Teaser Tuesday: First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia of The Purplebooker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Then, as if my perpetual state of sunshine couldn't allow such a negative thought to infect my mind - I'm pretty sure I was a flower child in a past life - I just had to see the cup half full. Hopefully of Jack Daniel's."
~ 43% Through on my Kindle

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones is the first book in the Charley Davidson series. It was released February 1, 2011 by St. Martin's Press.

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!

Review: The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry

The story opens in Salem, Massachusetts Halloween 1989. A group of women is gathered together to consecrate the ground where the hangings of the accused witches in 1692 took place. Then suddenly they are attacked. There are 2 survivors. One is a 5-year-old young girl who was hidden by one of the women in some briars. The other is one of the women that the girl calls Auntie Rose aka Rose Whelan - the leader of the event.  

Callie, the young girl, has no recollection of the event, but she has a scar on the palm of her hand in the shape of a rose from holding onto the rosary that Auntie Rose gave her so tightly while she was hidden. Rose appears to have lost her mind as a result of the attack and claims that it was a banshee that attacked and killed the young women collectively known as 'The Goddesses.'

Salem, Massachusetts 2014, 25 years later to the day, Rose is again implicated in an attack. This time on a young boy - a bit of a hoodlum. There are no marks on his body, but she was present when he died. She claims the banshee did it again.

John Rafferty, chief of police of Salem, finds himself in a position where he believes that Rose had nothing to do with either incident. He decides he must reopen the cold case of The Goddesses' murders. 

Most of the book is from Callie's point of view, but a fair amount is also from Rafferty's point of view. Callie starts to have vivid dreams of what happened in the past and shares these with Rafferty. Meanwhile, Rafferty goes through legal channels and old evidence trying to solve the cold case while he waits for a cause of death of the boy.

It's mostly Callie's story. And she gets involved with local old families. One member of which is responsible for triggering some of her most vivid dreams. 

There is history, mystery and a touch of romance in The Fifth Petal. I read the first book in this series, The Lace Reader, a while back. It was a good book, but not as good as The Fifth Petal. Brunonia Barry's writing seems to have improved in the time between the two books. You can read The Fifth Petal without having read The Lace Reader and still enjoy it. Truthfully, I remembered little of the first book. Towner and Rafferty were both characters in the first book and have roles in this one as well - Rafferty a little more so than Towner.

There are some things that you might consider either paranormal or magical realism elements. There is the ability to see the future by reading lace that is mentioned. And there is the way that Towner, Callie, and some of the other people seem to know things before they happen or are said by people. There is Callie's use of musical therapy for healing. And finally, there is the question of the banshee. Is she real?

Overall, it's a good book. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It's well written. The mystery is good. The inclusion of the history is a plus. The author tells some of what is real vs pure fiction in the acknowledgments. I may have enjoyed it more because of the history in it. The 1692 events in Salem have always interested me. I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys a good mystery with a few possibly paranormal elements and a touch of romance. If you like Salem and its history, then you will enjoy it even more.

The Fifth Petal was released January 24, 2017 from Crown.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Waiting on Wednesday #173: Winter of the Gods by Jordanna Max Brodsky

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event which has been hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating. I'm also linking up with "Can't Wait Wednesday" hosted over at Wishful Endings.

Expected publication:
February 14th 2017 by Orbit

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Manhattan has many secrets. Some are older than the city itself. 
Winter in New York: snow falls, lights twinkle, and a very disgruntled Selene DiSilva prowls the streets looking for prey. 
But when a dead body is discovered sprawled atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull statue, it's clear the NYPD can't solve the murder without help. The murder isn't just the work of another homicidal cult -- this time, someone's sacrificing the gods themselves. 

While raising fundamental questions about the very existence of the gods, Selene must hunt down the perpetrators, tracking a conspiracy that will test the bonds of loyalty and love.

Winter of the Gods, the much-anticipated sequel to The Immortals, is the second book in the exciting Olympus Bound trilogy.

