Elizabeth Norris - Unraveling (2012)

This book started out poorly - Janelle Tenner gets hit by a truck, dies and is brought back to life by a boy in the same grade at her high school, Ben Michaels. As she is magically healed she shares his memories of her and realises he has loved her since he was 10 years old - sound familiar? It's book 1 of the Roswell series.

Then everything got interesting - radiation deaths, an explosive device counting down, earthquakes, multiverse and a murdered FBI father. It started to become a really good book and I'd actually forgiven Norris for the beginning. Until I got to the ending. That was just AWFUL.

Talk about deus ex machina.

Mysterious men from a parallel universe pop in and shoot the bad guy just in time, the same teenage bad guy who'd murdered Janelle's father and best friend. His other two friends, one of whom is Ben, are just allowed to go home to their parallel universe AFTER killing hundreds of people in Janelle's universe. Everyone just left Janelle in a remote location with the body of her best friend even though she couldn't phone for help because the city was destroyed by an earthquake and everyone was struggling to survive. Worse - Janelle just happily sits there and thinks how wonderful life is and how much she wants to live it with Ben. Hopefully the FBI found her and locked her up as an accessory to getting hundreds of people dead because she withheld so much information from them because of her "love" for Ben.

As endings go that one really sucked. What an utterly disappointing book.

Hilary Duff - Elixir (2010)

This is the first book in Duff's series Elixir.

The story begins with Clea Raymond on vacation in Paris. She's a photojournalist who's more comfortable behind the lens, than interacting with people. While looking at her pictures she notices the image of a young man, Sage, in every one. Sage starts to haunt Clea's dreams, like a ghost. But, on assignment in Rio, Clea finds Sage is very real and they're soulmates - destined to live out a tragic life together over and over again.

It was an interesting book (at least the idea behind it was), but I didn't like the ending. The second half of the book was a chase scene and then suddenly it could all be fixed by one action, destroyed by one betrayal - all in the last few pages. Quite irritating really, it left me thinking that the writer had multiple personalities and six of them had written this book. It just didn't run smoothly and two many doors were opened, but not explored. There was too much filler in the book and not enough depth. Sad since it began well. I really liked the opening description of Clea's panic attack, it felt so real. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there.

Lisa Shearin - The Dragon Conspiracy (2015)

This is the second book in the SPI Files series.

They're the Supernatural Protection and Investigations Agency. They try to stop what roams in the night from eating you. In this book they have to find a cluster of diamond eggs, stolen by Harpies, that can cause complete chaos in the supernatural community. Mostly by unmasking supernaturals, removing their glamour and exposing them to the world. In a city as big as New York with a large supernatural community, that's a lot of rioting, burning torches and pitchforks once the humans learn what lives alongside them.

Once more it's down to the human seer Makenna and her human partner Ian to solve the mystery and save New York - with the help of the SPI team. I really love these books. There's nothing Shearin has written that I haven't loved. Shearin is a fantastic writer, her characters are so evolved you feel sad even when a walk-through character dies. This book was a fun ride, I was sad when it was over. I like the way the characters and the stories are developing. I cannot wait for book three - although I hope it has better cover art.

Jennifer Archer - The Shadow Girl (2013)

Lily Winston has a voice in her head - it belongs to Iris. They've been together forever and now Iris is pushing Lily to find out the truth about their past. To solve the mystery of why they exist and how Lily can remember things that Iris did before she was ever born. Is Iris a ghost? Is Lily possessed?

I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, so I can't really explain more than that. It was an interesting book and it raised a lot of questions in my mind. Mostly about whether souls exist or the mind just creates a personality? Also, is who we are a part of every cell in our body? What does this mean for organ transplants? The concept of the book is a worrying pit of questions without answers, but it's a future we're rapidly moving towards.

Ellery Adams - Peach Pies and Alibis (2013)

This is book two in the Charmed Pie Shoppe mystery series.

American writers really do love to "Americanise" the Arthurian myth. In this series the LeFaye women are direct descendants of the good Morgan LeFay, and their nasty counter-parts are from Queen Guinevere. Perhaps America is a mirror-verse of England?

Having grown up on the Arthurian myth, particularly via Susan Cooper and T.H. White, the book seemed really implausible. Why would all of the Arthurian characters ditch England for America? Particularly when one of the main aspects of the myth is how Arthur is the great hero for England's times of peril? (Although I think he missed the boat on World War II. Perhaps his supernatural alarm didn't go off?)

