Thursday, September 26, 2013

Book Review Thursday - 9/26

Since I missed last week after not blogging all week, I will try and get three books reviewed this week. Let's see how it goes. :)

Killer Crust is the latest in the Pizza Lover's Mystery series by Chris Cavender. The books in this series are cozy mysteries that are very quick reads about sisters Eleanor and Maddie running Eleanor's pizzeria in a small North Carolina town. In this installment, the sisters are offered a chance to compete in a pizza making contest for a chance to win $25K. The catch is that the competition is being run by Laughing Luigi who is more of a schemer than a laugher.

Once the competition starts, it is clear that there is at least one saboteur in the mix and the sisters watch each others' backs while fighting for the prize money. And then someone ends up dead.

These books are good for when you need a fairly mindless quick read. I enjoy the small town setting and the character interactions. This book was a nice break for the sisters to get out of the pizzeria and interact with the public more than just in the course of the investigation.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger was the her follow up novel after The Time Traveller's Wife. (I thought that novel was a little odd, but the premise was good so I thought I would try this one.) Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer. She has left her London apartment to her twin nieces with a few conditions - their parents are not allowed to enter the apartment and the twins must live there for 1 year before they can sell it. Elspeth has not spoken to her twin sister, Edie, in many years and Edie is not thrilled with the conditions that will take her daughters out of the US practically alone.

Julia and Valentina are 20 and don't remember having ever met their aunt Elspeth, but they go along with the conditions and move to London. As usual, Julia takes charge of their lives and Valentina grows more and more tired of being bossed around. When they realize that Elspeth is still in the flat and trying to communicate with the twins and with Robert, the lover she left behind, things get interesting.

Wow! I'm not sure that I would have picked this book to read if I knew how it would make me feel at the end of it - a little satisfied and a bit disgusted. There was one part where I actually thought about turning it off and not finishing it because it just gave me the willies. Once I got past that and I the plot thickened, so to speak, I had a really strong feeling about what was going to happen. Just wow. Not your typical ghost story!

It looks like it will only be 2 reviews tonight.

What are you reading?

2 comments:

PunkiePie (Jen) said...

Those pizza mysteries have been on my amazon reading list for a while. Need to get the first one for my kindle.

QuiltGranma said...

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini. A WONDERFUL read, a look at the lives of so many in history, with the history included. Well written!