“You and your bats!” // Review of “A Murder of Crows” by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett

Title: A Murder of Crows (Nel Ward Mysteries #1)
Author: Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
Audio book narrator: Kristen Atherton
Genre: Mystery
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 05/05/2023 – 09/05/2023
Rating: ★★★★

Review: 

I picked this book up because the blurb was giving me Midsomer Murders vibes and the audio version is read by one of my favourite audio book narrators. And I loved it!

The murder mystery is well laid out, with small clues peppered throughout the story for the reader to pick up on. I’m not the kind of person who can pick the ending of a mystery, but I was able to go “Hmm, that’s suspicious…” which added to the enjoyment.

I have to admit at the start that I was literally listening to the acknowledgements when I realised the play on words in the title: “Crows” is the surname of two of the murder victims. I’d spent the whole book trying to work out why that was the title when bats play a much bigger part. D’oh!

I also found myself invested in a love triangle for the first time in a long time… well, invested in one side of it. I really enjoyed some of the scenes between Nel and her colleague, Adam (later known as Rav). Their banter was fun and there were some cute, tender moments between them. In the last quarter or maybe third of the book, the miscommunication trope comes out in full force, which is a bit disappointing, but I’m hoping they will get themselves sorted out and have a grown-up conversation in book two.

It did strike me as odd that the other side of the love triangle is… the officer arresting Nel for murder?! Even if I accept that her initial attraction was when he just knocking on her door to ask a few questions, she forgave him far too easily after he arrested her on fairly flimsy evidence and brought up a past trauma in the interview to “rattle” her.

On that note, while I know that in these types of series, the police have to be a bit incompetent in order for the heroine to look good, these police just seemed… not very good at their jobs at times. It also seemed odd to me how casual the characters referenced each other: in scenes from DI James Clarke’s POV, I felt it would have made more sense for him to think of Nel as Doctor Ward, and in scenes from Nel’s perspective, it was jarring hearing her think about “James” and not DI Clarke.

Despite those quibbles, I found myself looking for more opportunities to listen to the book rather than read my physical one. I got home from work one evening and immediately cleaned the kitchen! The story was engaging and of course, Kristen Atherton’s excellent narration helped. I was listening to it through my library’s digital loans app, and it was the first time in a long time I didn’t need to extend a loan beyond the initial 14-day period.

There are already three books available in this series with three more announced. I’m hoping that I’m in for an enjoyable ride as I continue.

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“Tell the truth and shame the devil.” // Review of “All These Bodies” by Kendare Blake

Title: All These Bodies
Author: Kendare Blake
Genre: Historical/horror
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 05/05/2023 – 09/05/2023
Rating: ★★

Review: 

The only word I have to describe this book is “dull”. And I feel bad about it. But it just… it promised a gruesome murder mystery and possibly some horror and a deep-dive into the nature of “truth” and what I got was… a lot of talking through the bars of a jail cell.

I actually thought the writing was quite engaging. I flew through the pages. But only because it was easy to read. Not really because I was hooked.

I think the main problem is that everything interesting has already happens when the story starts. Usually in a serial killer murder mystery, the murders keep happening as the story progresses, and the investigators are in a race against time. But there’s none of that, really.

All we have is a girl who was found at the crime scene, covered in blood, who claims she didn’t kill anyone. Who refuses to talk to anyone but our narrator, and half the time, doesn’t even answer his questions. I couldn’t get invested in their relationship at all.

By the end, Michael is willing to put himself at huge risk for her, but I had no idea why. There’s a line towards the end where Michael observes that none of the school mates he’s grown up with know him as well as Marie does, but I had no reason to believe that.

The horror elements are kept to a minimum, and honestly, that’s to the books detriment. The ending is supposed to be ambiguous, and it achieves that to a point, but some things were left completely loose-ended.

In the author’s note, Kendare Blake explains that this story was inspired by a real life killing spree that took place in a similar area of the US in the 1950s. I think trying to adapt real events while also throwing in elements of the supernatural, made for a little too much for one shortish novel and as a result, it ended up achieving very little.

