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text 2018-12-24 05:27
24 Festive Tasks: Festivus, Task #1 - The Airing of Grievances
Murder in the Museum - John Rowland
Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries - Leonard Kniffel
The Road to Cardinal Valley - Earlene Fowler
Poison - Sarah Pinborough
The Haunting of Fox Mill - Phyl Cooke

Task 1:  It’s the annual airing of grievances!  Time to list the top 5 books that disappointed you the most this year and let us know why!

 

Well, looking at my shelves for the year and the overall ratings, I'm looking at these books and scratching my head as to why I rated them as high as I did.  

 

 

Murder in the Museum - John RowlandMy review of Murder in the Museum.  

 

This one should have been a DNF.  There was so much I disliked about this book.  It was just not a good story, at all.  

 

Looking back on my review I gave it .5 star each for the cover, the title and the setting of the British Museum.  I probably should have just gave it 1 star since the BM setting didn't last more than 24 pages.

 

 

 

Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries - Leonard KniffelMy review of Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries by Leonard Kniffel.  

 

A collection of essays by people who were supposed to be stars that weren't (except Julie Andrews and Oprah).  Most of them sounded far more defensive than celebratory and few of them were average at best. 

 

2 stars.

 

 

 

 

The Road to Cardinal Valley - Earlene FowlerMy review of The Road to Cardinal Valley by Earlene Fowler  

 

Now this one ... this one I had hopes and expectations for.  The author wrote a fabulous mystery series back in the day with outstanding characters and settings.  But she let me down with this one.  Still great characters and settings, but she yanked them around too much and was far too preachy and churchy to boot.

 

2 stars.  2 bitter stars.

 

 

 

 

Poison - Sarah PinboroughMy review of Poison by Sarah Pinborough  

 

Oh, how I didn't like this book.  A fairy tale retelling with juvenile prose and adult sex scenes.  I failed to feel the darkness, and cared nothing whatsoever for any of the characters.  This turned out to be a bonus since the story ended without any resolution for anyone.  Except me, who happily tossed it in the big black box to be given away at next opportunity.

 

1 star for a pretty cover. 

 

 

 

The Haunting of Fox Mill - Phyl CookeMy review of The Haunting of Fox Mill by Phyl Cooke  

 

Not sure why I gave this 2 stars - it's pretty terrible too.  The writing was bad, the MC was stupid and the plotting was, according to me, "a car crash".

 

A Ghost story that failed utterly to give me so much as a goosebump.

 

2 stars.  Why, I do not know.

 

 

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text 2018-11-23 09:27
24 Festive Tasks: International Day for Tolerance, Task #1
The Road to Cardinal Valley - Earlene Fowler

 

Task 1:  Find some redeeming quality in the book you liked least this year and post about it.

 

I was going to do this task based on Murder in the Museum, but the only redeeming quality I could come up with was the cover and title.  That's all I got - the book sucked.

 

Since this didn't seem in keeping with the spirit of the task, I decided instead to go with The Road to Cardinal Valley by Earlene Fowler, a book I liked only slightly more than Murder in the Museum.  

 

All the things I didn't like you can read here, if you're interested, but in spite of it all, I did enjoy the setting of the small ranching town of Cardinal Valley and its multi-ethnic population of characters.  When not involved in the plot, they are all (mostly) likeable, wise, affable characters.  I liked that the teen with the best reason to be horribly cobbled by her own backstory ended up being the strongest, most independent, and competent character of the bunch. 

 

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review 2018-11-18 07:51
The Road to Cardinal Valley (Cardinal Valley duology, #2)
The Road to Cardinal Valley - Earlene Fowler

Where to start with why I didn't like this book.  Let's start with the fact that I was invested in the characters from the beginning.  I cared about what happened to them and after the last book I felt confident that things would work out as the author led this reader to believe.

 

Then she yanked the rug out from under me.  I don't like authors to set up relationships only to start jerking them around.  Call me dull, but I like a certain ... not predictability, but continuity.  So nothing was going to end up the way she led me to believe at the end of the first book.  Certain heartbreak - most undeserved - was on the cards for a major character, when suddenly the author introduces, if not an outright deus ex machina, then one hell of a coincidence, and happiness ever after is magically guaranteed for everyone.  Even I had a hard time swallowing this one.

 

The Road to Cardinal Valley focuses on Ruby's dysfunctional mess of a younger brother, an alcoholic with hepatitis who has no desire to sober up.  What follows is just enough codependency to thoroughly irritate me.  I could care less about Ruby's brother by about mid-way, but in another stretch-too-far, it all works out in the end with an act of redemption that coincidentally solves everyone's problems.  

 

Earlene Fowler writes a top-notch mystery that I'd happily recommend to anyone who likes traditional mysteries with strong, heartfelt characters.  But she was definitely trying something new here and, for me at least, it just didn't work.

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review 2018-11-18 07:36
The Saddlemaker's Wife (Cardinal Valley duology, #1)
The Saddlemaker's Wife - Earlene Fowler

I love Earlene Fowler's Benni Harper mystery series, but shied away from this book for years because it sounded sappy.  It wasn't sappy, but I still didn't like it much.  Even though I knew from reading the acknowledgments in her Benni Harper books that she is a vocal Christian (not in a bad way - just an active credit to her faith front and center in  each book - I did not know this one and its follow up would have a concentration of faith and Christianity as part of its storyline.  

 

It wasn't too heavy handed, and the author made sure the characters were non-judgemental and weren't too picky what the 'higher power' was called, but it still wasn't my jam.  It's not that I'm an atheist; I'm not.   But I am cynical; the more you talk about it, the more apt I am to to think you're trying too hard.

 

So, I wasn't inclined to enjoy the story, although I did, like all the author's other books, become invested in the characters and this is what kept me reading.  A lot of characters were American Indian, which added a more realistic roundness to the community of Cardinal Valley.  And the story's 'mystery' was pretty damn shocking.  Mostly because I wasn't expecting this to be a story that went in that direction, but also because Fowler's other work avoided the decidedly less functional dynamics that happen when people have too much power and influence.  Everything about this story was tragic.

 

In retrospect, I probably liked this book more than my rating suggests.  I read the second one before I wrote this and I'm pretty sure it coloured my feelings about this book.  The story here was compelling and the book ended on a hopeful note.  Unfortunately, it ends with unresolved issues, making the second book necessary if closure for the reader is a priority and well... I didn't like the second book.

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review 2018-07-29 02:00
Goose in the Pond (Benni Harper #4)
Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler

Reading this now - 7 years after the first read - I wonder if Fowler's editor convinced her she'd overplayed Gabriel's machismo in the last book and recommended toning it down.  Gabriel isn't perfect, in this 4th book, but he's nothing like the horse's ass he was previously.  

 

There's a lot of family drama in this one - some of it amusing (I love the bible verse war Bennie's grandmother and great-aunt engage in), some of it not.  The mystery plot itself stretched itself though; definitely not her best murder plotting.  Too far beyond the realm of believability for a series that is so firmly and deeply rooted in reality.

 

-------old review below-----------

 

I haven't found a book I don't like yet in this series. A bit 'angst-y' but I think the author does a good job of balancing that, so it doesn't weigh you down. I'm looking forward to continuing with the series.

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