Off The Shelf 2013

My books for the Off the Shelf Challenge:  I choose Trying: 15 books.

1. Homeless in Hawaii
2. A Novel Way to Die
3. How to Lose A Tooth
4. The Detectives Secret Daughter
5. Let It Sew
6. There's An Owl in the Shower
7. The 15th Start
8. Top-Flight Fully-Automated Junior High School Detective
9. Boo and the Backyard Zoo
10. Chase of a Lifetime
11. Cat Laughing Last
12. Murder on the Mind
13. Cat Seeing Double
14. Quincy M.E.
15. Once a Ferrara Wife
16. The Xibalba Murders

2013 Eclectic Finished

1. Translated fiction:  The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2. Historical mystery: The 15th Star by Lisa Grace
3. Romantic suspense:  The Detective's Secret Daughter by Rachelle McCalla
4. Made into a movie:  You Belong to Me by Mary Higgins Clark
5. New Adult:  Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
6. Urban Fantasy:  Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman
7. Dystopian: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
8. Memoir: Homeless in Hawaii by E. C. Stilson
9. LGBT: Chase of a Lifetime by Ryan Field
10. Action Adventure: Russian Roulette (Dev Haskell- Private Investigator Case 1) by Mike Faricy
11. Humour:  Quite Honestly by John Mortimer
12. Published in 2013: One Hot Murder by Lorraine Bartlett
13. 
    

Staying Dead

 

Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman was my book for Urban Fantasy on the Eclectic Challenge.

Most of Staying Dead occurs in Manhattan.  Wren Valare is a retriever or thief if you wish who finds things that have been missing and brings them back.  She is hired to find a cornerstone that has a spell that was cast upon it.  She uses her friends to help her:  P.B. who is a minor demon, a mage who has lost his mind, and her business partner, Sergei.  Miss Valare is a Talent, which means she uses what we who are nulls call magic to help her in her work.  It turns out that a ghost was in the cornerstone and does not want to return to it.  The client will not pay unless the ghost is returned.

There is a Council that oversees Talent but Wren is a lonejack and takes cases she wants to take.  There is also a group called the Silence who is trying to recruit Wren and have Sergei be her handler.

This is a long book and even though I did look at the very end, I still had to read the book to find out how they got there.  Wren and Sergei work well together and others can see they are in love but they do not kiss until near the end of the book.  The "magic" Wren uses is fueled by current which comes from the ground and can cause power blackouts in the immediate area.

I did enjoy reading this book even though it is over 500 pages long.  I wish I had more time to read it in larger chunks than I did as it had descriptions of the people and locations.  I would say that the use of demons and ghosts would make it a fantasy as would the translocation ability that Wren uses.  I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to believe in "magic".

Queen of Babble

 

Queen Of Babble by Meg Cabot is my New Adult book for the Eclectic Reader Challenge.

Lizzie Nichols has almost graduated college. She finds she needs to write a Senior Thesis in her field of study which was Fashion History.  She has a graduation ceremony which her parents attend but received an empty diploma case.

She takes a trip to London to meet her boyfriend Andrew and finish her thesis. Unfortunately, she can't keep her mouth shut.  She is stuck in England without a boyfriend or place to stay until the date of departure on a non-refundable ticket.  Her best friend, Shari, who was her college roommate is spending the summer helping out at a chateau in France.  So, she decides to go join her.  Lizzie talks to a young man on the train about what happened in London and much to her surprise finds out that it is his family that owns the chaeau where Shari is working.

Lizzie is welcome to stay as long as she helps with the wedding.  While on a tour of the place, she discovers a vintage gown that has a rust stain.  She manages to remove the stain and fix it to fit the bride who happens to be the young man's cousin.

Luke is the young man and his girlfriend had her own plans for the place - she want to turn it into a place where people can recover from plastic surgery and get rid of the vineyards.  Lizzie manages to let Luke's parents know what the girlfiend's plans were and what Luke really wants to do with his life - which is to become a doctor.

Will she wind up with Luke?  How does she manage to get rid of the girlfriend?  To answer the questions, you will have to read this book.

