Author: Kathy Harriott

I love a book that keeps me wanting more.  The first book that I borrowed from the Charlotte County Library System’s new e-book provider 3M Cloud Library had me wishing that I could stay home and keep reading.

Where’d You  Go, Bernadette is the story of 15-year old Bee, her hilariously dysfunctional parents Bernadette and Elgie, and the events that lead up to the disappearance of  Bernadette. Dad works at Microsoft while mom stays home and finds ways to annoy her neighbor, Audrey Griffin.

When Bee brings home her report card with straight A’s, her parents are forced to give her “anything she wants” because they promised her they would if she got straight A’s.  What Bee wants is to go on a family trip to Antarctica. The problem is, Bernadette is a bit of a recluse. It turns out that she was a famous architect until she had a breakdown due to a neighbor tearing down the famous house that she built all from extremely local building materials.

Between the feud with her neighbor, Audrey and the rest  of the mothers at her daughter’s school and Bernadette getting scammed by the Russian mafia through the false virtual assistant, Manjula, that she hires, the story of Bernadette’s mania and the inevitable “intervention” and disappearance – this book had me not wanting to go to work, food shopping, get out of bed, because I HAD to find out what was going to happen.  I found myself chuckling one moment and sniffling back a tear the next.  It was a truly enjoyable book.

Thanks for reading.

I received a copy of Something Borrowed, Someone Dead by M.C. Beaton from NetGalley.com in return for my honest review.

I am late to the Agatha Raisin series by M.C. Beaton.  I see them come and go at the library and always think to myself, “I should try one of these books. They seem popular.”  It took book #24, which is set to be released on September 17, to get me started.  Better late than never!

I loved this book.  The characters, including Agatha Raisin, are so quirky and fun.

Agatha is a private investigator in England.  Due to the current financial climate, business is slow in the P.I. business. That is until Agatha gets called to a nearby village to investigate the murder of Gloria French, a randy widow with a penchant for “borrowing” things.  Everyone in the small village in which the murder occurs seems to be hiding something.  With the help of her employees, her fellow private investigators, and her ex-husband James, Agatha gets to the bottom of the murder and more.

With enough twists to make a pretzel, this book kept me interested and planning to go back and read the other 23 books in order.

If you like a good British mystery or are a fan of the Agatha Raisin series, you are going to love Something Borrowed, Someone Dead.

Thanks for reading.

Ever since the much hyped book, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn came out, I have been resisting reading it. For the past year, I have heard both good and bad reviews on this book.  One day it was returned to the library and I started to skim it and decided to give in and read it.

My ridiculously short synopsis:  On their 5th wedding anniversary, Nick’s wife, Amy, disappears.  It looks like there was a violent struggle…or was there? Told from both Nick and Amy’s points of view, follow the investigation and see if you can figure out what happened.

Here are my thoughts on the book.

1. There were so many twists in this book that I started to feel a little car sick.  Every time I thought I had figured out what actually happened, the author would throw in a new twist. I was totally prepared to hate this book but the twists had me needing to read on to find out what REALLY happened. Positive!
2. I disliked every single character in this book.  There was not a single person that I felt sympathy for. Nick and Amy, the “happily” married couple, to Amy’s psychologist-author parents, I felt that each character deserved the horrible things that happened to them.  Not only would I not want to be related to any of these people, I wouldn’t want to live in the same town.  It was the first time I’ve ever read a book where I wasn’t rooting for anyone except for KARMA! Negative.
3. The ending left a LOT to be desired. There was absolutely NO closure.  No one was punished – legally.  There was no satisfactory payoff at the end.  Maybe the author is planning a sequel?  All I know is I feel cheated. Negative.

I don’t want to spoil the book for those who would like to read it, so I will not give more details on the story.  I did enjoy this book and will recommend it even though I didn’t like any of the characters. The story did keep me interested, right up until the end.

Thanks for reading.

I received a copy of The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay from NetGalley.com in return for my honest review.

This was one of the most gut wrenching books I have ever read. The characters in the book were very realistic and relatable.  There were times when teen man-whore, Drew, made me laugh out loud.  We all know that one guy or girl who is an over the top flirt, yet really has a heart of gold.  That, to me was Drew.  While he wasn’t the “lead male character”, he was the one that I understood the most.

Josh, the main male character, is an emancipated teenager whose tragic story is spelled out for you early in the book. His actions throughout the story are based on the fact that he has lost everyone whom he loved.

The main female character, Nastya, is the new student at school.  She wants everyone to leave her alone and dresses in a provocative way to try to scare everyone away. She also does not talk.  Her story comes out little by little to the reader but is not revealed in full to the other characters until the very end. She has been traumatized and has pushed everyone away.  That’s until she meets Josh.

This is a truly touching story about two damaged individuals developing a life saving relationship.