Sunday Salon: Death Doesn't Forget by Ed Lin

 Book Arrival:

Death Doesn't Forget

(TAIPEI NIGHT MARKET #4)

by 

Ed Lin

Published July 19, 2022 by Soho Crime

Setting: Taipei, Taiwan

Genre: humorous mystery, crime fiction

About the book:  

The fourth of Ed Lin's Taipei mystery series is as hilarious and poignant as ever.

Jing-nan, the proprietor of a food stand at Taipei's largest night market, is framed for a string of high-profile murders in the city.

 This could jeopardize his relationship with Nancy, his girlfriend, and with his workers Dwayne and Frankie the Cat, who are facing their own personal trials. For Jing-nan,  everything is on the line. Worst of all, he could lose followers on social media. (publisher)

Thanks to Soho Crime for a hardcopy of this book, for possible review. 

E-book ARCs: I have tons to read, plus several library books, in all genres. The problem is, which of them to read first, then next, then after that? It comes down to my mood, especially inbetween chores. 

Gardening is taking up a lot of time, ever since we took down a huge tree limb that covered half the back yard. We now have the sunlight and the space to be more creative, but it is taking a lot of weeding, replanting, planting, and mulching. All to be done inbetween the very hot weather and the rain!

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: A Climbing Thriller and a Romantic Comedy

 Currently reading:

Breathless (click on title for my review). 

by 

Amy McCulloch 

Published May 3rd 2022 by Anchor Books

Setting: Manaslu, Nepal - the eighth-highest peak in the world

About the book: A high-altitude thriller that will take your breath away--Journalist Cecily Wong is on her most dangerous climb yet, miles above sea level on a mountain in Nepal. But the elements are nothing compared to one chilling truth: There's a killer on the mountain.

I'm half way through, and find it very suspenseful and informative about the dangers and thrills of alpine climbing and mountaineering. 

And now for another rom com, 

Bad Cruz

by 

L.J. Shen

Kindle Edition, published November 10th, 2021

I'm enjoying this  romantic comedy on Kindle Unlimited. 

About the book: Two unlikely people - a quarterback turned beloved small town physician and a single mom with a bad reputation - find themselves thrown together on a pre-wedding cruise meant for their entire families. Several factors could prevent them from getting along.

See my goodreads review. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday  

Sunday Salon: New Mysteries for Review

 Books received for review: 

Murder on the Vine

(Tuscan Mystery #3)

by 

Camilla Trinchieri, September 13, 2022, Soho Crime

Genre: cozy culinary mystery, international mystery/crime

About: The latest installment in Camilla Trinchieri's Tuscan Mystery series finds ex-NYPD homicide detective Nico Doyle investigating the murder of a local eighty-year-old bartender.

Shadow of the Gypsy

by 

Shelly Frome, May 3, 2022, BQB Publishing

Genre: murder thriller

About: A nemesis from the past suddenly returns, forcing Josh Bartlett to come to terms with his true identity.
Josh Bartlett had figured all the angles, changed his name, holed up as a small-town features writer in the seclusion of the Blue Ridge. Zharko had been deported well over a year ago. 

Outside of blogging and reading: Gardening, visiting an art museum, dim sum breakfast in Cleveland.

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday  

The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian: Book Beginning

 

The Lioness

by 

Chris Bohjalian

Published May 10th 2022 by Doubleday Books

About the book: A luxurious African safari turns deadly for a Hollywood starlet and her entourage in this historical thriller set in Tanganyika, now Tanzania.

Book beginning/First paragraph:

Katie Barslow

She was watching the giraffes at the watering hole after breakfast, no longer as awed by their presence as she had been even four days ago, when she'd had first seen a great herd of them eating leaves from a copse of tall umbrella acacia, their heads occasionally bobbing up to stare back, unfazed and not especially alarmed by the humans. 

Page 56: 

"No," she told him, feeling more like his mother than his wife. "You're right to be scared. We should be. But..."

 

Click on the title, The Lioness, to see my Goodreads review.  

 Would you read on?