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“In my mind, I am eloquent… but when I open my mouth, everything collapses.” // Review of “Warm Bodies” by Isaac Marion

Title: Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies #1)
Author: Isaac Marion
Genre: Pots-apocalyptic/zombies
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 12/02/2022 – 19/02/2022
Rating: ★★★★

Review: 

Not being a huge fan of zombie fiction, it’s likely I wouldn’t have picked up this book if I didn’t have hazy memories of enjoying the movie. Plus it was second-hand and $4, which helped.

The thing about Warm Bodies is that it’s a unique take on the zombie genre (she says from her very uneducated viewpoint). Yes, R, M and their Dead compatriots crave human flesh, but that’s not their sole purpose in life. They’ve created their own society, with rituals and bonds to each other. This was one of the things I found most fascinating about the book.

Warm Bodies is not just the story of a literal zombie apocalypse. There’s also a metaphorical one, and there’s a lot of examination of quality of life, and at what point (if there is one) are you or society as a whole better of just laying down and dying?

The evolution of R and his fellow Fleshies regaining their humanity while the Boneys (zombies that are literally just skeletons at this point) kick and scream as they resist any change is a perfect metaphor for a society rediscovering its soul.

R’s connection to Julie being the catalyst for these changes work well, but I have to admit, when I thought about the romance from Julie’s perspective, it was a bit ick. I mean, she’s talking about kissing him even before his heart starts beating again. Do you really want to kiss a corpse, even if he has expressed affection for you?

I hadn’t realised when I started the book that it’s part of a four-book series. While I am not opposed to continuing on, I have to be honest, this first one wraps up pretty well. I probably wouldn’t seek out the subsequent books, but I would probably check one out if I ran across it in the library. But treated as a standalone, this one holds up pretty well so I’d recommend checking it out if you’re curious.

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Book Review: “The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast” by Sophie Love

Title: The Ghostly Grounds: Murder and Breakfast (Canine Casper Cozy Mystery #1)
Author: Sophie Love
Genre: Urban fantasy/cosy mystery
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 03/01/2022 – 04/01/2022
Rating: ★★★

Review: 

I have to admit, I went into this because it looked spooky and paranormal. Having now read it, I would have to say that is the books’ weakest feature. While there is definitely something ghostly going on, it really had no impact on the story itself.

I did enjoy the cast of characters. It was particularly nice having a lead character, Marie, who is nearing 40, rather than the usual mid-20s protagonists. I did have to suspend my disbelief a little with how easily she set up the B&B – less than $11k in savings to fix the place up and no building inspections or approvals in sight. Just set up a website!

Sometimes the writing felt a little bit repetitive, especially as different characters kept asking Marie about the rumours that her aunt’s manor might be haunted, and she gave the same answer every time. There was also a lot of hand-wringing over whether she could afford to keep the B&B running, which got a bit tiresome after a while, even if it is realistic.

But the idea of a paranormal investigator being in town at the same time as a noted sceptic and the latter ending up dead… that’s an excellent premise for a cozy mystery, and I did enjoy that side of the book. The investigation moves along at a good pace, and it doesn’t feel like there’s any padding while the story waited for Marie to find more clues.

While I enjoyed this instalment well enough, I did pick this up as a freebie. I am not sure I am necessarily invested enough to continue the series. It might remain at the back of my mind, but I have so many other books to read, it’s unlikely I’m going to return to these ones.

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Book Review: “Cupcakes, Trinkets and Other Deadly Magic” by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Title: Cupcakes, Trinkets and Other Deadly Magic (Dowsers #1)
Author: Meghan Ciana Doidge
Genre: Urban fantasy/cosy mystery
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 01/01/2022 – 02/01/2022
Rating: ★★

Review: 

I’m not having a lot of luck with urban fantasies lately. Anyone who knows me I will snap up anything that features both baking and magic, but this one really needed a good edit to make it stand out.

There were a lot of things that weren’t really explained very well, and other times where the main character explains too much at a bad time, halting the plot and making the reader forget what was actually happening. Several times, the narration would say something like “Now that I knew how to…” or “so that was why…” and I had no idea where the revelation had come from.

