The White Witch - Barbara Cartland

Barbara Cartland needs no introduction. She wrote tons of cheesy romances, and every once in a while, I'll break one out and read it. I also don't look into what the book is about. It's more fun that way. Also, sometimes I like the covers. They can be pretty strange. Take this one for example. What the heck is this woman doing? I've finished the book, and I still can't answer that question!

This book is about a Marquis who believes he's being bewitched by a woman named Locadi. His butler finds a rock in one of his pockets, and since the Marquis has travelled the world, he's suspicious that Locadi is using black magic. To escape her power, he decides to go to his family home in the country.

When he gets there, he finds that his estate in a state he can't understand. The servants are gone, the vicar has left, and the school has shut down. He finds a young woman helping his grandmother with herbs, and he senses that he hasn't quite escaped all kinds of magic.

Flora is just trying to help people the only way she knows how. She's suspicious of the Marquis at first, but he quickly proves himself in her estimation. When Locadi turns up out of the blue, it becomes clear that she's not going to give up her prey easily.

This book was wild. Flora senses that Ivor (interesting name by the way) is being weighed down by an evil and sets out to help him. I don't know why Barbara Cartland used Satan worship in her books, but this book reminded me of The Flame is Love. If you've never seen it (and you probably haven't), it's a terrible movie that stars Timothy Dalton as not James Bond. He's a devil worshipper who kidnaps a virgin (even though those a rare in Paris - it's a line in the movie) to sacrifice to his weird puppet god. Basically the same thing happens here, except Flora will get sacrificed out of jealousy. I wonder if that's a good enough reason for sacrifice? 

Anyway, the whole good magic/bad magic thing was weird. I really didn't care about it either way. I did like that Flora and Ivor weren't doing the whole "look into each other's eyes and swoon" the entire book. They were just working together toward a common goal and only acknowledged feelings later on. I guess they made up for it at the end when they were mumbling about their love for too many pages. Overall, this one was pretty good in the Cartland universe. I haven't read the book for The Flame is Love, but it kind of feels like I've had the experience now. Good Book! (for a certain crowd)

The Secret of the Caves (Hardy Boys #7) - Franklin W. Dixon

Next up in the adventures of the Hardy Boys, they're sent on a mission to find a missing man. Fortunately, for Chet, it leads them to Rockaway, where the Honeycomb Caves are located. It just happens that Chet really wanted to go there to begin with. He has a metal detector and is anxious to use it. Biff is also excited to go to the caves for the fishing. 

The father of the Hardy Boys is checking on some problems at a site where they're building an antenna (I think, I can't remember), but it's being sabotaged. The two cases will end up being connected!

Okay, so I am concerned these people don't know what a concussion is, and it's concerning. Biff gets knocked out TWICE, and the boys are just like, "you'll be good" and "sleep it off." Bad ideas. Then, they just feel comfortable borrowing his speed boat. With the amount of kidnapping, fires, and general chaos that surrounds these boys, I don't think I'd let them borrow anything I enjoyed having. Especially if it cost more than a dollar. Also, Chet gets blown up. Daggone. These friends need to re-evaluate their friendships. 

Anyway, they solve the mystery. As usual. There was a cantankerous hermit, who I loved. I was so bummed when he ended up being part of the gang. That's what you get when you pretend to be a hermit. This book made me angrier than some of the others. I just didn't appreciate the way the boys used their friends. Sure, the kids were willing to help, but the Hardy brothers throw the girls at a potential shady business, one get assaulted - twice, and the other one got blown up. I didn't like this one.

Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup

This book tells the story of a man who was kidnapped from Washington and taken to Louisiana. He spent the next 12 years as a slave, even though he was technically a free man from New York.

There's not much to say about the content. It's about what you would expect. I will say that this is a very well put together narrative. It was easy to read, and it was interesting to see how Solomon (named Platt after he was kidnapped) was able to be reunited with his family after so long.

I can't imagine living through this time period. I know Solomon experienced both the kind and the cruel slave owners, but he shouldn't have had to live through that at all. It's disappointing the people responsible just made up a story to avoid responsibility. Unfortunately, it was all too common, and I'm a little shocked worse didn't happen to Solomon considering some of the incidents between him and the overseers.

I recommend this book if you want an insight into what things were like for people that deserved to be free. Solomon's account is interesting and worth the read. Good Book!

Killing Mr. Griffin - Lois Duncan

I picked this one up because I wanted to revisit a blast from my own past. When I was a teenager, I read many of Lois Duncan's books. I remember on one vacation, I brought seven books with me. Most, if not all of them, were Lois Duncan. I finished five before we finished the over 8 hour car ride. It made for a long vacation for me. I was an only child spending a week at a fishing cabin with my parents and grandparents. It was loads of fun, but there was lots of down time as well. After that, I learned to ration my reading materials.

