---

1. Finding The Best Books From Sales
2. First Book: Murder Spills The Tea
3. Second Book: The Cat Who Blew The Whistle
4. Third Book: Winter Tales
5. Fourth Book: The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares
6. Fifth Book: Paths of Glory
7. Sixth Book: Boar Island
8. Seventh Book: Who To Believe
9. Eighth Book: The First Patient
10. Ninth Book: The Dante Club
11. Books I Recommend
12. Five Stars
13. Four Stars:
14. Three Stars:
15. Two Stars

---

Finding The Best Books From Sales

Every season, my favorite library has a book sale where you can take the books you find interesting. I brought my brother with me on this journey where he got a lot of classics. For me, I chose random books that looked intriguing based off of the covers and the genres. In total, I got about eighteen books in total. For this post, I’ll be focusing on the first nine books, the books that are about 200 to 300 pages. I will discuss the basic stuff like the author, genre of book, and the summary. After that, I will then go over the thoughts for each one and recommend the ones I like.

---

First Book: Murder Spills The Tea

This is the third book in the Tea by The Sea series. What I love about cozy mystery series (at least for the most part) is that you don’t have to read it in order to understand the story. This third book in the series was a great book to introduce me to this series.

The main character, Lily, does some investigating into the murder, but mostly Lily’s friend Bernadette and her grandmother do the investigating. Lily mostly focuses on baking and focusing on America Bakes! Despite the main character doing part of the investigating, the story was still good enough since the two other main characters were likeable.

America Bakes! is like the reality shows we have here in the US: the drama to hype the show. Tommy Greene, the victim of this book, is the mean judge while on set. However, off television, he’s a nicer person. Plus, since this is a baking competition, Lily also has a rival named Allegra, who may or may not be involved with Tommy’s murder.

Overall, this book was good and short. It is a good start for this post. I give this book a four star rating.

---

Second Book: The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

I have a confession to make: I’ve always had an interest with trains/locomotives. It mostly has to do with the history behind them and the amount of folk songs/folk stories regarding trains. In my life, I’ve only been on one train when I was ten years old in fifth grade. It was during a field trip where the class went to Boston, Massachusetts.

I personally want to read more books that take place on a train/train non-fiction. The Cat Who Blew The Whistle doesn’t take place on a train, but it does involve a train. This is also part of a long running series of books titled The Cat Who… where this is the seventeenth book. This is the first book that I read in this series.

While there is a murder and a derailment in this book, these events don’t happen until later in the book. The book mostly focuses on finding the creator of the new railroad and train as they are involved in embezzlement. This is change up from the cozy mysteries I read as most deal with whodunit/murder.

There are side plots in this book: Polly is a librarian who is also trying to build her own house and Celia Robinson, a woman who moves to Pickax, Moose County on Qwillerans request who also help him with the case of missing embezzler. Plus, there are also Qwillerans cats: Koko and Yum Yum, with Koko causing the most mischief. However, there is something more to Koko’s antics than just mischief.

Overall, this book wasn’t bad to me. I recommend it if you like trains, a mystery that has a different crime than your standard whodunit, or if you love cats. I might check out more books in this long-running series at some point. I give this book a four star rating.

---

Third Book: Winter Tales

As a fan of anthology books, I usually read more genre-centric short story collections (Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Mystery/Thriller, among others). While this book is neither of those genres and focuses on fiction, I still seem to enjoy some of the stories in this collection.

From the looks of it, this book seems to be a rare find since the image is a different cover than the one I have but its the only image I can find along with only one review on Goodreads. This also appears to be a series of books titled Winter Tales, with this one being the fifth one in the series.

