Book Review: The Christie Curse by Victoria Abbott

Title: The Christie Curse: A Book Collector Mystery by Victoria Abbott
Published March 5, 2013; Berkely paperback
Genre: mystery, cozy mystery

When I look at cozies, there are certain themes that will make me gravitate to the books right away: books, flowers or gardens, pets, bird watching, and of course, food. I liked the pug on the cover of this book and the series title, a Book Collector's Mystery.

Jordan Bingham of Harrison Falls, New York, comes from a family with sticky fingers and questionable ethics. Her uncles have taught her tricks like lock picking, self defense, and how to be street smart. After college, she is looking for a job that is on the up and up and agrees to be the live-in employee for an eccentric but wealthy book collector, Vera Van Alst.

Vera wants Jordan to investigate a rumor of an unpublished Agatha Christie play. She is willing to pay a lot of money to buy this collector's item.

I spent the rest of the afternoon plowing through my stack of research material on Agatha Christie, her disappearance and her plays. I worked undisturbed for hours, if you don't count Signora Panetone arriving with ... prosciutto, melon and fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano. (ch. 6)

There are risks to the job: Jordan's predecessor Alex was killed when he fell or was pushed in front of a train, and a woman is attacked and left for dead after a book show. But Jordan keeps her job as she loves her new digs in Vera's mansion: her rooms decorated with old cabbage rose wallpaper, its spectacular view of the grounds, and the gourmet meals and snacks that the cook insists she eat every day. The only drawback in Jordan's mind is the bipolar Siamese cat who is loving one day and on the next doesn't miss a chance to use its sharp claws on Jordan's ankles.

This is a new series; there is humor, interesting dialogue, and a main character who is easy to like. The writing style of the author and the plot makes the cozy a pleasant reading trip. I am looking forward to the next in the series.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
Submitted to Saturday Review of Books hosted by Semicolon. 

Book Review: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

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Title: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Published March 11, 2013. W.W. Norton and Company
Genre: historical novel

My summary: This is a novel about the war between the Japanese and the Americans in WWII, the atrocities of war on both sides, and the innocent families and people affected both in the U.S. and in Japan. The fire bombing of the city of Tokyo in 1945 when innocent civilians were killed or maimed is the reason for the title, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment.  

My comments: I was confused while reading the book. I didn't know whether I should hate the Japanese for their war atrocities and killing downed American pilots during the war or hate the Americans for killing and maiming 100,000 innocent civilians in the later firebombing of Tokyo.

The book presents multiple points of view. We grow to detest a Japanese war criminal at the same time as we like his young daughter Yoshi and feel sorrow for his wife. We are dismayed at the execution of a young American pilot by Japanese troops in Manchuria and we feel pity for his wife. We are also appalled at the suffering and the death of civilians during the firebombing of Tokyo by American planes. At the end of the book, however, the various threads of the story are woven together and Yoshi makes a gesture of contrition to the wife of the American pilot killed during the war.

It is not an easy book to read. It is depressing in parts because the circumstances of war and the horrific effects on the people involved. Kudos to Jennifer Cody Epstein for tackling this subject and bringing all the elements together in a question of whether war justifies all actions. The book makes us think about the justification for killing innocents during war with its quote from one of the characters: "It's not murder! It's war."

For other reviews, visit Gods of Heavenly Punishment: TLC Virtual Book Tours

Publisher's description: A lush, exquisitely-rendered meditation on war, The God of Heavenly Punishment tells the story of several families, American and Japanese, their loves and infidelities, their dreams and losses, and how they are all connected by one of the most devastating acts of war in human history.

Jennifer Cody Epstein is also author of the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Self, Mademoiselle and NBC, and has worked in Hong Kong, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand. Jennifer lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, two daughters and especially needy Springer Spaniel. To connect with Jennifer, “like” her on Facebook.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the publisher for a review copy of this book.
Submitted to the 2013 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and Cym Lowell's Book Review Link-Up Party and Saturday Review of Books hosted by Semicolon. 

Sunday Salon: Stacking the Shelves

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! I found a new meme, Stacking the Shelves by Tynga's Reviews. List your new book arrivals and link up at the site each week. Other sites are It's Monday; What Are You Reading? at Book Journey, and  Mailbox Monday hosted by Abi at 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

Seems that bloggers are still a viable means of publicity for publishers and authors, who send out ARCs and galleys as well as printed books to blogger reviewers. I love reading and writing about books and have expanded my book interests, found a lot of very good books that I would not have picked up on my own. Even though every single book I read can't be reviewed, because of time, there are books I feature or profile for readers.

