the manhunt for the killer...
...except you aren't really thrown into the middle of it. The writing is good, but I always felt like a bit of an outsider looking in, instead of being put in the middle of the action. The minor twists & turns that came up in the plot felt forced & insignificant to the work as a whole. Was it a bad book, no not at all. I just wasn't swept away with it by any means.
This book tells the story of a former New York Times writer & teacher who loses her adjunct professorship because she becomes romanitcally involved with a student. She is asked to leave the university & eventually settles in upstate Vermont in a rural area called Cloudland. While walking home from a neighboor's house, she comes upon the body of a woman who has been missing for months. From there you a sprung into the middle of an investigation of a group of murders taking place in the area & the manhunt for the killer...
...except you aren't really thrown into the middle of it. The writing is good, but I always felt like a bit of an outsider looking in, instead of being put in the middle of the action. The minor twists & turns that came up in the plot felt forced & insignificant to the work as a whole. Was it a bad book, no not at all. I just wasn't swept away with it by any means.
RI
Radicals in Power: The New Left Experience in Office
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Our memory of Sixties New Left radicals often evokes marches in the streets, battles with the...
The Starless Sea
7.0
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The magical new novel from the bestselling author of The Night Circus. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a...
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2357 KP) rated Live, Local, and Dead in Books
Oct 15, 2022
Politics Makes for a Bad Cozy Mystery
Jaye Jordan is making a go of it at the local Vermont radio station she has bought. However, some of the changes she has made haven’t been hits with all her neighbors. When she finally has enough with two of them protesting outside her station, she takes their gun and fires it into a snowman. Unfortunately, the snowman was hiding the dead body of Edwin Anger, a conservative talk show host whose syndicated show Jaye had just taken off her station. How did he get there?
A body in a snowman is an intriguing premise, so I went into this book with high hopes. Sadly, it was obvious fairly early on the book wasn’t going to deliver on them. The problem starts with the characters. While Jaye and the rest of the obvious series regulars are fun characters, the cast is filled with conservative stereotypes that are the worst examples of liberal views of conservatives. Meanwhile the main characters said some things that made me roll my eyes. The plot was a series of events with hardly any investigation at all. More specific complaints would get into spoiler territory. There was quite a bit of (mostly mild) foul language as well. While the book does have some genuinely funny moments, they felt at odds with some of the things that were going on in the story. I kept reading, hoping the author had something up her sleeve that would redeem the book, but it never happened. I recommend you avoid this book.
A body in a snowman is an intriguing premise, so I went into this book with high hopes. Sadly, it was obvious fairly early on the book wasn’t going to deliver on them. The problem starts with the characters. While Jaye and the rest of the obvious series regulars are fun characters, the cast is filled with conservative stereotypes that are the worst examples of liberal views of conservatives. Meanwhile the main characters said some things that made me roll my eyes. The plot was a series of events with hardly any investigation at all. More specific complaints would get into spoiler territory. There was quite a bit of (mostly mild) foul language as well. While the book does have some genuinely funny moments, they felt at odds with some of the things that were going on in the story. I kept reading, hoping the author had something up her sleeve that would redeem the book, but it never happened. I recommend you avoid this book.