The Examiner A Novel by Janice Hallett

Hallett writes mysteries in a way that no one else does. She has tight stories that leave clues the whole way through but you never can quite tell where she’s heading until you get there.
Like most of her stories, this is told in two parts; one told in “present” time while the other is told as the bulk of the story unfolds. In this case, we have six students and a teacher who are embarking on a Multimedia Arts course teaching creative-types who to work in the “real world.” It is a prospective course and being added to the calendar full time means that Angela “Gela” will get to keep her job.
We watch the six students work their way through the nearly ten months of the course as they work through personality clashes and their assignments. But some of the students aren’t there just to take the class and at least one of them won’t be alive at the final presentation.
The last section dragged on a bit (the last day was maybe 1/4 -1/3 of the book) and the end was a bit over the top but always a fun read from Hallett.

Four stars

This came out September 10, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau

Told mainly from the point of view of the heroine, this book explores a fake dating situation that, of course, turns into a full blown relationship by the end of the book. 
Writer and barista Emily Hung has a mother who is full bore into matchmaking. Emily is the second of five girls and her youngest sister just got married leaving her as the only single child. Add in the fact that she's working in the arts and she just feels like her mother doesn't approve of Emily's lifestyle. Enter, Mark Chung. The son of Emily's mother's friend, he is held up as a paragon. And at her sister's wedding, Emily is forced to spend time with the man. Mark, spends most of that time on his phone. Obviously, he isn't very interested either. But, to get her mother off their backs, they decide to fake date. This gets very involved with cake decorating dates and meeting to sync their stories.
It is during these meetings that Emily starts to notice that Mark may be different than she originally assumed. Not quite as lofty and maybe, just maybe, he is interested in her too.
I wish we had gotten more time with Mark. I think we were almost three quarters of the way through the book when we switch to his perspective. Because we saw so much from Emily's side, I was left feeling that there was more to explore from him. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out April 7, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett

I've read all of Hallett's other books and really enjoy her format of a mix of various media. This book includes texting, transcription, and a What'sApp-type app. Supposedly, the reader has opened a safe box with printouts of all of this communication. The story mainly revolves around Amanda Bailey, an author who is focusing on a case that is about eighteen years old, that of a cult whose leader is in jail for killing two people. They also kidnapped a baby who will be turning eighteen this year and a new book could focus around their experiences and the life they now live.

As with Hallett's previous stories, there are layers upon layers and red herrings abound. It got a little too complicated for me in parts but it was overall a lovely read.

Four stars

This book comes out January 23, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and Edelweiss

Opinions are my own

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett

I listened to the first book in this series and wondered whether it was easier to follow all of the communications in print. With this book, I discovered, no, no it is not. Still entertaining, this novella follows the same format of emails being written back and forth among the various members of the Fairway Players with conversations on WhatsApp between people who are later putting together a solution to some mystery that we will find out about later in the story.

We have moved a couple of years after the first book and the players are now under new leadership as well as having new people in the group some of whom live in the Granger which seems to have been converted into apartments. Of course, not all of the drama is on stage with passions simmering behind the scenes as well and people writing one thing to a member but about-facing with another member. At the end of all of this will be blackmail, drugs, and a body.

Three and a half stars

This novella comes out October 24, 2023

Follows The Appeal

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

This book was hard to follow because there are so many characters. I wondered if that was because I was listening as an audiobook but I read the follow up novella and it is a little hard either way. The idea is that two lawyers are reading emails after a specific crime and they are trying to figure out what actually happened. Even the reader doesn't actually know who got murdered until we are well into the book as the Fairway Players exchange information about their upcoming play which is meant to raise money for a toddler with cancer. But there are a lot of doubts being sown about whether everyone is who they say they are, whether everyone's telling the truth, and whether everyone mentioned in the story will be alive at the end.

