Not sure what I was expecting from this book and I guess for its time, 1513, it was insightful, but reading it today with statements that say you cannot avoid war and should only postpone it to your own advantage was disturbing. The book is Machiavelli’s perspective on how rulers must conduct themselves in order to be successful. And while I imagine that there are some who would agree even today, reading statements that say people must fear you and some brutality is needed, is disturbing to be reading now.

A fun academic mystery in a beautiful location. Great cast of characters to spend a little time with in the summer.

It is always interesting to journey along with Hercule Poirot and see things the way he does. This is a compilation of short mysteries, each of which is set in a different interesting setting. I did this as an audio book on CDs and while I did enjoy it, I think I would have enjoyed it more had I done it as an actual book and been able to do it at a slower pace.

In what I think of as a "Cozy Mystery", an elderly couple is murdered by their nephew for, predictably, money. There is also a major town celebration, which really has very little to do with the plot. Not going to be a great real for real mystery fans.

This is a good old fashioned detective story where women were “dames” and were “notin but trouble”. The language is fun and the central character is the grounding influence here as everyone else in the story is either crazy or a killer…..and one is both.

I could not wait for this book to be over. It is an autobiographical novel about the author’s experience growing up gay into young adulthood. The trouble is that it reads like a list of her sexual exploits beginning when she was 9 years old. And what little story there is revolves entirely around the fat that she is gay, as if that is the determining factor in every event that happens.

I started this as an audio book on a day that was challenging, and I found it was just want I needed. What fun!! This is done as an old-time radio production complete with authentic and amazing sound effects. Guy, the detective and central character, is brought such exciting cases as the theft of a four-year-old goldfish. If you are looking for something really fun, you will not be dissatisfied with this!

This book delivers the type of ending all readers long for; something unexpected. And even from about midway into the book, you know something is coming, but there aren’t obvious clues. This author dies an excellent job on her maiden novel. Can’t wait to see what she sends us in her next one.

In this story about women who go missing and then have their dead images appear in paintings, Isles does an excellent job in developing the characters and their connections to one another. And this is important because the subject matter here is often harsh and without this development of characters, it would simply be a brutal story. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and liked the ending.

Now that I’m done, I can say it; What the heck was this? A person who was an editor and writer once told me that readers have to be able to like, empathize, or at least understand a character in order to be able to enjoy a book. In this book NONE of the characters are likeable, and what’s more they are all verbally abusive to one another; mother to child, child to father, sister to sister. Set in India, the mother keeps her teenage daughters locked in their rooms for most of their lives, supposedly to keep them safe, but then says things to them like “Your days are numbered” and “I wish you were dead”. And the book starts off with one of the daughters being approached by a man in town, and there is this whole back and forth between the two where he goes after her, then she goes after him, then he drives her home and……nothing. Nothing more is said about the relationship or what happened. I could not wait for this book to be done and then felt like I needed to wash.