Spring 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Spring 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop, hosted by It Starts At Midnight and Versatileer!

Once upon a time, this was the Month of Books Giveaway Hop, now it’s the Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop, with the hops starting on the days the seasons change. Today is the first official day of Spring no matter whether or not Spring has actually sprung where you are. I’m in Atlanta so it’s been in the 60s most days, flowers are beginning to bloom and the trees in the backyard are starting to hint at leafing out.

But the question this season is the same question it’s always been for one of these particular hops. What book or books are you most looking forward to this season?

I’m never looking forward to just one thing when it comes to books. Here are a few that are at the top of my list for this spring of 2024:

A Body at the Dance Hall by Marty Wingate
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz
Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco
Fiasco by Constance Fay
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer
Lost Birds by Anne Hillerman
A Murder Most French by Colleen Cambridge
People in Glass Houses by Jayne Castle
What Cannot Be Said by C.S. Harris

What about you? What books are you most looking forward to this fall? Answer in the rafflecopter for your choice of either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books so you can get one or two of the books on your list!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more wonderful winter prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

A- #BookReview: The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis

A- #BookReview: The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey DavisThe Graveyard of the Hesperides (Flavia Albia Mystery, #4) by Lindsey Davis
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Flavia Albia #4
Pages: 336
Published by Minotaur Books on April 14, 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

In first century Rome, Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases—cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till—but this isn't a typical day.
Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together. Also, his contracting firm has been renovating a rundown dive bar called The Garden of the Hesperides, only to uncover human remains buried in the backyard. There have been rumors for years that the previous owner of the bar, now deceased, killed a bar maid and these are presumably her remains. In the choice between planning a wedding and looking into a crime from long ago, Albia would much rather investigate a possible murder. Or murders, as more and more remains are uncovered, revealing that something truly horrible has been going on at the Hesperides.
As she gets closer to the truth behind the bodies in the backyard, Albia's investigation has put her in the cross-hairs—which might be the only way she'll get out of the wedding and away from all her relatives who are desperate to 'help.'

My Review:

No matter how much technology advances, human nature remains pretty much the same, and that’s a big part of what makes historical mysteries so much fun AND so absorbing. That’s especially true in the Marcus Didius Falco series and its literal daughter-series, Flavia Albia, of which this book, The Graveyard of the Hesperides, is the fourth.

The setting is the Roman Empire in the first century A.D., often, but not always, in Rome itself, as this book is. Flavia Albia is a private informer – read that as private investigator – following in the footsteps of her very much alive but only occasionally meddling adopted father, Marcus Didius Falco, the protagonist of the earlier series.

Falco married above himself in the earlier series, the son of a relatively poor and constantly scheming plebeian family who married a Senator’s daughter. As The Graveyard of the Hesperides opens – both literally and figuratively – Flavia Albia is about to do the same.

Which is where the domestic half of the story kicks in, as the wedding is approaching quickly – as are her soon-to-be in-laws. Flavia loves her fiance – but his family, well, not so much. And very much vice-versa.

In other words, she’s happy to be marrying HIM, but not at all sure about ‘THEM’. A set of conflicted feelings that many feel on the eve of their wedding to someone who seems like the one sane person in a family of crackpots. And not that her intended wouldn’t feel justified having the exact same trepidations about Flavia’s family, as readers already know that Falco takes a bit of getting used to at the best of times!

But that’s the domestic half of the story, the part that in any mystery series centers on the life of the investigator and the gang of helpers and hinderers that coalesce around them as they poke their noses into places that someone inevitably believes they don’t belong.

And that’s where the opening of the graveyard of the Hesperides comes in. The Garden of the Hesperides is the open-air backside of a down-at-heels bar in an equally insalubrious neighborhood. Fiance Tiberius Manlius Faustus owns the construction company that is renovating the place, specifically that back garden.

There have been rumors for years that one of the barmaids is buried back there, so when the construction crew finds human bones, no one is all that surprised. But they don’t just find one set of bones – they find six. Now that is a surprise!

Even more surprising, it looks like all six bodies were buried at the same time and in the exact same way – very neatly and tidily at that. Almost as if all those deaths were planned. And executed.

