1st Victim and 9th Girl

by Tami Hoag

I am familiar with this author's name but had never read any of her books.  When Net Galley offered these two books, I clicked that I was interested and they approved me.  So glad because I am a BIG fan now.

The 1st Victim is a short story featuring Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska.  On New Year's an unidentified body is left by the side of a highway.  Kovac & Liska suspect a serial killer.  Finding clues is difficult and they are unable to discover the girl's name because she isn't listed as a missing person.   This was a very satisfying and thrilling mystery story.

I jumped right into the 2nd book with gusto.  The 9th Girl starts out one year later on New Year's eve.

A young woman's brutalized body falls from the trunk of a car into the path of oncoming traffic. Questions as to whether she was alive or dead when she hit the icy pavement result in her macabre nickname, Zombie Doe. Unidentified and unidentifiable, she is the ninth nameless female victim of the year, and homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are charged with the task of not only finding out who Zombie Doe is, but who in her life hated her enough to destroy her. Was it personal, or could it just have been a crime of opportunity? Their greatest fear is that not only is she their ninth Jane Doe of the year, but that she may be the ninth victim of a vicious transient serial killer they have come to call Doc Holiday.

This book grabbed hold of me and didn't let go until the very end.  I love it when I find a book with depth to the story and the characters and keeps me asking questions that I want answered.  I highly recommend this series to those of you who love a good mystery.

You won't be surprised to hear that this is a series and, yet again, I did not start with the first book.  That doesn't mean I'm not going to go back and read the first 3 in the series.  Here's the list in order:

1.  Ashes to Ashes*

2.  Dust to Dust*

3.  Prior Bad Acts*

4.  The 1st Victim*

5.  The 9th Girl*

And of course, I'm going to be checking out other books by Tami Hoag.  Love it when I find a new-to-me, fabulous author.

* These are the books I now own.

Twerp

by Mark Goldblatt

This was a delightful book narrated by the main character, Julian Twerski.

Julian Twerski isn't a bully. He's just made a big mistake. So when he returns to school after a weeklong suspension, his English teacher offers him a deal: if he keeps a journal and writes about the terrible incident that got him and his friends suspended, he can get out of writing a report on Shakespeare. Julian jumps at the chance. And so begins his account of life in sixth grade--blowing up homemade fireworks, writing a love letter for his best friend (with disastrous results), and worrying whether he's still the fastest kid in school. Lurking in the background, though, is the one story he can't bring himself to tell, the one story his teacher most wants to hear.

Inspired by Mark Goldblatt's own childhood growing up in 1960s Queens, Twerp shines with humor and heart. This remarkably powerful story will have readers laughing and crying right along with these flawed but unforgettable characters.

I read this book because my grandson will be in the 6th grade next year and I thought this would be a book he'd enjoy.  I certainly did.  

The River of No Return

by Bee Ridgway

I received this chunkster (550 pages) in the mail today and I'm so excited to read it.  Unfortunately, it was an advance reader copy and I was suppose to review it close to its release date of May 23.  Even though it's a story of love and time travel, and I would love to review it when requested, I cannot travel back in time to get this read before the 23rd.

What I can do is a post a "heads up" that this book is now in bookstores and it sounds like a fabulous read.  There are 51 reviews on amazon.com that can give you a good feel for the book.

Here's the write-up from Bee Ridgway's webpage: 

In Bee Ridgway’s wonderfully imaginative debut novel, a man and a woman travel through time in a quest to bring down a secret society that controls the past and, thus, the future.​​​“You are now a member of the Guild. There is no return.”​Two hundred years after he was about to die on a Napoleonic battlefield, Lord Nicholas Falcott wakes up in a hospital bed in twenty-first century London. The Guild, a secretive organization that controls time travel, helps him make a new life in the modern world.
But Nick yearns for home and for one beautiful woman in particular, now lost to history.Back in 1815, that very woman, Julia Percy, finds herself the guardian of a family secret inherited from her enigmatic grandfather... how to manipulate time. But there are those who seek to possess Julia’s power and she begins to realize she is in the gravest peril.​The Guild’s rules are made to be broken, and Nick discovers how to travel back to the nineteenth century and his ancestral home. Fate and the fraying fabric of time draw Nick and Julia together once again . . . soon enough, they are caught up in an adventure that puts the future of the world into their hands.​Love endures the gulf of centuries . . . and so does danger.  As gripping as it is evocative, The River of No Return is a sweeping story of lovers who match wits and gamble their hearts against the rules of time itself.

Can't wait to read this! 

Sleeping in Eden

by Nicole Baart

There's a bit of mystery in this book - who is the woman's body under the barn's floorboards and was she murdered by the man who hung himself over that spot?  

The story takes place in two different time periods, approximately 10 years between.  The earlier story involves a charming tomboy, Meg, who falls in love with the new boy at school.  The later story, which is interwoven with the first,  involves Luke whose marriage is strained.

I like this method of storytelling - one chapter about one person and then the next about another and back and forth.  Watching for clues as to how the two stories are connected keeps my mind in a questioning, seeking mode.

Sleeping in Eden is a mystery, I guess, but I think the better classification would be real life drama.  The mystery adds intrigue but the real depth of the book is in the characters and their personal dramas.

Thanks to Anne Staszalek and The Book Report Network for sending me a copy of this book to read and review.  I enjoyed it very much.

The Girl, the Gold Tooth, and Everything

by Francine LaSalaon

I've never done drugs, but this made me feel like I might be on them.  It was mind-boggling, and not as in 'awe-some' but more like 'what was that?'  The first part seemed to drag on.  The last part of the book, when the action finally starts up was good but it didn't rescue the book.  The dentist scene made me think I had missed that this was a fantasy and not a mystery.  But, no, it is a mystery.  I can't imagine anyone I know going to that dentist and not feeling like something was totally off about it.

The language was over the top.  My students used to say that it was part of life and I would tell them that so is human waste but we didn't need to spend our days in the sewer.  I chose not to hang out in the sewer so I won't be reading any more books by this author.