Why am I waiting on this one? Well, I read book one in this series and enjoyed it. I'm curious to see where the author will take the characters after the end of the previous book. I wonder what she will do with her mythology and how a human and a goddess in love works out. Winter of the Gods is due out February 14, 2017 from Orbit. You can see my review for The Immortals here.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Thanks for coming by and Happy Reading!

Teaser Tuesday: The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia of The Purplebooker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Through Towner, who was becoming close to Callie, he'd heard that Rose was having good and bad days. She was in and out of lucidity, sometimes making perfect sense, sometimes ranting about the banshee.

~ 24% on my Kindle

The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry is expected to be published January 24, 2016 by Crown. The above quotation comes from an ARC and may appear differently in the final edition.

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!

Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden is an enchanting book with its roots in Russian folklore and fairy tales.

Vasilisa Petrovna, with the nickname Vasya, is our heroine. The tale starts out while she is very young and listening to tales at the hearth from her nurse. One of her favorites to hear stories about is Morozko, the Frost.

After a time, as she grows, someone convinces her father it would be a good thing if she had a mother figure in the home other than her nurse. Her father marries a woman from Moscovy who frankly would rather have been a nun.

Her stepmother is adamant that the old guardians of the hearth and other house spirits should no longer be honored and all faith given to the Christian God. Her father, Pyotr, goes along with the stepmother. Vasya feels that this is wrong and that there will be far reaching consequences for their denial. Secretly she continues to honor the house spirits and asks for their protection for the people. As the story progresses, Vasya's stepmother decides that Vasya must either be married off or sent to a convent.

As the winter worsens, Vasya finds herself in a place where she will have to make a choice. She will have to defy the people she loves if she is to save them from something out of one of her nurse's most frightening tales.

The Bear and the Nightingale is well written. If you love fairy tales and folktales, you will love this book. It captures the early days of Christianity in Russia where the people continued to honor the house spirits side by side with the new God, giving each his due. An interview with the author on Unbound Worlds indicates that she drew on both the history and the folklore of old Russia in her writing.

I loved the way I felt pulled into the setting and among the characters. I especially became fond of Vasilisa and her family. The stepmother, not so much, although I did feel kind of sorry for her. Morozko is an interesting character and, according to Katherine Arden, will appear in future books in what is planned to be a trilogy at the moment.

The Bear and the Nightingale was released January 10, 2017 from Del Rey. I gave it 5 stars. It's a great debut by the author. It reads like a fairy tale or folktale. And it's quite entertaining. I really enjoyed it. I can't wait to read the next book.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Waiting on Wednesday #172: Dancing with Death by Amy Myers

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event which has been hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating. I'm also linking up with Can't Wait Wednesday hosted over at Wishful Endings.

Synopsis from the publisher:

Introducing chef-sleuth Nell Drury in the first of a delightful series of 1920’s traditional country house mysteries. 

1925. The fashionable Bright Young Things from London have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball followed by a midnight Ghost Hunt – and Chef Nell Drury knows she’s in for a busy weekend. What she doesn’t expect to encounter is sudden, violent death. 

When a body is discovered in the minstrels’ gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell finds herself caught up in the police investigation which follows. As the darker side of the Roaring Twenties emerges and it becomes increasingly clear that at least one person present that night has a sinister secret to hide, Nell determines to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?

 Dancing with Death by Amy Myers is due out May1, 2017 from Severn House.

Why am I waiting on this one? I have a fondness for mysteries that take place in the 1920s. This one sounds a little different from the ones I've been reading. 

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Thanks for coming by and Happy Reading!

Teaser Tuesday: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia of The Purplebooker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Vasya had been disappearing into the forest ever since she could walk. She would come back in time for dinner, as always bearing a handful of pine-nuts in apology, flushed and repentant, catlike on her small booted feet.

~ 7% on my Kindle

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden was published January 10, 2017 by Del Rey.

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!