And yet, after the night that barmaid disappeared, the place opened up the next morning and no one noticed anything amiss except that one missing employee that no one missed all that much. But there are suddenly a whole lot of people really eager for Flavia Albia to forget all those bones and mind her own business. They obviously don’t know the woman, because figuring out whodunnit absolutely IS her business.

One that she is determined to carry out no matter how many ‘frighteners’ stand in her way.

Escape Rating A-: I first met Flavia Albia’s adopted father, Marcus Didius Falco, in the book The Silver Pigs,, over 30 years ago. This was back in the days when I had a long commute to work, audiobooks were still books on actual tape, and the selection was pretty slim. Mystery was the one category there were already lots of – quite possibly because it’s damn hard to thumb to the end of a book on tape.

At the time, the concept behind the Falco series was a bit like the bear dancing; you’re not surprised it’s done well, you’re surprised it’s done AT ALL. Much like one of my other favorite historical mystery series that began around the same time, the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series that started with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

Flavia Albia’s investigations also remind me of two other long-running mystery series, one historical and one not, at least as it was written. The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series by Jeri Westerson, beginning with Veil of Lies, is similar to Falco and his daughter in that it posits a noir-type gumshoe in an era that probably didn’t have anyone who fit that description, and yet still manages to immerse its character and the reader in that unexpected time and place to the point where you feels the broken cobblestones under your own feet as you read.

Last but not least, although the series is contemporary and not historical (sorta/kinda, as the first book, The Blessing Way, came out in 1970). Anne Hillerman’s continuation of her father’s long-running Leaphorn and Chee series into her Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito series changes its focus and updates its perspective by moving the original father-figure protagonist to the sidelines and introducing a female perspective in the form of a new daughter or daughter-like investigator.

In other words, I came into this book with a whole lot of nostalgia and more than a bit of mystery reading background and baggage crowding my thoughts and falling out a bit willy-nilly all over the place. After all, it’s been nearly two years since I last visited Flavia Albia and her family in Deadly Election.

And I’m struck again that what makes this series work – and what made the previous serious work as well – is the singular voice of its protagonist. We view Flavia Albia’s Rome through her eyes and hear her voice, filled with her reflections on her world and her place in it. She’s probably even more cynical and hard-bitten than her father, because she’s been through a school of much harder knocks and is both grateful for the safety, privilege and freedom that her adoption by Falco and Helena Justina affords her AND still conscience of just how desperate her situation was before and how easy it would be for her to fall back to the bottom.

So this case, which is wrapped around the death of a woman who was probably a prostitute and/or a procurer and supplier of sex workers, taking her as it does into the lives of many still living that life – most of them slaves who have no hope and no choice – hits her hard and reminds her of the fragility of life and her own current happiness in it.

Even as she is in the midst of her own wedding and the hope of future happiness that it brings. If she can just manage to solve this case and get her in-laws out of her own and her formidable mother’s hair before someone’s face gets shoved into fist. Quite possibly her father’s.

So come for the historical setting. Or the portrait of life in a time and place that manages to be both long ago and far away but feels just the right amount of familiar. Stay for the family shenanigans – or just for Flavia Albia’s wry, cynical commentary upon them. Either way, you’ll get caught up in the mystery and its resolution, leading right back into the opening of this review; that technology, in this case forensic science, may have changed a lot in the past two millennia, but human nature hasn’t changed a bit.

I know that I’ll be back for the next book in this series, The Third Nero, if only to learn how Tiberius Manlius and Flavia Albia manage to recover from the shocking conclusion to both the case and their wedding festivities.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-17-24

Today is both St. Patrick’s Day AND St. Gertrude of Nivelles’ Day. It’s a pity that St. Patrick gets all the attention, because St. Gertrude of Nivelles is the patron saint of CATS. Also gardeners, poor people and widows, but most especially CATS – at least in the modern interpretations. So, it’s either the dude who drove the snakes out of Ireland, or the woman who protected cats. I’m with the cat lady.

Speaking of which, here’s Tuna, standing at the window outside on the catio, looking into the kitchen instead of the other way around!

