book review: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Another cozy mystery I tried out in an effort to find my niche was The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (best known as the co-host of the British game show, Pointless). While this is his debut novel, the series has already expanded to five books! The story follows four residents of an upscale English retirement village who team up to solve crimes.

True to the genre, the book is packed with wit, cleverness, and silly banter. Using elderly protagonists is a brilliant move - it takes the amateur sleuth concept in a delightfully fresh direction and opens the door for some wonderfully corny moments. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud, but I found myself giggling throughout this book.

While I adored the core cast of characters and charming setting, my engagement wavered. I settled into a good rhythm during the middle section, but I struggled with both the beginning and the climax. There were so many moving pieces and minor supporting characters that it became difficult to keep track of everything, which made the final resolution feel a bit anticlimactic. 

Additionally, the dialogue mechanics became a bit repetitive. Instead of letting a natural back-and-forth flow dictate who was speaking, the text frequently reiterated names with every speaker change. The characters also constantly repeated each other's names mid-conversation, which quickly became a distracting paint point for me. 

I gave this 3 out of 5 stars. For a debut novel, it is still incredibly well done, and I will definitely be picking up the next installment. I've noticed that while this first book averages around 3.5 stars online, the subsequent books in the series jump up to the mid 4 star range among reviewers. I am excited to see how the series evolves!

The reason I have been testing out different types of cozy mysteries is because I had been seeing so many books popping up set in quaint English towns, bookshops, or knitting circles - usually featuring a resident cat or two! Intrigued by this trend, I did a little digging and learned that British cozy mysteries experienced a resurgence in the 1980's. Heavily inspired by Agatha Christie, these gore-free whodunits rely on amateur sleuths and witty dialogue. By the 2000's, this paved the way for "thematic cozies" centered around cooking or crafting, culminating in another spike of popularity during the 2020 lockdowns. Growing up, I absolutely loved Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Because those childhood favorites share that classic amateur sleuth DNA, I figured I would be a natural fit for this lighthearted style. 

If you read any of the installments of The Thursday Murder Club and like it, there is also Netflix show that has been created based on the books. Sometimes I like to make a recipe inspired by the books I am reading. Viennese whirls were served with tea and coffee during one of the scenes in the book so I looked them up. I am a bit of a lazy baker and don't deal with piping bags. However, they do look very yummy! More my style would be to order something from The British Corner Shop who sells products from Waitrose, an upscale UK supermarket, and ships to the US. This would allow me to try out some favorite British favorites. 

book review: Murder on Thin Ice by Laurie Cass

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 4/5

Thank you Crooked Lane Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

I've been trying out different cozy mysteries in an effort to find a series to carry me through the long winter ahead. Murder on Thin Ice is book fourteen in A Bookmobile Cat Mystery. And it just may fit the bill. 

Librarian Minnie and her cat, Eddie, make connections in their small town, solving mysteries along the way. In this particular installment, Minnie happens upon one of her bookmobile customers who has fallen through the lake ice. It has been deemed an accident. Yet Minnie doesn't think that is the case so she begins a hunt to find out the truth. True to cozy mysteries, there are other fun additions to the storyline. In this, there is a second interwoven case as well as Minnie learning how to cook and find a gift for her new husband. I found the characters very relatable and enjoyable. And the snowy town setting in Michigan is comforting to me as a Minnesotan. I can see myself picking up more books from this series during the Winter when I just want a low-stress simple story I can get lost in.

book review: The Hill In The Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 5/5

Thank you Random House for providing an ARC for review consideration via NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson is a folk novel that captures the immense beauty of the Welsh mountains through vivid descriptive detail. It introduces a slow-building, eerie darkness that befalls Carwyn and Rhian’s remote farm. The sheep become sickly, an unpleasant earthy smell intensifies, strange dreams overtake their nights, and they begin to question what they see and hear. As Carwyn becomes more obsessed with digging up artifacts discovered in an unused part of the farm, the strange occurrences and dread only get more intense. 

The couple reminisces about their early life together while pondering generational folklore that may shed light on what they are encountering during this hard, strange year. Ancestral history of the land is also interjected into the book. Both providing a full and invested yearning for the reader to hope this couple can pull themselves to the other side of this darkness. 

I had so much fun looking up the Welsh words in the text and finding recipes for cawl, wimberry pie, and bara brith bread. This extra layer immersed me much deeper into the book. I do wish the ancestral history was tied a bit more neatly together as a complete story so that I could fully understand how it connected to the excavated mound. Doing so might have rounded out the ending by giving a glimpse into what became of the couple and how the site might affect future inhabitants, while still remaining vague.

Despite these small notes, this book absolutely deserves a 5/5. I was astounded by the imagery and the author’s ability to evoke so much about these characters lives through the written word. Readers who love literary works will appreciate this, and those that enjoy lore, witchcraft, or horror will love it even more. I highly recommend this debut novel and so look forward to anything future this author might release.

book review: The Plot & The Sequel

I'd like to introduce you to an author, Jean Hanff Korelitz, I probably should have been familiar with since she has released many popular novels going back to 1996. Out of these, two have been adapted to the screen - Admission, released in 2013 and starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, and the book You Should Have Known, released in 2020 under HBO's rename The Undoing and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland, and Noah Jupe. Two other adaptations, The Plot and The Latecomer, have been picked up as well, but no dates have been set.

Back to the actual books and the author behind them! Jean Hanff Korelitz is a brilliant storyteller. This past few days I raced through my to-do list so I could spend all the spare moments reading two of her books, The Plot and The Sequel. That says quite a lot about a "new to me" author! 

First off, the story is simply unique - A struggling writer takes/misappropriates/steals (whatever word you prefer) the concept of a novel from one of his writing students. However, this decision leads to an unexpected chain of falling dominoes.  

Not only is the plot unique, but the story the protagonist stole is actually interspersed throughout the two books, creating a book within a book. It was so gratifying to be able to read excerpts from the actual book that was creating all of the chaos.

All of this is capped off by the authors expert use of dialogue and internal monologue to immerse the reader in the characters and set an urgent pace.

Normally, a sequel falls flat to the first book. That was not the case with this series. Both books were a strong 5/5!

 

Waiting five years after their release dates to read these was a blessing in disguise; knowing The Sequel (literally and figuratively) was already out meant I could immediately devour the next phase of this story. Both books can stand on their own, yet together they provide a perfectly wrapped conclusion to the saga. So, I would recommend reading them in tandem for the most fulfilling experience. If you love complex thrillers and a the dichotomy of a book within a book, this series is a must-read! Just be prepared to add the authors entire backlist to your TBR!