Here are my new books this week:

The Healer by Antti Tuomainen, dystopian crime thriller
The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan, crime fiction
The Fallout by Garry Disher, crime fiction
Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura, literary thriller
A Spider in the Cup by Barbara Cleverly, crime fiction

The Sexy Vegan's Happy Hour at Home by Brian L. Patton, cookbook
The Viagra Diaries by Barbara Rose Brooker, coming of age novel
The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett, historical fiction

I also have a few paperback cozies from Berkely and Obsidian, books to take to a beach or park.
 I take a book almost everywhere instead of my trusty e-reader. E-books are not my favorite way of reading, but the Kindle goes with me on a plane trip this summer. Beats hauling a ton of books along.

The sun is out finally, and the days are getting warmer. We went from winter right into summer, with only a few days of spring, it seems. I think my flowers bushes are confused. The iris are just now coming out when they normally bloom in April. They are plentiful and spread but are being kept in check by the hungry new bunnies and rabbits who visit from next door. I can't complain even though the crocus leaves don't survive, and the tiny tea rose bushes must have been totally consumed and haven't shown up this year. My consolation - the garden is kept from being rampant.

Have a great day and hope your Sunday is sunny!

Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light by David Downie

Title: Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light by David Downie
Published April 5, 2011; Broadway paperback
Genre: travel
Photographs by Alison Harris

Paris is only one of the cities called the "City of Light." It was given this name because it was the first European city that lit up its streets with gaslights. Other cities with the title include Miami, Florida; Anchorage, Alaska and Los Angeles, Ca., given for different reasons. The oldest city known as the City of Light is Varanasi (known as Benares) in India, the place where light first entered earth, according to Hindu belief.

For those traveling to Paris, Paris, Paris is the most complete and detailed description and history of Paris that I have seen. With lots of interesting tidbits and historical facts, it also has the advantage that it can be read in sections.

Here is the book/publisher description:
"Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Elysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens and the aristocratic Île Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine. 

Downie wound up living in the chic Marais district, married to the Paris-born American photographer Alison Harris, an equally incurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, he still spends several hours every day rambling through Paris, and writing about the city he loves. 

 An irreverent, witty romp featuring thirty-one short prose sketches of people, places and daily life, Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light ranges from the glamorous to the least-known corners and characters of the world’s favorite city."

I hope to make it back someday to Paris, which I visited after college during a short ramble through Europe. I'd be sure to read this book first, though, to get the most out of the trip.

Thanks to the author for a complimentary copy of this book. 

Book Review: The Girl Who Married an Eagle by Tamar Myers

The 1960s in the Belgian Congo, Africa, a few years before the country's independence.

Story: A young girl in the Bashilele tribe runs away during her wedding, escapes into the bush and is attacked by a pack of hyenas but the girl, Buakane, is found by a white missionary, before the hyenas can do serious harm. The missionary takes her to a boarding school for girls like herself,  runaway child brides. The school is run by Belgian missionaries in the Congo.

Julia Newton, a young college graduate from Ohio, joins the missionaries as a teacher in the school. This is the story of Julia and the story of the runaway Buakane, both different in background and points of view, but both having to adapt to an environment strange to them, though for different reasons.

Comments: I liked that the story was told with a lot of humor, even though the setting in the African bush was alarming for Julia, as she had to be constantly on the alert for hyenas, poisonous snakes, and the threat of revenge by the Bashilele warriors who might come to the school at any time to retrieve their runaway brides. Julia is considered unsuitable for missionary work by the other missionaries as she challenges their stringent and narrow rules and outlook. She is befriended though by Hank, a widowed missionary, and his young daughter, Clementine, and by her house helper, the astute African woman called Cripple.

As this story is based on the author's experience growing up in a missionary family in the Belgian Congo, I took the situation, the dangers, the differences in culture to be fairly close to fact. I liked that the story was told from both points of view, the Africans' and the white missionaries'.  Both groups viewed each other's appearance, habits, beliefs, food, and culture with equal amounts of alarm, dismay, and even disgust. Tamar Myer's style of writing brings humor and clarity to the story, however, and is very charming in its own way.