Anyway, this is a young adult thriller about a group of kids who think their English teacher is too hard on them. They decide to kidnap him and scare him into treating them all better, but things don't go quite as planned, and the title kind of gives it away. After that, high schoolers are trying to act like hardened criminals. Some of them are cracking right away while others seem to hold out longer. I won't say much else. The book isn't long. I finished it pretty quick.

This one's held up pretty good. At the time, you didn't have a bunch of security cameras to catch things, and not everyone had a cell phone. I remember really loving the writing, and I still do. I looked into what happened to Duncan, and I was saddened to learn that she moved away from writing thrillers and horror after her own daughter was murdered. The worst part was that the murder went unsolved until five years after Duncan's death.

Anyway, this book is so good. I'd like to keep track of some of the others I remember having. I remember some of the covers of the books I had, and I put the cover I remember on this post. The one connected to my Kindle version has unsurprisingly been updated. Good Book!

RIP Mr. Griffin.

Freedom in the Air - Hamish Ross

Bozdech is a Czech who wanted to fight against the Nazis during WWII. That desire brought him to sign up with the RAF, and he picked up an Alsatian pup along the way. Antis became quite the celebrity, and every award and moment of recognition was well earned. The dog was a hero not only during the war, but he also helped Bozdech escape from the Czech communist regime. Bozdech had to leave his wife and son behind, and he was never able to go back to his homeland again.

This isn't the first book I've read about Antis and his owner. I'd read One Man and His Dog by Anthony Richardson in the past. The reason I bring it up is because the book is also mentioned here. Apparently, Bozdech wasn't happy with the finished product of One Man and His Dog. When I read that one, I was curious where the author got his information. It appears he was given a manuscript by Bozdech, but Richardson changed some of the writing. Examples are given. It's also worth noting that One Man and His Dog has more reviews, so it seems like it was more popular than this one.

I looked at the acknowledgments for this book, and the first one is to Bozdech's wife. He was given access to documents, manuscripts and audio tapes. The structure of it is also different than I'd initially expected. I'd break it into three parts: Bozdech and Antis, Bozdech after Antis, and the evolution of Czech politics near the end of Bozdech's life and after his death.

Overall, I liked this book. I think if you temper your expectations that you're not reading a whole book about Antis, it's a good read. Once I caught on to the structure, I liked that it followed Bozdech after the war. It followed both heroes to the grave. Good Book!

Akira (Volume 2) - Katsuhiro Otomo

It's been a bit, but I finally got around to reading the second installment of Akira.

Tetsuo is still crazy, but he's on the loose now. He's obsessed with facing Akira, and he's discovering more powers. The other "children" are trying to keep him contained, but he's just too powerful. Meanwhile, Kaneda and Kei are trying to intercept him as well.

This story is a bit different from the other ones I'm reading in that it isn't broken down into sections. The whole book is what you get. That's nice, but it pushes me to get it done faster. There aren't easy places to stop. It's not any kind of criticism, just an observation.

I'm still on board with this one, but where does it fall in the list of what I'm currently trying to read? I'd say Berserk has priority, but I'm trying to get those when they're a reasonable price. Then we have Dr. Stone and Akira. I wanted to read Fullmetal Alchemist, and it popped up on WebToon, so I'm caught up with it on that platform. Finally, when we were moving my daughter into her apartment over the weekend, one of her friends told me his favorite manga was Frieren. It sounds really interesting, so I think I'll be looking into it eventually.

So, saying all that, I think Akira is in the second position. I'm anxious to find out what will happen with Kei and Kaneda after they've gotten away from the Olympic site. Good Book!

The Dummy Case (Professor Caldwell #3) - Milton K. Ozaki

This was one of the finds from Half Price Books I was really interested in. The size of the book was unusual, and the cover was interesting.

Professor Caldwell is planning a little experiment for his psychology students. He gets his sidekick, Bendy Brinks, to set up a little demonstration down by the lake. When the police show up, they expect to find a dummy in the lake, but instead, they pull up the body of a woman.

The case has a lot of twists and turns. The professor is the Sherlock of the team, while Bendy is the somewhat amorous sidekick. The inept copper, Phelan, is present as well. Bendy was always checking out the women. Even Anita's mother was getting examined.

It was pretty obvious this wasn't the first Caldwell mystery, but I had to hunt a little more than normal to find the list. Apparently, this is the third one out of three. The author himself wrote approximately two dozen detective novels.

While Ozaki's writing style was pretty cool, I think his life might be more interesting. From what I read, he actually made a Yahtzee style dice game called Murder. The most intriguing parts were the cons he pulled. One of them was a device that was said to increase gas mileage. I think my favorite was the fraudulent mail-order college degrees from places like Colorado State Christian College and Hamilton State University.

Back to the book. It was pretty good, but Bendy was irritating. He would kiss whoever, so I felt bad for the girls, especially Wanda. In the end, the case was solved, and I enjoyed the book. I had parts of the mystery figured out but not much. Good Book!