As far as the bloggy stuff goes, the Winter 2024 Seasons of Books Hop ends tomorrow, just in time for the SPRING 2024 Seasons of Books Hop to begin the next day. After appearing in the schedule multiple times but not actually getting reviewed, The Graveyard of the Hesperides review will definitely happen this week. I’m in the middle of the book now and being constantly reminded just how much I’ve enjoyed this series over the years. The later part of the week is a bit less certain, but c’est la vie – or at least, c’est la reading vie at Chez Reading Reality!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Winter 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop (ENDS TOMORROW!!!!!)

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Lady Luck Giveaway Hop is Clem

Blog Recap:

B #BookReview: Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
A/A- Joint #BookReview: These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
B #AudioBookReview: A Midnight Puzzle by Gigi Pandian
B+ #BookReview: Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna Hackett
B- #AudioBookReview: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
Stacking the Shelves (592)

Coming This Week:

The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis (#BookReview)
Spring 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan (#BookReview)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (#BookReview)
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (592)

This is certainly an interesting batch, isn’t it? Ironically, the prettiest cover might be Haunt Sweet Home – either that or The Phoenix Bride. Full Speed to a Crash Landing is definitely the most ‘interesting’ title, while it and The Bloodless Princes are the books I’m most looking forward to out of this week’s rather large stack.

For Review:
Adam Unrehearsed by Don Futterman
Alfred Dreyfus by Maurice Samuels
The Bloodless Princes (Fireborne Blade #2) by Charlotte Bond
A Brilliant Life by Rachelle Unreich
Full Speed to a Crash Landing (Chaotic Orbits #1) by Beth Revis
Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker
Henrietta Szold by Francine Klagsbrun
Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish by Anna Elena Torres
The Last Ships from Hamburg by Steven Ujifusa
A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke
Newshawks in Berlin by Larry Heinzerling and Randy Herschaft with Ann Cooper
On Her Own by Lihi Lapid, translated by Sondra Silverston
The Phoenix Bride by Natasha Siegel
Propaganda and Persecution by Renee Poznanski
The Scrolls of Deborah (Desert Songs Trilogy #1) by Esther Goldenberg
Spinoza by Ian Buruma
Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama
Sweet Malida by Zilda Joseph
Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado
What We Sacrifice for Magic by Andrea Jo DeWerd


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

#AudioBookReview: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

#AudioBookReview: The Mystery Writer by Sulari GentillThe Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
Narrator: Katherine Littrell
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, suspense, thriller
Pages: 400
Length: 10 hrs 52 mins
Published by Dreamscape Media, Poisoned Pen Press on March 19, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory―until it turns out to be true.
When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer? What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience.
When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die. 
USA Today bestselling author Sulari Gentill takes readers on a rollercoaster ride in The Mystery Writer, a literary thriller that turns the world of books and authors upside down and where a writer's voice is a thing to be controlled and weaponized, to the peril of everyone who loves a good story.

My Review:

The mystery – and the mystery writer herself – both kick off when a bedraggled, desperate Theodosia Benton knocks on her big brother’s door. Theo is uncertain of her welcome, but when her flight from Canberra fetches her up in Lawrence Kansas, she’s hoping against hope that the one person who has never failed her will rescue her one more time. Even if she and Gus haven’t seen each other in years.

Her hope in her brother is not misplaced. But her arrival pushes a small stone down a long, steep hill that gathers more than enough moss, snow and really big rocks to crush the lives that they are trying to build. And sweeps entirely too many people around them into its destructive path.

Depositing Theo – along with poor Gus and his ginormous dog Horse  – and the heart of the deepest and darkest conspiracy theory that neither of them could have possibly seen coming. Not even their best friend’s family of obsessive, true believing conspiracy nuts.

Escape Rating B-: I picked this up because I LOVED the author’s previous book, The Woman in the Library, and was hoping for more of the same. That isn’t what I got – emphasis on the “I” because I think that the reasons this book didn’t work for me until the very end were a “me” thing that may not be a “you” thing. Before I explain, let me state for the record that the dog is a VERY GOOD BOY and he’s doing FINE at the end of the story.

Even though I loved Horse nearly as much as Theo did, this book drove me bonkers. I was listening to it and it turned into a rage listen, but as much as the whole thing frustrated me no end, I couldn’t stop even though I couldn’t stand another minute. So I switched to text just to find out who done what and how and why a whole lot faster.