Review: The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

Parasomnias are a big part of the plot in The Sleepwalker. They are more than just sleepwalking, There are additional sleep problems like sleep sex, night terrors, and nightmares. Typically a person experiencing a parasomnia might be hard to wake and once awake they might not remember at all what happened while they were experiencing the episode.

Lianna's mother is a sleepwalker. One night while everyone is asleep, she leaves the house and disappears. It's presumed she was sleepwalking and something happened to her that prevented her coming home. Lianna experienced episodes of sleepwalking and night terrors when she was younger. Now she is worried a little about what might happen to her and her sister if they experience the same sort of behaviors.

During a massive search for her mother, Lianna meets a detective with the State Police who was also a friend of her mother. Gavin and her mother had formed their own sort of mini support group since they had parasomnias in common. Lianna finds herself drawn to the detective. They begin a covert sort of dating relationship.

The Ahlberg family doesn't want to give up hope on finding Annalee, but the longer she is gone, the less likely it is they will recover her alive. This kind of tension in the family is hard on them all, but particularly it would seem on Paige, Lianna's younger sister.

The mystery continues for the rest of the book. There are red herrings and suppositions. As the book progresses, the speed of the action increases. By the time I reached the end I was reading as fast as I could. It was a real page turner.

Structurally, each chapter is introduced by what could be a journal entry by another voice. The rest of the book is pretty much written from Lianna's point of view. You wonder who it is that is saying the things in the beginning of the chapter about their experiences with parasomnias. As the mystery goes on, the things seem to take on more and more potential for revelation, but without an identity.

The writing is beautiful. The sentence structure is varied and words are well chosen.

Overall, I give t his book 5 out of 5 possible stars. It's a good mystery/thriller written beautifully. Lianna makes a great narrator. I liked the structure of the different voice at the beginning of each section. And I stayed up half the night to finish it risking a book hangover, but I had to know what was going to happen next. This is the first book I've read by this author. I will have to read more of his works,

If you enjoy books where you might learn a little (in this case about parasomnias)  and a  mystery that becomes a bit of a thriller then you should find this book enjoyable.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Waiting on Wednesday #171: Masked to Death by Christina Freeburn

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event which has been hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A Caribbean cruise is the perfect setting for a Roget wedding, and Faith meeting Ted’s family. She also hopes the vacation gets their stalled romance moving, but it doesn’t take long for that dream to capsize. Ted’s daughter hates her. The ex-wife is adored. Odessa Roget is surly. And the banned father of a groom, John Roget, requests Faith’s assistance in bringing down a jewel theft ring masterminded by his ex-wife. 

Having had a man she loved accuse her of a crime, Faith won’t let Odessa travel down the same path and agrees to help. Faith sets her course on uncovering the true criminals—which might be a groom’s best friend. The romantic week turns disastrous as a wedding is interrupted, suspicious deaths point to murders, and Ted’s daughter schemes to reunite her parents. Instead of diamonds being a girl’s best friend, Faith finds they’re cruising toward Davy Jones’ Locker. 

Why am I waiting on this one? It's a humorous cozy. It's put out by Henery Press - part of their "if you like one, you'll probably like them all" humorous mystery series. Even though I haven't read this author before, I look forward to the enjoyable, light reading of a good cozy. It's due out on January 24, 2017. This is number 5 in the Faith Hunter Scrap This mystery series.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Thanks for coming by and Happy Reading!

Teaser Tuesday: The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia of The Purplebooker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

And so when the state police from the New Haven barracks were interviewing Paige and me later that morning while they waited for my father to fly home from Iowa City, they probed the possibility that our mother had run off or was having an affair. (location 409)

.........................................................................

It was infuriating and I felt my family was being violated. I understood why they had to ask, but that did not make this line of investigation seem any less absurd or, on some level I could not quite parse at the time degrading. (location 413)

Lianna and Paige are speaking to the state police because their mother has gone missing presumably during a bout of sleepwalking.

I'm not that far into the book yet, but I'm enjoying it. While these two sentences are very long, in general, the sentence length is varied.

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian is due out January 10, 2017 from Doubleday Books.

