My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

French people spoke fast generally, but the added excitement of imparting misfortune that had occurred to someone else made them talk at breakneck speed.

‘Angxious’ messages, as Mark would have described them, being a mixture of concern-induced anger and anxiety.

“I sometimes wonder if she’s after my husband,” murmured Lottie, only half-joking, as Roger and Madame laughed heartily over a lame joke he’d cracked. “I think you’re safe. She’s got more facial hair than he has.” Martha couldn’t stop the uncharitable but true remark slipping out.

 My Review:

This was my fourth exposure to Stephanie Dagg’s amusing prose. I always enjoy her wry humor and comfortable storytelling, regardless of the unusual conditions of the murder victims her main character of Martha seems destined to encounter in this pleasantly entertaining cozy mystery. Martha was a highly relatable and realistically drawn character whom I enjoyed getting to know. Adding to my reading pleasure, I also picked up a few new additions to my Brit word list with two having the same meaning – todger and John-Thomas are both slang for penis; and rosbif – which the Urban Dictionary defined as a derogatory term for a Brit by the French, “probably because of the enjoyment and pride the English take in their roast beef.”

The Library of Lost and Found
by Phaedra Patrick

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Martha’s cheeks began to burn. If she touched them with a wet finger they might hiss.

“He said he liked your traumatic reading.” Martha hoped she meant dramatic reading.

“Is it true he was on board that fishing boat, that cat’s-eyed?” “Capsized?”

“We’ll just do a little trim,” Suki said. The bells on her ankle bracelet jingled as she circled Martha, peering into her hair as if she was looking for eggs in a large bird’s nest.

“Sometimes putting things to rest from your past can be catholic.” “Do you mean cathartic?”

I’m having a crustacean section next week.” “A cesarean?” … “The baby is lying in a beach position.” “Do you mean breach?”

My Review:

Ms. Patrick taunted me with her cunning and maddeningly paced story, I reviled this family – they were simply heinous. I enjoyed the cleverly placed use of the levity the amusing quirk of Suki’s poor auditory discrimination and confused vocabulary skills, which helped to counteract and ease the frustrating and prevalent miasma of angst and oppression. I deeply despised the selfish and abhorrent Machiavellian father as well as the mousy mother who allowed it – which was equally as vile, as was the manipulative and favored younger sister. I wanted to administer some foot to posterior therapy to those three.   Yet, despite my irritation, I could not stop reading.

I adored Zelda, the colorful and unconventional Nana, although I had no pleasant thoughts for the rest of them – as they were all conniving and disingenuous conspirators. I was taut with tension and grinding my teeth, but I was invested and entrenched, and could not leave my Kindle for more than a few minutes.

I was impatient and greatly annoyed with the spineless main character of Martha for not only rolling over and allowing her continual subjugation but extended her servitude to every Tom, Dick, and Harry she knew. She permitted herself to be treated like a doormat and willingly gave her power away, which is an issue I have very little patience with.   Yet, I could not walk away and leave her story hanging.

I was frustrated, bitterly antagonized, and fully vexed; yet I had to see where this aggravating tale was going. I was hooked, intrigued, and ruthlessly curious about a deeply buried thirty-year-old secret about Nana. I am delighted and pleased with myself now for sticking with it, as the last few chapters ushered in a totally unexpected, stoical, laconic, and quietly observant hero, as well as writing so poignant that my vision was inexplicably blurred and an odd wetness seemed to be leaking from my eyes while I simultaneously experienced an uncomfortable squeezing in my chest and the sensation of several hot rocks in my throat. What madness! This was my first experience of the unpredictably wily skills of Phaedra Patrick – she is a crafty one.

Favorite Quotes:

Squeezing in to a gap at the bar, I dug a ten-pound note out of my handbag and waited until I finally caught the attention of the young man behind the bar. Again, in days gone by I might have been tempted to pop a button on my blouse and lean forward to see if I could get served more quickly, but these days my bras were less a feat of construction, pushing my wares up and out with their scaffolding, and instead were more comfortable and practical. I tried to pretend that buying them in black was enough to keep them from being boring but it probably wasn’t true.

I’m a child psychologist. And no, that doesn’t mean that I have all of the answers when it comes to bringing up my own child. It just means I have more insight into where I’ve gone wrong.

My Review:

I greatly enjoy stumbling upon books featuring mature professional or established women facing significant life transitions or epiphanies, and such was the case for Karen – teacher, recently betrayed and abandoned wife, and somewhat of an unsociable loner – being dragged out by her only friend on her fortieth birthday. Her party attendees were limited to a few of her vaguely familiar fellow teachers who had required the incentive of a free meal and drinks to attend a celebration in her honor, ouch. Ms. Pearl’s amusing writing style was observantly insightful and often ironically humorous and fairly balanced in emotional tone with entertaining storylines which were easy to follow and relevant to many. Her characters were an interesting, authentic, and quirky mix of realistically flawed personalities with relatable traits and issues. And score, I noticed a new phrase for my Brit word list with “gee myself up,” which Mr. Google implied is to encourage and lift someone’s spirits.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… there’s a faint sheen of gray that adorns the landscape as though the entire city needs a good scrubbing. Havana is like a woman who was grand once and has fallen on hard times, and yet hints of her former brilliance remain, traces of an era since passed, a photograph faded by time and circumstance, its edges crumbling to dust.

I feel as though I’ve become a point of curiosity, an exhibit like the island of crocodiles at the Havana Zoo, those mighty animals sunning their backs with contempt for the gawking tourists and locals who point and exclaim over their size. Being a Perez in Havana— one of the sugar queens— is akin to wondering if you should charge admission for the window into your life…

There’s a different level of poverty in Cuba that suggests that not only is the deck stacked against you, but someone keeps stealing all the cards.

