Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 348

Review: ODDS N' ENDS by Roy L. Cover

This is a collection of short stories all centered on a man, whom I'm assuming is the author, making this book some type of memoir.

The first one was about guns and hunting, two subjects I didn't really take to. The second one was on a funeral honoring a deceased Fred with wacky characters and a lot of drinking. The story about the plumber read like a how-to guide, which seemed strange to me. Why would I need a lesson on plumbers?
Writing was pretty good, but the stories didn't grab me as much as I hoped. Sometimes I wondered if there was even a point in it. I'm guessing these were probably tales of life antics, bizarre and rare occurrences--basically, "odds n' ends." The thing was these so-called "odds n' ends" weren't even that interesting to begin with. They weren't even funny really. Yes, some were quirky and offbeat, but they weren't enough to sustain my interest.
 
My rating: 2.5 stars

Review: CALMER GIRLS by Jennifer Kelland Perry

"Insecure people wear masks, to impress, to fit in, to hide, and to protect sensitive emotions. [Samantha] could relate, often cocooning herself in an aura of indifference and detachment she only pretended to feel. Regrettably, it was a facade [her older sister] Veronica usually knew how to penetrate." (11)

Samantha, along with her sister and mother, have moved to Calmer Cover (Calmer for short), and she's about to start school in Sept. On the first day, she meets Ben Swift, who seems to share in her pain and resentment.
"Like it or not, she knew she had to accept this new existence she’d been handed, but the wounds of grief were still raw." (25)
Calmer Girls mainly embellishes on the relationship between the girls (mother and daughter, sister and sister.) It's a typical coming-of-age story of settling in a new town and harboring old feelings. Story had a lagging flow throughout, making it hard to be taken by it. Although the story was generally well-written, I just found Samantha uninspiring and dowdy. Veronica was just cruel and snobby, and the mother felt minor and insignificant.

I just found the whole thing to be rather dull.
 
My rating: 2 stars

Review: CHASE TINKER AND THE HOUSE OF MAGIC by Malia Ann Haberman

Ever since his dad disappeared, Chase Tinker has been nothing but a troublemaker, stealing and vandalizing. He knows it's wrong, but he just can't help being so angry. And why is it that every time he gets angry, things seem to move on their own? Could it possibly be magic? Real magic?

But it seems Chase isn't the only one freaking out about all these supernatural occurrences. His younger brother, Andy, can apparently stop time, freezing people in places.  What the heck is going on?
When a strange, old man appears at their doorstep, the boys learn that he's their grandfather and that their powers are part of the Tinker legacy. To learn more about their family and legacy, the grandfather invites the boys to the Tinker house--otherwise known as the House of Magic. There, they learn that each room in the house has a magical power and the source of their magic comes from a Relic, which must be hidden and safeguarded from evil. Evil?
It's then that Chase learns that his father was kidnapped for the family Relic and he would do everything in his power to bring him back. Will the kids be able to solve this strange mystery?
A crazy cross-over between Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland. Most of the stuff the kids encountered was either cool, odd, or weird. Story was simple and generally well-written without the overuse of farfetched terms and complex language, but there was some lagging areas here and there. Nonetheless, I found this book charming and interesting.
A fun, magical adventure!
 
My rating: 3.5 stars

Review: POISON, MY PRETTY by Amity Allen

What can I say? I love a good witch mystery!

For the last 5 years, Poppy had been playing a witch in Hollywood, acting out bizarre, magical happenings with a flair the classic Samantha Stephens would be proud of. Eventually, fiction and reality collided, making her a real witch instead. Cool!
To gather her wits and, hopefully, learn to harness her new witchy powers, Poppy leaves the west coast and heads home to Alabama, where she agrees to judge the town's beauty pageant. Of course, the backstabbing ways of Hollywood did not compare to the manipulative, vile ways of pageant politics. The term "passive aggressive" could only loosely describe these overbearing stage moms, who could be "vicious, armed with their Red Bull, yoga pants, and 'interesting' highlighting jobs." (24)
When the pageant director is found dead, face-deep in the potato salad, curiosity gets the best of Poppy. "Heather was the kind of woman who made people daydream about killing her. Maybe one of those people had decided to live out that dream." (47) So now it seemed that Poppy would have to re-play her TV character as a witch detective.
I thought the story was witty, funny, and all-around charming, but there were some lagging areas, especially when leading up to the case. Reading through it, I often wondered when she would get to the sleuthing or when she would get to the hocus pocus. I mean, this was a witch mystery, right? Mainly all I heard was Poppy blathering on about the haughty insipidness of the young beauty queens and their crazy mothers, and, somewhere in the background, she was keeping an eye out for the killer. The case almost felt like an afterthought.
Overall, this was an okay mystery, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting.
 My rating: 3.5 stars

Review: A DROP OF MAGIC by Alaine Allister (Book 3)

Newbie witch/journalist Clarissa is back in a whole new mystery!

A college dean is found murdered on campus. Meanwhile, Clarissa is still getting the hang of her witchy abilities and, right now, she’s trying to learn how to fly on a broomstick. How cliché. But, still, how fun!
This mystery was much better and it had magic, which I loved. Clarissa is snarky, smart, and funny. I even thought the double title was inventive. Dropping out of School. Funny and clever, because the dean dropped from a building.
 
My rating: 4 stars

Review: A TASTE OF MAGIC by Alaine Allister (Book 1)

I didn’t like the velvet cake mystery and this series is set in the same town of Sugarcomb Lake, but, hopefully, it would be better considering it’s supposed to have magic. I mean, it says so in the title for godsakes!

