History – Valerie's Musings

BLOG TOUR – A Murder for the Books – REVIEW

December 19, 2017December 18, 2017 Valerie @ Valerie's Musings2 Comments

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Greetings! Today I’m hosting another Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour stop. This tour is for A Murder for the Books, the first in a new series by Victoria Gilbert. I absolutely loved the book. It didn’t quite have the pizzazz that put it up to a 5-star read for me, but it is definitely a solid 4.5!

murderforthebooks-cover-art

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

Rafflecopter Giveaway

Synopsis

Fleeing a disastrous love affair, university librarian Amy Webber moves in with her aunt in a quiet, historic mountain town in Virginia. She quickly busies herself with managing a charming public library that requires all her attention with its severe lack of funds and overabundance of eccentric patrons. The last thing she needs is a new, available neighbor whose charm lures her into trouble.

Dancer-turned-teacher and choreographer Richard Muir inherited the farmhouse next door from his great-uncle, Paul Dassin. But town folklore claims the house’s original owner was poisoned by his wife, who was an outsider. It quickly became water under the bridge, until she vanished after her sensational 1925 murder trial. Determined to clear the name of the woman his great-uncle loved, Richard implores Amy to help him investigate the case. Amy is skeptical until their research raises questions about the culpability of the town’s leading families… including her own.

When inexplicable murders plunge the quiet town into chaos, Amy and Richard must crack open the books to reveal a cruel conspiracy and lay a turbulent past to rest in A Murder for the Books, the first installment of Victoria Gilbert’s Blue Ridge Library mysteries.

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

Review

As I stated above, I absolutely loved this book! A book that makes me laugh from the very first sentence is definitely worth my time to read. I’m a librarian so I’m interested in all cozy mysteries with a library setting and this one did not disappoint!

I really enjoyed our two main characters, Amy and Richard. They’re both well-rounded, developed characters. Their chemistry together is amazing. I’m looking forward to learning more about them and seeing their relationship blossom in further books in the series.

The setting descriptions were just right – not too little, but not too much either. I could easily imagine the town, the buildings we were in, the surrounding countryside, all of it. I like the setting. The town sits close enough to various larger towns/cities so there are all types of people who are included in the town. It’s a nice variety.

This plot moved along at a pretty steady pace. There were lots of subplots that were entangled with the main plot, but I was able to keep everything straight in my head so the subplots were a nice addition. I wondered briefly about the villain, but I really didn’t think it was them until it was revealed. It’s amazing the motives that make people kill. This was one motive I just couldn’t wrap my head around. I mean, I understood what the author meant, it just seemed like a not-so-good reason to commit murder!

I highly recommend this book if you like cozy mysteries! It’s a great start to a new series!

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

Thanks for joining me today for the latest Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour. If you wish to visit other 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 participants.

BLOG TOUR – Calamity at the Continental Club – REVIEW

July 17, 2017July 16, 2017 Valerie @ Valerie's Musings7 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

Today I’m happy to be bringing you a stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours blog tour for Calamity at the Continental Club by Colleen J. Shogan. I enjoyed this book quite a bit and look forward to reading more from this author!

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N

Synopsis

The Mayflower Society is about to hold its annual meeting at Washington D.C.’s swanky gathering place for the elite, the Continental Club. That means Kit Marshall’s upper-crust future in-laws, Buffy and Winston Hollingsworth, are coming for a visit. Annoyed that Kit has not set a date to marry Doug, Buffy wants her to commit to a high society wedding at the club. Kit, though chief of staff for a congresswoman, feels uncomfortable with Buffy and Winston’s crowd.

Kit receives an unexpected reprieve in the form of murder. En route to her morning jog, she encounters the corpse of the leader of the Mayflower Society, conservative multimedia tycoon Grayson Bancroft. On the security cameras, no one was seen entering or leaving the club, which means the culprit had to be an overnight guest. Little love was lost on Bancroft, but the police have their prime suspect: Doug’s father.

Buffy and Winston, formerly disdainful of Kit’s sleuthing, urge her to investigate. With her future in-laws’ freedom and reputations at stake, Kit sets out once again to solve a murder mystery, this time aided by her fiancé Doug in addition to her friends Meg and Trevor and her dog Clarence. Her search for clues will take her from the club to the Smithsonian Museum, the National Archives, and Mount Vernon.

Review

This was an interesting and fascinating book. I’m looking forward to reading the other books in the series!

I enjoyed Kit, Doug, Trevor, Meg and all the other characters in this book. They’re rich, complex, and well-developed. Their antics and their chemistry kept me interested in the story throughout. I’m not a fan of the rich elite, so some of the side characters got on my nerves, but they were well-written. It was just my personal preferences getting in the way.

The plot line moved along at a steady pace, though it did seem a bit slow at times. I still enjoyed the story, but there were a couple of places where it just seemed to drag and I wanted it to move faster. However, I had no idea who was the villain until the end of the book, so the pace didn’t change that at all.

While still considered a cozy, I felt more like I was reading a logic puzzle than a cozy mystery. I don’t mean this in a bad way. I enjoyed the fact that it was more of a puzzle than other mysteries I’ve read. It felt a lot like Agatha Christie’s mysteries. I’m looking forward to reading the others in the series.

