My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island: Maude's Mooring - Carrie Fancett Pagels

I dabbled a bit into this "series" when I read My Heart Belongs in the Superstition Mountains: Carmela's Quandary back in 2017.  There are more books that have similar insane-length titles, but I didn't really have any desire to read them.  The books aren't connected by character cross-over, and they are all written by different authors.  They just have long titles and the same general cover.  It's...interesting.  I picked up the book because when I was a kid, we spent a week every summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and visiting Mackinac Island was a treat I always looked forward to.  Anyway, about the book...

Maude lives on Mackinac Island and wants to prove that she's capable enough to run the inn, but her father is keeping things from her.  In an attempt to prove that she's capable, she takes a job as a maid at the Grand Hotel.  She's not really cut out for that kind of work, so it's a bit of a disaster, and she's trying to keep away from Friedrich, a man who is stealing her wounded heart.

Friedrich/Ben isn't what he appears to be.  He's a reporter working under the alias of Friedrich to get a story.  A big promotion is promised if he delivers, but it's the kind of story that could destroy lives, and he's not sure he can do it.  He's also interested in pursuing Maude, but his lies could make that impossible.

This was a good book, and I liked it.  Nothing extraordinary plot-wise, but it was nice to read about the places I visited as a kid.  It was like riding a horse down memory lane (because cars aren't allowed on Mackinac Island).  Something I appreciated about this book is that the author didn't add a bunch of nonsense to make it longer and hit the 320 page mark that seems to be so common among this genre.  It's on the shorter side (at 258 pages), so it's a nice, light read.  4 stars.

The Killing Tide (Coastal Guardians #1) - Dani Pettrey

This is the first book in the Coastal Guardians series.  I was excited to start a new series by one of my favorite authors.

Gabby is on the run.  A drug lord is trying to have her killed, and she ends up staying with the man whose heart she broke last time she was in town.  She chose her career over love, and now it’s like she’s getting put in the same situation.  When people are murdered, Finn’s team has to investigate the deaths, including a few of their own.  Two investigations are going on at the same time, and it seems like they will intersect at some point.  With Gabby disappearing to investigate on her own all the time, keeping her safe is a hard job.

Gabby disregards anyone who wants to protect her to the point of wandering off for coffee with a “friend.”  I put the word friend in quotation marks because she takes the woman for coffee to pursue an “angle” (her words) for a story.  The friend is 7 months pregnant and has just lost her husband to murder.  How low can Gabby go?  Pretty low.  I never understood what Finn saw in her.  She’s already chosen her career over him once before, and she’s clearly willing to do it again with no hesitation for most of the book.  She resents people trying to keep her safe and readily puts herself and OTHERS (including a pregnant woman and her sister) in dangerous situations with no regard for their safety.  She’s literally like that for almost the entire book, and I hated her character.

My final review is 2.5 stars.  If the story were only about Gabby and Finn, it would probably be lower.  The saving graces for the book are Noah and Rissi.  I ended up hating Gabby’s character so much that even when she has her “changing moment” at the very end, it didn’t affect my view of her.  I was also disappointed in the ending.  I don’t mind antagonists that act like Bond villains, but if they don’t hesitate to kill everyone in their way for most of the book, it doesn’t make sense later on if they suddenly change and put people in a rescuable situation.

This is the first book of Pettrey’s that I haven’t liked, and I’m sorry for it.  Her stories are normally so great that it hurts to say I don’t like it.

*I received a copy of this book from Bethany House from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Demelza (Poldark Saga #2) - Winston Graham

This is the second of the 12-book series.  I really enjoyed the first book, Ross Poldark, and looked forward to reading this one.

If you've watched the TV series, expect to see familiar faces and relive familiar scenes from the show.  I'm not going to go through the entire plot, but you'll learn about Verity and Captain Blamey, the Carnmore Copper Company, and little Julia.  I will warn you that this doesn't end at a happy moment in the timeline, and it would be beneficial to have some tissues ready just in case.

As with the first book, I enjoyed the writing style of the author and getting to know beloved characters better than before.  I was patient and waited for this one to drop in price, but I already have the next book, Jeremy Poldark, waiting on my Kindle.  It might be a few weeks before I get to it, but I look forward to it.  Good Book!

Diamond Duo (Texas Fortunes #1) - Marcia Gruver

I actually have this as a trilogy on my Kindle, and it's been there for a long time.  I don't know why I can't find it in the Kindle store anymore, but it doesn't seem to be there.  The closest thing I saw was the stories listed individually with some of the creepiest covers I've ever seen, but nothing resembling what's currently on my Kindle. 