Clarissa is Liana’s best friend. She’s jobless and indebted to a family home that she can’t let go. Of course, this story has another cat—an annoying stray of a cat that won’t go away. Again, there’s too much cat in the story. Too much talking to it, too much of it just hanging around. Story was slow.
When the murder happens and the big shot reporter comes sniffing around, Clarissa throws herself into the investigation to prove her journalistic skills. Things get better after a lightning strike encounter and a strange girl pointing out that her “aura has a touch of magic.” Cool! Afterwards, the investigation becomes much more interesting than the cake series, especially after finding out that Clarissa is a witch. However, there was hardly no magic involved. Probably because she just barely found out and had no practice in the craft.
Overall, this was a good start to the series, but I thought it was a little slow and it could’ve used more magic. And what was up with the double title, Happiness is a Smoking Gun?
 
My rating: 3 stars

Review: RED VELVET CUPCAKES TO DIE FOR by Alaine Allister

Liana Campbell is the new owner of a coffee shop and bakery with a college slacker kid for an employee. You could just feel her frustration for the young Joel as he screws up again and again.  And this endears the reader to Liana, who is just trying to get her name out there and make the business a success in a such a small town.

It takes a while to get to the dead body though.  When we get to it, the characters mostly obsess over the shock of the discovery (of course, we automatically know that what they discovered was a dead body) that it takes away some of the surprise. I mean, what was going to happen. So when they say what they saw was “a body,” it wasn’t anything to me.
The gossip mill ran wild among the townspeople, which was unnerving and useless. And what’s up with the cat that kept hanging around? And why was Liana talking to it?
Of course, speculation goes that Liana might’ve had something to do with the murder since she’s the one that discovered the body. Something to do with a strange murder can’t be good for business, so she aims to solve the case and clear her name. But the thing was that she was terrible at sleuthing. Still, you commend her fumbling efforts.
There was too much time spent talking to the cat and the pace was lagging. Plus, there were no velvet cupcake.
This book just wasn’t that great.
 
My rating: 2 stars

DARCY SWEET MYSTERY BOX SET (Book 1-6) by KJ Emerick

Mists of the Past (Book 2) Darcy Sweet, psychic bookstore owner and mystery lover, is back!
Now, she’s dating the police detective (how cliché) and something from his past is haunting him. Well, not literally, but there was this unsolved case that prompted his move to Darcy’s town. Now, he’s getting threatening letters and he thinks the killer is in town, so the couple must work together to solve this old case.
Basically, the story involved talking to old ghosts of the past. It was slow and centered mostly on the lovey dovey couple, which was very distracting. Very anticlimactic in the end.


From the Ashes (Book 3) Darcy is helping a young girl, who is haunted by her mother’s death. Again, not literally, but the mother supposedly died in a house fire and the daughter just wants closure. What could she have seen that day that spooked her? What really happened to the mother? Could she actually still be alive?
This one starts a lot quicker than Book 2. I enjoyed the mystery concerning the mother’s death and the fire.


The Ghost of Christmas (Book 4) An angry ghost comes knocking on Darcy’s door, seeking justice for his murder. Apparently he was murdered on Christmas 20 years ago. And things between her and Jon are bumpy, which was good! I thought the couple was too perfect, which is dull.
Could the guy have been killed by the Santa suit? Was the suit haunted? Mmmm. This was an interesting angle, if only you didn’t have all the Christmas crap.


The Stolen Valentine (Book 5) The Season of Love – Blah!
Too much V-Day. Again, this had a slow start. It doesn’t get interesting until Chapter 5 with the missing brother-in-law, but the mystery was just too dull to keep up.


Hiding from Death (Book 6) Another slow one. It just seems that each book after the first just kept getting less and less supernatural. I mean, Darcy’s a psychic for godsakes!

Overall, these mysteries were not that great and did not compare to the first book, which was one I really loved.

Overall rating: 2 stars

Review: DEATH COMES TO TOWN by K.J. Emrick (Book 1)

Darcy Sweet is a bookshop owner and a lover of mysteries and ghost stories. She’s highly intuitive and blessed/cursed with odd feelings and visions. So she’s some kind of psychic. Cool!
Something’s been feeling wrong lately and her feelings are usually always right. So when she finds her neighbor’s dead body, she knows she’s got her work cut out for her.
This was a very interesting mystery read! Not only did Darcy have her “sixth sense”, but she also had the help of her intuitive cat (who was more like Lassie than anything else) and her dead Aunt Millie, who still haunts the bookstore.
Could it be the new hunky detective that rolled into town? Or could it possibly be her ex-husband, who has been bugging her about some old photos? Wouldn’t that be great? Oh, no, it turns out the whole town is a suspect in this murder investigation.
A quirky mystery!

My rating: 5 stars

Review: WITCH MYTH by Alexandria Clarke (Book 0)

When Morgan Summers returns to her old town founded by her magical ancestry, she literally stumbles upon a dead body, which happens to be the result of a ritual sacrifice and she is the prime suspect. Oh no!

Her ability to see the dead enables her to work with the murdered victim to seek out her killer and put her spirit to rest. The murder then spurs a witch hunt in the small town, where most of Morgan’s witch family still resides in.
Loved the unity of Morgan with her witchy sisters and mother.
Witty, crafty, and a fun read! Recommended!
 
My rating: 4 stars