The audio was fine, and the narrator did a terrific job of dealing with Gus’ deliberately strong Aussie accent and Theo’s less pronounced one among all their American friends and neighbors. It was the story itself that was making me crazy, to the point where I tried thumbing to the end of the book just so I would know – but it didn’t make sense because things get very, very twisty at the end.

However, that twistiness did manage to redeem a great deal of my frustration, because the macguffin that powers this whole twisted mess that Theo has been dropped into was definitely a WOW to the point where it’s entirely too easy to fall down the rabbit hole of it being real. Really plausible anyway, in spite of itself. Or myself. Or both.

But it definitely middled in a place where it seemed obvious to this reader that there was a malign agency of some kind behind the way that Theo’s life goes so far down the road to hell in that handcart so fast. (Like Wednesday’s audiobook, people just aren’t THAT unlucky unless someone really is out to get them.) So I had a pretty good guess fairly on who was doing the dirty deeds – I just didn’t have the whys, the hows or the wherefores.

Which also frustrated me because I thought that at least one of the main characters, probably not Theo herself but either her older brother Gus or his friend Mac.

And that’s the point where I worked out that the part of the story that was not working out for this reader was that the entire house of cards relies on the protagonist’s innocence and naivete in order to work at all. And since the story is told from her perspective we get a lot of that naivete to the point where I just wanted to shake some sense into her. It’s not that she’s too stupid to live, it’s that she’s young and has led a rather peculiarly sheltered life in the remoter parts of an entirely different country.

Gus or Mac should have had a better perspective on just how high the terrible coincidences were piling up, and just how unlikely that was, as they are both a decade older than Theo and have, particularly in Mac’s case, considerably more knowledge of the way the world really does and doesn’t work. But the way the story works means that they are dealing with most of the events through what Theo tells them, and her naivete bleeds all over everything.

Plus, they are both trying really, really hard to protect her – even from her frequently misguided self.

In the end, I think the whole story and the way that it works can be summed up by the tagline that the most prominent group of conspiracy aficionados uses in their messaging, “We know what we know.”

The full quote, from Nicolaus Copernicus, feels like it’s a key to understanding the conspiracy theorists in the book as well as the book itself and how it hides its real mystery in plain sight.

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” Clinging to what they know, the conspiracy theorists have no clue about all the many, many things they don’t know. Neither does Theo. And neither, as the book takes us on a not-so-magical mystery tour of the way that Theo’s, Gus’ and Mac’s lives go so very, very wrong, does the reader – at least not until the bitterly climactic end.

#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna Hackett

#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna HackettBurn (Fury Brothers #3) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #3
Pages: 274
Published by Anna Hackett on March 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

I have one goal—arrest billionaire businessman Kavner Fury.
I’m dedicated to my job as a Treasury agent, and taking down crooked financial criminals. Just like the one who destroyed my family.
Kavner Fury is wealthy, powerful, and ambitious, a combination I know too well. He’s New Orleans’ favorite billionaire. Sure, he’s also handsome, charming, with a hard body no man who sits behind a desk should have, but I have no plans to let that distract me.
He’s my enemy, my nemesis…and pure temptation. I won’t let our scorching attraction derail my investigation. But as my money laundering case leads me into dangerous territory, I find myself under attack.
Injured and betrayed, I’m shocked that there is only one man I can turn to. One man who can keep me safe.
Now I’m working with Kavner, side by side, and I uncover a protective man who’s taking a blow-torch to my icy defenses. I get to see the real man beneath the gorgeous exterior, and I’m having trouble keeping my hands off him.
Suddenly, the only man I trust is my enemy, and we’re both caught up in a fiery attraction that could leave us both burned.

My Review:

Treasury Agent London Coleman investigates white collar crimes. She’s back in her hometown of New Orleans on the trail of someone laundering money for the cartels by buying expensive works of art with dirty money, shipping that art out of the U.S. to sell, and returning the ‘cleaned’ money to the cartel to do more of whatever terrible things they do with their money – which is mostly drugs.

