ginasbookreport

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell Publisher: Anchor Books, Penguin Random House Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre:  Domestic Suspense / Thriller / Mystery / Satire Read This If You Love: The Block Party  by Jamie Day “She deserved better than to die there. To die because of him.” The Other Half  by Jenny Jackson is a quick-paced mystery wrapped in a satire about an ultra-wealthy British friend group. Full of toxic characters and attributes, everyone is a suspect when a dead body is found in the polished garden. DS Caius Beauchamp and his co-workers Matt and Amy are a delight to have as the guides through this story. Thank goodness, because I really didn’t like any of the other characters. Yikes! I almost  stopped reading after the first two chapters, but I’m glad I didn’t. It was an entertaining read and the car scene toward the end was one of my favorite scenes in any book I’ve read in the last year. This book was part of the Crime by the Box subscripti...

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict and narrated by Laura Costello Publisher:  Poisoned Pen Press Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Thriller / Domestic Suspense Read This If You Love:  Agatha Christie “Endgame has kept our secrets for half a century, now it’s time for it, and its secrets, to have a new owner.” The Christmas Murder Game  by Alexandra Benedict is a classic locked-room mystery novel set at Christmas. Before Lily’s aunt dies, she sets up one last Christmas game to be played at Endgame House. This year the prize won’t simply be an extra gift, but instead the holder of the key wins Endgame House and all that goes with it. Lily and her cousins all head to the English manor house to play the game, celebrate the holiday, and navigate their complicated family past. However, Lily is there to also uncover the truth behind her mother’s mysterious death. Told via the Twelve Days of Christmas where each day releases a new clue f...

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter Publisher:  William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre:  Mystery / Thriller / Suspense / Murder Mystery Read This If You Love:  Janice Hallett books / Netflix documentaries “One body. Six Experts. Can you solve the case before they do?” Murder in the Family  is mystery novel like no other. Guy Howard’s stepfather was murdered when he was a child and the case remains unsolved. Now that Guy is a film maker, he decides to enlist the help of six experts and a documentary staff to pull back the years and solve the case. What results is Infamous: Who Killed Luke Ryder… a Netflix documentary that just might unravel Guy’s entire world. Can you solve the case before the experts do?  I’m a huge fan of mystery-based documentaries and was instantly drawn to this book when my SIL sent me a link. It didn’t disappoint! Told through news clippings, documentary scripts/interviews, and m...

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose Publisher:  Ballantine Books an imprint of Random House Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Cozy Mystery / Mystery Read This If You Love:  The Maid by Nita Prose / Cozy Mysteries / Agatha Christie / Only Murders in the Building “I’m afraid it’s too late. He’s dead.” In this second book in the Molly the Maid series, we once again find ourselves back at the Regency Grand Hotel. Our favorite maid, Molly, is now Head Maid, and the hotel staff is preparing to host a famous author. The author has a much-anticipated announcement, but before he can reveal the information, he literally drops dead. How does this keep happening to poor Molly!?! She is once again at the center of a homicide investigation where she plays the role of suspect and sleuth. Through flashbacks, we learn more about Molly’s childhood while connections are made to her present. Who exactly is this author and who would want him dead?  Molly will soon uncover the ...

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett Publisher:  Atria Books  Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love:  Janice Hallett / Alternative storytelling / Solving Puzzles One Christmas Play One Dead Santa Everyone’s a Suspect Once again we find ourselves back with the Fairway Players and all their antics. While they set out to put on a pantomime for charity, they end up with a dead Santa. Oops! Told in Hallett’s signature structure and style, this short novella is a hilarious romp of a cozy mystery. Presented via emails, text messages, WhatsApp, interviews, and letters, The Christmas Appeal  is structured so that you, the reader, get all the information and have the ability to solve the mystery. Can you do it before the investigating detectives? It’s a perfect whodunnit as Christmas past and present collide. Would be a great holiday read for mystery lovers. Pop on the tea and curl up on a snowy day to gobble up this...

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie Publisher:  William Morrow Paperbacks Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love:  Fans of the Miss Marple series and classic mysteries “Oh, I am sure—about the murder . It’s the murderer  I’m not sure about.” In this classic Miss Marple mystery (book #10), Marple is on vacation very far from her beloved home of St. Mary Mead. However, wherever she goes, murder seems to follow her—even all the way to the Caribbean. Staying at the hotel of the St Honore, Miss Marple is getting to know the fellow guests. In short time, one of the guests is dead and while the doctor assumes it was high blood pressure and old age, Miss Marple isn’t so sure. She soon finds herself working alongside Mr. Rafiel (who is both wealthy and elderly) to solve the murder and to unravel all the other connections before more bodies pile up. This is one of my favorites of the Miss Marple books because we not only ...