My favorite stories are:

• Othello’s Shadow by Paul Sayer (Story #2)- This story is inspired by the play of the same name by Shakespeare. For people unaware the plot of Othello, it follows a soldier who is manipulated by another character Iago. Iago makes Othello believe that his wife, Desdemona, is infertile. I haven’t read the original play or seen the show, but I have read this story that is almost same premise. The main character becomes obsessed with his wife, Susan, that he begins to stalk her wherever she goes and jots down her every movement in a journal. He imagines that the TV in a shop was talking about Susan which leads him to believe she might have secrets hidden from him. When she finds out that he is stalking her, that is when the story takes a turn. I liked mostly because it got inspiration from a Shakespeare play.
• Lavee, Lagair, Lamore, Lamaird (Story #5) – World War I has just begun. Mabel Judd, a forty year old woman, says goodbye to her family as she heads to France be a nurse for the Red Cross. Despite her families worries, Mabel sends notes to her family where Sarah, one of her sisters, reads them. The story also cuts to Mabel and her sisters when they were teenagers. They were educated by a tutor named Miss Savage who Mabel has a deep connection to.
• Dream Kitchen by Paul Pickering (Story #6)- The story follows a man named Manfred who constantly cooks in a kitchen in which he calls his dream kitchen (sort of like a man cave for him). He is also married to a woman named Ulrike who gets involved with another man named Paul who is making an “anaesthetic”.
• Geranium by David Updike (Story #8)- A man, Michael, moves into a new apartment where he lives between two neighbors. One neighbor in particular, Mr. Veen, makes Michael curious, especially when he slams the door every night. Michael wonders why his neighbor does that.

The other stories were decent as well, but these four were the best according to me. So this book gets a five stars.

---

Fourth Book: The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

This is my first book that I read by Joyce Carol Oates. I’ve had this book on my to-be-read shelf for a while now and was thrilled to find a free copy of it at the used book sale. This book has a total of six stories in it with the central story being The Corn Maiden.

In short, I say this book is an alright collection of short stories. I liked the leading story of the book. The story is about a missing child named Marissa who gets kidnapped by her classmates Jude (who is the leader of the group) and her friends. Jude kidnapped Marissa because she wants to recreate a Native American sacrifice known as The Corn Maiden. All the while, Marissa’s mother, Leah, is desperate to find her daughter. Suspicions fall on one of Marissa’s teachers, Mikal Zallman, which leads to false allegations.

This story is one of the best in the collection. There is one other story that I liked in this collection:

• Nobody Knows My Name- Jessica, a young girl, gets a new sibling in her family (the story refers to this new child as baby or no name). Jessica’s parents start to show more attention to the baby, making Jessica resentful towards her baby sister. Jessica also befriends a gray cat that has cruel intentions towards her baby sister. This story in particular is for Ellen Datlow, a popular anthology author. I mostly liked this story because it had kind of some Horror elements.

The rest of the stories didn’t really hold up with me. It wasn’t really scary or interesting. However, I didn’t hate the writing of the stories. So with that, I will give this book two stars.

---

Fifth Book: Paths of Glory

I have a love for forgotten/unknown history or historical figures that are not well known and reading about them. This book follows one of these figures: a mountaineer/adventurer named George Mallory. This book goes over his life leading up to his expedition to Mount Everest. At 29,000 feet, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. Many people climb it, but no one has reached the full 29,000 feet.

People who dare climb Mount Everest mostly died while on the mountain, their bodies still up on the mountain. George, along with his friend, were unfortunately one of these Mount Everest victims. However, it is unknown if they ever made to to the top of Everest and it is still a debatable subject to this day.

The book is a fictional account of George Mallory’s life until his untimely death. It is told through multiple parts. It goes into George going to college and conquering other mountains, becoming a teacher at charterhouse, his married life with Ruth, him being a soldier during World War I, and him being recruited to the British expedition to Mount Everest.

This book is average. I didn’t love it nor hate it. It is also my first Jeffrey Archer book. I might check out his other books at some point. With that, I give this book three stars.

---

Sixth Book: Boar Island

This is the second book that I have read in the Anna Pigeon series of books. The first one I read was back in 2018 with Blood Lure, the 9th book of the series. Throughout the series, Anna is sent to various national parks where she goes between park ranger work and police work. In particular, Blood Lure takes place in Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a national park that borders between the state of Montana and Canada.

Anna Pigeon gets sent to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park to study grizzly bears. The study goes awry when the grizzly bears become hostile during the second day along with the young boy that was with Anna goes missing and a mangled corpse is found within the park. While it’s been years since I read this book, I gave it a four star rating at the time.

Now with Boar Island, this book takes place in Acadia National Park which is in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Along with Anna, she is bringing her sixteen-year old goddaughter Elizabeth and her disabled mother Heath. Elizabeth is being harassed and cyberbullied by a mysterious person who is posting lewd photoshopped photos of Elizabeth on their blog. Elizabeth almost takes her life but is saved by her mother and aunt. Anna brings the three of them to an island near Acadia National Park named Boar Island to get away from the stalker.