London is happy to be back home, not just because she gets to spend time with her sister Lexxie, but because she honestly loves the city that made her who she is. Literally as London looks like the Creole descendant that she is, while the genetic gumbo that made her and Lexxie gave them completely different skin tones as well as looks.

As this third entry in the Fury Brothers series opens, the person of interest, both in her case and personally – even though she’s not ready to admit the second part even to herself – is billionaire businessman Kavner Fury.

His name has come up more than a few times in her investigation. She thinks it’s because he’s dirty and she hasn’t found the evidence yet. In reality, it’s because Kavner’s rich, he likes art, and he especially likes donating art to museums and galleries where kids just like the ones he and his brothers used to be have the opportunity to view beautiful things in just a little bit of peace and safety to help them hold on and survive until they can live their own dreams.

Just as he and his brothers did when they were all in the foster system and all too frequently at the mercy of neglectful, abusive or just plain violent caregivers.

London may not be willing to admit it, at least not yet, but keeping Kavner in her sights does put her in the places where whoever is hiding in the shadows is doing their dirty business. And he’s much too easy on the eyes, and too smooth in his business dealings, not to raise a few red flags.

That those red flags have more to do with her past than anything Kav has actually done is another secret that London is doing her damndest to keep to herself and out of her investigation. Something that proves utterly impossible when the cartel starts gunning for her, directly and literally – and Kav is the only one standing at her side and watching her back.

Escape Rating B+: Burn is a quick, hot read that is a whole lot of fun – for both parts of the category ‘romantic suspense’ into which this book and its series most definitely fit.

Like the first two books, Fury and Keep, this one is told in alternating first-person viewpoints, meaning that first we see inside London’s head and then we get Kavner’s take on what happens next.

Her head is a bit of a hot mess. The case has been long, drawn out, and utterly frustrating. The powers-that-be are hammering her boss hard. London has more than a bit of tunnel vision, seeing Kavner as a stand in for the fraudster who suckered her own father in and ruined the family’s life. She’s fixated on him being in this scheme up to his neck, when really it’s that she’s in the River DeNial up to hers.

Kavner isn’t worried about London’s investigation because he knows there’s nothing to find. He may hide the darker details of his origin story in the foster system before he and his brothers met, he may have taken on a much more polished veneer than he’d prefer because it’s good for business, but his money was legally earned, all his businesses are completely legit as well as profitable, and he really does give back a tremendous amount of money and effort to the city he loves.

And he has all the money he needs to get himself out of any ‘manufactured’ trouble. That’s what money and the lawyers it can buy are for, after all.

Which means that while London is focussing on Kavner as a suspect, Kav is keeping his sights on London as a woman – in ways that make him think, not just sexy thoughts, but also romantic and protective ones. The kind of thoughts he’s been avoiding all of his adult life, too busy being focused on buying and creating financial security for himself and his brothers, and their whole extended family.

What made this story work well for this reader is the way that London and Kav worked against some familiar tropes. He does not have a case of the ‘I’m not worthy’s’ that happen entirely too often. He’s just been too busy to think about settling down. London is definitely in distress, but she’s no damsel. She stands her ground and maintains her own boundaries even in the face of Kav’s protectiveness. She doesn’t get rescued by Kav and his brothers – she gets assistance in her own rescue.

There’s a whole lot of push-pull between these two workaholics and it’s fun – and filled with sexytimes – to see them work towards each other and their happy ever after. Often in spite of themselves. Making Burn the kind of read that will make any reader burn up the pages in one sitting.

There are two Fury Brothers left, Reath and Beau. Currently neither of them are even thinking about looking for an HEA of their own but that’s about to change. Their stories are coming in the fall, in Take (probably Reath’s story) and Claim. In the meantime, I have Knightqueen, the climactic final book in the author’s science fiction romance Oronis Knights series to look forward to. And I most definitely AM!

