Mystery In The Adonis Valley

The setting for this mystery novel is mysterious in its own right. The Adonis Valley is near to Beirut in the Lebanon and had a collection of crumbling palaces and buildings at the time of the writing of the novel. The Middle East as it is described is not recognizable anymore to us today. It's like a romantic fairy tale, but then it was real. What we have now is decades of proxy wars between the superpowers destroying small countries.

Mystery On Corfu

Corfu has always been the pet theory for Shakespeare aficionados as the setting for the Tempest. There is very little to go by to come up with this theory. The bard was famous for taking a loan from any story he came across. Having certain names crop up in the play and on the island is no great clue. And fiction is fiction, there should be no earthly realm to be found.

Mystery On Crete

Two brothers, one young, the other very young, get stranded on Crete after a meeting with the wrong kind of Cretans. Their boating companion and guide finds the older by chance and gets them to a lonely shepherd's hut. Water is near, but food is a problem. With one of them wounded, they get stuck there. And the younger has disappeared in a landscape full of lonely buildings and hiding places.

Mystery At Hadrian's Wall

As with all of Mary Stewart's mystery novels, the setting is as important as the protagonists. The story she spins this time is perfectly suited to misty Northumberland. The bluffs and double bluffs find a perfect expression in the Roman border situation, which isn't one anymore, but still is a major divider of mainland Britain. If you haven't yet been there, this book should give you the impetus to do so.

Mystery on Lake Geneva

For once, this mystery book by Mary Stewart doesn't act as a travel guide extraordinaire at the same time. The story is too contained within the space of private properties, with good reason. Of Stewart's mystery books I have read, this one is the darkest and most obscure visible in title and storyline both. But follow me to Lake Geneva's French side to have a good look around.

High School Gay Romance

Presenting High School life in any form is fraught with danger; either authors presume too much knowledge about how its social mechanisms work or they lose themselves in the interactions that have little or nothing to do with the story they are telling. This book falls into the first category; and that's not the worst of its shortcomings

Apprentice Meets God

The fifth and final book of the Belgariad series brings the story to a satisfactory climax. Both Garion and Ce'Nedra are exceedingly busy in bringing everything to pass as stipulated by the prophecy. Probably they needn't have bothered, the prophecy and its counterpart moved everyone around like so many chess pieces.

Sorcerer Apprentice No More

In the fourth book of the Belgariad series, the apprentice arrives at his destination. The worst kept secret (at least for the reader) is being revealed to all the world. And all the world means the universe and everything. While the previous books were dominated by a group interaction, this book now changes tack to a more stationary and divisive lifestyle. This can go only so far, though.

Wedding Vows On The Rocks

I planned on having a peek at the first chapter before going to sleep. Now it's morning and I finished the book. Not the way I planned it, but it is Saturday; I can sleep all day if I want to. Lucy Monroe's After The Billionaire's Wedding Vows was published by Harlequin. And it kept my attention seamlessly from start to end. The author sent me the book for a review; I happily obliged on this one.

Billionaire Heir

Tradition can be a comfort and help run a functional and mainly happy family. And it can be disruptive and lead to a highly dysfunctional family when circumstances conspire against it. This is the scope of conflict Lucy Monroe is exploring in The Maharajah's Billionaire Heir. This modern romance is off topic, entertaining, and not what you expect at all.

Alaskan Heatwave

Join me in an excursion to Alaska to follow the shenanigans of Lucy Monroe's characters in her modern romance. Modern romance is not always a happy genre; many really bad authors have done loads of damage to it. But this is Lucy Monroe, no categorizing necessary. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of Hot Alaska Nights.

Witches in Retirement

Welcome to the condo for retired wizards and witches in Grumpy Old Wizards by John O'Riley. Join the pensioners for tea and playing cards (mind reading not allowed) and join them in getting involved in a few murders in their spare time. One thing is sure, nothing has changed in the magicked up USA over the one we know today.

When a Spell Goes Wrong

Enter the present day world of witches, warlocks, and high-school. Then add murder to the mix. This is the enticing recipe served up by Nikki Jefford in Entangled, the first of the Spellbound books. If the mix is something you can get into, the book is free to download on Amazon for Kindle at the time of publication of this review. You will be enchanted with what you find.

Germanic Gods and Goblins

In Gateway to Nifleheim, Glenn G. Thater delves into the Germanic world of gods and goblins that are related to Valhalla and Nifleheim, the powers of good and evil to spin her yarn. This is the first book in the Harbinger of Doom Series. I have to confess at the start, I skipped many a page to keep going. The story doesn't so much move as that it plods on, tediously.

Regency Charade Mystery

Deceiving the Duke of Kerrington by Ginny Hartman is based on the trusted plot of a charade where people resembling each other impersonate the other. As such the book is an amusing read; when the plot becomes too obvious, you still want to read on to see how on earth the author is going to get herself out of the pit she is digging for herself page after page, deeper and steeper.

Hero, Sword, and Dragons

The Hero, the Sword, and the Dragons by Craig Halloran is the first book in The Chronicles of Dragon series. It has everything it takes to give it lift-off, yet strangely it failed to captivate either me or my imagination. Best thing you can do is try it for yourself; at the time this review is published it's available for free on Amazon for Kindle.

Regency Murder Mystery

Are you looking for a sex, crime, and murder mystery set in Regency England? I'm afraid you haven't found it. All that dates the book's story is the mention of 1819 at the beginning of the first chapter. After that, it just is a generic sex and crime story. Stone Devil Duke by K. J. Jackson is showing up major defects in writing without doing at least some minimal research.

How The Afterlife Works

Power of the Heir's Passion by L. R. W. Lee is a sort of a prequel to the Andy Smithson series. I assure you that this is the most accurate description of afterlife available, for the world of Oomladee, not ours. It is subtitled A Novella; not quite a book but too long for a short story. And it's a ghost story from start to end.

The Stolen Kingdom

The Stolen Kingdom by Ross Rosenfeld is a very unhappy book, or maybe an unfortunate one. It definitely suffers from multiple personae disorder. It tells the story of the missing prince in a new way; the story is placed in an imaginary Europe without giving away any cultural details as to where exactly it is.

Phoenix Rising

In book 4 of the Andy Smithson series, Phoenix, Arizona, receives visitors from Oomladee for a change. Resurrection of the Phoenix's Grace by L. R. W. Lee sees the conflict crossing the magical border before Andy's Mom sends him back to Oomladee when the situation at home gets out of hand and way too dangerous.