In this book, we're kind of keeping track of two women.  Sarah is struggling through her marriage to Henry, sometimes loving him and other times fed up.  The other woman is Bertha, a young woman who befriends a scandalous woman who's just shown up in town, Annie.  Bertha wants to figure out how to get the man she's sweet on, Thad, to notice her.  Unfortunately, Thad is getting ready to leave for college and is trying to find the right moment to tell her.

Bertha is sometimes selfish and other times sweet.  I don't know how I feel about the relationship between her and Thad.  It was strange, and I honestly would have been fine whether or not they ended up together.

Some of the characters in this story don't make sense.  They have these complete 180 degree changes to their personalities that aren't really explained in a believable way.  First is Darius, the crook.  He magically transforms for no reason.  The other one was Bertha's mother.  She also changes overnight, and the only reasoning given is that her husband "threw the Bible at her."  Meaning he pointed out the verses where wives were to submit, and husbands were to love their wives.  I don't doubt the power of the Scriptures, but people don't completely change that quick.

The other thing that bothered me was Annie.  The "resolution" of her story didn't involve any sense of justice or anything resembling the pursuit of justice.  "We all know what happened to her" doesn't give me a sense of closure.

This first story wasn't for me, and I'm not sure I'll read the other two.  The writing was fine, I just didn't feel any connection with the characters.  Anyway, I just wasn't fond of this one.

More Than Words Can Say (Patchwork Family #2) - Karen Witemeyer

The first book in the series was called More Than Meets the Eye.

Abigail is furious the town has decided she can’t own her own bakery.  She has to sell it or find a man to be on the deed.  Abby has no intention of giving control of her business to any man, so she comes up with her own plan: find a husband and enter into a business arrangement.

The town doesn’t have many choices, and her preferred choice initially turns her down.  Zach thinks the thing he wants most is freedom, but he won’t let Abby settle for someone who won’t be the protector her family needs.  They decide to lay everything out business-like, and that means he wants to make sure relations are addressed.  Abby isn’t completely on board with the idea, but she’s going to have to consider it if she wants the arrangement to work.

I loved Zach’s character in the last book, and he doesn’t disappoint.  There’s a bit of suspense around a woman harassing Abby about something that happened in the past, but the main “conflict” of the book is them trying to figure out if/when they’ll have relations.  It didn’t bother me much, but I did long for something more dangerous.

Even with that, I enjoyed this book.  I read it in two days because I wanted to see Zach happy.  There’s also a scene with Eva and Seth, so you get a glimpse of how they’re doing.  But you can read these separately without worrying about missing much.

Eva and Seth were taken care of in the first book and now Zach is happy.  So, unless there’s a third book that will be about Rosalind (Abby’s sister), I’m not sure this will be a three-book series.  Which ends up being a bit weird, because that’s what I’m used to these days.  Anyway, I’ve enjoyed these two.  Good Book!

*I received a copy of this book from Bethany House through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Hunted (Everyday Heroes #1) - Margaret Daley

This is part of series titled Everyday Heroes.  There's four of them at present.  The other three are Obsessed, Trapped and Kidnapped.

Luke is camping when he sees two men throw a chained woman into the river.  He rescues her, and they have to find out why those men wanted her dead.  Megan can't seem to remember things, and she needs time to regain her memory.  Luke is determined to keep her safe until the culprits can be found.

I wasn't fond of this one.  The characters felt shallow, and the dialogue seemed stilted.  Both Luke and Megan would make speeches frequently, so it seemed like they were prone to babbling.  For example, Luke would speak to the dog and Megan in the same speech without any transition.  There were also some mistakes (wrong words, additional words that didn't make sense) that made it through the editing process.  I loved the working dog, Shep, but he wasn't enough to make me enjoy this book.

I was tracking this book, but I'm not sure why.  I read one other title from this author, Saving Hope, and I didn't like it.  Maybe I thought the addition of the dog would make things better.  Unfortunately, it didn't, but I did make it to the end.  It's a pass for me.

Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17) - Agatha Christie

I've read a few Agatha Christie's lately and enjoyed them.  I also watched the Poirot series (starring David Suchet), and in this case it hurt me.

Poirot is in Egypt taking a break, but his vacation doesn't pass without a mystery.  When a scorned woman follows her former lover and his new wife everywhere they go, Poirot is worried for the woman's path.  He sees that she's on a dangerous one, but she disregards his advice.  The wife ends up dead, but it seems like the scorned woman and the husband both have the best motive but also the best alibi.

I do like the creativity and uniqueness that Christie put into her books.  With the exception of some vocabulary that hasn't aged as well, these books are still worth reading.  I'm going to have to wait and read more Poirot books until I forget the details.  This was a good book, but my memory of the "episode" ruined it a bit for me.  Still, Good Book!