Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench; Brendan O'Hea

Did you know you needed a book of Judi Dench talking about Shakespeare? I didn't. What a fabulous audiobook has been created here. Brendan O'Hea interviews the icon Dench and it results in what seem to be spontaneous discussions about various plays with sprinkles about her life experiences both off and on stage. It is beyond delightful to hear Dench describe her experiences as various characters. As they talk about each play, describing he remembers quotes from all of the various plays. 
The two seem like old friends who are just having conversations, batting quotes and reminiscences back and forth with a delightful epilogue where they discuss their discussions. 

Four and a half stars

This book comes out April 23, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Macmillan Audio and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Last Word by Elly Griffiths

This book comes out April 23, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Mariner Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

An Enchanting Case of Spirits by Melissa Holtz

 In my life, I've never had the urge to see a ghost. Neither has Alyssa Mann but, after a 40th birthday party gone awry, here she is with a ghost in the house. Then another. And all of them want something. But she doesn't know how to help them. So she enlists the help of the medium who seemed to have unlocked the power.
Suddenly, she and her two besties (as well as the psychic, Corinne) are trying to figure out why the ghost of an obnoxious young man whose death was declared a suicide is hanging around her. He's the first, but he certainly won't be the last. Except the only one she doesn't see is her husband. Which is probably good because, like many cozies, there is a Hot Detective.
An interesting start to a series though I don't generally enjoy books where the point of view switches and this one was so infrequent it often confused me the first three or four sentences when it switched. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out April 9, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Murder Takes Root by Rosie Sandler

The Gardener Mysteries #2

stars

This book comes out April 3, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Embla Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Secrets of a Scottish Isle by Erica Ruth Neubauer

Jane Wunderly has infiltrated a secret cult. She's mainly on her own though her fiance, Redvers, is also on the island. This is the Golden Dawn, based on a cult that actually existed. And involved in that cult? W. B. Yeats who makes an appearance in this book. Not sure if it's actually successful though. 

 The mystery deepens when one of the initiates is killed but nobody's really sure how it was done. Add in a rival cult made up of former members and the suspect pool deepens.  

Three stars

This book comes out March 26, 2023

Follows Intrigue in Istanbul

ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Honeymoons are supposed to be a time to relax and get to spend time with your new partner, right? So why is Meddy so stressed? Could it be because she is introducing her husband to the full extended family (close to 80 people)? Well, that could be a big part of it. It could also be the (purported) mob boss who has accidentally handed out a gift to the wrong person, but he's not quite sure who got the red envelope meant for his business rival. And, when they don't show up with the right gift, something very valuable to Meddy is held instead.
Still a crash of craziness and I think regular readers will enjoy the mayhem.

Four stars

This book comes out March 26, 2024

Follows Four Aunties and a Wedding

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Death at the Drive-In Angie Fox

I do NOT remember that many people knowing that Verity talks to ghosts but, we are already suspending disbelief in this story, so why not here as well? Even more startling, Verity actually works with Virginia (her current AND ex fiances mother, read the rest of the books in the series, it's worth it)

Frankie is really excited to show off his new still to his girlfriend Molly but she's been possessed. And this ghost is a young woman who was killed in 1956. 

Kitty Cunningham disappeared and was assumed to have run away with her boyfriend. But her boyfriend was the son of the local mob boss and a hit had been put on her so no on really knows. It's going to be a race against time to figure out what happened to her since her possessing Molly means that she can drain Molly's power, and Frankie's as well. And if they are drained, they will cease to exist. 

Four stars

This book comes out March 19, 2024

Follows Dread and Buried

ARC kindly provided by Moose Island Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

How to Walk into a Room by Emily P. Freeman

I completely missed that this book was based in Christianity but that doesn't necessarily turn me off reading a book. 

I liked the author's posit that endings don't have to be sad. That this may just be a place that we shouldn't be any more. This book is really about finding those times that it's time to leave a place and head to a new one. I have read almost all of the books that Freeman references and enjoyed the way that she wove in the lessons that she had learned from each and why those stories worked with what she was trying to build in her book. 