I highly recommend this for mystery lovers and for those who want to know more about the lives of missionaries in Africa.

Title: The Girl Who Married an Eagle by Tamar Myers
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (April 30, 2013)
Genre: mystery set in the Belgian Congo era
Objective rating: 5/5

For more reviews of the book, visit the TLC Book Tour schedule.

About the author: Tamar Myers was born and raised in the Belgian Congo (now just the Congo). Her parents were missionaries to a tribe which, at that time, were known as headhunters and used human skulls for drinking cups. Hers was the first white family ever to peacefully coexist with the tribe.

Tamar grew up eating elephant, hippopotamus and even monkey. She attended a boarding school that was two days away by truck, and sometimes it was necessary to wade through crocodile infested waters to reach it. Other dangers she encountered as a child were cobras, deadly green mambas, and the voracious armies of driver ants that ate every animal (and human) that didn’t get out of their way.

 Today Tamar lives in the Carolinas with her American-born husband. She is the author of 36 novels (most of which are mysteries), a number of published short stories, and hundreds of articles on gardening. Find out more about Tamar and her books at her website.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author/publisher for a review galley of this book. 

Book Feature: The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Title: The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro
Published May 14, 2013; Harper
Genre: historical novel
Source: ARC from the publisher

Publisher description:
"London, 1955.
Grace Monroe is a young newlywed, eager to make a success of her marriage. However, with her  talent for advanced mathematics, she finds the elegant luncheons and parties among post-war London’s social set more tiresome than exciting.

When Grace receives an unexpected inheritance from a woman she’s never met, she finds herself suddenly on a journey to discover the identity of her benefactor and the secrets of her own past. In a story that takes us from New York in the 1920s to mid-century Monte Carlo, Paris and London, Grace discovers the intoxicating power of perfume; a desperate love between muse and artist; and a trail of dark memories that may mean she isn’t the person she thinks she is at all."

What do you think of the book cover and the premise of the story?

Cozy Mystery Cats and Dogs: Do You Have a Favorite?

Have any cozy mystery novels with cats or dogs on the cover? Makes me think that cozy readers are also pet lovers, whether they read contemporary mysteries or historical mysteries.

Take a look at a sample of book covers with felines and dogs perched on the covers.

A Fete Worse Than Death by Claudia Bishop. Someone gets killed during the rivalry of crafters at a Spring Fete in upstate New York. No mention of the cat!

Bowled Over by Victoria Hamilton, with a Fourth of July contemporary setting. Vintage kitchenware and cookbook collector finds the body of a former friend. 

The Christie Curse by Victoria Abbott, set in New York in 1926, involves a sleuth hunting down rare mystery novels for a book collector. 

A Marked Man by Barbara Hamilton, set in colonial America. The book description doesn't mention the role of the cat on the cover.

Do animals or pets on the cover persuade you to pick up a book? Let's see what the publisher's descriptions have to say about these books.I think there are animals in all these mysteries but they are not crucial to the plot as some other cats/dogs are in other books.

My favorite dog centered mystery series, for example include Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie mysteries, Chet being the dog in a detective duo.

I reviewed The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn two years ago and liked it so much, especially Chet the dog, that I went back and read the others in the series. The stories are told by Chet, and they are amusing as well as charming! Quinn surely knows how to get us into the mind of a dog!

Another fave dog mystery is Ten Little Bloodhounds by the late Virginia Lanier. The series is excellent! The bloodhounds of course help Jo Beth Sidden find the clues.


The first mystery series I read that featured animals was Susan Conant's Dog Lovers Mysteries with her two Alaskan malamutes. I reviewed Brute Strength a couple years ago, and of course I've read all the books in the series, at least 19 of them.  Here's another one that's good:



In Animal Appetite, the 10th in the series, Holly Winter and her two Alaskan Malamutes in Cambridge, Mass. find the murderer of one of their own - a dog lover.

What about cats as the main feature in mystery novels, by writers such as
Rita Mae Brown and Lilian Jackson Braun and their talking detective cats;
Sofie Kelly and her Magical Cats,
Miranda James and her librarian's cat,
Leann Sweeney and her Cats in Trouble.
And there are so many, many more with a cat theme.

Do you have a favorite animal mystery novelist or series?