NEW MYSTERY RELEASE 
A Flair for Goblins (The Sadie Kramer Flair Series Book 6) by 

A murder in a haunted mansion, Sadie and her sidekick Yorkie are determined to find out who the killer is.

"I just adore Coco, Sadie Kramer's little dog who goes virtually everywhere with her in a tote bag!! This book will make you laugh, will keep you guessing and keep you reading!" 

"Sadie Kramer is fast becoming my favorite amateur sleuth. I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out who the murderer was but Sadie figured it out before I did." 

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Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08H5VWLTQ 
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952140056 
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When Sadie Kramer agrees to help decorate for San Francisco’s high- society Halloween Spooktacular, she expects to find whimsical ghosts, skeletons, and jack-o-lanterns when she shows up at the Wainwright Mansion, not a body. Especially not the body of the woman in charge of the charity event.

With two detectives, a paranormal investigator turned television star, and a cauldron full of Wainwright Foundation staff and family members cackling around her, Sadie and her sidekick Yorkie are determined to find out who the killer is. Will an old superstition help lead to the truth? Or will this simply become one more tale in the mansion’s haunted history?

*Recipe for Butterfinger Krispie Bars included!

by Molly Ringle

Modern fairytales seem to be a rising trend and some good stories are coming out of it. This one read much like a traditional fairytale as far as language and sentence structure goes, but it had some original elements like goblins using iPhones and other modern devices. I was finding it rather charming until near the end of the first chapter an F-bomb spoiled it for me.

I'm not a prude or easily shocked, but I had been thinking this would be a lovely story for adults and children alike up to that point and it served no purpose to the story except maybe to add some shock value. Was it worth making it unsuitable for children? I didn't think so until I saw the direction the plot would take.

The story continues in an enchanting style for a while, drawing the reader into the human interactions with the goblins. It takes a sinister turn just as the f-bombing starts again and then a set up for an apparent romance angle.

The significance of the human characters to the goblins all clicks into place by 20% and I started enjoying the original premise, despite the teenage-like relationships. It comes out that the characters are actually in their twenties and becomes decidedly sexual by about a third in, so any thoughts of sharing with children are out the window. I'll give it credit for stopping at 'sensual' rather than turning into graphic erotica, which I hadn't signed on for.

By this time the story has become about the humans and the goblins are left behind. They appear again periodically, but the fairytale atmosphere gives way to a Romance story. Readers of that genre may enjoy this more than I did. It went in a different direction than I expected and my interest waned accordingly.

The writing itself is good so I can't fault it, it just wasn't for me.

by David Bernstein

Jacob is an ordinary kid with nothing more important on his mind than how well he'll play in a local baseball game, until he runs into the woods to retrieve a ball. When he doesn't return, his coach goes to search and finds disturbing evidence of a struggle that leads him to bring in the police.

This was a predictable story and the author digressed into individual character back stories too much in the early chapters. The writing itself was engaging and kept the story moving forward despite the sidetracks. There is some pretty gross graphic violence and disturbing themes like dealing with kidnapped and murdered children.

The one thing that began to make me lose interest was the mixed mythology, equating the goblin world with Satan and Hell. If you want an evil goblin king, fine. If you want to write about Satan, fine. But they come from different cultural beliefs so mixing them just dilutes the horror. Goblin mythology leaves a lot of room for imagination so why fall back on common Hell tropes?

The violence goes well into the gratuitous at times and by the ninth chapter the believability was developing a serious wobble. It also became repetitive with the goblin attacks following the same pattern every time. It was fairly engaging in the early chapters, but became tedious as the pages moved on. The ending was a good twist though. I hope it's left as it is and not a jump off for a sequel.

by Jaq D. Hawkins

This one is what I call Old School Fantasy, but it's also Dark Fantasy in places. It kept coming to my attention and when a friend who said she didn't like it the first time she read it decided to read it again, that pushed me over the edge to give it a try. I enjoyed it.

The premise is a low tech world where a natural disaster destroyed life as we know it and the survivors developed a form of civilization that resembles the Dark Ages, except that there is the remains of a destroyed city. The people have divided into two groups; one that live a simple life and are ruled by magicians who live in the castle, and another who have very backward ways and grudgingly give some recognition to the ruling class. They have arranged marriages for their daughters when they are barely pubescent, much like Medieval times.

Hiding underground is a race of goblins who are a very earthy people and mainly want to be left alone, but are very capable of defending themselves. This is where the story has some really interesting connections to mythology and legend and ties together a lot of strands of old lore. The goblins practice ecstatic dance and live in very primitive, tribal ways.

I have to mention that in the prologue, there is a very smooth change of POV from a group of men looking for a missing member of their village into the world of the goblins, where the missing man had wandered in and suffered torment and drugging before being expelled, sort of like fairy hill legend. The goblins are seen during this and the group of men try to dig them out. The reader is transported to inside the goblins' caverns and their efforts to keep humans from invading their sanctuary underground.

I found the story a very interesting contrast of cultures and the writing style very easy to read and get caught up in so that it was a fast read. There were characters that I liked and definitely some that I really loved to hate. I also found it well balanced in that not all the narrow mindedness was on one side. There was not so much a good against evil theme as a clash of cultures where some individuals on both sides kept conflict going through prejudices.

The magic is pretty low key and not too hard to believe. The background story of how their society developed made me laugh, but in a good way. I could just see it happening that way. There is some shapeshifting, some psychic ability in certain characters and a very defined difference between humans and goblins. In many ways, goblins are more like animals than humans and their ways of dealing with things like infant mortality and sex might be shocking to humans, but look to nature and the same things happen among animals, sometimes much worse.

Overall I found it imaginative and an enjoyable read, though some of the darker aspects still give me chills when I think about them. It's not as complicated as something like Game of Thrones, but important characters can die and I found myself really choked up over one of them. This probably won't appeal to YA readers. There is a lot of exposition and world building rather than constant fast action, though there is some of that in places too. I'd recommend it to those who enjoy books like Lord of the Rings and especially for those who go on to read The Silmarillion and other more studious books.

For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

Another excellent collection of Phoebe and Marigold's misadventures, this time with a few goblins thrown in. I just love this series so much. In my head, I think I like unicorns, but honestly, most of the time I find stories about them kind of boring. However Marigold is lovely (duh!) and magnificent and I just love her relationship to Phoebe. They are funny and adorable and I don't think I will ever get tired of reading about their time together. 

Phoebe is such a wonderful character who is un-apologetically herself with all her strengths and flaws shining through. Simpson has created some truly lovable and remarkable characters. Heck, at this point, I'll even put up with Dakota because of all of the complexity she brings to this series. 

Great books for kids and adults alike, even better when read together.