Four stars

This book comes out March 12, 2024

ARC kindly provided by HarperOne and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn

It's time for another adventure with Veronica and Stoker. They start out with a tamarin monkey (which is quickly pawned off on Lord Rosemorran's youngest daughter) and end up with a Beauty. Supposedly an anatomical model that doctors could use to study the human body since dissection during this time period was so reviled. However, this beauty was obviously a young woman who was once a living person, not a wax work. But who could have done something so heinous?

The trail leads them to a pair of twins whose scientific inquiries were supported by the second son of a lord. A fire supposedly killed the male twin and his laboratory but did he really die?

Stoker and Veronica pick up some new friends in this book including Plutree, a mortician who has an overbearing mother and is interested in profiling. The other is Spyridon, a man who Stoker knew in Greece but who traveled back to England with Lady Wellie who seems to be getting more frail.

Four stars

This book comes out March 12, 2024

Follows A Sinister Revenge

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

The Hurtwood Village Murders by Benedict Brown

His second book now safely published, Marius Quin is going for a celebratory lunch with his Lady Isabella Montague. Too bad her beau, Gilbert Gaines, joins them. It seems the two have an idea for a new business as private investigators. Their first case can be why people are sending poison pen letters to people in the village they grew up in. Specifically, why Lucinda Heaton, who is revered by most of the town, is getting these letters. 

Isabella and Marius travel back and get to know some of the people in town, none of whom have changed very much though Marius describes trying to overlay the people from his memories with the people in front of him. Then, someone is murdered. Inspector Lovelace is pressed into service once again (though neither Bella nor Marius know his first name...

This was a nice addition to the series. I didn't love the wrap up to the mystery but it left us with an open ended question for the next book in the series.

Marius Quin #2

Four stars

This book comes out February 20, 2024

Follows Murder at Everham Hall

ARC kindly provided by Storm Publishing and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Gone with the Witch by Angela M. Sanders

The book opens with an old outhouse being demolished and a set of bones being discovered. But whoever could the bones have been? There is a thought that they could be Martin Garlington. He disappeared almost fifty years ago. But the DNA says not and, besides, his wife, Helen, has just seen a man on a quiz show that she's convinced is her long, lost husband. She prevails on Josie to find out about the man, Bruno Gates, and ask him to come to town. 

Josie does find him and the man comes to town but he is decidedly NOT Martin. What he is, is a flirt who drinks too much at the bar, flirts a little too hard with the women of the town, and is found dead near where the old bones were discovered.

That is just the start of a mystery that unwinds the past fifty years. This time, Josie has some help in solving it. Her powers must be growing because she is once again finding the same book everywhere, but this time, when she opens it, Sherlock Holmes walks out of an illustration and into helping her solve the mystery. He also warns her that her own Moriarity is going to be making trouble for her.

This was a fun story with a lot of foreshadowing for future books. I felt like some of the characters could have been developed a bit more if they were going to be a part of the eventual solution. There are also some new people who have moved to town including a new rare book dealer whose last name is the same as that of a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out February 20, 2024

Follows Witch Upon a Star

ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Not Your Crush's Cauldron by April Asher

Olive loves her triplets. She does. And she's ecstatic that they've found the loves of their lives. But. Could she maybe catch a break? Chubby, with dirty blond hair that doesn't hold a curl or a color, Olive is generally happy about her life but she really could use a break. Or two. Moving into her crush's apartment isn't exactly the break she was hoping for. However, she's decided to take on the assignment she's given her students and try to stretch her wings. And now that her roommate seems happy to help...

Baxter Donovan is a Guardian Angel but he doesn't much like the position. He likes it even less now that he's been assigned to guard Olive. There are three rules to being a guardian angel: don't tell your Assignment you're their designated guardian, don't get your Assignment Killed, and don't fall in love with your Assignment. Bax has come a little too close for the Guardian Angel Affairs lately and his father isn't pleased. It's just too bad that this latest assignment might find him breaking more than one of the rules. 

