Peril at End House

From the book cover:

Perched on the rocky cliffs of the Cornish coast, the imposing structure known as End House looms over the quiet hotel where retired detective Hercule Poirot is vacationing. Though the house is intriguing, its reckless young mistress, Nick Buckly, is even more so. She has narrowly escaped a recent series of life-threatening accidents, and something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Someone is trying to do away with poor Nick. But who? And what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And this time Nick may not escape with her life.

My Review:

Hercule Poirot and his trusted sidekick, Captain Hastings, are on the scene before the murder is committed in this entertaining and very unpredictable mystery. No one is as they seem, including the would-be victim, Nick Buckly.

Poirot and Hastings may be growing on me because I didn’t find them nearly as annoying as I have in the past. Poirot is humbled by his failure to stop the murder, and the length of time it takes him with his ‘superior grey cells’ to solve this mystery. Captain Hastings seems to have matured; he doesn’t give Poirot as many opportunities to ridicule him as was his habit in the past.

I’m always surprised by the amount of female stereotypes that Poirot and Hastings employ in trying to solve their cases. You’d think with a female author, there would be less of that stuff. I guess that's what makes Agatha Christie’s mysteries entertaining – her ability to detach from her own personal beliefs to create these lifelike characters that hold opinions, that I imagine, contradict hers.

4/5

Murder at Hazelmoor

From the book cover:
On a cold, snowy winter evening, six members of the tiny community of Sittaford are engaged in an amusing séance of table turning when suddenly there is a loud rap. The name of T-R-E-V-E-L-Y-A-N is spelled out, then slowly the table rocks out the letters M-U-R-D-E-R. One of the participants in the séance, retired Major Burnaby, is an old friend of Captain Joseph Trevelyan. While protesting that he “doesn’t believe in this tommyrot,” the Major is sufficiently disturbed by the eerie incident to slog his way on foot through the blizzard to Captain Trevelyan’s cottage in Exhampton, six miles away.

Captain Trevelyan has indeed been murdered. He has been dead for two, possibly three hours… about the time of the message from the “spirit world.” Inspector Narracott is called in on the case, and, on circumstantial evidence, arrests James Pearson. James’ fiancée, Emily Trefusis, promptly goes to work to prove his innocence… by proving someone else’s guilt.

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My Review:

Murder at Hazelmoor is a typical Agatha Christie murder mystery. There’s the plucky young heroine (for some reason, Emily Trefusis reminded me of Robert Munsch’s Princess Elizabeth of The Paper Bag Princess fame), the above suspicion killer, a bunch of shady characters, and of course the little side mysteries that are not solved to the reader’s satisfaction.

It’s almost impossible to dislike Ms. Christie’s heroines. They all fit the same archetype. If you want to get a feel for Emily Trefusis’ character, think Tuppence, Anne Beddingfield, Virginia Revel, Katherine Grey and Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent. They are all gutsy women who shrug of the 1920s ideal of a woman’s place in the world and are often way ahead of the men in their lives.

I felt tricked at the end of this novel, much like I felt at the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It’s one of those mysteries where the reader has to really look at what’s not written on the pages and invent possible scenarios.

Agatha Christie novels are great travel and vacation reads. I’ve accepted that they are not great works of fiction but I’m still disappointed when the plot elements don’t add up. Unfortunately that was the case in Murder at Hazelmoor.

2.5/5

Wally Wander

From the book cover:
When Wally is young she learns that being her friend can be dangerous to your health. As she goes through life, the idea of her deadly contamination persists and is even reinforced. As a result Wally begins to spend some of her time living somewhere else, upstairs in her head. Wally wanders into her space bubble which floats somewhere just below God’s space.

My Review:

Wally Wander is a thought-provoking novel about a dysfunctional family. Wally, the protagonist, provides first-person narration of her life story, starting when she is 12 years old.

Wally’s story is one of loss. She never really knew her father – he drowned when she was young. Her adopted younger brother, Oliver, dies in a tragic motor vehicle accident when she is 12 years old, and then shortly after Wally’s pet chicken is beheaded and eaten for dinner.

There are many plot twists and turns and ethical quandaries in this novel. They’re not hard to keep track of, but they are hard to pin down to a timeline seeing as some of the characters’ ages don’t seem to match up. (If I could change anything about this book, I would ask NovaMelia to divide the book into sections and clearly state what year the events take place in.)
After the death of Oliver and the pet chicken, Wally and her older brother, Norman, are sent to live with their aunt and uncle because their mom is not doing well. It’s not clear what their mother’s medical diagnosis is. The story then skips forward to when Wally is older and her mother has Parkinson’s disease.

I want to love this novel but I can’t because there are just too many plot elements that don’t add up. Years after Oliver’s death, Wally finds out that he was really her older brother Norman’s child with his adopted daughter, Rosie – Norman’s wife and Wally’s mother both wanted a child so they concocted a plan to have Norman impregnate Rosie through artificial insemination. At the time this occurred, Rosie, who is autistic, was supposedly at the age of consent. However, in the original scene where Oliver dies, Rosie is portrayed as a teenager. Years later, when Wally is all grown up, Rosie is still a teenager. She is suppose to be around the same age as her brother Nigel, who goes to live with Wally when he is 13 years old. Confusing, right?