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Mystery / Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love: A Caribbean Mystery “Yes, you are right, Madame. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and yet you forget that everywhere there is evil under the sun.” Arlene Stuart is beautiful and catches all the eyes of the sun seekers at Leathercombe. Men are drawn to her beauty and women are drawn to her ease of capturing men’s attention. Now, Arlene is laying on the sand and she will never get up again. Who killed her? Poirot is on the case, and it is all the best that Christie has to offer.   Classic Christie is delivered via this 24th novel featuring Hercule Poirot. Pause to acknowledge how amazing it is that Christie was so prolific! Poirot is still as interesting of a detective even 24 books in and was still hitting all the right notes. Evil Under the Sun  is one of my favorite featuring the mustached character. Right b...

The Paris Mystery by Kirsty Manning Publisher:  Vintage Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love: Agatha Christie / cozy mysteries “Check your facts…then check them again.” Charlotte “Charlie” James is a new journalist for The Times of London, and she finds herself assigned to cover the Paris elite. On her first assignment, she attends the Circus Ball hosted by Lord and Lady Ashworth. While Charlie is there to get background information and make connections, she soon finds herself covering a murder when a scream rings out and a bloody knife makes an appearance.   One tiny criticism about this book and cozy mysteries in general: I REALLY wish more books included a dramatis personae at the beginning of the books. It just really helps to have a list of characters in these cozy mysteries that are set in a time or place where naming conventions vary from our current conventions. I really enjoyed this cozy lit...

Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace by Lorenzo Carcaterra Publisher: Bantam an imprint of Random House a division of Penguin Random House LLC Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love:  Miss Marple fans “Lies can always be presented as facts, Captain. And if told well, they are easier to believe. The truth is much more difficult to uncover.”  Nonna Maria is a fixture on the island of Ischia. She is a trusted friend to the island residents and her powers of deduction make her an ally to Captain Murino. It’s tourist season and the island is bustling and the weather warm. All is ideallic, save for a dead body and a missing necklace. Can Nonna Maria solve the mysteries? What a fun read! This book came at just the right time for me when I was finding my normal dark mystery twisted books to be too dreary. Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace  is a cozy mystery with charm and a setting that has you itching for a seasi...

All the Queen’s Men by SJ Bennett Publisher: William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Cozy Mystery / Mystery / Historical Mystery Read This If You Love: The Windsor Knot / Agatha Christie “She felt close, but not quite there yet. She had a murderer in mind, and a victim. But they refused to meet.” A missing painting, a dead body in Buckingham Palace…the Queen is on the case. Rozie works with the Queen to investigate the death of a palace employee who received poisoned pen letters. Rozie is receiving similar letters with seething racism. Can Rozie and the Queen solve all the mysteries and just how is it connected to a missing, yet valuable, painting? Ruth Ware described this book as “ The Crown meets Miss Marple.”  All the Queen’s Men  is a light mystery and is the second in the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series. While I enjoyed the book well enough, I found it a bit slow and not as interesting as The Windsor Knot...

Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre: Cozy Mystery / Mystery Read This If You Love: Clue / Fans of C.C. Benison’s Father Christmas Mystery Series “…rosemary for remembrance.” Rosemary Barton died at her own birthday table. A year later, six people gather at the table again this time with an empty spot. Rosemary’s complicated relationships have a habit of bringing out the most passionate side of people. Did one of them kill her? Will there be more bodies at the table? This is the final book in which Colonel Race is featured and this time he is without his friend Poirot. Race puts his MI5 training to work in order to solve this mystery. I read Sparkling Cyanide  as part of the #ReadChristie2023 read-along. The April prompt of poison was a perfect fit for this little novel. 

Homicide and Halo-Halo by Mia P. Manansala Publisher:  Berkley Books Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love:  Cozy mysteries / Arsenic and Adobo #2 in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series. We once again return to Shady Palms, Illinois and the close-knit Filipino community. Our heroine baker, Lila, finds herself on the judging panel for the local pageant and doing her best to encourage young women in her community to go after their dreams. She’s also trying to get her new business off the ground and recover from the traumatic events of the last novel. Lila is doing her best to balance it all, but BAM…she finds herself once again in the middle of a murder to solve!  I adored Arsenic and Adobo , the first book in this series, so I was excited to see it as a continuing series. One of my reading goals this year is to get caught up on series that I enjoy and this was one of four series on that list. Manansala’s books ar...

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie Publisher: William Morrow & Company Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Mystery / Cozy Mystery  Read This If You Love:  Miss Marple series “No smoke without fire.” Anonymous letters start showing up throughout the town of Lymstock. Even Jerry and his sister Joanna, who moved to the town to assist in Jerry’s recovery from an airplane accident, receive a letter full of disdainful accusations…all untrue. While the town is rolling with gossip and speculation, the crescendo builds until one of their own is found dead. Who is writing the letters? Did they cause the death? Just what is happening in this “sleepy” little town? “But a lot of people do tell lies.” I read this novel as part of ReadChristie2023 for the March prompt of Anger.  The Moving Finger  is a Miss Marple novel that was first published in 1942. Although I know that the excuse of “it is of the time” would be used, I still found the amount of misogyny in the bo...