Terrible things rarely happen all at once… They’re incremental, so people don’t realize how bad things have gotten until it’s too late.

My Review:

I confess to blatant ignorance about Cuba, past or present.   Before picking up this exceptionally detailed account, my accumulated knowledge about Cuba was limited to a vague memory of the rafters, something about JFK and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and that Fidel Castro had been an oppressive communist dictator who gave long boring speeches that he forced his citizens to listen to for hours on end in the heat and sun, I remember my severely strict sixth grade teacher fervently pounding that last fact home and later putting on a test. I also have a vivid memory of looking at a picture of the heavily reviled man with an unkempt beard and dressed in green fatigues and a billed cap and thinking him an unhinged monster; an opinion that apparently was deeply imprinted on my gray matter as it has held through to present day.

Chanel Cleeton’s highly descriptive and epic story was written in dual timelines and from a dual POV, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition. Sixty-years after her then nineteen-year-old grandmother had fled a dangerous and chaotic Cuba with her family, Marisol takes a trip to Cuba to spread her grandmother’s ashes and hopefully learn about her family history while traveling under the guise of a journalistic junket to gather information for a tourism article about Cuba. Careful what you wish for – she uncovered dark secrets that her beloved grandmother had never hinted it, as well as stunning revelations concerning her family tree.

The storylines were lushly detailed and swirling with atmosphere, and could easily be deployed as a fully fleshed-out screenplay. The emotional tone was fraught with tension and heavy with angst. I could have done with about one hundred fewer pages repeatedly outlining the abuses and folly of past and present political systems, as politics are just not my jam. However, the examples of basic day-to-day challenges the politically polarized Cuban citizens endured and continue to struggle with carried considerable more impact for me and were expertly executed. I have been schooled, and in a significantly more entertaining manner than my harsh and unyielding sixth-grader teacher could have ever aspired to.

Bedlam & Breakfast

at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse

by Sharley Scott

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Like any couple we had our ups-and-downs and a good row would usually clear the air but that was impossible in a guesthouse filled with two dozen pairs of ears, especially as I’ve never been one for a hissed argument. I could imagine the TripAdvisor reviews: ‘Flotsam offers the authentic seaside fish-wife experience’.

When I went back out to take more orders, I apologised for the wait. “You’ve forgotten our presents,” John said. I frowned. “Presents?” He glanced at his watch and laughed. “We’ve been waiting so long, it must be Christmas.”

That man must have a blowhole in his head. He doesn’t stop for breath.

Don’t leave me! It’s handbags at dawn in there.

My tongue must be an inch shorter for all the times I’d bitten it, but now it shrank to the back of my mouth fearful of being chewed off.

He’d been grumpy all week, making me feel as if I had to tiptoe around him. Maybe he should have married a ballerina.

My Review:

This was an amusing, fun, and lively tale chronicling the misadventures of first-time owners of a B&B, who had optimistically approached their new endeavor with no prior experience in the hospitality industry.   The story was told from the first person POV of Katie, who with her husband Jason had purchased a run-down B&B in a seaside tourist area of Devon. While they realized the structure was going to need improvements, they were sorely unaware of just how neglected and poorly maintained the facilities were, as well as how much effort running a B&B was going to require.   Complications abounded before their uniquely difficult guests had even started arriving, yet they handled the myriad comical and exceptional challenges head on and learned hard lessons by doing, which is quite often the best form of education and training.

Resentful over the amount paid for the sale, the former B&B owners had spitefully poisoned the locals towards them as well as purposely tampered with the bookings and left layers of filth behind. I don’t even want to consider how I would have fared with such a labor intensive and uphill 24/7 enterprise; I most likely would have locked the doors and fled at top speed while shrieking like a banshee.

The stress and exhaustion frayed their nerves, siphoned off their patience, and sorely tested their relationship as their communication became limited to quietly sniping and snarling at each other in private while doing their best to maintain a pleasant atmosphere and cheerful countenances for their guests. I am uncertain why this was originally tagged as a Contemporary Romance, whereas I would label it as Women’s Fiction with copious amounts of wit, humor, and family drama.

New additions to my Brit Word List include grockles – which are tourists; and nous – which appears to be associated with intelligence as well as common sense, although it has been my experience that most human beings rarely possess both at the same time.

While ‘Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse’ is fictional, I am a guesthouse owner. Thankfully, we have been blessed with lots of amazing and kind-hearted guests, who are nothing like some of the characters featured in this novel and the subsequent books in the series. I would be a lot greyer if they were.

Likewise, Jason is quite different to my husband, who I sometimes nickname Victor Meldrew. He is lovely though and has a fab sense of humor, although some of his dryness has rubbed off on Jason.

Bedlam & Breakfast is set in South Devon, in the fictional town of Torringham, which is loosely based on Brixham. If you’ve been to Brixham you may recognize some of the local features, including the seals, fishing industry and the fantastic lifeboat crew, but the businesses, people and a number of settings are fictionalized.

The same applies to the B&B owners featured. Many guesthouse owners undertake work when they move into a property and our current B&B was not an exception. While, thankfully, our previous owners were nothing like Jim and Maureen, this also means we don’t get to live next door to the fabulous Shona and Kim. But we do have many lovely B&B friends. B&Bers are a wonderful and hardworking bunch, although the ones we know have a penchant for parties in the low season. That’s why I had to end Bedlam & Breakfast at a party. 

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