However, it seems the stalker has followed them to the island and Anna is caught in a murder investigation of man who was shot three times and strangled by a shower curtain. There is also another perspective of another park ranger named Denise, who meets her long-lost twin sister Paulette while in a bar.

This book is different from the previous Anna Pigeon book that I read. One of the things I like about the Anna Pigeon series is that it takes place in national parks. While starting in Boulder, Colorado, Anna is sent to different parks around the US. I like how she is also part park ranger, part investigator. However, I don’t seem to enjoy Boar Island as much as Blood Lure.

For starters, while Anna is sent to the Acadia National Park, most of the book takes place on Boar Island. Boar Island is an island that is near the park, but not entirely in Acadia. Because of that, there is not much about the national park since its set in a different place. Blood Lure actually takes place in the national park that Anna is sent to. The book also has more sensitive themes in it compared to Blood Lure.

Nothing really happens in the book until the end of the book. I found the book to be boring. So with that, I give this book two stars. To me, Blood Lure had more to it compared to Boar Island. Despite this, I do want to check out the other books in this series.

---

Seventh Book: Who To Believe

Out of all of the books, this one is more recent book with it being published last year. The book starts with a murder of a woman named Laurel Thibodeau. The primary suspect falls on her husband, Simon, but since the book follows different perspectives of the characters each with confessions/secrets (even the murder victim has secrets), not anything is what it seems.

The book has about seven different perspectives (one of them being a dog) with seven parts. The book has an array cast of characters, each with their own secrets. I will list all the characters without spoiling too much. The characters are:

• Farley Drake: The first character perspective in the book. He is a therapist for some of the characters. Alice shows Farley Drake her husbands room where he is trying to piece together several murders in the US in which Farley knows something about the victims.
• Reverend Georgia- A woman who works for the local Monreith church. She is married to Richard, or Ritchie and has a daughter named Chloe. She is also one of Farley’s patients.
• Chloe- The sixteen year old daughter of Chloe and Richard. A rebel who is constantly picked on by another girl named Taylor Lawson who she gets in a fight with. Chloe has a secret friend who she calls “Jack.”
• Richard- A mechanic who is the father of Chloe and the husband of Reverend Georgia. He goes by Ritchie in the book. He has a secret that deals with Farley.
• Alice- A woman who is celebrating her 40th birthday. She invites all the characters to her party. She is also married to Damian who has ties with the murdered woman Laurel. This is also where things start going haywire in the book.
• Damian- The husband of Alice. He is a documentary filmmaker who is in process of developing a film. He is also obsessed with finding the killer of Laurel and several other murders. He has a room dedicated to the crime scenes.
• Max Barbosa- The police chief of Monreith. He has suspicions towards Laurels husband, Simon, but the other characters have different thoughts.
• Laurel Thibodeau/Simon- Laurel is the first murder victim of the book. She was found with a bag around her head. The police and the press suspect the her husband Simon is behind her murder. Because of this, Simon is isolated in his apartment. However, Georgia occasionally visits him.
• Harper- The dog of Alice’s family. His perspective isn’t introduced until the end of the book.

Each of these characters listed all have secrets that tie in with the murder of Laurel and a few others. This is the first book I read where every perspective is sketchy. The book also switches between before the party and what happened after the party. For a thriller, this book wasn’t bad. I would recommend this book if you want a book where each character might be the murderer. I give this book four stars:

---

Eighth Book: The First Patient

Medical thrillers are one of my favorite sub-genres in the Thriller genre. This book in particular deals with medical thriller with a mix of politics. One of the biggest parts of the plot deals with nanotechnology.

Going by a Google search, Nanotechnology is a type of technology that takes molecules and atoms and shrinking them to create new properties. With these new properties, scientists can use the new small molecules for advancements in medicine, electronics, and for energy. Nanotechnology plays in a lot in improving our life and environment by improving home security, medicine, the food we eat, and helping out the environment.

The sickness that Andrew Stoddard is dealing with has to do with the science of nanotechnology. While I’m not an expert in nanotechnology, finding out what caused Andrews sickness seemed too far-fetched or too silly that I wonder if its possible in real life.

