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Let’s talk about books. What type of book do you like to read? Do you stick to the same authors or are you willing to take a chance on something radically different from your norm? I have a cluster of authors that I gobble up the new books they put out like a binge eater…all in one sitting. And in between waiting for said authors to put out the next book, I have a group of “fill in” authors. And then there are the ones I read because I am so very curious about everything. It has been pointed out to me that my reading list is probably linked to Homeland Security but how can you have an opinion on anything if you haven’t fully researched it?

On my bookshelf you will find every James Patterson novel, every Laurell K. Hamilton, every Stuart Woods, Harlan Coben, Catherine Coulter, Iris Johansen, Anne Rice, Laura Childs, Tom Clancy, George R.R.Martin, Kim Harrison, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Lisa Unger, Karin Slaughter, Don Winslow, Sara Blaedel along with all the classics. I don’t do romance books, no heaving bosoms or glistening abs for me.

Reading is a magical thing that can take you places you would never have access to in the living world. I love everything about books. The cover, the feel, and smell of the paper, it all has to come together for me.  Books are like a good friend who stays around.

So here we are going to be talking about books. What we’ve read, what we are reading and what we hope to read. I find it so interesting that two people can read the same book and have totally different takes on it. But that is the fun of books and imagination. Everyone is different and I am intrigued by those different opinions.

Stick around for some really good, new authors I have found and feel free to make suggestions and comments!  Join us on Facebook for free books, authors looking for reviewers and new releases and giveaways! On Twitter, @GaPirate  Email me at piratepatty@hotmail.com. Have your Marketing people or Publisher contact me for reviews.

THE UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS by M.E.Hilliard

The Unkindness of Ravens: A Greer Hogan Mystery

A GREER HOGAN MYSTERY

Meet Greer Hogan. Librarian and murder mystery lover. A puzzle solver. A widow whose husband was murdered. Who would have thought in the smaller Village of Raven Hill she would again be stumbling over a body? In the library no less!

Unfortunately, the body is also a friend of Greer’s from school. Who in the world would want her dead? When Greer finds a cryptic note left for her by the victim, she decides this time she is not going to let it go.

There have already been a couple of deaths that the police say are accidents. But are they? Who are these people in this small village and what kind of dark secrets are they harboring?

Stirring up all kinds of trouble with her questioning, Greer is soon the object of the killer’s fury.

This was a good first book in the series. Greer is a strong female with a few soft spots. I would have liked to have heard more about her background and I’m sure we will.

Well Done!

NetGalley/ April 13th, 2021 by Crooked Lane Books

When the Stars Go Dark by PAULA McLAIN

When the Stars Go Dark

A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal?

The beginning of this book had me imagining all kinds of reasons Anna is hiding out from her own past and present. A Detective in San Francisco, it’s obvious that something has happened to make her leave the city and head to Mendocino, where she lived as a kid.

The day she arrives the first thing she hears is about a missing girl in the area. This is bringing up a lot of emotions and flashbacks from her time living here with her foster parents. A girl went missing then as well. And that crime is still unsolved. When another girl goes missing Anna realizes she may be exactly where she is supposed to be at the moment. With all of her experience and knowledge of predators, she can’t help but get involved.

There are some true crimes and names here that you will recognize. There is a lot about trauma and human nature. This one had everything. I’m sure I bit my lip at least twice. What I loved about this book was the rawness of the emotions. There was no attempt to pretty up the facts. They tore at your heart to the very end.

When you are brave enough to face your demons, then maybe you can reclaim your life.

NetGalley/ April 13th, 2021 by Ballantine Books



THE BOHEMIANS by Jasmin Darznik

Dorothea Lange has had her share of pain in her life. Surviving polio was a major one. Left with little to no self-confidence and a limp, she finds her passion in a small photography shop in New York.

In 1918 she arrives in San Francisco. A city still rebuilding itself and full of men returning from war and the hideous behavior of the people toward the Chinese. She is way out of her comfort zone until she meets Caroline Lee, a mixed-race woman with a mysterious past who has also known her share of sorrow.

Caroline introduces Dorothea to the Monkey Block, a large colony of artists of every medium. Caroline is an expert seamstress and clothing designer and it is her dream to open her own salon. Dorothea wants to open her own photography studio.

Caroline introduces her to all the names we know and love, such as Maynard Dixon, Ansel Adams, Mabel Dodge, Frida Kahlo, and more. Dorothea falls hard for Dixon, a brilliant artist but a horrible lover.

Dorothea and Caroline open the photography studio and do very well. Things are going well, they are making money and Dorothea is neck-deep into this new world of art and political upheaval as many see the Chinese as less than human and want them out of the country. Sound familiar?

