Showing posts with label What's Coming to Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What's Coming to Me. Show all posts

Apr 24, 2022

Sunday Salon: ARCs Reviewed

 



The Lost: A Mace Reid K-9 Mystery by Jeffrey B. Burton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
NetGalley ARC

I like K-9 mysteries and novels with dog partners for PIs. This series is new to me and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the dog trainer Mace and his motley crew of dogs, including his main cadaver dog, Vira.

The dogs were personalized, individualized by their owner Mace, and dog lovers will enjoy them. The plot was spectacular in its twists and surprises and its cast of characters, a motley group of the good, the bad, and the ugly, interacting in amazing ways.

The Lost is an excellent K-9 mystery/thriller that I enjoyed tremendously.


View all my reviews



The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan, April 26, 2022, William Morrow
Genre: thriller, suspense, adventure set in Botswana
NetGalley ARC
Rating: five stars

The four "wild girls" were very close as adolescents, always sharing each other's secrets while they partied and had a good time. Two years later, leading separate lives without ever contacting each other after a feud, they are invited by one of the girls, Felicia, to her birthday party to be held in far off Botswana, all expenses paid. Who could resist?

Three of the girls fly in together and are dropped off by limousine at a remote and lonely safari resort in the plains, by the Limpopo River. But Felicia, their supposed host, doesn't appear. And the luxury resort seems deserted. The next suspenseful few days has surprises waiting for the girls at every turn, and ends with one of the three women fleeing for her life along the banks of the river, not knowing how to find other people or even a nearby town.

Plot, character delineation, setting and atmosphere, and excellent writing combine to make this a suspenseful thriller, with several surprises and twists at the end.




What's Coming To Me by Francesca Padilla
Seventeen-year-old Minerva is strangled by her mom's diagnosis of a failing heart that could take her at any time. She longs to get out of her small town and even perhaps finish school. The idea of taking revenge on her predatory boss at the ice cream stand where she works, has her thinking of ways to "take the cash and run". When she hears rumors of money  hidden in or near the ice cream stand, she and her friend CeCe try to find it.

A coming-of-age novel of a teen who has to live hand-to-mouth in straitened economic circumstances, cutting her schooling short to get a job and take care of herself and her mom, who is now in a home.

How she gets through this problem is the crux of this YA novel, but one for older adults as well, the story is moving and has its suspenseful moments, as Minerva and CeCe carry out their plan to find the hidden treasure. A very worthwhile novel of the struggles of young immigrant women to survive and thrive while on the low end of the economic and social scale.

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated BookreviewerAlso,  It's Monday: What Are You Readingand Sunday SalonStacking the ShelvesMailbox Monday

Apr 16, 2022

Sunday Salon: In the Mail

 New books:


What's Coming to Me by Francesca Padilla, August 2, 2022, Soho Teen
Genre: contemporary YA with some romance 

Seventeen-year-old Minerva GutiƩrrez plans revenge on her predatory boss by trying to find the spoils taken by armed robbers of the ice cream stand where she works.


Kalmann: An Icelandic Mystery by Joachim B. Schmidt, May 19, 2022, Bitter Lemon Press

Kalmann Odinsson is the self-appointed Sheriff of his town. Day by day, he treks the wide plains which surround the almost deserted village, hunts Arctic foxes and lays bait in the sea....  One winter, after he discovers a pool of blood in the snow, the swiftly unfolding events threaten to overwhelm him.


What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated BookreviewerAlso,  It's Monday: What Are You Readingand Sunday SalonStacking the ShelvesMailbox Monday

New Year Reading: Books with Fascinating Themes and POVs

  Memes:     The Sunday Post ,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading , Sunday Salon , and Stacking the Shelves   I dip in and out of many b...