collecting – Valerie's Musings

4 out of 5 stars.

Welcome! Today I’m hosting a spot on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for A Fatal Collection by Mary Ellen Hughes. This was a fun book to read and a great start to a new series. I’ve read other books by Ms. Hughes so I was excited to see a new series coming out.

A FATAL COLLECTION

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

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Synopsis

Callie Reed makes a long overdue visit to her aunt Melodie, who lives in a fairy-tale cottage in quaint Keepsake Cove, home to a bevy of unique collectible shops on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Just as they’re beginning to reconnect, Callie discovers her aunt’s body on the floor of her music box shop. Grief-stricken, Callie finds she can’t accept Melodie’s death being called accidental. How could her strong and healthy aunt take such a fatal fall? And why was she there in the middle of the night?

As Callie searches for the truth, signs seem to come from her late aunt through a favorite music box, urging Callie on. Or are they warnings? If Callie isn’t careful, she could meet a similar deadly fate amid Melodie’s collection.

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Review

As I stated above, this was a fun read and a great start to a new series by Mary Ellen Hughes.

I’m totally in love with the characters from Keepsake Cove. They’re well-rounded, developed characters that seem to have a complexity that we barely scratched the surface of in this book. I’m not complaining about barely scratching the surface – it leaves more to learn in later books in the series! Callie and Tabitha are my favorites, though I’m also a fan of Delia and Brian. I’m sorry we didn’t get to learn more about Aunt Mel before she died, but I have a feeling we’ll learn a little more about her throughout the series.

Keepsake Cove sounds like a wonderful place to both live and visit. I personally am not wired to be a business-woman, so I don’t think I’d be a shop owner, but perhaps another town resident might be nice. Perhaps the town librarian and/or historian. That’d be right up my alley! The setting descriptions were plenty adequate for me to imagine Callie’s/Mel’s shop and cottage as well as other places in town.

The plot line moved along at a steady pace. There was no point where I felt it was moving too slowly or too fast. I did have an inkling of who the villain was before we got to the reveal, but Ms. Hughes definitely throws in enough red herrings to make you doubt yourself before you get to the reveal at the end!

If you’re at all into cozy mysteries, I think you’ll enjoy this one. I know I’m definitely looking forward to there being more books in the series!

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About the Author

Mary Ellen Hughes is the bestselling author of the Pickled and Preserved Mysteries (Penguin), the Craft Corner Mysteries, and the Maggie Olenski Mysteries, along with several short stories. A Fatal Collection is her debut with Midnight Ink. A Wisconsin native, she has lived most of her adult life in Maryland, where she’s set many of her stories. Visit her at www.MaryEllenHughes.com.

Author Links

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MaryEllenHughesauthor

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/mehughes13/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/mehughesauthor

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Thanks for joining me today on this latest blog tour and review of Mary Ellen Hughes’s new book, A Fatal Collection. If you wish to visit more stops on the tour, please click on the banner below. It will take you to the main tour page where there is a list of tour participants and also some great quotes from other reviewers on the tour!

2 out of 5 stars.

The Man who Loved Books too much by Allison Hoover Bartlett book cover - background of a bookshelf with gilded-covered books, silhouette of a man in a hat imposed on top

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

line of books - some stacked, some standing, some leaning - books are blue, brown, red, green, and yellow — © Graphic Garden

Synopsis

Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.

Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country. Ken Sanders is the self-appointed “bibliodick” (book dealer with a penchant for detective work) driven to catch him.

Bartlett befriended both outlandish characters and found herself caught in the middle of efforts to recover hidden treasure. With a mixture of suspense, insight, and humor, she has woven this entertaining cat-and-mouse chase into a narrative that not only reveals exactly how Gilkey pulled off his dirtiest crimes, where he stashed the loot, and how Sanders ultimately caught him but also explores the romance of books, the lure to collect them, and the temptation to steal them.

Immersing the reader in a rich, wide world of literary obsession, Bartlett looks at the history of book passion, collection, and theft through the ages, to examine the craving that makes some people willing to stop at nothing to possess the books they love.

Review

The Man who Loved Books too much: the true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett is unfortunately not the fascinating tale I was hoping for. I thought perhaps I was biased in my opinion because I had just finished Flawless, but then I read other reviews and found others who felt the same way.

I was hoping that this book would at least bring a glimpse of the not-so-nice side of the rare-book trade and collecting, but no, you didn’t get that at all. Our main character, John Charles Gilkey is not as fascinating as Ms. Bartlett seems to find him. He’s a thief. He’s not noble thief; he steals simply because he wants the book. He’s not a particularly smart thief either; he simply uses a stolen credit card or writes a bad check. He’s just your run-of-the-mill thief.

Maybe I would have been okay with that portion of the tale if I really believed the man actually loved the books. He doesn’t. He feels entitled to have them, so he steals them. It’s not about the artwork on/in a first edition; it’s about the prestige that comes from owning that first edition. It’s not about the stories inside the covers either. He doesn’t seem to care about that either. He simply feels like wealthy people should have a large library and therefore he’s entitled to what he wants to have.

This book was unfortunately, totally disappointing and I do not recommend it.

Tag: collecting