I so enjoyed reading about how Dorrie got to San Francisco. The 1920s were not kind to minorities or women but Dorrie pushed a lot of boundaries. Everything in her life is changed with an act so horrendous it sends Caroline far away and Dorrie is on her own.

In the first half of the book, I was really interested. Then there came the part about her feeling guilty for being gone from her sons for so long while taking pictures documenting internment camps and the people suffering during the depression. Wait…she had children? When? With who? Not another thing was mentioned about it and it felt unfinished. The rest really made no sense.

The people in this book are real and the author kindly elaborates on them in the end. All in all, I was rather confused by the end.

NetGalley/ Expected publication: April 6th, 2021 by Ballantine Books

DEADLY EDITIONS by PAIGE SHELTON

Deadly Editions (Scottish Bookshop Mystery)

A Scottish Bookshop Mystery #6

Edinburgh bookseller, Delaney Nichols, is at the Cracked Spine Bookshop working hard as usual, when a mysterious person in a cloak brings her a note. The note is from good old Shelaigh O’Connor, who at age 70 is still causing trouble. This time Shelaigh has come up with a treasure hunt.

A treasure hunt that will net the winner a first edition of The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson! And that’s not all, the winner also gets her entire library and some cash. Delaney is definitely in the race.

After their first meeting of the group of treasure hunters, Edinburgh finds itself with several home invasions. Some look a lot like Shelaigh’s previous tricks. When they find a man dead, a man Shelaigh knew, people are suspicious. Until Shelaigh herself goes missing.

Is this part of the game? A red herring? Or has a killer taken her out of the game permanently? And could Delaney be his next target?

This is such a good series. I really enjoy the characters and the setting.

NetGalley/ April 6th, 2021 by Minotaur Books






THE DROWNING KIND by Jennifer McMahon

Be careful what you wish for.

It’s 1929, and 37- year- old Ethel Monroe, watches her husband play with the local children and is desperate to give him a child of his own. She’s tried everything, including superstitious legends about keeping a robin’s egg in your bra. Nothing is working. Until her husband takes her to a fancy hotel in Vermont where there is a spring that seems to be able to cure the sick.

The fancy new resort caters to people coming to take the waters. Well, not the town people. They know all about the springs. When the owner befriends Ethel she also tells her a secret. The spring can grant wishes. But we all know nothing is free, there is always a cost. And the cost Ethel will pay will ensure that her family and their family will always be at the springs.

Cut to now and we meet Jax. Jax is a social worker. She works with trauma victims and children. Maybe she chose that path because her sister was haunted by mental illness. Lexie hasn’t been in touch with reality for a long time so when Jax finds nine missed calls from her sister and a voice mail that is scary and manic, she ignores them. The next day Lexie is found dead. Drowned in the pool full of spring water. Black as the devil’s soul and already quite crowded.

As she cleans up the house and all the paperwork and journals that Lexie had, she realizes that Lexie was researching not only the history of their family but the history of the property and the springs. Measuring them at different times and areas and recording the depth and what she saw. Now she wants Jax to join her.

McMahon is brilliant at ghost stories. Tales we tell around the campfire and scare ourselves silly. I am not ashamed to say I lost a fingernail to this book. Spooky, ghastly, ghostly, this one is twisted and horrific. Just the way I like them.

NetGalley/ April 06, 2021 Gallery Scout Books

VALCOUR-The 1776 Campaign That Saved The Cause of Liberty by JACK KELLY

Valcour: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty

The wild and suspenseful story of one of the most crucial and least known campaigns of the Revolutionary War when America’s scrappy navy took on the full might of Britain’s sea power.

Valcour is about the people involved in the 1776 three-day battle of the fledgling American Colonies against the pesky Brits. In the summer of that year, word came that the British were coming from Canada.

The Americans had wanted to maintain their hold on the upper rivers and knew that to do so they would have to make a stand. And what a brave stand these soldiers who were really just volunteers, made. A stand that would change the course of history.

You will recognize the names. Washington, Schuyler, a General who would become Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law by marrying Eliza. We also see a different side of Benedict Arnold. A bit rougher than some, but a brilliant strategist.

While Washington routed them in Trenton, Arnold sent the British Gates packing in a three-day battle on Lake Champlain and forced a retreat.

This is a well-researched book. I think we all are familiar with Benedict Arnold as a traitor, but he really is so much more. These men were young and untried but passionate about not being under the thumb of Britain. This was more than a history lesson. These were real people who overcame incredible odds to hold up our fledgling country against more powerful enemies and prevailed.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one.