#AudioBookReview: A Midnight Puzzle by Gigi Pandian

#AudioBookReview: A Midnight Puzzle by Gigi PandianA Midnight Puzzle (Secret Staircase Mystery, #3) by Gigi Pandian
Narrator: Soneela Nankani
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Libro.fm, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, mystery, thriller
Series: Secret Staircase Mystery #3
Pages: 342
Length: 10 hours and 38 minutes
Published by Macmillan Audio, Minotaur Books on March 19, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

In heroine Tempest Raj, modern-day queen of the locked room mystery Gigi Pandian has created a brilliant homage to the greats of classic detective fiction. Secret Staircase Construction is under attack, and Tempest Raj feels helpless. After former client Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, he blamed her "accident" on the home renovation company’s craftsmanship. Now the family business—known for bringing magic into homes through hidden doors, floating staircases, and architectural puzzle walls—is at a breaking point. No amount of Scottish and Indian meals from her grandfather can distract Tempest from the truth: they’re being framed.
When Tempest receives an urgent midnight phone call from Julian, she decides to meet him at the historic Whispering Creek Theater—only to find his dead body, a sword through his chest. After a blade appears from thin air to claim another victim, Tempest is certain they’re dealing with a booby trap… something Secret Staircase Construction could easily build. Tempest refuses to wait for the investigation to turn to her or her loved ones. She knows the pieces of the puzzle are right in front of her, she just has to put them together correctly before more disaster strikes.
Multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian and her heroine Tempest Raj return in A Midnight Puzzle, where an old theater reveals a deadly booby trap, secrets, and one puzzle of a mystery.

My Review:

A Midnight Puzzle is all about the Raj Family Curse – and the sin of hubris that allows it to last so long and makes it so damn difficult to put to rest.

After her adventures – and misadventures – in the first two books in the Secret Staircase Mystery series, Under Lock and Skeleton Key and The Raven Thief, stage illusionist turned construction illusionist Tempest Raj believes that she is on the verge of solving the mystery that has cast a shadow over her family and her life for the past decade – if not considerably longer.

Long, long ago, the Raj family were illusionists and court magicians in their native India. Way back then, it was believed that a curse had been laid on the family – or the family business. It was said that the Raj family’s firstborn child in each generation would “die by magic”. Of course, over the centuries, it did happen sometimes. Just enough to keep the curse – or the belief in it – going for another century or so.

Tempest’s beloved grandfather Ash is the second child of his generation, because his older brother died “by magic”. Ash left India for Scotland and its renowned medical colleges, married a local artist and never looked back. Or at least tried very hard not to.

But the magic skipped a generation as well as a continent. Ash’s daughters, Elspeth and Emma, became stage illusionists as “The Selkie Sisters” until an accident and an argument broke their trust in each other. Working alone, Elspeth, the older of the two, did indeed “die by magic”, keeping the talk of the curse alive for another generation.

However, Emma died by magic as well – or at least disappeared in the middle of her own magic show, on the boards – or at least in the wings – of their hometown’s Whispering Creek Theater ten years ago.

Tempest has rented the haunted and haunting little theater in order to stage one final performance, a one night “Farewell” to her own ill-starred career as a stage illusionist. Of course, being in temporary possession of the place her mother vanished, Tempest is also determined to comb the theater for clues.

At least until disaster strikes – from without and from within. But in solving the current mystery, Tempest may have the opportunity she needs to lay that old mystery to rest. If her family’s construction company, Secret Staircase Construction, can survive just one more public disaster.

And if Tempest and her ‘Scooby gang’ can manage to unmask a killer before their curse sweeps Tempest AND her friends into yet another example of the Raj Family curse.

Escape Rating B: I have to admit that I went into this third entry in the series with a bit of trepidation after the muddle of The Raven Thief. Particularly as A Midnight Puzzle opened with Tempest, her family and the construction company being in the midst of what seemed like rather pointedly aimed chaos on all fronts – only because it was.

(I started this one in audio, as I figured it would get me over the hump of those trepidations. And it did. I switched to text once it got going because there were so many potential clues and delicious red herrings that I needed to find out who actually ‘dunnit’ FASTER.)

But at the beginning I was still a bit stuck in thinking this series was inflicted with Cabot Cove Syndrome, or perhaps Midsommer-itis. By which I mean that all of the mysteries so far have been a bit too intimate and her family and their business have been much too personally involved – not as the investigators, or even as the direct victims – but as the suspects.

No one’s luck is THAT bad. Unless, of course, they really are cursed.

