Middle Sister's September Reads

September is still summer out here in the desert, so instead, I indulged in a little autumnal reading and dreaming.

Pumpkin Picking with Murder by Auralee Wallace I read the first in this series a few months ago and enjoyed it, so what better way to dream of fall than with a book with pumpkin picking in the title? As so often happens, the second in the series does not quite live up to the first. The 'madcap' adventures are there, but instead of reading as completely random and therefore funny, they read as forced and deliberate. Erica is again visiting her mother at Otter Lake, and while her mother utters only 3 or 4 words throughout most of the book, hers is a funnier and more engaging presence than the voluble Erica. Freddie is a caricature of the Freddie that was funny the first time around. The story centers around the twins, and their characters have not developed at all, despite the murder mystery centering around them and glimpses into their past. The motivation for the murders was believable; the involvement of the twins in the murders, less so.The evolution of secondary character Rhonda Cooke was the highlight. I'd give this one a C--everything seems more forced, and that's never fun to read.

George Washington's Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger Popular version based on an older, thoroughly researched book written by a historian that traces the development and activities of a New York City and Long Island-based spy ring that assisted George Washington during the Revolution War (in other words, this is not the product of original research). This little known aspect of Revolutionary War history was important to local NYC-focused military activities, and it was only recently that, by happenstance, the leader of the spy ring was identified. I love that a secret could have been kept that long, and that the spies themselves did not try to profit from their activities after the War ended. What I found most intriguing was Agent 355, a woman, presumably in NYC and presumably of high social rank (as the information she passed on was obtained from officers and probably during parties), whose identity remains a secret. In a brief paragraph, the authors conclude that she probably died on a prison ship that sat in New York Harbor. I disagree. We have enough diaries and memoirs and information from that time that if a socially prominent woman had been arrested and imprisoned on a ship, someone would have recorded it. I think it far more likely that she ceased operations when the situation was too dangerous, and then the usefulness of the spy ring ended, and she went on to live her life quietly, as most 18th century women did, or that she may have died of typhoid or childbirth. Anonymous women like prostitutes and washerwomen may have been able to die on the prison ship without anyone knowing or recording their loss; but a woman prominent enough to obtain this kind of information? Nope. History light and definitely geared to public consumption, but a good bibliography is included.

Middle Sister's February Net Galley Reads

I am still slogging through the Nathaniel Hawthorne book for my book group, which technically should be over by the end of February, but when I needed a break from all his heavy prose, I read two mysteries that will be published in the next few weeks (galleys courtesy of Net Galley).

Shards of Murder by Cheryl Hollan It's pretty clear from this blog that I read a lot of cosy mysteries. Shards of Murder had potential, but I think could have benefited from a strong editor. Pages and pages were spent on introducing the reader to students in a glass making class who were not really relevant to the story (used as an aside to fill in Savannah's day when not detecting could have been dealt with in a few short paragraphs)--they weren't suspects, they didn't detect, nothing. Savannah is supposed to be a great glass artist, best in her class at school, and yet she wears matronly clothes (this is what she wore to judge a juried art show: tailored black jacket, plain white cotton blouse, khaki slacks, straw hat, jute shoes--do artists even own khaki pants? This sounds like something this college prof would wear to proctor an exam) and doesn't know the term hoochy mama? Our love interest wears his pants tucked into his cowboy boots?  Never, never, never! It read like the author was trying to hoodwink the reader into thinking she was a bohemian artist herself and got the culture, but the reality is plainly different. Some informal word choices ("lastly" in a list of 2 things?) and odd verb choices, describing something as the second item of the same kind to appear when the first wasn't even mentioned until several paragraphs later--all could have been taken care of easily and would have improved the narrative. And I hated (hated is strong, but is accurate) the condescending attitude Savannah had to the the twins when the reader is first introduced to them--"it's pretty amazing that they walk from their house every day. Especially when you consider they are 87 years old," in front of them, to strangers--every near 87-year-old I know would have smacked Savannah upside the head for that disrespect. No real insider to the committee would have spoken the way he did. I wanted to like this book (it has a dog, who does agility, and a potentially really interesting setting in the juried art show, and a potentially interesting secondary character in the kid with Asperger's) but it fell flat for me on many levels. Here's my advice--drop the stupid white board, and if they have to use it, Savannah spends way too much time erasing names and reassigning tasks that the reader could not care less about, so nix all those passages that reproduce the whiteboard.Get a strong editor, tone down the lessons on glass making to just what is needed to advance the story, and bring in some humor or local color.

Skinny Dipping with Murder by Auralee Wallace A much better mystery. Funny, with characters that were much more engaging, better flow in the narrative and continuity (clearly a better editor), and only a sprinkling of typos (oddly, all at the end of the book). Erica's obsession with her teenage embarrassment did get tiresome, but I guess it is true that teenage humiliations are hard to overcome. The supporting characters are almost all well fleshed out, although I really didn't get a grasp on her mother as a hippy other than being repeatedly told she was. Vegan? So what, I know lots of vegans who aren't anywhere near hippydom. The romance with Grady has potential, and he seems like a nice guy, which I can't always say about mystery romantic leads (who tend to be a little too perfect and too smarmy, in my opinion). Freddie is a great sidekick and I hope we see more of him in future books. The mystery wasn't very mysterious (I had the murderer pegged immediately after the murder) but the pratfalls Erica experiences on the way to solving the mystery were funny, the pacing was good, and I'd be happy to spend more time at Otter Lake.