They mystery itself was actually decent enough. I didn’t mind reading the ins and outs of the characters pursuing their leads. The villain was fairly obvious but when it came down to it, I couldn’t quite understand their reasoning, and I’m still not sure what actually transpired at the end. Maybe that’s explained in later books, but I’m not interested enough to continue the series.

I think my favourite character was the vampire Kett. He was the one who seemed to have the most interesting personality, and who seemed like the most fully-formed of the side characters. While there were more werewolves on the scene than vampires, the most interesting one of them ends up dead early on and I never particularly warmed to any of the others.

One more thing to note: a key element of the story is that Jade thought she was half-human, half-witch, but the human aspect may not be correct (she never knew her father). When she finally does get her mother and grandmother to open up at the end of the book, they tell her her father was someone her mother hooked up with while backpacking through Australia and taking part in an “aboriginal fertility ceremony”. Yikes. I’m not an Indigenous Australian, but I would still encourage this Canadian author to not throw around terms like that in the name of humour or a quirky plot point.

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#AusReads Planting Pearls by Virginia King

Title: Planting Pearls (Selkie Moon #1)
Author: Virginia King
Genre: Mystery/paranormal
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 01/12/22 – 02/12/22
Rating: ★★★★★

Review: 

I heard about this series through the author’s sister, with whom I do musical theatre, and I’m so glad I checked it out. I loved this one!

Planting Pearls is a suspense novel with a hint of paranormal. I really enjoyed the way that Hawaiian folklore was incorporated into the story. Admittedly, I am not familiar with any of the stories and I have no idea whether the folklore and native stories have been well represented, but at face value, they add to the story.

I mentioned in a recent review that the main character was a sexual assault or rape survivor, but this only ever seemed like a superficial reason for the character to want to leave town. I was pleased that in Planting Pearls, the effects of an abusive relationships were well-developed, as awful as they were. Selkie’s (ex-)husband sends her threatening text messages, cancels her hotel reservations once he’s discovered where she’s gone, and makes Selkie out to be the villain to their friends.

Selkie is a strong lead character, and her friends, particularly Wanda and Derek, make a good team. The mystery unfolds at a solid pace and I didn’t ever feel like the author was trying to pad the story out. I’m definitely looking forward to checking out more of Selkie Moon’s adventures.

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#AusReads “You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you…” // Review of “The Mother Fault” by Kate Mildenhall

Title: The Mother Fault
Author: Kate Mildenhall
Audio book narrator: Claudia Karvan
Genre: Dystopian/literary fiction
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 25/09/22 – 05/11/22
Rating: ★★

Review: 

Oh man. This book frustrated me to no end. I ended up switching from audio book to physical about halfway through because I was finding it slow-going and I needed to move things along.

I know there’s that whole conversation about how female characters are held to impossible standards and we should all get behind unlikeable female characters because sometimes that’s how the world is (or something… I’m not very eloquent I know). But I just couldn’t stand Mim at all.

I understood that this was supposed to be an examination of the way women can lose parts of their pre-motherhood identities once they have kids. I don’t know if this would hit differently if I was a parent and had shared some of these experiences. As it was, Mim was just awful.

She puts not only herself, but her kids, her wider family and pretty much everyone else she comes into contact with in danger. She gets pissy at people when things go wrong, even though it’s mostly down to her poor judgement that they are in the bad situations to begin with. She feels guilty a lot of the time, but that never quite equates with taking any responsibility.

And the ending? I don’t want to say anything too spoilery, but I felt it basically cancelled out the entire story that came before it. Why did the characters even bother?

So why two stars rather than one, given how cranky I sound in all the above? Well, it was easy to read and despite my issues, I did fly through the pages once I had moved on to the phsyical book. (Was I rage-reading? Maybe I was rage-reading.) I suspect that I might actually enjoy Kate Mildenhall’s first book, which is historical fiction, a lot more.

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#AusReads Book Review: “The Eighth Wonder” by Tania Farrelly

Title: The Eighth Wonder
Author: Tania Farrelly
Audio book narrator: Annabelle Stephenson, Leinad Walker
Genre: Historical fiction
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 07/10/22 – 03/11/22
Rating: ★★★

Review: 

This is one of those books that leaves me wringing my hands a bit as I try to review it. It’s fine. The writing is good. The characters are interesting. The setting is immersive. And yet, for whatever reason, the best I can do is damn it with faint praise and say I guess I enjoyed it.