Play the Fool by Lina Chern Publisher:  Penguin Random House / Bantam Books Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 Genre: Mysteries/Thirlller Read This If You Love: Cozy Mysteries When Katie’s friend Marley goes missing, the tarot card reader’s senses go on high alert. She sets out to find who has committed nefarious acts against her friend. Katie finds herself in equally awkward and dangerous situations along the way. Can she psychic her way to solving the disappearance? Told through flashbacks to Marley and Katie interactions and present time, broke the flow a bit, but it was still an interesting read with a surprising amount of humor. The chapters in present time with Nico and Officer Jamie were witty and stronger storytelling. The Jamie and Katie dynamic really drive the second half of the novel. The book is packed full of interesting and colorful characters that lead it to be more cozy mystery and less crime novel. My personal favorites were Jamie (duh) and Owen. If this cont...

The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell Publisher:  Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc. Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Cozy Mystery / Mystery Read This If You Love: Agatha Christie / The Great British Baking Show  / Maid by Nita Prose “It is something else, too, an escape of sorts, a glimpse into a simpler way of being where people are kind to one another…” Betsy, described as an icon—the Julia Child of baking, is the host of Bake Week , which is filmed at her family estate of Grafton in Vermont. In this cozy setting, we meet the new season of contestants and crew. What could go wrong as they bake up breads, pies, and other tasty treats? More than recipes are being cooked up during the new season of Bake Week . Every person has a reason why they are at Grafton, but not all of the drama is in the baking tent.  Well, I don’t think you can get more cozy mystery than the setting for this book. It’s a light mystery full of loads of baking referen...

The Final Curtain (Piper Greene Exeter Mysteries #2) by Lara Bricker Publisher:  Independent Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love:  C.C. Benison Mysteries / The Maid “…old secrets did have a way of turning deadly.” —Piper Greene The Final Curtain is the second book in the Piper Greene Exeter mystery series. The first book is Dead on Deadline and while you don’t have to read them both to follow the storyline in the second one, I would recommend reading them in order. This is a very fluffy and light cozy mystery series—lots of quaint town descriptions, mentions of yummy foods abound, and the characters are all full of quirks.  We are back in Exeter, New Hampshire with our favorite nosy journalist, Piper Greene. Not even a few pages in and she’s done it again…stumbled upon another dead body. The colorful townspeople are in a hubbub over another murder in their little village and Piper is on the case. Will she uncover the...

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie Publisher:  William & Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Cozy Mystery / Mystery  Read This If You Love: Cozy mysteries and legal thrillers Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress, let me be laid; — Twelfth Night Elinor is on trial for murdering Mary…did she do it? She would have motive as her expected husband was in love with Mary. Plus, all her aunt’s money is up to be inherited. Enter Poirot who unravels every step of what happened. “Old sins have long shadows.” Sad Cypress  is in the Hercule Poirot series and is unique as one of the only Christie novels to partially take place in a courtroom. You get a legal thriller in the first half and a cozy mystery detective novel in the second half before it all comes together. In her typical writing style, the book flows through mostly dialogue and all the clues are there for you to solve…if you are as observant as Poirot! This ...

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett Publisher:  Atria Books Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Puzzle Mystery Read This If You Love:  Coded Mystery Books / Puzzles From the brilliant author of The Appeal , comes The Twyford Code ! I was super excited to read this book and absolutely inhaled every page. Hallett is quickly making her mark in the book world by re-defining how mystery novels are told. Just like how The Appeal  was told via text messages, The Twyford Code has its own unique style via transcripts of phone recordings. Clever, fresh, and engaging!!! Steven found a book forty years ago that led to the disappearance of his teacher. Fresh out of prison, he is now determined to find out what happened to her and unravel the mysterious code at the center of the found children’s novel.  Told via phone recordings, this approach soars across the page. I was completely immersed and thoroughly entertained by the case of characters, too. This book is a treas...

The Socialite’s Guide to Murder (A Pinnacle Hotel Mystery) by S.K. Golden Publisher:  Crooked Lane Books an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Cozy Mystery Read This If You Love: Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, Only Murders in the Building The Socialite’s Guide to Murder  is the first in a new mystery series centered at the Pinnacle Hotel. Set in 1958, the book and the hotel are packed full of glamor and glitz. Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy is the hotel owner’s daughter, and she suffers from agoraphobia. However, she has the run of the hotel and loves to solve a good mystery. She’s good at finding lost things and solving little mysteries around the hotel. This comes in handy when she finds a dead body in the hallway! Evelyn and her closest confidants are on the case, along with Preseley the dog, of course.  From the jacket cover design and the interior font to the colorful over-the-top characters, everything works w...

Marple: Twelve New Mysteries by Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffith, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, and Ruth Ware with characters written and developed by Agatha Christie Publisher:  William Morrow Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mysteries/Thrillers Read This If You Love:  Classic cozy mysteries  Some people knew things, and Miss Marple, she knew murder. —Alyssa Cole’s Miss Marple Takes Manhattan If you or someone you know is a huge Agatha Christie fan, Marple: Twelve New Mysteries  is soooooooo good! Typically, I’m not a fan of continuing an author’s work past their lives (save wrapping up their final unfinished pieces). So I was a bit dubious when I saw this project announced. Then I saw the list of authors involved and knew it was in good hands. (I have previously read work by 9 of the 12.) Each short story is between 20-35 pages and make for great b...