Three and a half stars

Supernatural Singles #2

This book comes out February 13, 2024

Follows Not Your Ex's Hexes

ARC kindly provided by St. Martin's Press and NetGalley and Edelweiss

Opinions are my own

The Princess Protection Program by Alex London

Rosamund wakes up suddenly. She's been kissed! Now the dude is babbling about how he's a prince and they're going to live Happily Ever After. But she's not interested. Instead, Rosamund runs. And she ends up in the Home Educational Academy with other princesses who have run right out of their stories.
This world is odd and Rosamund is figuring out how to live in it. There are classes on things like social media, and languages, and cleaning. There is so much cleaning. It's here that Rosamund will figure out how to make friends and figure out what she really wants her life to look like. Will it be in the Academy with Verna? Or will she venture out and face the Uponatimes that might drag her back to the fairy tale?

I enjoyed the first three quarters of this book quite a bit. The last part got even a little more wacky and I was disappointed that the princess weren't more a part of their narrative thrust in overcoming the last hurdles of their life.

Three stars

This book comes out February 13, 2024

ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Children's Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace

Jo Jones has had a very fraught couple of years. Her much-older husband sold their publishing company out from under her for a pittance and then divorced her. Right as that was happening her mother died. On the Monday before this book starts, she finds out that she's inherited an estate in England from her mother and the book opens with her arriving there with her solicitor, Rupert Selkirk. It's just unfortunate that the next person she meets, Sid Randles, the caretaker of her livable cottage, is such an unpleasant jerk. He even leaves a lawn mower running and seems to be the obvious suspect when a painting goes missing from a previously locked room. 

It is the painting that Jo focuses on during this story even though Sid turns up dead in her cottage. And it's very refreshing to see an amateur sleuth sort of staying in her own lane. 

This was a really nice read about an autistic main character. The author didn't avoid the dread love (interest) triangle but I think this is going to be the start of a series with characters I really enjoy. 

Four stars

This book comes out February 13, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Stepping out of her regular stories, Phillips adds a murder into this one. But, it doesn't detract from the romance, the genre she is really known for and trying to solve the mystery lets our two main characters get past their initial meeting which was both good... and not so good.

Rory Garrett (she uses the name Meadows so people are less likely to connect her to Clint Garrett, Chicago Stars football player) is used to things going wrong in her life. But her recent life is really taking the cake on that. A failed business, a bad attempt at a one-night-stand, and breaking up her best friend in Chicago and Clint are just some of the recent examples. But she's not prepared to find a body. Nor is she able to understand why Clint's agent is so darn hot, even if she knows there can never be a real relationship between them. 

Brett "The River" Rivers is used to being perfect. His life is built around being the best sports agent in the business. And that's about to be paid off with a promotion to Vice President at Champion Sports Management. But he's just made two massive mistakes and now he's not sure how to hang on to Cliff as a client. And it seems foolhardy to run around with the man's sister when Brett just can't help but be so darn attracted to her. 

I'm really not sure about the murder but it does create an external reason for Rory and Brett to be thrown together. Of course, there was a last Big Misunderstanding and a rather over-the-top end scene to the two being together but I overall enjoyed the book. 

Chicago Stars #10

Three and a half stars
This book comes out February 14, 2024

Follows When Stars Collide

ARC kindly provided by Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

A Fatal Illusion by Anna Lee Huber

At the end of the last book, Sebastian had gotten word that his father had been attacked. He and Kiera took their whole family, including their four-month-old daughter. He is being housed in a small village near where he was attacked, in the home of a former army doctor, so he at least has good care. 

However, when Sebastian and Kiera try to investigate, they run into a series of problems. There are few in the village who are willing to talk. They are also attacked. Someone is really working to make sure that the reasons for Lord Gage's attack aren't uncovered. And even the people who appear to be helpful aren't actually what they seemed. 

This book was fine but there was a lot going on. It may have been the time of my life and I'd like to re-read it again later because I did enjoy the character building, both the new characters and between Lord Gage and Henry, his son who was claimed by a duke.