Anyways, ignore the myth and you do have a good book. The story is interesting, each of the LeFaye women has a specific gift. The lead character, Ella Mae, can bake pies that enchant people to do or feel what she wants them to. It borders on manipulation (or has crossed that border), but fortunately Ella Mae is a good encantress and she tries to help make people's lives better, even when she doesn't like them. This helps her solve mysteries and find murderers - although in this book Ella Mae has to do it before they all lose their powers. No pressure kid.

Lilith Saintcrow - The Iron Wyrm Affair (2012)

The Bannon & Clare series is an interesting mix of magic and steampunk. The world is very dark, but that's usual for a Saintcrow novel. Clare is the deductive of the pair - think Sherlock Holmes. Bannon, though, is no Dr. Watson. She's a powerful sorceress in the employ of the Queen. A distant and controlled woman, intent on her duty at the expense of everything, even herself.

This series is fun - and not just because there are dragons! But, seriously, DRAGONS!!! The Iron Wyrm Affair is a search for conspirators who are killing off Mentaths, the only people with the ability to locate and stop them before they achieve their aim - taking over the Empire. The dialog is a bit naff - Saintcrow is trying for Victorian mannerisms and sounding stiff and mocking. Other than that, I really enjoyed the book. I'm so glad Saintcrow has written another strong woman character who doesn't need a man, doesn't give in to men's insecurities, doesn't give a damn what men think. That's my favourite part of her books - all the strong capable women who do what has to be done, almost without emotion, because it's the only way they survive the dark worlds.

Sadie Jones - The Uninvited Guests (2012)

The book begins in early 1900s rural England at a house named Sterne. The Torrington-Shift family are close to losing the house financially and are spending the day wallowing in the despair of oh-who-will-save-us whilst preparing for eldest daughter Emerald's birthday.

That evening, just before the party begins, there's a train accident on a nearby line and the survivors are re-routed to Sterne until the railway can bus them on their way. The family are a fairly self-involved lot and don't cope very well with having to do the right thing towards fellow human beings. Especially when the survivors bring with them someone from their mother's disreputable past who shows the family the cruelty hiding in their shallow selves.

The book was well-written, but not to my taste. I found the storyline and characters repugnant. I know that it is very easy for people to behave that badly as long as the majority are in agreement - it's how mobs turn into mass-murderers. But, I don't want to read about it. The synopsis made me believe it was a ghost story, which it is. A ghost story with a fairly severe look at how wicked and heartless humans can be.

Rebecca Hale - Nine Lives Last Forever (2010) How to Moon a Cat (2011)

This is book two and three in the Cats and Curios Mystery series. I'm reviewing them together because I didn't like either very much and I don't think there's much difference between them.

The main problem I had with them, apart from the ludicrously slow moving storyline, is the point-of-view constantly jumping, even in the middle of a chapter. Not just to different people (there were nine in book 3), but to inanimate objects and animals too. It was incredibly confusing and off-putting. Honestly, if I hadn't already bought the books I wouldn't have bothered reading them.

I don't really understand how the author got from book one to these two books. Similar characters, but all a bit of a mess really in the storyline. What is going on gets so confusing because of the constant jumping of viewpoints. If you've never met a character (or tree, rock, statue, frog, cat...) before you're not going to understand that you're suddenly listening to what they're thinking.

I didn't find the characters engaging at all, we just spent too little time with them. The main protagonist could have been killed, along with her cats, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.

I won't be bothering with the next three books in the series and these three are off to Goodwill.

Kelly Moore - Amber House (2012)

This is the first book in the Amber House series and was co-written with Moore's two daughters Tucker and Larkin Reed.

The premise of this book was interesting, a house that absorbed the echoes of the past that members of the family could see by touching items belonging to their ancestors. I liked the whole one-action-changes-everything idea. The theory that a relative's past choices could shift the course of future family is very real, but not often noticed in real life, except for people who are researching their ancestry.

I think if we knew enough of the past we could avoid a lot of today's problems. But, people choose to forget, and, as in this book, misfortunes keep perpetuating themselves - just like in the echoes that Sarah keeps seeing, and using, to repair her families unhappy past-present.

The alternative timeline was fun - who hasn't looked back and thought if-only-I-had-done-that-differently? This is a book that makes that if only come true.

Victoria Hamilton - Bran New Death (2013)

This is the first book in the Merry Muffin Mystery series and seems to be part of the penny-dreadful mystery books that are being conveyor-belted out these days. It's tolerable light reading, but don't expect a mystery in the realm of Christie or Sayers. These are fluffy books that you can spend a few hours consuming, non-taxing or thought provoking.