The Friday 56. Find any sentence that grabs you on page 56 of your book. Post it, and add your URL to Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

First Chapter: Murder Is No Picnic by Amy Pershing

Murder Is No Picnic

(Cape Cod Foodie Mystery #3)

by 

Amy Pershing, publication June 7, 2022, Berkley Books

About the book: 

A search for the world's best blueberry buckle turns into a search for a killer in this delicious installment in the Cape Cod Foodie Mysteries by Amy Pershing.

 What could be better than a DIY clambake followed by the best blueberry buckle in the world? Sam has finally found the perfect recipe in the kitchen of Clara Foster, famed cookbook author and retired restaurateur.

But when Clara dies in a house fire blamed on carelessness in the kitchen, Sam doesn't believe it. Sam needs to find Clara's killer before the fireworks really start..

First chapter/first paragraph:

"Ladies and gentleman, I have an announcement," I said grandly.

My friends paused from wolfing down various decadent desserts and glanced at one another skeptically. They were not used to me saying anything grandly....

"My search for a blueberry buckle worthy of our upcoming Fourth of July is finally at an end," I said, still in grand mode. 

 

Would you read on ?

First Chapter/Intros meme is  hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each Tuesday post the first paragraph or two of a book you are reading or plan to read soon

Sunday Salon: A New Book and Recently Read

 

Mud Lilies

by 

Indra Ramayan, p

ublished May 21st 2022 by Cormorant Books

Genre: urban fiction, literary fiction 

Source: publisher review copy

About the book: The night fourteen-year-old Chanie Nyrider ran away from her abusive parents, she was saved by an older woman who  offered Chanie a new life working as a prostitute. With nowhere to turn, Chanie was drawn into Edmonton’s dark underbelly, where she survived until arrested four years later. She was given two options: jail or a high school program for troubled youth. Mud Lilies is the powerful story of a young woman finding a path of hope in the darkest of places and defiantly choosing to pursue it.

“Harrowing, hopeful, and informed by Ramayan's own experiences as a runaway to Edmonton, Mud Lilies is a hymn to the power of one young woman's defiant spark of life, a story of grit and wisdom set against a backdrop of cruelty and indifference.” — Grace O’Connell, Open Book

Recently read:

HARVEE’S RECENT UPDATES on Goodreads

Harvee rated a book it was amazing The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang (Goodreads Author)	Read My rating: 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars[ 5 of 5 stars ]
It's amazing that a chance encounter with a stranger, Zhang Fujian, carrying a small fortune in his bag would lead to the downfall of the Chao family patriarch, owner of the Chao restaurant, and lead to suspicion falling on the three sons. I enjoyed the characterization of each son, so different from one another, and the denouement of the plot in this domestic drama. There is a murder to be solved, also, but I liked that the brothers join together in the face of being children of immigrants in a small American town, and in the face of possible, pending tragedy.
Harvee rated a book  Lemon by Kwon Yeo-Sun   Read My rating: 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars[ 4 of 5 stars ]5 of 5 stars This turned out not to be a detective novel as it first seemed, but a look at high schoolers then and seventeen years later in relation to the murder of a female student. There are hints as to what could have happened in the murder but the students and their interactions are the important elements of the novel. Character driven rather than plot driven, this was an unusual but very interesting look at adolescents.

Harvee rated a book   The Boy With the Bookstore by Sarah Echavarre Smith (Goodreads Author)

Read My rating: 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars[ 4 of 5 stars ]5 of 5 stars

The romance between Max and Joelle began and blossomed early in the book, which surprised me, as I wondered, where the story would go from there. I liked that family plays such an important role in Joelle's life and that Max comes to value the idea of family as something he never had. I also liked that problems with Max's bookstore and Joelle's bakery also moved the story forward. The romance could have had more internal challenges, however, instead of all from outside conflicts. Also, the constant praises for Joelle as a dutiful daughter, praises from Max and from her family were a little overdone throughout the book. But overall, this was a pleasant read, a contemporary young romance novel.

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday