Artie and the Wolf Moon by Olivia Stephens

 Artie lives with her mom, and misses her Dad who died when she was young.  Sometimes her mom does things that are a little weird, but isn't that true of all moms?  Then one day, she sees her mother transform into a wolf, and discovers that she is a werewolf.  When Artie turns 13, her own werewolf powers immerge and Artie's mother introduced her to the greater werewolf community.  At first transforming and running with the pack is thrilling, but soon Artemis discovers that werewolves are not the only--or most dangerous--mythological creatures that are real.

This is a graphic novel but I only listened to it as an audio.  There have been some graphic novels that have been adapted well enough to an audio format that you could hardly tell they are graphic novels.  This is not one of them.  It was difficult to follow the story without the pictures to look at and the readers makes no attempt to fill in the gaps. That being said, I can imagine it is a pretty good graphic novel. The story and characters are solid, and there are plenty of action scenes that I imagine work well in a graphic novel form.  My library doesn't own this graphic novel but if we purchased it we would probably put it in the YA graphic novel sections because of some hints of LGBTQ relationships. They are not in your face, but they are there. (2021, 256 p.)

Cross Country Christmas by Laurie Lewis

 After a messy breakup, CC Cippolini agrees to deliver a self-driving Tessla to Las Vegas just as a way to get away from the bad situation.  However, crossing the mountains of Utah, she falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a fence owned by the rugged and handsome Reese Brockbank.  CC's arrival brings light and goodness into his life that he realizes he has been missing since his divorce six years ago.  Their relationship develops quickly, and soon they are wondering if this could be what they both have been looking for.  The road to Happily-Ever-After, however, is never easy, and there are a lot of issues from their past they have to work through before they get there.

I think this is the first time I have read anything from Laurie Lewis.  It was pretty much romance cotton candy.  It is by Covenant Book so it is PG rated, and there is a lot of Western style wish fulfillment going on here. Reese is not only handsome, he is also really kind and rich, plus his family is also really nice and incredibly supportive. CC is beautiful, effervescent and also really kind. There are moonlight rides on horses, and befriending a mother deer and her faun, lots of sweet, meaningful kissing scenes, and everything warm and fuzzy that you can think of.  It is a Hallmark Christmas Special in print, so if you are in the mood for that, this is the holiday read for you. (2021, 256 p)

P.S. I promise this is the last of the sappy Christmas stories for this year. 

The Hapless Milliner by Jessica Bull

 Jane Austen is reimagined in this story to be a young amateur sleuth trying to solve a murder that has taken place in an adjacent manor to where she lives with her clergy father, mother and siblings.  Jane is a intelligent and head strong young adult caught up in her first real romance, when a woman is found dead in a closet at a ball she is attending. Her mentally disabled brother is implicated in the crime, so Jane uses all her passion and wits to try to discover the real murder and save her brother from the hangman's noose. As she precipitously delves into the private lives of her suspects, she discovers that little in the high society of her small community is as it seems.  

It is an interesting idea to imagine Jane Austen as the hero of a mystery novel, but in this case, I think Ms Bull missed the mark. I was never convinced that the character Jane in the book was at all like the author Jane Austen. There were a few times that Bull incorporated phrases or ideas from the Austen's novels into the mystery, but to no real affect. I think I would have enjoyed the mystery more if the main character where just a random Victorian instead of the famous author.  That being said, it isn't a bad mystery.  The plot is fairly complex, and the resolution is well supported. I liked the way that the author set up several viable suspects, and then found ways to show their innocence one by one until she hit upon the true culprit. I know very little about Austen's real life, but a note at the end of the book explained which elements of the story were based on actual people and incidents. Now I want to find a good Jane Austen biography and read it (2024, 368 p)

Christmas Forever More: A collection of short stories by Sarah Eden, Karen Thornell, Sally Brutton, and Ashtyn Newbold.

In four short stories, all set at Christmas time in the early 1800's, young English women strive against odds to find their happily-ever-afters. Each couple faces opposition from their past or present situations that they have to overcome. For some it is changing a past friendship into something more. For others it is overcoming social differences or broken hearts.  Of course, with a book like this we know that all will end just as it should. 

I don't know what it is about Christmas that makes us look for Hallmark movies and sappy Christmas short story collections.  I enjoyed this one.  The stories were unique enough that I didn't get tired of them and the characters were as well developed as can be in the genre. Of course, I have read books by Sarah Eden before, but I was glad to be introduced to the other three authors. (I read this collection before the book I reviewed below)  Yay, more clean romance authors to try out. (2023, 400 p)

 

To Marry an Earl by Karen Thornell

Katherine Cartwright's father is desperate enough because of gabling debt to offer up his beautiful daughter to the highest bidder. Before she knows it, Katherine is betrothed to an earl that she she thinks she has never met. In actually the lucky earl is Katherine's childhood friend, James Fenwick, who came unexpectable into a title and a fortune. He invites Katherine and her mother to a house party.  At the party, he conceals his identity as her mystery fiancé and instead tries to rekindle their friendship. Things start off fairly well, but as Katherine feels herself drawing closer to her old friend, she feels guilty about betraying her future husband that she believes she hasn't even met yet. Because of her parent's unhappy marriage, Kate doubts the existence of real love, and it takes all of James' charm and kindness to coax her back to a place where she can begin to trust again.

This is the first book I have read by Ms Thornell, and it wasn't bad. This is a more than a little wish fulfillment going on with the love interest.  He is the ideal man with fortune, a kind heart, and patience to wait for Katherine to work out her emotional turmoil. It is common in modern stories for the female character to be bold, and even brash in her pursuits, but Katherine is mostly sweet and submissive to the desires of her parents and those around her who care about her. The side theme of Kate and her mother learning to stand up to Katherine's abusive father is satisfying and shows good character development. I will probably try Thornell again, but will wait to put her on my Clean Romance list until I have read at least one more of her full length books. (2021, 218 p.)

The Christie Curse by Victoria Abbot

 Jordan Kelly has just graduated and needs a job.  Unfortunately, the only job she qualifies for, besides flipping burgers, is as a research assistant for her hometown's most hated citizen, Vera Van Alst. She is an eccentric book collector and she has heard of an hither unknow manuscript by Agatha Christy.  Jordan starts following up on leads, but when her best contact turns up dead, Jordan knows she now has more than one mystery to solve.  There are no shortage of suspects; the overly smiley but handsome anyway cop, the creepy pale postal worker, the snobby book dealer. When Jordan finds out what happened to her predecessor, she begins to wonder if she will ever get out of this job alive. 

While I was looking for Agatha Christie novels, I kept running across this one.  Finally I gave in and checked it out.  It turned out to be a fairly well written cozy mystery. I liked the strange host of characters, from Jordan's not-so-law abiding uncles, to the Italian cook who wants everyone to "eat, eat!".  There were a good amount of plot twists, and some fun information about Agatha Christie.  I was kind of glad there wasn't a romance involved. It is just a good, clean, fun mystery read. (293 p, 2013),

Various Works by Agatha Christie

 I needed something different this week, so I looked up to see if there was anything available by Agatha Christie that I hadn't listened to on Libby.  I found that they have added several full cast short stories. I listened to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Triangle at Rhodes and Finessing the King.  They were entertaining and light and matched my mood for the week.  They don't have the fun character portrayal that you find in her longer works, but she does have clever plot twists. Actually, the first and last were full cast, but Triangle of Rhodes wasn't.  Still, the narrator did a good job. There are several more available on Libby. These would be a good choice for listening to on a road trip. 

The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer

Gervase Frant, Earl of St Erth, has recently inherited an estate and title after the death of his estranged father.  His half-brother and stepmother are not happy that he survived the war with Napoleon, but he tries to console them by allowing them to continue to live in the castle/mansion that he now owns, but which was never his home. Then someone starts making attempts on his life.  Everyone suspects the step-brother, Martin, who is next in line to inherit, but Gervase and his stepmother's companion, the plain but canny Miss Drusilla Moreville decide they ought not jump to conclusions. Gervase is determined to stay alive while preventing a family scandal. With Miss Moreville's help, he tries to unravel the mystery of who is really responsible for the the attempts on his life. 

I checked out this book to read on the airplane on my trip to Italy.  It is not one of Heyer's most famous books and doesn't seem to be available in audio, so I hadn't read it already. It is ok, but not my favorite of the Heyer books.  Gervase is an interesting protagonist. He is wealthy, smart, and a bit of a dandy, but he is also very patient and fair with his unfriendly extended family. That being said, he doesn't let them bully him and he knows his own mind. The focus of the story is the mystery of who is trying to kill Gervase, and the character of Drusilla, and her growing regard for Gervase, almost seems like an afterthought. It is as if Ms Heyer wrote a mystery, and then someone told her she should add a romance, so she quickly added in the Drusilla character. Still, I generally like Heyer's writing style and enjoyed the book well enough to make an extra effort to finish it before the lone expired. It wasn't a bad choice for an airplane trip.

The Spindle of Fate by Aimee Lim

 Evie Mai's mother has just been declared dead from drowning when her car went off a cliff into the ocean, although her body was never found.  As Evie is dealing with her grief and trying to help her family cope, a strange monkey demon comes into her room and tells her that her mother isn't really dead.  Instead she had been kidnapped and taken into Diyu, the Chinese Hell, by someone trying to get her "spindle of fate" a magical item that allows her to change the fate of another person.  Evie discovers her mother was part of a group of mystical elders and had magical weaving powers.  Evie decides to, with the help of the other elders, to go into Diyu and rescue her mother.  A young son of a warrior elder, Kevin, agrees to go with her. Together they traverse all 10 layers of Hell to try to save Aimee's family. 

This is the first book of a new author, but in the tradition of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.  To me it felt like a Chinese Dante's Inferno. Since the characters are going through Hell, the story ends up being pretty dark.  At one point they are swimming through a river of blood, and there are several other rather graphic depictions of the different kinds of tortures in Diyu.  It would be too much for some young readers, but I could see certain 10-12-year-old boys liking the gross-out factor. There is some snarky sarcasm in the story that helps lighten things up a bit. The author does a good job of making Aimee a very believably flawed character, and doesn't flinch away from the complex nature of her grief. Kevin is also an interesting character, and they have pretty good chemistry (though not romantic).  The author keeps the ending open for a sequel, which seems to be coming out next summer, but I am not sure if I will read it.  (2024, 304 p)