I think my main problem here was that for so long I couldn’t really tell where the story was going. Things happened to the characters, but there seemed to be little set-up and little payoff later. Things just happened.

The two main character don’t even really meet until more than halfway through (though there had been a couple of encounters prior to that). For a while, I wasn’t sure whether an entirely different character was supposed to be the love interest! (Though he seemed unlikely).

While things did come together somewhat at the end, this wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped.

Like I said, the writing in and of itself is very good, especially for a debut. Farrelly has clearly done her research into Golden Age New York City. I could picture the different parts of the city clearly as the characters travelled around.

I do have to warn for scenes of animal cruelty – one of the main characters adopts animals that have been abused by the entertainment industry, and some scenes of that cruelty are depicted.

I know a lot of my feelings about this book ultimately come down to personal preference. And I know many others have really enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, I would say it’s one to check out.

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#AusReads Book Review: “Witchnapped in Westerham” by Dionne Lister

Title: Witchnapped in Westerham (Paranormal Investigation Bureau #1)
Author: Dionne Lister
Genre: Urban fantasy/cosy mystery
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 10/10/2022 – 16/10/2022
Rating: ★★

Review: 

Honestly? If I hadn’t been reading this for a readathon I’m already behind on, I don’t know that I would have finished it.

I will say one thing – I liked the concept of Lily being able to see the past or the future through her photography. That was cool and I liked that it was tied in with her passion.

The characters were annoying and for so long it felt like little was happening. Some character motivations seemed non-existent – such as Angelica making really snooty, snide comments one moment and then swearing that Lily can trust her the next?

Also I had to go back to the book and look up Angelica’s name because I had entirely forgotten, despite the fact that I finished reading half an hour ago. Oops.

Lily is also pretty self-absorbed. I get that her brother’s missing and she’s worried – but literally risking getting shot because she wants a cup of coffee and instant isn’t good enough? I appreciated she got dressed down for that and then I was kind of annoyed when one of the other characters went and got her a coffee anyway.

The villain was so over the top and so cartoonish – not to mention obvious. It wasn’t even that it was obvious to the reader and not to the characters – Lily had accurately figured it out by the halfway mark – she just needed proof, and apart from a couple of setbacks, gets it pretty easily.

Oof. I didn’t intend to get so ranty in this review. I will say that I didn’t realise how established this series was and I only downloaded the book because it was free. I didn’t enjoy it enough to continue with the rest of the books.

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#AusReads Book Review: “A Remarkable Woman” by Jules van Mil

Title: A Remarkable Woman
Author: Jules van Mil
Genre: Historical fiction
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 20/06/22 – 27/06/22
Rating: ★★★

Review: 

A Remarkable Woman takes us from war-torn Paris to the trendy streets of 1950s Melbourne and the rolling paddocks of far-north Queensland cattle country. We follow aspiring designer Avril Montdidier as she struggles to choose between her dreams of independence and a man she can’t let go of.

If I am honest, I felt that the writing could have been developed further to give the reader a closer connection to the characters. It started strong – I was actually tearing up in the prologue! But as the book went on, I sometimes felt that I was observing from a distance rather than being in the action. Having said that, van Mil has created a memorable cast of characters, from the stoic stockman to the loveable larrikin.

I will admit that the romance was not as interesting to me as the plotline of Avril developing her own clothing line and opening her stores for business, first in Melbourne, then Sydney and Brisbane. I was much more swept up in the excitement of seeing all her plans come to fruition than I was in the relationship between her and Tim Monaghan.

That’s not to say that there was anything wrong with the romance. I think my issue was that because Avril and Tim ultimately spent so much time apart, I didn’t really feel the spark.

I know a lot of my feelings about the book came down to personal preference, and I think those who are fans of the sweeping saga style of historical fiction will really love it.  

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Thank you Macmillan Australia and the Australian Book Lovers Podcast for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

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