{I've Been Reading} Bodies and Bows

 

 

 Bodies and Bows by Elizabeth Penny

Apron Shop owner Iris Buckley is as busy as ever, interviewing potential new employees for the shop and helping her grandmother on a committee to convert a local lighthouse into a museum...and trying to clear her best friend's name after a local hero is run over and killed on his morning run. 

I adore the Apron Shop mysteries and, while I didn't get as emotionally attached to the newly introduced characters as I did to the ones in the second book, the mystery in this one had me coming up with all kinds of theories. (Part of one was even right this time!)

  

The Blessed Bones by Kathryn Casey 

After the discovery of human bones at a construction site, police chief Clara Jeffries realizes that the biggest challenge might be identifying the victim, a young pregnant woman. Several local girls have gone missing over the past few years, but their families refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.  I absolutely love this series. This book gives us a little more information than we've had before about Clara's past. She also spends  more time with her mothers and her siblings. Like the other books in the series, the crimes are disturbing and I found myself really hurting for the characters. The crimes and motives feel more serious and real than in the cozy mystery series I usually read. 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} The Lost Village

 The Lost Village by Camilla Sten 

One day in 1959, the residents of an isolated mining town vanished, taking nothing with them and leaving no trace of where they might have gone. Only a newborn baby and a battered body, tied to a wooden post in the town square and surrounded by stones, remained. Alice Lindstet has spent her entire life hearing her grandmother's stories about the tragedy and is raising funds for a documentary project that she hopes will solve the mystery. She and her film crew have only a few days to explore the village and put together the video they'll need for their fundraising proposals. 

The Lost Village is a wonderfully creepy read. The book's description compares it to The Blair Witch Project and Midsommar (which is exactly why I picked it up) but I also saw elements of The Lottery.  A few elements are familiar, but if the film crew wasn't isolated, they'd just walk away as soon as they realize that something is wrong. The plot alternates between what is happening with Alice and her friends in the present and the events leading up to the disappearance in 1959. It's suspenseful and sad  and kept me turning pages until the end. 

 

 The Haunting of Beatrix Greene

This was something different. It's a ghost story told in episodes, written by a team of writers. The publisher's site explains what they're doing here. I went into it expecting a traditionally written book and maybe that's why it fell flat for me. The first episode completely swept me in, with an intriguing heroine and setting and a genuinely chilling moment that I didn't expect. I loved that first chapter, but after that it was just a gothic romance set in a haunted house. I was more intrigued by the vendors selling souvenirs outside the gates than I was by the ghosts. I imagine that it works better as an audiobook (the first episode is up on Youtube here) or for someone who wants to make their way through books at a measured pace. The Amazon link seems to be for the first episode. After that, you'll have to go to the publisher's site.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} What my Husband Did

 

What My Husband Did by Kerry Wilkinson

A neighbor comes to Maddy's door, asking her to call the police because he's just found the body of twelve-year-old Alice lying in a stream. As the little girl clings to life in her hospital bed, more and more questions are being asked -- most importantly, where is Maddie's husband and why was Alice seen getting into his car that night?  

This domestic thriller gets off to a slow start, mixing in chapters about an incident from Maddy's childhood. Once the plot actually started to twist, it held my interest and I felt like the ending was worth the read. 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {March 2021}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:  Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} Forget Me Not

 

 

 Forget Me Not by Alexandra Oliva

The description of this one intrigued me even before I realized that it was by the same author as The Last One. I was curious about a little girl raising herself and then escaping the walled off property to the outside world...but this book begins after she's grown up. Set in the near future, it has just enough unfamiliar technology to constantly remind the reader of that...and not quite enough information about Linda's past to keep things interesting. Once she returns to her childhood home it picks up pace. I was more interested in Linda as an almost feral child than I was by her adult life and virtual reality games. 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy .This post contains affiliate links.