So what have you been reading?

 

A tiny restaurant that doesn’t advertise offers a big service, to recreate a dish from your past. This father and daughter duo get the story about the dish and then track down exactly how to recreate the dish for someone who wants to eat it again. Some of these deal with loss and the dish they want is something made by someone that ha died. It is a bit of a cozy mystery but with no death and a lot of great food descriptions.

 

Diesel has been a side character in the Stephanie Plum series, dropping in and causing extra chaos to her life. He pops into Lizzy’s life and lets her know that she is a magical finder of what he needs to find.  He is on a mission to find magical stones that personify the Seven Deadly Sins. Madcap things happen and it is a fun light read.



 

 

This is a humorous take inspired by real events in Brent Spiner’s life while he was shooting Star Trek: TNG.  I wasn’t going to bother with grabbing the ARC but someone I follow on social media said it was really funny, so I decided to give it a shot.  Brent is being stalked by a fan obsessed with him and calling herself Lal after an episode that data creates a daughter for himself by that name.  Everyone you meet in the book seems to be over the top, his costars, staff on the set, and law enforcement.  Brent is not spared this either with his reactions to the letters and the constant bad dream flashbacks he has that combine the current events with his troubled childhood.  The mystery is solved in the end and over the top as the rest of the book. For me personally the humor was way over the top and I got a bit tired of it by the end of the book. Maybe if I hadn’t read most of it in one sitting it wouldn’t have felt that way to me.  But each to their own and I can see where lots of people would enjoy this more than I did.

 

 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

The story line in this one deals with Stephanie and Lula working in a deli that Vinnie got as backing on a bond that someone skipped out on. Due to their hijinks and a crazy thing like managers disappearing the deli goes viral on social media. It doesn’t last long, and Stephanie does end up finding out what happened to the missing managers. At some point this series just needs to be shelved in either humor or fantasy since it bears almost no relation to the real world.

I first heard about Julie d'Aubigny on Tumblr and when I came across this book I really wanted to read it.  Since there are gaps in what we know about her the author framed the story as a series of flashbacks on her deathbed as she is supposedly giving confession.  This does cover the year gaps in her life story very easily.  Julie lived a very unconventional life, at a young age she became the mistress to the French King’s Horse Master and he had her married off to cover the fact she was having an affair on him.  She knew how to use a sword since her father allowed her to learn and she used that skill all of her life. She was an opera singer in Paris and was loved by the crowds. The afterward does say that several characters were not real in order to mover the story along and some were composites but in the end there wasn’t a lot of material to work with and that makes the flashback narration tool the best to convey the story.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.

I know these books are formulaic but they are silly fun. Stephanie for once helps out Ranger almost as much as he helps her out in the books. A cute entertaining read and yes I'll read the next one and more than likely the one after that.



 

The conclusion to this thriller series about a female killer for hire has her solving the attack on herself as a child and murder of her cousin. It turns out that things are not quite how she remembers them from the attack and things turn interesting when hired killers start coming after her. A good solid ending to the book and I'm not left wondering at the end about now what.

I still like these books but it is more of a quick piece of mental candy to read and toss aside. Stephanie still has the hots for Ranger and she allows herself to spend time with him professionally even though she is with Morelli and he certainly wants more out of the relationship.  At least in this book she is realizing that she has nothing long term and an unstable career as a bond enforcement officer. The mystery of the missing person is solved by the end of the book and more people than usual have their cars set on fire. A light enjoyable read but no real depth to the story or overall story arc. 

This series reminds me of the Harper Connelly series in where there is no supernatural in it except for the main protaganist. Jack's psychic powers come into play during a family tradegy that leaves him an orphan of the state.  Jack runs away from the state boys home and finds a carnival where he lives and as an adult opens a psychic shop. He is visited by the brother of the one friend he made at the boys home and finds himself recruited unwillingly to their project. It seems his old friend was working on astral projection for the military and died during an experiment. Now his spirit is trying to get back and is causing a lot of vilolent death. Jack has to shut this down even if he doesn't want to since the project is blackmailing him with getting his younger sister out of jail. I liked the book and it does have a small happy ending even if some things Jack learns about himself are not pleasant. 

This is where I admit I have never read this book even though I have seen a few movie versions of it. I admit I had downloaded to read to make me fall asleep but that didn't work. I was surprised that for the most part I knew everything that was going to happen due to watching media versions of it but I was still kept in the story so reading it to fall asleep didn't work.  The story holds up and I wouldn't be surprised if it holds up for several centuries.