The protagonist Merry Wynter's life falls apart in New York, so she heads off to a house she recently inherited from her Uncle. Merry essentially runs away from home and only lets friends know she's gone once she finds herself alone and in trouble - like most kids. Happily her friends are very forgiving and they rush to her aid as she creates a new life in Autumn Vale and solves the mystery of her Uncle's murder.

The story wasn't unduly deep and the characters didn't draw me in. I didn't like any of them, I felt they were cardboard cut-outs. Surface development without substance which left me not overly interested in reading the next two books in the series.  I think an author with Hamilton's experience should have been able to write more realistic characters than this. The whole book felt tongue-in-cheek, right down to the character's names. Like the author was poking fun at the more ludicrous writers in the world - only she wasn't, and that's just a bit sad for literature.

David Perlmutter - Grain Brain (2013)

The essential aspects of this book were extremely interesting, although I had to wade through all the padding to find them. The theory is that an addiction to grains, gluten and sugar is destroying our brains and leading to the recent rise in dementia, Alzheimer's, arthritis and auto-immune disease's in today's society.

Perlmutter makes a very strong case for going off addictive foods and developing healthier brains that don't start their early decline, more frighteningly in teenagers as much as adults, in our current processed foods addicted society.

I found the information that everything we eat contains gluten very helpful. It's what triggers the process in our brains and makes us want to eat more of it because we briefly feel a happy-sated reaction and we want to feel it over and over again. This is why I avoid Krispy Kreme Doughnuts - anything that makes me that happy must be super-bad for me.

The trick is finding something to eat or do that replaces the opiate-like gluten reaction in our brains and supports its healthy development. Easy? No. Everyone is different and it will take a lot of trial and error to find what is right for you. So the book lets us know we have a problem, but there's no easy solution to it. Perlmutter describes it as going off a drug and just abstaining, but we're confronted by gluten foods constantly in society, so abstaining isn't enough. There needs to be a better process in place that makes the gluten reaction redundant.

I'll go think on it while I eat my vegemite toast, my tea and biscuits, my gluten-enriched vegetable chow mein...

Lucy Carver - Young, Gifted and Dead (2013)

When I began this book I almost threw it aside. It initially begins like season one of Veronica Mars - the murdered best friend is even named Lily! But, the brilliant plot quickly had me hooked. Our heroine, Alyssa, is sent off to an elite boarding school in the wilds of England where she encounters a ruthless secret society with a very nasty agenda.

Put like that it doesn't sound like much, but the author has a way of twisting the plot and throwing the blame in different directions until you don't know who the real murderer is until the very end. Some of the topics raised in the book were a little frightening, but very relevant in today's egotist society. I wouldn't want anyone under the age of 16 to read it, but it definitely would be thought provoking for older teens.

Kerry Greenwood - Cooking the Books (2011)

This is the sixth book in the Corinna Chapman series.

I adore Corinna. She's not Goddess-perfect in any way and that makes her one of my favourite characters. Corinna is nice, practical, hard-working, affectionate, loyal, not self-involved, empathic, open-minded, understanding, happy with herself - she's all the things people should be if we lived in a better world. Corinna is all the things that would make a better world.

Corinna is a niche baker in Melbourne CBD who lives in a very eccentric building, Insula, filled with equally eccentric residents. Mysteries come her way and, with the help of her lover Daniel, Corinna sets out to solve them. In this book someone is pranking the lead star of a new television series and it's threatening to end the show. Dramas among the actors and crew mirror the melodrama on the soap and Corinna bakes her way through pettiness and intrigue to find lost children, a nasty prankster and stolen bonds.

Jacklyn Brady - Arsenic and Old Cake (2012)

The premise behind Brady's 'Piece of Cake' mysteries is interesting, but the books themselves are without soul. They're the narration of someone dying, but you feel nothing. Honestly, they're stiffer than the corpse!

The story is Rita, the soon-to-be-ex-wife of victim #1, takes over his up-market bakery. They make cakes worth thousands of dollars for the elite and wealthy in New Orleans. So Rita has troubles with the staff, she falls over murders, insists on solving murders and is seeing two men but cannot decide between them. The basis of most mystery novels, right? But, in this novel, it's all 2D. I feel nothing for Rita or any of the characters. I thought that maybe it was just Brady's first book that was overly wooden, first books often are. So I kept reading, but this is book three and I should be feeling something for the cast of bakers by now - I'm not.

Everyone's problems are so textbook. Their reactions to things are pedestrian. "There's been a murder? Ohno, what in my house! *shrug* Now, who'd like a piece of cake?" It's like the author cannot write emotions. If the cast don't feel it, how am I going to feel it?

This is a mundane effort from Berkley's Prime Crime theme-based mysteries.