Three and a half stars 

This book came out January 4, 2021

Followed by The Christmas Appeal

Borrowed as audiobook from Library

Opinions are my own

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

Hallett obviously created this book as a labor of love. The codes are intricate, the story is refreshing, and the way the story is told is one I haven't read before. I would classify it as an epistolary novel since it is ostensibly told through documents. 

Unfolding in transcriptions of files taken from a found iPhone, we learn the story of Steven Smith, recently released from prison. We don't learn why he was in prison until the end of the book but it is that experience which took him away from most of his son's life, the son he is transcribing all of these events for. 

The main story revolves around a book Steven "Little Smithy" found on a bus. When he brought it into school and showed his teacher, she used the book to connect his remedial English class to the written word. She also seemed to take note of the book and tells them about a code in the book. On a field trip to visit the author's house, their teacher vanishes. Decades later, Steven is trying to figure out what actually happened but it seems to have dropped him right into danger. 

Four stars

This book comes out January 24, 2023

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Flight Risk by Cherie Priest

Leda Foley has a new case. A man has come to her looking for answers to why his sister disappeared. She is just starting to get to work when Grady Merritt, homicide detective shows up. His dog found a leg at Mount Rainier. Just the leg. Well, he also swallowed a man's wedding ring. The two are able to track the ring back to the woman's husband. Which is odd since the man didn't seem to worried his wife was missing. He's a professor whose interest in his students may be a little too interested. But both man and wife are missing and it will take Leda and Grady working together to find them both.

I like this series. I like that Leda and Grady aren't love interests (at least not yet) and for sure there is no love triangle (a trap many cozies seem to fall into). I am very much looking forward to the next book in the series. 

Four stars

This book comes out November 15, 2022

Follows Grave Reservations

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

Leda Foley has sort of always considered herself sort of a minor psychic. She gets flashes but they are mainly small things like preventing someone from spilling a coffee. Heck, she doesn't even have any information about her fiance's death three years ago. But then she gets a big flash and, in the course of her job as a travel agent, reroutes an LA detective off of a plane that blows up on the tarmac. It's a good thing that she's been slowly building her psychic muscles by holding objects for people and then picking a karaoke song because she's going to need all the skill she can get in order to help the detective solve a cold case. A cold case that might help her find some closure for herself.

The connection between the two cases was a bit tenuous and there were a lot of people introduced in the story but I liked that Leda actually acted like she had some brains and didn't rush into dangerous situations like is so common for amateur detectives in contemporary novels. A bit quirky but fairly fun. 

Three and a half stars

This book cam out October 26th, 2021

Followed by Flight Risk

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

Diana and Jeremy know each other when both are young. She is on the marriage mart and already knows that her best hope at a bright future is going to be a brilliant match. Therefore, she has little interest in Jeremy who is a fine enough gentleman but he is often drunk and doesn't seem to be building the family coffers.

Five years later, Lady Templeton is now widowed and is a good friend of Jeremy. In fact, they are well-known for making a series of bets with each other. Their latest wager is that Jeremy will be married within a year. It is somewhat hobbled by the fact that Jeremy, though known to have hopped into the beds of most of the married women of the ton, is now doubting his own prowess based on comments from his last mistress... er, lover. While he could have broken it off with her in a better manner (while still in bed with her after making love), he still wonders if she is telling the truth.  Jeremy thinks they could have some mutual gain by embarking on an affair. He can find out the truth of his skill in bed and Diana can let other men know that she is accepting lovers. A house party at Jeremy's seems the perfect place to begin an affair and to get Jeremy set up with the perfect woman... Lady Helen.

However, this is a romance so not all goes as expected.

Diana was delightful. She knew (for the most part) what she wanted in life and she went for it. Jeremy was also built out really well and I enjoyed seeing them go from friends to lovers. So much that I might even check out Waters' first book which I didn't think I'd enjoy but I'm curious about the characters.

I really hope that we get a story with Emily and her beau, Julian Belfry.

Four stars

This book come out April 6th

ARC kindly provided by Atria Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own