Lady Darby Mystery #11

Three stars
This book came out June 20, 2023

Follows A Perilous Perspective

Followed by A Deceptive Composition

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Death and the Victorians by Adrian Mackinder

If you've studied the Victorians at all, you will probably know a lot of these stories. It is, not surprisingly, very Euro-centric. Very focused on England with all of the, what we would call nowadays, weirdness: seances, memento moris, and the scare of Jack the Ripper.

I was disappointed that there were topics that weren't more deeply delved into (not Jack the Ripper, as Mackinder says, that has been well-covered.) This book is shorter than many nonfiction books and could have stood with more pages. I did appreciate that one chapter was mainly dedicated to books of the time that focused on death. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out January 30, 2024

ARC kindly provided b Pen & Sword and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

I read the first book by Stevenson, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, and enjoyed it. There was some verbal trickery that I didn't quite agree with but still, a fun book. Having read that book made this one more enjoyable and so did expecting that the author would toy with the readers expectations.

Ernest Cunningham returns as the first person narrator. He's been asked to come along as the debut writer on the Australian Mystery Writer's Society's fiftieth anniversary of their Festival. Along with five other writers, he will be doing a series of panels for a select group. 

Also on the train is his girlfriend, Juliette, and his literary agent, Simone Morrison, as well as any number of other characters. Ernest is not excited to see Simone as he is late on delivering his next book, the one he has already gotten an advance for. It's just too bad because he just doesn't have a brain for fiction. So it's with mixed emotions that Ernest realizes that a death along their journey may not be entirely natural. He decides that he is going to investigate, all while writing his next book (the one we are reading) while adhering to the rules he lists at the beginning of the book. 

As in the first book, Ernest drops clues as to who the murderer will end up being. Also like the first book, many of those clues were deft red herrings. It made it a little hard to read and some of the story felt a little thin but it was overall a very nice read and I'm hoping that the epilogue is a hint to how the next book in the series will be rolled out. 

Four stars

This book comes out January 30, 2024
Follows Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone

ARC kindly provided by Mariner Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Accidentally His by Sabrina Jeffries

Lady Verity is the last of the three sisters who run Elegant Occasions to find a long-term partner. She assumes that she would never marry but fate may have other plans even as she is sure it will remain true. 

We've met Rafe Wolfford in previous books as a man who is interested in Verity and her family, but not primarily for reasons of marriage. Instead, he is trying to figure out if someone from her family is feeding information to the enemy (France.) This same someone shot the uncle who raised him. Though the man was strict, Rafe still loves him and would like to find the culprit.
The two are brought together in deceit but the attraction that they have is visible to all and, when the chance is offered, the two may decide to stick it out for the long run. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out January 23, 2024

Follows What Happens in the Ballroom

ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Bright Spot A Novel by Jill Shalvis

Luna's been working on a ranch that barely scrapes by but she has gotten to work for an owner who, though incredibly cranky, has usually treated her well. Well, he did until last week when he died. So, now Luna's trying not to panic while she waits to find out what's going to happen next. She is shocked to find out that she will be the half owner, along with someone from out of town. 

Jameson Hayes is used to coming in and dismantling companies. He knows the farm has been failing and he's not impressed with what he's heard about the manager. He's only planning on being in the town for a short time but is intrigued by a lady he meets at the bar. In true romance novel fashion, the night doesn't end how he would have hoped and it's even worse when he realizes who he was chatting up.

The two will have to work past preconceived notions in order to find out what they want in the end. Neither really has a biological family and they're trying to figure it out along the way.

We get a LOT of background on Luna and her found family but we don't get to see much from Jameson. We especially get to know Luna's best friend Willow and the husband who she just can't get separated from. 

If you are looking for building friendships and in-depth characters, Shalvis is amazing. The romance is a little less well-developed but I don't think regular Shalvis readers will mind. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out January 16, 2024

ARC kindly provided by Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley

Opinions are my own