Which means that I was very pleased to see the mystery of the Raj Family Curse – at least in its modern iteration – laid to rest at the end of A Midnight Puzzle, along with a promise of more mysteries but somewhat less personal ones in future entries in the series.

But first, there’s the mystery in THIS outing. Or rather, the two mysteries that are both squarely aimed at the Raj Family.

What makes this story work better than The Raven Thief is that the story keeps its eyes – and Tempest’s – on the prize of solving the mystery of her mother’s disappearance – no matter how many distractions and misdirections get thrown in Tempest’s way.

And no matter how much the police seem to be bungling their investigation into the deadliest of those distractions.

As much and as often as Tempest is tempted (and so is the reader!) to hare off after the many distractions and misdirections, in the end A Midnight Puzzle is a very satisfying wrap up to what looks to be the opening setup trilogy for this series. And the way that the whole thing was strung out over three books feels like it was the right length after all, because this mystery has been decades in the making, so it’s only fitting that it take a year or more to wrap up in a way that leads back around to a beginning that Tempest barely knew about, as well as a reminder that “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

But Tempest is not the one who falls, even though the resulting thud breaks her heart, and it clears the way for new, and hopefully less personal mysteries and adventures. I’m looking forward to see what Tempest stirs up next.

#BookReview: Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis

#BookReview: Floating Hotel by Grace CurtisFloating Hotel by Grace Curtis
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, science fiction, science fiction mystery, space opera
Pages: 304
Published by DAW on March 19, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

This cozy debut science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the stars
Welcome to the Grand Abeona home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such Why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver’s conference? And perhaps most pertinently— who is driving the ship?
Each guest has a secret, every member of staff a universe unto themselves. At the center of these interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It’s the love of his life and the only place he’s ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl’s comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final when is it time to let go?

My Review:

The Grand Abeona, the ‘floating hotel’ of the title, isn’t quite as grand as it used to be. Both as a place and as a story, It also isn’t quite as cozy as the blurb leads the reader to believe. Which does, however, make it much more interesting as a story.

It’s more layered than cozy, rather like an onion. Complete with tears.

Traveling through Imperial-controlled space, the Grand Abeona serves the function that once upon a time the circus used to fill in small town America. It’s a place that blows into town – or above town, as the case might be – livens up an otherwise humdrum life for a few hours or days, and then leaves, taking its crew of roadies and roustabouts along with it.

Along with, occasionally, a local or two who can’t resist the bright lights or can’t bear or afford to stay where they’ve always been for another minute, now that they’ve seen a way out.

So, the story of Floating Hotel begins with young Carl, who doesn’t so much stow himself away as he does slouch around in plain sight hoping for a chance to work his way aboard the most beautiful place he’s ever seen and away from his home planet. A place that is literally eating itself from the inside out as its people mine its resources to their own and its destruction under the orders of the rapacious empire.

Because they have no choice. It’s mine now and die later, or stop now and die now. It’s happened all over the empire and it’s happening right now on Hoxxes. But not to Carl, because he’s found a way out.

Middle-aged Carl is now the manager of the Grand Abeona, and that later he staved off all those years ago by leaving with the floating hotel is now coming for him and everyone aboard the place he’s come to call home. The place that he has let consume him, one day and one task at a time.

So welcome aboard the last voyage of the Grand Abeona. Be sure to take your heart and all your belongings with you on your way out.

Escape Rating B: This isn’t nearly as cozy as I was expecting from both the blurb AND the opening Prologue. That introduction makes it seem like its going to be Carl’s story about rising through the ranks of the hotel and that it will follow him along the way.

It isn’t and it doesn’t. While Carl opens the story – and also closes it – we absolutely don’t follow his rise through the ranks. He’s already there when the real story begins. We also don’t follow Carl, although he’s clearly the center around which the hotel revolves – even if no one quite sees him that way.

Instead, the story skips around through the crew and the regular guests, focusing on one after another as the saga of the ship’s last voyage gets told. That kaleidoscope of perspectives keeps the reader from getting invested in any one of the characters, but does show all of the facets of the hotel as it is – and pokes its way around the edges of the many, many secrets that are being kept aboard her.

One ginormous, galaxy-spanning secret most of all.