NetGalley/ April 6th, 2021 by St. Martin’s Press

Hello April, Maybe Next Time Leave the Wind at Home…js

It is a rare day here in Oklahoma when the wind isn’t blowing like Kansas is sucking air from Texas and we are in the middle. But it is most definitely Spring and things are popping up all over.

The trees are budding, the daffy dillys are up as are the tulips and crocus. The trees are spreading pollen as if they were benevolent beings tossing beads at Mardi Gras. People are sneezing and we look at those people out of the corner of our eye because, well, Covid. Yesterday I was doing my walk and sneezed so hard I had to run back home and blow my nose.

This is such a great season. Everything is that new green and our grass looks like the inside of an easter basket. As our groundskeeper was watering the containers around the pool, she called to me and we found baby bunnies burrowed in a pot. Oh, my were they cute! Tiny as can be with the longest eyelashes. We didn’t disturb them. We also have our annual mallard mate here swimming in the pool. She has built a nest under the shrubs and blends right in.

We had an interloper yesterday. A young male. Very rude. I was inside taking my shoes off when I heard the most awful racket outside the door. With one shoe in hand I ran out to find the young male trying to ‘hook up’ with the Mrs. While the Mr. was trying to get him off of her I’m yelling, ” Get off of her! She’s married! That’s rape! “. To be honest I don’t feel as though the Mr. was as manly as he should have been. And she let him know it. So nature is doing her thing.

Since I have had to be indoors so much I have redone my bathroom tile. Painted the bathroom. Finished the kitchen and planted a lot of herbs to make tea with. My spinach is about 2 inches tall and so is the fennell. Now if this darn wind would go somewhere else I would be happy.

Happy Easter!

Big Little Spies by Krista Davis ( A Paws & Claws Mystery)

Big Little Spies (Paws and Claws Mystery #7)

Number 7 in this series.

Inn owner, Holly Miller has a full house of women from the Wagtail Animal Guardians. They are in town for the pet adoption charity ball.

Holly and Trixie are crazy busy when she receives a call from her grandmother’s friend, Rose. It seems the recently widowed Judge has lost his german shepherd. The housekeeper has called in a pet detective but Rose thinks Holly and the gang can find him first.

And maybe they do, but finding a dead pet detective wasn’t on the list of things to do.

The ladies at the inn are acting sketchy and have each other’s backs, but Holly isn’t so convinced that one of them isn’t a killer.

The characters in this series are adorable! The pups, the old ladies, even the cats play a role. Ms. Davis understands her audience very well and this is one of the best Cozy Mystery Series.

NetGalley/ March 30th, 2021 by Berkley Books





DANGER IN NUMBERS by HEATHER GRAHAM

Florida State Police Agent, Amy Larson, never expected the sight she was about to see on the edge of the Everglades. Just off a remote road, but not far enough away that someone won’t see the horrible crime that has been committed and left for them to find.

This is some gory stuff going on here and it has the look of someone who has killed before. When the FBI jumps in with a similar case, we meet Agent Hunter Forrest. Yes, that is the name. He somehow has a lot of information on local cults and how they work and as we find out he also knows how to escape them.

There are plenty of suspicious characters. And none of them tell the entire truth, which leads one to think there is someone on the inside who they are all afraid of. But we never get enough information on that which could have been good.

This was not my favorite work by Graham. I didn’t feel I knew Amy at all and Hunter Forrest? That was predictable. What should have been a timely and thrilling story fell flat for me.

March 23rd, 2021 by MIRA

THE LOST VILLAGE by CAMILLA STEN

The Lost Village

I do love Scandinavian Noir! And this one is creepy, scary, and oh so gory! Once I started reading it I could not stop. Okay, I could, but I didn’t.

Alice wants to make a documentary. She’s low on money and equipment but she has a good friend who will put up some money if he can come along. An old friend/enemy has also agreed to come and Alice hated asking her but she is good and interested.

Alice has been a bit obsessed with the residents who just vanished from the old mining town. In 1959 the mine closed and that same year her grandmother’s entire family disappeared. Sure people came in and looked around but all they found were empty houses and in the square one dead woman tied to a pole and in the school, a baby crying. They took the baby and the town was just forgotten. But not by Alice.

When her small team arrives the place is deserted. It looks as if people got up from dinner and never came back. From the first night, they all can feel something isn’t right. They are not alone here. As things heat up they don’t even trust each other. Every one of them has secrets and one is a real shocker.

Reading this book was like watching the Blair Witch Project. You wanted to turn away but you wanted to know the who and why of everything. I loved every scary, gory moment of this one!

NetGalley Review/ March 23rd, 2021 by Minotaur Books