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!

Review: I Hate Everyone, Except You by Clinton Kelly

I Hate Everyone, Except You by Clinton Kelly is a book of autobiographical essays. I didn't know much about him before reading the book. I enjoyed getting to know more about him through the essays.

One of the things we learn about Clinton through his writing is that he isn't afraid to use profanity. And it seems no topic is off limits. This is a book for adults.

The book opens with an essay about his strong desire to go to a water park at 13 and ends with one where he is giving the commencement address for a high school graduation.  So, he sort of seems to come full circle. The path to getting there is circuitous and includes essays from many different events and time periods in his life.

I love the confidence he shows in his writing and hope it truly carries over into his life. It was interesting reading how he got into fashion writing, and about how he got his job on What Not to Wear, and how he met his husband among other things. Besides being informative, most of the essays are humorous. There were several times I laughed out loud.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It's an entertaining batch of autobiographical essays definitely written for an adult audience. I Hate Everyone, Except You is due out January 10, 2017 from Gallery Books.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Review: Dead Sleeping Shaman by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

Emily Kincaid settled in what seemed to be a quiet corner of Michigan. There is no lasting peace there as she finds a dead body of a woman who had appeared to be sleeping, a cult-like group descends on the town spouting end of the world rhetoric, and now her best friend and detective Dolly seems to have gone off to join the cult.

Emily is on assignment for the local paper covering ghost towns when she stumbles upon what she takes to be a sleeping woman, but turns out to be a dead woman. She is identified as a shaman from Ohio by her friends. As the mystery progresses, it gets more complicated. Why was this woman here from Ohio? Did she have something to do with the end of the world group? What about her roots in the area? Is that what brought her back?

Emily finds herself smack dab in the middle of the investigation since Dolly has been hanging around at the campground for the "end of the world" group. Add in a politician, a mysterious older woman, and Sister Sally and Brother Righteous from the group and you get quite a  mystery. There are also what seem to be the usual happenings in town. The woman that owns the main restaurant is caught posting someone's family tree without permission. Emily and her dog, Sorrow, romp the land near her home. And the old bachelor nearby to her home seems to have finally found love.

The book starts out good. Then it slows down for a bit. It took persistence to finish it. I wanted to know what was going to happen, but there were times I found myself reading very slowly.

The character of Emily is interesting and is the most fleshed out in the story as the main character. I have the feeling that in the earlier books Dolly is more fleshed out as is their relationship. So, while this book can be read as a standalone, you might get more satisfaction if you've read other books in the series as well. This is the third book in the Emily Kincaid series.

The mysteries themselves have red herrings. You are given everything from Emily's point of view, so you can solve the mysteries along with her, or at least come to similar conclusions.

This book was originally published in May of 2010 by Midnight Ink. This review is of the Kindle edition published December 2016 from Beyond the Page.

I gave this book 4 stars out of 5. Overall I enjoyed it. It was slow in parts, but the events kept me reading. I wanted to know what was going to happen both with the "end of the world" group and with the mystery of the dead sleeping shaman.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Waiting on Wednesday #170: The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event which has been hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg and something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.

When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.

Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical. 

Why am I waiting on this one? It sounds interesting. It seems like a blend of historical fiction and the fantastical or paranormal. I'd like to see how it plays out. The Bedlam Stacks is due out August 1, 2017 from Bloomsbury USA.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Thanks for coming by and Happy Reading!

Teaser Tuesday: I Hate Everyone, Except You by Clinton Kelly

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia of The Purplebooker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

He wanted so much to go home, to go anywhere actually, to relieve himself of this obligation. But he had committed himself to showing her around town. He could feign a headache or emergency, but she would be able to detect the lie, wouldn't she? Then she would go back to her apartment, feeling rejected and alone. He couldn't do that to her.

~77% through on my Kindle

I Hate Everyone, Except You by Clinton Kelly is a sort of a collection of memoirish essays. Most of them are humorous in nature. The book is due out January 10, 2017 from Gallery Books.

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!