3/5

About the author:
NovaMelia was born in England and moved to the U.S.A when she was seventeen years old. She attended the University of Pittsburgh where she studied creative writing and psychology. She has lived in a number of states - including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Florida - and now resides in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, George.

About the book:

Wally Wander by NovaMelia
ISBN: 978-1-4327-7910-8
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Date of publish: February 24, 2012
Pages: 212
S.R.P.: $16.95

He Answered

From the book cover:

Lia finally had it all figured out. That was until that one traumatic day. A day that would change everything. Nothing would ever be the same again. No normal, rational thinking person would do that, would they? Could they?

My Review:

I really enjoyed L.V. Robinson’s writing style, I just wish she had put a bit (okay, fine, a lot) more detail into this book. There isn’t really a point to this story, lesson to be learned or inspiration to harness, it’s just one woman’s story; and it’s not even that unique a story.

Robinson opens with the climactic scene of Lia being removed from the home she shares with her leave-in boyfriend and their blended family. From there, we flash back to a seventeen-year-old Lia who has just moved into an apartment a few blocks away from her family’s home. Robinson then quickly takes us through the decisions that bring Lia to the opening scene. This entire novelette is 62 pages long with medium font and loose line spacing. A lot of important yet amazingly flat characters are introduced. Even Lia the main character is a mere skeleton of a character. All the reader really knows about her is that she believes in God. The title, He Answered, is a reference to God answering Lia’s prayers.

1.5/5

About the book:

He Answered by L.V. Robinson

ISBN: 978-1-4327-8450-8

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Date of publish: December 2011

Pages: 69

S.R.P.: $9.95

Redemption

From the book cover:
How do you keep going after the one person you always believed you were meant to be with forever gives their heart to someone else? Bryan Roemer never thought he'd have to answer that question; but after losing the woman he loved to another man, he is faced with a new reality. Meeting Mara - exotic, beautiful, sexy - on the flight back to California provided him with a welcome distraction to take his mind off his pain. Still, days are a blur. His nights are spent drowning in memories. At his lowest moment, his friends, Nick Flaherty and Carrie Mayer, summon him back east to photograph their wedding. Reluctantly, he does. Six months have changed Bryan. And when he arrives, the rest of the Circle find that he hasn't come alone. Something dark and sinister has come with him. Something that is determined to keep him at all costs. But waiting there for Bryan is a second chance. one that just might save his life.




My Review:
Redemption is the second novel in LA Kuehlke's Pursuit series. I haven't read the first novel, but that didn't matter as there are plenty of plot catch-ups via conversations about what happened last summer, and the main characters' thoughts and memories.

When I first started reading, I was a bit put off by the angels, demons and circle stuff. From the book's synopsis you don't get any of that, there's only one reference to the circle. I took that to be a circle of friends, which the characters are so it wasn't completely off.

I'm very much in the middle about this novel. It's an interesting, if not a completely original plot - angels and demons among us fighting for our souls trying to destroy us.

I didn't feel anything for any of the characters. They were all a bit too one dimensional for my liking. Bryan the hunky bad boy. Cassidy the beautiful and pure. Nick the happy, go-lucky who loves his cliches. Carrie the beautiful planner. Miranda the beautiful dreamer. And Derek, the hunky super cop.

The premise of the story doesn't add up either. According to Bryan and Miranda (the woman who broke his heart), they were never in a romantic relationship. They were just long time friends, he had feelings for her that she didn't return, instead she fell in love with Derek. That doesn't equal total devastation in my books.At least not enough to travel to the other side of the country and try to forget everything.

From the way this novel ended, I think the third book in the series is going to be about Miranda's little sister Lainey and her fight with demons.

2.5/5

To purchase a copy of this book visit the author's web page on the Outskirts Press website.

The Seven Dials Mystery

As my regular readers know, I’m in the midst of a long term Agatha Christie reading challenge. The Seven Dials Mystery is my 10th Agatha Christie novel, not counting Giant’s Bread (written under the pen name Mary Westmacott) and the short story collection Poirot Investigates.

What I’m finding thus far in my reading challenge is a lot of the plot elements from the various books continue turning up. The Seven Dials Mystery has many of the same characters from The Secret of Chimneys; Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent is the main character with the bumbling Bill Eversleigh playing the role of a very important supporting character in this mystery-turn-romance novel.

Once again, a guest has been murdered at Chimneys. This time, it’s during a weekend hosted by self-made millionaire Sir Oswald Coote and his wife Lady Coote, who are letting Chimney from Bundle’s father Lord Chatham. At first the murder is ruled death by misadventure. Everyone except for the dead man’s dear friend, Ronny Devereaux, accepts the coroner’s verdict.

A couple days later, Lord Chatham and Bundle are back at Chimney, the Cootes' lease being up. Bundle stumbles upon a letter the dead man was writing to his adopted sister before his death and begins her own investigation. Things really start to heat up when Ronny Devereaux is killed. Bundle goes in search of the Seven Dials secret society and ends up finding her future husband.

The Seven Dials Mystery features a secret society with a mysterious leader similar to The Big Four. And, like almost all of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, it features characters masquerading as someone they are not. Despite all of this lack of originality, I really enjoyed this novel. I love the characters Bundle, Lord Chatham, Superintendent Blunt and Bill Eversleigh. I really hope to read about them again.

4/5