I loved this story.  The descriptions of the surroundings are wonderful.  We get to know what people are wearing through Lizzie's eyes.  Parts of her thesis are found at the beginning of each chapter.  It is a fun and fast, entertaining read.

Xibalba Murders

(The) Xibalba Murders by Lyn Hamilton is my X and 26th book for the A-Z challange.  It is also my 75th book of the year and fills my Read-A-Latte Challenge to read 75 books this year.

This book is an archaelogical mystery and involves the Mayan culture.  Lara McClintoch owned a successful shop in Toronto, Canada.  When she decided to divorce her husband, Clive Swain, half the proceeds from the sale would go to him and she would have to stay away from any business for a year.  So she decided to go back to school. Until one day, when Don Herman called her and she bought a ticket for Merida. She had made the same trip many times on business as Don Herman was her agent in Mexico.

Xibalba is the underworld, it is watery and Earth  is Imix, a water-lily monster, which could be a turtle or more likely a big crocodile lying in a pool of water with the earth on its back.  Each day has a special name and meaning in the mayan calendar.  The days are used as chapter titles and help the book go forward.

There is more than one murder in this book.  There is a theft and other mysterious things occur.  Unfortunately, Don Herman is one of the murder victims.  There are two handsome young male araeologists.  Lara's search for the murderer takes her through a museum and some nearby towns as well as the jungle and ancient ruins.

The descriptions of the towns and the people and food are wonderful.  There are some foods I might be willing to try if they were not spicy.  Lara's tastes seem to include hot peppers while mine do not.  Lara with the help of her neighbor, Alex, who does internet research for her and is minding her cat, learns that Don Herman may have been looking for a book.  His message included a rabbit who wrote.  We meet varous people along the way and get to follow Lara's journey.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in ancient cultures or who likes a good mystery.  I enjoyed reading this book.

Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

I obtained The Ugly Stepsister by Sariah Wilson from Feed My Reader for free.  I read it for that and am using it as U book for alphabet challenge.

The title makes you think of Cinderella which in a way is try.  Except Ella in this book is the stepsister and she is not evil and she is beautiful.  Mattie Lowe's dad is an artist as is her mother.  Her parents divorced after being married for a short time.  Mr. Lowe married Rose who was Ella's mother when both girls were two years old.  After they divorced Ella spent summers and every other Christmas with them.  When Rose died, Mr Lowe brought Ella home and the girls started going to the same school.  It was their second year in High School.  

Mattie felt ugly.  She had just recently had her braces removed and Ella was going out with Jake Kingston who Mattie had a crush on since she was nine years old.  Trent and Mattie were great friends and she felt he was like a brother to her.  Ella finally decided to break up with Jake and Mattie and Jake were forced to work on an assignment together.  Soon Ella asked Mattie if she could go out with Trent which was ok.

Since school activities look good for colleges, Mattie was urged to get involved in school.  She decides to run for school president against Jake.  When they are working on the class project, Mattie finds out that she and Jake share some interests in common.  They also want to go to the same college which is not the school their parents want them to attend.

Eventually, Ella helps Mattie discover her outer beauty and gets her made over for the Masquerade Ball.  Jake does not recognize Mattie.  The results of the voting is announced and Mattie was elected President.  When she sees Jake go towards her sister, she misunderstands and runs home.  They meet later and Jake tells her the truth.  

I loved this story.  It is a romantic story which develops as the book goes on.  It certainly is a different take on the classic Cinderella story.

Russian Roulette

 

Russian Roulette (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator ase 1 by Mike Faricy is my book for R and I would say it is an unusual action adventure.

Dev is not the best Private Eye in the world and that is perhaps why Kerri choose him to find her sister, Nikki.  Little did he known that he would find himself in the middle of a task force investigation.  It involved Russian bad guys and prostitution.

There are a number of car chases, fighting, and guns firing which I would make it an action adventure.  Dev finds a butcher who turns out to be "The Butcher" the agencies are looking for.  They are amazed at the amount of information he gets.

I obtained this book for free from Amazon thanks to BookBub.

I liked this book and would read more of Dev's adventures.