On the other hand, this book wasn’t bad. This is also a second book in this series which I wonder what the second book is going to be like. Michael Palmer has a lot of books, so I would love to check out his other books. With that, I give it four stars.

---

Ninth Book: The Dante Club

Based off the 1321 poem by Dante Alighieri titled Divine Comedy, the books follows the Dante Club, a literary club with four members: Holmes, Longfellow, Fields, and Lowell who are trying to solve the murders that are inspired by Dante’s Inferno, the first part of the epic poem in the Divine Comedy.

All the while the Dante Club is also translating the Dante’s Inferno, which was originally in Italian. They are translating for Fields publishing agent Ticknor & Fields. On the other hand, Harvard is trying to stop the Dante Club from translating the poem. You can read The Dante Club without reading the original epic poem (which I do have the original poem but haven’t read it yet). The murders are also graphic in this book, but I feel this would be expected since the murders are centered around The Divine Comedy.

I like retellings or taking elements of classic books/fairytales. I started playing the 2010 action-adventure game Dante’s Inferno that is based off the epic poem. So far, the game is good so far. I liked The Dante Club as well, but I wouldn’t say its my favorite mystery. The book jumps between the group solving the murders and translating the Dante Inferno, which can be confusing at times. However, the book wasn’t bad. With that, I give this book a solid three stars.

---

Books I Recommend

Going through the nine books that I read for volume one, these are the ones that I recommend. I will also provide the links if you want to buy any of the books mentioned here:

---

Five Stars

The only book that got five stars is Winter Tales Volume five. Every story in this anthology was enjoyable and I would recommend it for people who like fiction or anthologies in general. Here is a link to where you can buy it:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144852618270

---

Four Stars:

Murder Spills The Tea by Vicki Delaney- This is the third book in a series. It was a good book to start the article. If you like cozy mysteries based around shops along with a competition with a taste of murder, then you should read this book.

The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun- This book is the seventeenth book in the long-running cozy mystery series The Cat Who… The book doesn’t really have a murder until towards the end of the book and deals with an investigation of embezzlement instead. However, to me I still liked the book and of course, they’re cats in the book. I recommend this book if you want to read a cozy mystery without murder.

Who To Believe by Edwin Hill- A thriller book with a lot of perspectives, I liked this book because every character is unrealiable or untrustworthy. Because of this, it keeps you guessing who could be the killer. Read this book if you want to keep guessing who could be the killer.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQPQD77M/?bestFormat=true&k=who%20to%20believe&ref_=nb_sb_ss_w_scx-ent-pd-bk-d_k0_1_14_de&crid=1H7AAXDK8GRN6&sprefix=who%20to%20believe

The First Patient by Michael Palmer- A good medical thriller that is based around the science of nanotechnology. If you love medical thrillers or are interested in nanotechnology, then you should read this book:

---

Three Stars:

Paths Of Glory by Jeffrey Archer- I liked this book because of Gregory Mallory and reading a fictionalized account of his life until his death ending with the mystery if he and his partner made it to the top of Mt. Everest. I like reading books about forgotten historical figures or history in general. However, I wouldn’t say its my favorite historical fiction book.

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl- The book was a little confusing since it jumps between the murders happening, the Dante Club translating, and the clubs involvement with solving the murders. However, the book wasn’t bad and if you like the Divine Comedy and a mystery based around the epic poem, you should read this book:

---

Two Stars

The Corn Maiden and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates- Aside from The Corn Maiden and a few other stories, these short stories aren’t as terrifying or scary I thought they were going to be. I feel that Joyce Carol Oates has better books than this. However, you can make your own opinion by reading the book yourself:

Boar Island by Nevada Barr- I was disappointed with Boar Island. The book doesn’t really take place in Acadia National Park and some of the characters were a little unlikeable. I also feel that has too much shock value compared to the other Anna Pigeon book I read (Blood Lure). I prefer Blood Lure compared to Boar Island (Blood Lure had grizzly bears in it, can’t compare to that)! However, I would to love to read other books in this series.

So there is my final evulation of all the books I read. I plan on making a volume two of this at some point with books that are 400 pages or more. I personally can’t wait to do a part two and do an article like this again.

---