Known as "the Troll," Ben prefers to be in the basement, away from people. He's surprised that Poppy is in the basement but is immediately attracted. As she is to him. And when they're the only two people left in the library during a snowstorm, that attraction flares.
Elle Saunders just lost her grandfather. He was her only family member... almost. There are her four friends, the Wildflowers. And they are the ones to whom her grandfather left his campground. The five friends decide to band together and create a camp for adults -- let them relive their childhoods but with adult activities (some more adult than they were expecting.) But they need to make updates, as cheaply as possible. Which leads them to hiring the Costa brothers (though that isn't the name the brothers use). The men are there because the rumor is that Elle is the latest woman their father has been having an affair with., the latest whose business their father is sinking money into. Money that the board of the family company is asking an accounting for.
Charlotte Holmes is again solving mysteries, this time her mission is somewhat different though as she works to steal back some letters that are very important to a friend of Mrs. Watson's. The letters are, of course, indelicate and could lead to her losing her place of importance in Indian society. Well, it turns out that the woman is willing to turn down the services of Sherlock Holmes when he doesn't react the way she expects. But Charlotte decides to help the woman anyway. So she, Mrs. Watson, Olivia, Olivia's beau Stephen, and Lord Ingram are all off to a ball where the costumes abound.
Nancy Drew has just moved to a new school and some of the first people she meets are Frank and Joe Hardy. With a mixture of characters from the Hardy Boys and from Nancy Drew (though, why cut Bess? And why so many male characters?), this definitely isn't like either of the original series. For one thing, Nancy never actually says that she's a detective. Frank and Joe are depected as rather bumbling.
Sloan is up against murder again. This time, the victim is a man who was trying to make their town dry. Considering the fact that most of the town makes money off the tourism based around the local breweries. If the town went dry, there would be no money coming in. It's just too bad the man is found in April Amblin's office. The "official ambassador " to Leavenworth may have been annoyed by Kristopher but that doesn't mean she killed the man.
Philomena Amesbury, Lady Dunbridge helped solve the murder of her friend's husband and that makes her a somewhat more likely person for financier Luther Pratt to come to when a young man is murdered at his home. The night before, Phil had gone to a party at his house and met Perry Fauks, heir to the Copper, Coal and Steel fortune. This morning, he is dead.
Renee Grothen doesn't especially want to get married, even though she's a wedding coordinator. Instead, she's willing to indulge in some fun and then go her separate ways from the guy. At least that's what she's telling herself. And the guy she happens to have her eye on is Jasper Dembenski, local and author extraordinaire.
I loved Nancy as a kid and was excited to see this collection. Olivia Jaimes is a newish Nancy author, it sounds like from the introduction. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the charm was from reading the jokes from that time period. And probably from not understanding just how grating her personality might be from an adult perspective. While I think it's me that's changed, not her, Nancy in the teens is not my favorite.
Professional matchmaker Alice Weatherford offered to go ahead to Oklahoma to help make sure her friend's wedding preparations are on track. She didn't expect to be stranded at the Bellini's ranch (with a set of three daughters who are obviously sequel bait and I am so excited to read Erin's story about falling in love with her fiance's best friend.) Nor did she expect to meet their neighbor, Clay Henry with whom she has such a chemical reaction.
Olivia Santini has been the assistant manager of the Evergreen Resort and Spa for a long time and has been doing the work of the manager for almost as long. She knows that she is going to be named manager and she'll be able to lift the slowly failing resort back up to where it should be in the Markham chain of resorts. When she meets a gorgeous woman walking in the woods, it's just icing on the cake of her life. However, it's all about to go south when she finds out that woman, Hayley, has been made the manager instead, even though she's never worked a day in her life.
Tuesday Mooney, prospect researcher (how many books use this as a character's job? This position sets her up perfectly for the rest of the book), is quiet, pale, and wears a lot of black. She has one good friend, Poindexter "Dex". Investment banker by day but with a flamboyant gay man who likes to wear dresses and makeup in his off time. He is the one standing next to Laila "Lyle" Pryce when her eccentric husband dies at a fundraiser Tuesday's nonprofit is running (though, why is she signed up as a volunteer? She works for the company). It is also Dex who sends Tuesday a link to the newspaper article announcing that Vincent Pryce (yes, really) has left clues around the city for people to solve a mystery that will lead them to inherit from his vast estate.
Rachel Monaghan helps out at her cousin's bar fairly often even though she is a much sought after wedding photographer. She is amused to see a hot business lady who is clearly on a first date. And the same woman is there on another first date the day after. And the day after. Soon, Rachel, as well as the regulars in the bar are as anxious to see what happens as Veronica navigates her way through a series of women who are often identified by their favorite drink rather than their names.In the course of trying to (some what ambivalently) April's name, Sloan runs up against a number of people who were indebted to Kristopher who seemed to be tricking townspeople into borrowing money from him and then trying to swindle them out of their business.