On the one hand, we have the ship and its denizens, each telling their individual bit of the story. And on the other, we have the ship and its denizens, each revealing a bit of their own secrets, as well as a soupçon of the BIG secret, while painting an excruciatingly unflattering portrait of the Empire they have escaped by becoming part of the ship’s company.

Initially believing that this was going to be cozier, The Floating Hotel gave me vibes of several recent SF stories that featured, or began with, entertainment venues in the space lanes, even if they branched out later into either mystery or space opera. I’m particularly thinking of The Spare Man, You Sexy Thing, and Veronica Scott’s Star Cruise series.

In the end, the SF book I was most reminded of is Khan Wong’s awesome The Circus Infinite, although I have to say that The Floating Hotel isn’t quite as awesome because The Circus Infinite was just a WOW of a book from beginning to end. (Therefore, saying it’s not quite as awesome as such an absolutely fantastic book means it was still pretty damn good.)

But it’s in that correlation between the circus and the cruise ship that gives the two a bit of the same resonance, as both stories begin with a character who desperately needs the kind of escape that constant traveling among the stars can provide, and finds themselves in a world that is filled with more secrets than just their own. Secrets that they will have to go to extreme lengths to keep.

So if you liked any of the above mentioned books, or if you have fond memories of either the very old book Hotel by Arthur Hailey, or the slightly less old TV series based on it, The Floating Hotel will both tickle that memory AND tell a fascinating story about the lengths that can be taken in running away and the crimes that can be committed in forcing someone back to the place they’re supposed to belong.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-10-24

First, the BIG NEWS! The week of April 1-5, Reading Reality will be celebrating its “LUCKY” 13th Blogo-Birthday. If you’re new to these pages, you might be wondering what a “Blogo-Birthday” could be. It’s simple, really. Reading Reality dropped its very first post on April 4, 2011 – thirteen years ago. My own birthday is April 5, making the portmanteau word “Blogo-Birthday” as its both the Thirteenth Blogoversary AND my birthday.

It’s a celebration all week long, and I’ll be giving things away (books and/or gift cards to places that sell books – or both) every day that week. Please come and celebrate with me!

In other news, news that’s kind of big. Or at least Tuna is kind of big. The Big Tuna finally figured out that YES! he can fit through the cat flap to the catio. So he’s on the left in this pic, while George is sitting very handsomely on the right. They’ve also become buddies all of a sudden, which is wonderful – although it is a bit startling when the two of them come hurtling through a room in full chase mode as they are 14 pounds of cat EACH!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Lady Luck Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Winter 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

A- #BookReview: Murder at the Merton Library by Andrea Penrose
B #BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human by Kimberly Lemming
A+ #BookReview: The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi
B #BookReview: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
A- #BookReview: The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
Stacking the Shelves (591)

Coming This Week:

The Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis (#BookReview)
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein (Joint #BookReview with Amy Daltry)
A Midnight Puzzle by Gigi Pandian (#AudioBookReview)
Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna Hackett (#BookReview)
The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (591)

A bigger stack this week than the last several. That’s how it goes!

The prettiest cover feels like a tie between The Scent of Hours and Truly Madly Magically. I think they are both pretty just not in the same way – which makes it more difficult to judge. The book that’s making my curiosity bump itch is Lost to Eternity – because it’s a followup to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (AKA “the one with the whales”) and I LOVED that movie.The book I’m looking most forward to is Passions in Death by J.D. Robb. I always look forward to the next In Death book because I need to find out how all my peeps are doing!

For Review:
Burn (Fury Brothers #3) by Anna Hackett
Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner
The Forbidden Daughter by Zipora Klein Jakob
Gaytheist by Lonnie Mann and Ryan Gatts
The Holocaust by Dan Stone
Jack Ruby by Danny Fingeroth
Lost to Eternity (Star Trek: The Original Series) by Greg Cox
The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer
Passions in Death (In Death #59) by J.D. Robb
The Scent of Hours by Barbara O’Neal
The Secret That Is Not a Secret by Jay Michaelson
Truly Madly Magically (Witchlore #3) by Hazel Beck
You’ll Never Find Me (Angelhart Investigations #1) by Allison Brennan

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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