Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bed of Roses


I hated this book. I enjoyed the first book in the series so I thought I would like this one. At first I did, Emma is a romantic and works with flowers, which made me want to work with flowers, but I always kill them. And she becomes smitten with her friend Jack who is also friends with all of her friends. Jack likes her as well, but heaven forbid they actually admit this to one another while they are sleeping with each other. That really annoyed me. And their friends weren't very helpful. All they talked about is how weird it would be if the two of them hooked up. Yeah, maybe at first, but if two of your friends are smitten with each other, let them be. Basically most of the book is them ignoring the fact they love each other, and its never even until like the last page that they finally admit it.

Off to the donation box at the library for this book.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Who Killed Swami Schwartz?


Well, I could tell you, but you might want to read this, so I won't.

I think I'm going to stop reading this books. They just aren't that exciting. Or maybe I'm just getting bored with reading mystery books or even just mystery books about old ladies.

In this one, a popular yoga instructor gets killed and pretty much any local person who has ever come in contact with him is a suspect. So Kate and her friends try to find out who killed him. Really wasn't a very exciting case. Probably the most interesting part was the annoying lady from Texas who talks non-stop about her dead horse. Who she plans on freezing. Apparently stuffing animals is old news.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Motherhood Is Murder


Not sure why I picked this up since I'm not a mommy and don't plan on being one anytime soon (I hope), but it was different so I figured, why the heck not.

Like most mystery series that focus on one thing (coffee shops, old people solving crime, motherhood), the book was pretty simple. To me there seemed like a lot of characters so I kind of got a little confused on who was who. What happens is that one of the mommy's in Kate's mommy and baby group dies and Kate who's a wannabe private investigator decides to find out what killed her. It had a decent storyline and I wasn't expecting the reason for the killing.

If you are a new mom and like mysteries, this probably wouldn't be a bad series to check out. This is the second book in the series, and the library doesn't have a copy of the first book, so I probably won't be reading it anytime soon.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Susannah's Garden


I've tried to read this book twice, and it keeps calling to, so I tried to read it a third time and finished. It wasn't anything special or life changing. It's about Susannah who comes home to put her elderly mother into a home and then to clean out the house (or so she says, there wasn't a whole lot of cleaning going on). When she gets there she decides to look up her high school boyfriend to see why he stopped writing to her when she was in France many, many years ago. This of course makes her husband mad. Then her daughter shows up to 'help clean' but starts getting involved with a shady boy from town, who's mother doesn't like Susannah. So for most of the story it's her trying to find her long ago boyfriend, having fights with her hubby and daughter, and hanging out with her friend from high school. The beginning was slow, the middle was good, the ending made me mad. About the last 50 or so pages, there's blackmail and someone who has been dead for 30 or whatever years apparently isn't. Being a Debbie Macomber book everyone has a happy ending, but it was a stupid ending.

Don't really recommend this book, stick to the Blossom Street series instead.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Death With An Ocean View


This is the first book in the Senior Sleuth mystery series, and frankly, it wasn't that great. The other one that I read in the series (Death Takes The Surf, I think it was called) was a lot better. In this book we are getting to know the characters, and of course and old lady dies, so Kate and her friend try to solve the mystery. And as in most mysteries, the main character always gets in that sticky situation where the killer almost kills them. You always know that's going to happen.

So skip this one and read the other one. Its not really one of those series where you get confused if you haven't read the other ones first. That's a plus.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Getting Old Is Murder


This series is super funny. There's something about little old ladies running around trying to solve a mystery while forgetting what's going on half the time that makes me laugh. It was also a little twisted. In this book, Goldy's friends keep dieing from a "heart attack", but she thinks otherwise. So she and her friends try to find out what's going on. Mostly it's just her, but the others are entertaining. Kind of made me think of The Golden Girls, where Dorothy was always in charged and the rest just followed. Only there's isn't a slutty one like Blanche. They are also Jewish, so you get to learn a lot of Jewish words. Good times.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Elegance


I found this book at the library, but all the pages were black and dirty looking and I didn't want something that icky in my house, so I went and bought a copy because I thought that I would really like it. I did and I didn't.

Apparently there's really a book out there called Elegance that the author found and apparently loved because she wrote a novel about a plain boring woman who finds the book and lets it change her life. It's like a beauty dictionary where each chapter is a letter from A to Z. Some of the advice given makes sense, like wear clothes that fit and make sure that your underoos aren't gross and old looking (brought up the debate on if guys really care what a girl's underwear really looks like. Apparently they do).

What I didn't like about the book is that the character was the same flaky helpless girl and seem to exist in all chick lit novels. And that her British husband treated her like crap and that the British in general seem like assholes. Except for her gay roommate and the cute guy see meets in the end.

What I did like is that she finally stood up to her asshole husband and left him (later he ended up being gay), and that she finally took control of her life. Lost some weight, got some fashion sense (maybe a bit to much fashion sense. There's nothing wrong with jeans or hanging out at home in sweats) and that after she fucked things up with the cute guy at the end, she realized it and went back and made it better.

I kind of felt like the author didn't really know how to make the character. How convenient that in the F chapter for Fur she happened to own a fur coat when she was younger. How many of us actually have owned a fur coat. Why would you want to? Ick.

It's up to you if you want to read this book, but I'm going to donate my copy to the library.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Peach Cobbler Murder


I don't know why I keep reading books from this series. The character Hannah is a goody and a player (she has two boyfriends!) and everyone loves her. Doesn't sound very realistic to me. Give me a character who has some attitude. And I'm confused as to why no one in the books weights a few hundred pounds because all they do is eat cookies!

In this book, a new bakery opens up and it taking all of Hannah's business. And then the person who runs the shop dies, and while the description of the book makes it sound like Hannah is the main suspect, there's actually a ton of suspects and no one really thinks she did it. For a mystery, it was decent enough, but I really think I might have to start passing on this series. They just don't make me think. Just make me hungry for cookies.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Death Rides The Surf


I know that I've read another book from this series, but I can't find a review from me saying so, so maybe I never finished. But I remember that I didn't really like it, so I never picked anything up from this series until the other day when I was at the library browsing books and found another. The cute Westie dog on the cover was the selling point, because I want a Westie someday.

In this series, Kate Kennedy is a 70 year old lady living in a condo in South Florida with her dog. The whole time I was reading this book, it made me think of the show The Golden Girls, which I love and watch to much of. Because they live in Florida. So I kind of pictured how Kate's condo looked and that it was always warm and beachy. In this book, her niece comes to visit and gets mixed up with some fishy looking surfers, and of course one dies, and the niece is suspected of murder, and Kate and her sister in law try to find out what happened.

It's a quick read. Read it in one day. I liked it enough that I want to check out the other books in the series. Maybe even re-read the one I hated before.

The characters are suppose to be old, but I had a hard time thinking of them that way because they are cruising around in their flashy cars and solving crime, and when I think of old people, that's not what I think of, but oh well.