Roxanne Medina has worked her way up from nothing to be a billionaire before she's thirty. What she wants now is nothing except a child. But she wants her child to know its father. And that's why she enters into a a business arrangement. Or, tries to. She researches all of the principalities and found one that needs money. It doesn't hurt that the heir apparent is also known as the Golden God.Príncipe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos is trying to save his kingdom from the degradations and excesses of his parents. Is a marriage with Roxanne the way to do it? Maybe not but it's certainly one way. It's too bad she's so infuriating, treating him as if he were one of her employees at best and more than a little dim at worst. But Shes's hot and he wants her but her personality leaves a lot to be desired. And he doesn't want just a cold relationship with his child's mother so he bargains that one of their three nights a month will be spent dating. And it's in those dates that he begins to find a woman with whom he could fall in love.The Big Misunderstanding went on a little long at the end but the ending made the characters learn to talk to each other..
Sherlock Holmes is missing and Moriarty has formed a new group of super villains. It is a group that has kidnapped Alice, the maid, and she finds herself down the rabbit hole. It is up to the other women (girls?) of the Athena Club to help her figure out what is going on.
Three stars
Vivian Forest has been busy the past year and a half and it's about to pay off with a probable promotion. She doesn't want to lose that momentum but she also doesn't want to miss Christmas with her daughter. While Maddie works, Vivian is supposed to amuse herself. Luckily, the man she mentally dubs "Hot Chocolate" introduces himself and offers to show her around the "cottage" she and Maddie are staying in. 
Ryan Sadler had one great book that burst onto the literary scene. Now, his romance life is in tatters and his writer's block is impenetrable. But meeting Nina is starting to heal some of those broken places inside him. Even though she is not at all what he wants at the moment, she seems to be spurring his creative process and rebuilding his trust in love.
I loved the world building of this story. It's a slow build so you're thrown into this alternate universe and left to follow helplessly along as you meet Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Neg They are in the process of dropping off a load of kittens. Psychic kittens. Kittens that are currently running amok on the ship. When they're finally contained, Eva learns that she's not actually going to get paid for this trip. Which is not great since she's balancing on the edge of not being able to pay her crew anyway. So it's not a great day when The Fridge calls. It's a fringe group that kidnaps family members, in this case Eva's sister, and keeps them in cryo-stasis until someone provides them with what they want. In this case, Eva is to run some transport for them. Her life doesn't get better when she takes just a moment to step out of her life and get stinking drunk. When a totally gross guy propositions her, she beats him down only then to discover that he is a prince of the Galaxy or something equally impressive. Anyway, a guy who is able to make her life a living hell. Er, hell-ier.
Okay, Peterfreund obviously has a deep and abiding love for the 1980s movie version of Clue with at least a dozen little easter eggs sprinkled into the text as homages to that amazing cult classic. Otherwise, this is a completely re-imagined version of a bunch of people with names (first, last, nick) that are related to colors who are at Blackbrook, an elite academy, over the winter break when a flood/snowstorm collide to make for a really uncomfortable time. Headmaster Boddy gathers all of the students, including at least three who had negative interactions with him recently, in the Tudor house with the woman in charge of the house, Mrs. White and one adult janitor, Rusty. However, one of the students, the one we follow most closely throughout the third person narration, Orchid, wakes up early on the first morning after they're gathered and finds the body of Boddy in the kitchen, stabbed. Almost all of the people gathered in the house have secrets they'd like to keep - Vaughn Green, the local boy there on scholarship; Phineas Plum, first among the science students and one of the students called in to talk to the Headmaster; Scarlet Mistry, Finn's humanities counterpart and partner in ensuring they both come in first in their respective fields; Beth "Peacock" PIcah who may have thrown a candlestick at Boddy after a loud argument followed by a thud; Orchid McKee who is hiding her true identity but someone has found her out; Samuel "Mustard" Maestro who has only been at Blackbrook for a month after getting booted out of military school mid-semester.
I think people that don't mind some stories that make you really think, even if they are a bit depressing, will enjoy this book. For me, this was not a good time to read these stories so I don't think I connected to them well.'
Another great collection of Peanuts comics. We have Charlie in a fight with the kite eating tree, Sally trying to write a report that is factual, and Lucy still working on getting Schroeder to notice her. Of course, we get some glimpses into various baseball games and more than a few Beagle Scout trips (addition of Harriet and her Angel Food Cake with Seven-Minute Icing.)
With a series of stories from the Golden Age, all set at winter holidays, this set of stories is a lovely tome to read in front of a roaring fireplace. The story from which this anthology takes its title is a locked room mystery that takes place when a group of railway travelers is stranded at a hotel that they are warned not to stay at. But what else are they to do?
I don't necessarily feel any pressure to prepare the perfect Christmas but I do generally love all things surrounding the holiday and thought this looked fun. And it was -- my favorite aspect was creating a mission statement for your Christmas. I think that very much helps keep people on track.