Haunted House Murder by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis and Barbara Ross

Hello everyone.

Are you getting ready for Halloween? We get swamped with trick or treaters. How many kids do you get, 20, 100? Amateurs!  We get over one thousand kids. No, I'm not kidding. Our street is in the middle of a small town. Because of its location the road is closed, allowing the kids to wander without fear of being run over. The police even walk around and the city encourages children to come to our street for trick or treating fun. Hmmm, maybe the city ought to be kicking in for candy!  I might skip giving out candy, but hubby loves it. I pretty much stay inside watching spooky movies while he attends to lines of kids waiting for sugary loot. I used to buy, stuff, and tie with ribbon eight hundred cellophane bags and we would run out by 7pm. Finally we resorting to just shoveling lose candy into plastic pumpkins and borrowed pillow cases.

The last few years have slowed down a bit. A few years ago we did the whole decoration thing, complete with organza ghosts in windows, strobe light on the third floor and fog machine hidden by our front stairs. Our neighbors were masters, one invited kids into the entry way of their large Victorian house. The foyer had spooky lighting, huge moving spider and an animatronic butler that would scare the pageebees out of the kids. One year another neighbor had a two story pirate ship in his front yard. He was a builder so it was very elaborate; wood, with sails, a plank, the works. Naturally it was the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They got their whole extended family together and each dressed with elaborate costumes and masks as a character from the movie. It actually made the front page of the newspaper. There was no competing with that, so we ditched the decorations and just passed out candy. Now our Halloween crazy neighbors have all moved but we've lost our will to spook kids. Maybe because we go overboard at Christmas which seems to be approaching way too quickly.

I recently read Haunted House Murder, a collection of three short stories by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross. Each story is a nice length, approximately one hundred pages. This was the first dipping my toe into "cozy" mysteries. These category of books is more tame than a thriller, there is a mystery, but not a lot of gore or violence. They usually have a cute title, sometimes rhyming and normally have a colorful, illustrated cover. These books have gotten so popular I thought perhaps they would make a nice break between my beloved thrillers. Sometimes when I read endless thrillers I find myself becoming a little jaded as they all start to sound the same. I don't want my favorite genre to be like that, so I have been trying to sprinkle other kinder, gentler titles in my reading list. So far it's working, thrillers suddenly seem extra thrilling...who wouldn't want that? So, the Haunted House Murder was a much slower pace, no frantic page flipping. Yet, it was actually very enjoyable. All three of these stories have nicely developed characters, somewhat surprising considering each author did not get to contribute a full length novel. I found that I looked forward to reading this and although embarrassing I can happily report I didn't figure out any of the mysteries. I kind of thought reading a "cozy" mystery would be like drinking coffee that was too weak, but it was nice. One thing that is really interesting is that this kind of book often comes out for holidays, there are many Halloween volumes out now and lots for Christmas. In addition, they often feature someplace neat like a bed and breakfast, or library, or country store with locations like Salem or Cape Cod.  Now I've only read one, but I've already purchased way too many....I can't resist the names and covers...these aren't complex stories just plain old fun, nice, light reading. I bet they can be addictive.

On a housewife note, no, our contractor still has not fixed our hurricane Dorian damage. We've had way too much rain and he is super busy. For right now, I will NOT be reading any cutesy cozy about a home repair mystery. I'm living it and it is not cute or cozy!

Some Choose Darkness by Charlie Donlea

Hello everyone.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and they brought you the wrong dish, only it was actually better than what you ordered and became a new favorite? Stuff like that happens to me all the time. Several years ago we were buying our first old house. We found several houses we loved in a specific neighborhood in Virginia. As soon as we put a contract on a house something would happen. Someone would beat our offer by thirty minutes, or take cash off credit cards to come up with an all cash offer. We were getting really upset. Finally one day while driving around, pointing out the window I said to hubby, "I don't care anymore, I like them all. I'll take any house in this neighborhood except that one. I don't like that one, I'll take any house except that." Can you guess what happened? Of course, that was the house we bought and loved. My mother never mentioned fate by name but through the process kept telling us to be calm what is meant to be will be.

That ugly duckling house that had been divided into apartments ended up being amazing. As we restored it, we found the stairs had once been much more elaborate. So while removing added walls and the floored over grand stair opening, we found a wall of handmade raised paneling, with picture hooks from 100 years ago still hanging in place. As we took down walls in the attic to add heating (oh yes, we bravely purchased a house with no central heat or a/c), we found so many things behind walls and hidden under floorboards: button-up shoes, booze bottles, servants love letters, a corset, needlework, tin types, art work, etc. We even found an intact Duncan Phyfe sofa...never heard of it...look it up I'll wait...it's amazing and was sitting in a falling down old metal shed. One of the drawings ended up being from an artist that taught art in our house, she became a National Gallery Artist. They have since contacted us asking for copies or the donation of the original. All those people that purchased the houses that we had tried to buy started searching their homes for amazing finds but came up empty. Only our house was like living in a HGTV show. It was mean to be, thanks Mom.

Recently the generous Kensington Publishing sent me several books, all of which I will read and review.  To start I picked a title and author I had never heard about, Some Choose Darkness by Charlie Donlea. This story is about a young woman, Rory Moore, who is a bit different. She is not fond of some social settings, touching, and returning phone calls. She is also amazing at solving cold-case murders. She has the ability to put herself into the position of each player in a case and to reason out who was the killer. Because this skill is so specialized she works as a consultant for the police. Think of a combination of Lisbeth Salander and Monk, only better, warmer and endearing. You will cheer for Rory and admire her. This is no Chablis drinking ordinary woman, she prefers dark stout beer, echoing the darkness found several places in this book. As the story opens Rory gets a new case to solve but her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her to deal with both difficult topics. To make matters worse, she finds that for some reason her dad has been representing a serial killer about to be released from prison. I don't want to say anymore. This book is skillful in the way that it gives you a bit of info at a time. There are many twists and they are released throughout the story propelling you forward. Donlea is masterful at weaving the past and present together. He writes about likable characters that come together to merge into an unforgettable read.

If you love mysteries or thrillers, this could be your favorite of the year. Some Choose Darkness is so much better than getting verde when you ordered a smoked salsa. For me, Charlie Donlea has gone from Charlie Who? to one of my favorite authors. Guess Mom was right, this was meant to be.