I highly recommend this series to cozy lovers and especially to those who love Agatha Christie’s mysteries!

About the Author

Colleen Shogan has been reading mysteries since the age of six. A political scientist by training, Colleen has taught American politics at Yale, George Mason, Georgetown, and Penn. She previously worked in the United States Senate and for the Congressional Research Service. She’s currently a senior executive at the Library of Congress, working on great outreach initiatives such as the National Book Festival. She lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Rob Raffety and their beagle mutt, Conan.

Author Links

Webpage – www.colleenshogan.com

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

Twitter – www.twitter.com/cshogan276

GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1269678.Colleen_J_Shogan

Thanks for joining me today on another great blog tour adventure! If you want to visit the other stops on the blog tour, please click on the banner below! It’ll take you to the main tour page!

Day of Secrets – REVIEW

May 18, 2017June 15, 2017 Valerie @ Valerie's MusingsLeave a comment

5 out of 5 stars.

Day of Secrets is the second thriller-type mystery from Daryl Wood Gerber and it is spectacular! It was incredibly suspenseful so I found myself having to read it in stages since anything too suspenseful can be difficult for me to get through (it depends on what else is going on in life), but at the same time, I didn’t want to put it down!

Book Cover: Day of Secrets by Daryl Wood Gerber - Background is grey - man is standing in dark colored clothing facing away from the audience. There's a gold locket in his hand.

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

Graphic of a globe with two closed books on the right side of it, an open book in front of it, and an apple on the left side of the globe — ©Graphic Garden

Synopsis

A mother he thought he’d lost. A father he never knew. An enemy that wants them dead.

At the age of five, Chase Day became an orphan. For thirty-one years, after a rebellious youth, he did his best to turn his life around and build a normal life—first as a Naval officer and then as a history professor at a boutique Bay Area college. Now, all that changes when he finds his mother, whom he thought had perished in a fire, dying from a gunshot wound. In her last breath, she urges him to find and protect the father he never knew. Where has his father been? Why has he never made contact? Can Chase discover why his family is a target before an unknown enemy destroys him?

Stack of books - chemistry, physics, and biology — ©Graphic Garden

Review

Wow. That was the first word that came out of my mouth when I finished this book yesterday evening on my evening break. The second phrase was “Holy Toledo that was intense!” Both of which are dead-on accurate.

This was a pretty great read! I fell in love with the characters almost immediately. Chase is a great guy. He’s well-rounded and complex. He’s had a lot of crap happen in his life, but he seems fairly well-adjusted. Especially for suddenly having to deal with the fact that his mother wasn’t really dead, but now she is; his father’s alive and apparently in trouble; and his grandmother doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to tell him anything about these things.

This story moved along at a pace between steady and fast. It was fast-paced, but not so fast that you couldn’t follow the story line and/or got lost in the details. I think I described it to my mom as “a cliff-hanger on every other page”. That was a slight exaggeration, but not by much! The action in this book really keeps the story hopping!

I thought the ending was terrific. Things worked out the way they were supposed to and you got the feeling that all the major players were going to be alright after their run-in with the villains.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good suspenseful thriller that doesn’t have a lot of gruesome, violent scenes! Buy it. Read it. Enjoy it!

*** Thank you to Daryl Wood Gerber for providing me with an ARC of this book. I was not compensated for my review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. ***

The Mapmaker’s Wife – REVIEW

April 5, 2016June 7, 2017 Valerie @ Valerie's MusingsLeave a comment

4 out of 5 stars.

The Mapmaker's Wife book cover - portrait of Isabel Grameson on a compass background - small desert scene with sand and vicunas at the bottom

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

Synopsis

The year is 1735. A decade-long expedition to South America is launched by a team of French scientists racing to measure the circumference of the earth and to reveal the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery and knowledge. From this extraordinary journey arose an unlikely love between one scientist and a beautiful Peruvian noblewoman. Victims of a tangled web of international politics, Jean Godin and Isabel Grames’ destiny would ultimately unfold in the Amazon’s unforgiving jungles, and it would be Isabel’s quest to reunite with Jean after a calamitous twenty-year separation that would capture the imagination of all of eighteenth-century Europe. A remarkable testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and enduring love, Isabel Grames’ survival remains unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration.

Review

The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon by Robert Whitaker is definitely an interesting tale. However, the title and the description on the book jacket are a bit misleading. The book jacket says that the book is about Isabelle Godin, who follows her husband down the Amazon after 20 years of separation. The thing is, that portion of the story doesn’t even start to happen until after page 200.

The first part of the book tells the tale of the original trip that brought her husband, Jean Godin, to Ecuador. It’s well-written and held my attention. I found the information provided to be interesting and fascinating, it just doesn’t include a lot about Isabelle Godin until later in the book.

It’s still a very interesting tale about exploration, murder, intrigue and a side note of love and female ingenuity. If you’re interested in South American history and the history of the men who were attempting to plot out exactly how large our planet is and what constitutes a degree of latitude or longitude, this is definitely worth reading. If you were looking for more of a biography about Isabelle Godin and are not interested in the history and scientific discoveries, this book is not for you.

Synopsis

Review

Share this:

Like this:

Synopsis

Review

About the Author

Share this:

Like this:

Synopsis

Review

Share this:

Like this:

Synopsis

Review

Share this:

Like this: