The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

By Stuart Turton

Mystery (sci-fi?)

430 pages

Hardback

Warning: contains copious spoilers.

This was our school book club pick. 

I'd heard of this book before, and was super eager to read it. Yet, somehow, it still wasn't exactly as I expected. 

The cast of characters. 

Below are the notes I made while reading.

Day 1: Sebastian

What a weird story so far. Things I remember or suspect - plague doctor is himself? He wasn't a good person. Drug dealer. Expects to have pocket stuff and doesn't. Someone took the contents of the trunk. Anna was not who was killed, but is part of the... it's not time travel. Anna is maybe a maid? Why was the oldest brother murdered? Was the gamewarden... Stanwin- was he actually the original accomplice? Evelyn hasn't been murdered yet. 

Items of note:

Compass- initials SB. Given to Sebastian in the woods. Taken by Dr. Dickie. Found smashed in graveyard. 

Chess piece - Anna carved on bottom. Wood and flecked with white paint. Left on mantle on Sebastian's room? 

Probably not the murderer:

Butler Collins - injured and drugged up and being watched by a maid

Artist Gold - strung up in gatehouse and injured

Dr. Sebastian Bell - unlikely that first pov would be from the murderer? 

Day 2: Butler Collins

Okay. So the main character remembered the previous day. 

We learn that the butler has been badly burned. And that he has "spells" or "turns." But then he gets beaten to insensibility and the day ends. Lucy, the maid, is strikingly pretty. She has an altercation with Stanwin the previous day. No suggested or explicit murders.

Day 3: Donald Davies

The implication that this is only one round in an ongoing saga. The knowledge that there will be 8 days, 8 hosts. That there are others also body hopping -  rivals in solving the mystery. The plague doctor is magical & eternal. Death?

Day 4 parts 1&2: Lord Ravencourt

Schemes to communicate. Paper slid into a book. A nap leads us back into the Butler! Day 2 part 2! A full day in each host - a full wakeful day.

We learn that Cunningham, Ravencourt's valet, has a secret, disappears for a good part of the day, and has a mysterious tattoo. 

The protagonist learns to leave notes for himself. Anna is around. There is an attic full of plague doctor masks. Ravencourt & Evelyn are betrothed.

Evelyn shoots herself by the pool, with a different gun than she had hours previously. 

Day 5: Jonathan Derby

Fewer details seem important. And yet everything does. Stanwich is blackmailing people. Dr. Dickie is part of the drug business? Evelyn knows she's in danger. Lady Helena Hardcastle is still MIA. Millicent dies. Jonathan is a terrible rapist. Anna told him to watch from a stone and not move, and the events changed. Evelyn still died, but her brother collided with Jonathan instead of making it to her body. 

Evelyn said she had to kill herself or someone she loved would die. 

Day 6: Edward Dance

Is Lucy Stanwin's daughter? Cunningham is Helena Hardcastle's son? Anna did betray Aiden? Another host killed. 

(Two more).

Day 7: Jim Rashton 

More death! Two Plague Doctors. A mysterious authority they answer to. They can be shot. Answers revealed, but no escape offered.

Day 8: Gregory Gold

Surprise twists, false identities, and an interesting option for penal/rehabilitation system. Total psychopaths. I was content with the ending. 

author info.

It's like a mystery meets Groundhog Day meets Dark Tower. I was thinking we were going to fully go Dark Tower and not actually escape the loop, but we did. 

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

By Balli Kaur Jaswal

296 pages

Softcover

Borrowed from a friend!

This book was not what I expected! 

Not only is it about a writing workshop, it's also a romance of its own AND a murder mystery! 

page 1 

author info 

I really enjoyed this book!

Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood

Book #1 in Crescent City series

By Sarah J Maas

799 pages

Adult Fantasy 

Hardback

Library 

This is the last of the books I checked out right before Spring Break.

I was expecting full fantasy like no technology setting. But there are cars, and cell phones, and coffee machines, and art galleries. There are police who are wolves and wraith and fae. There are dancers who are fauns. All of the fantasy creatures are in here. You want mermaids? Got them. Shape-shifting people? Done. Assassins? Yes. (Okay, not a fantasy creature, but still...)

There is a LOT happening in this book - drugs, murder, politics, family drama, ancient mystical heirlooms, sex, magic, bureaucracy, failed rebellion, slavery, those things at the park you shout in and have someone listen at the other end...

I love this picture, but I'm also like What does this have to do with the book? She's neat though. 

This is the city! I love a map.

All of the houses came up in the course of this book. The protagonist is half human, so maybe that's why the book is called House of Earth and Blood? The other main characters are primarily from Sky & Breath. Which us the name of the next book. Which I have put on hold at the library. 

First page.

Author info.

It was super readable. Plot was convoluted in a good way. Characters interesting ans complex.

Perfect Ruin

Perfect Ruin

By Lauren DeStefano 

YA Fantasy 

Hardback

256 pages

Spring Break School Library Haul

I didn't realize it was the first in a series when I picked it up. 

Sky people. On a little floating island. And then there's a murder. 

It was an interesting read, but I'm not going to hunt down the others. 

She also wrote Glass Spare, which I got in an Owlcrate a long time ago, and remember liking a lot. But apparently I never blogged it! Ah well. 

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By Olga Tokarczuk

Fiction/Mystery 

Hardback

274 pages

Library 

Book Club

This will be a spoilery post, becuase I read this for book club, and I'm trying to make note of things to discuss. Because we all know I'm eager to pick up another book, and I want to be sure to have intelligent things to day at our book club meeting. Although last time I actually made it to one, I was literally the only person there for a few, and only 3 people total showed up. I didn't even finish that book, because I didn't like it. This one was interesting, if a little difficult to get into. 

I fully admit that part of my issue getting into it is probably becuase it's written for grown ups and I'm still in the middle of my YA love affair. 

But also, it wasn't what I expected. I expected amateur crime drama mystery hijinks, and this was a strange wandering through woods, and philosophy, morality, and aging. With some murder. It also wasn't as funny as I was hoping for. 

Summary: She watches a neighbor choke on a bone from a poached deer. Finds a photo in his house which confirms that her dogs had been shot by hunters. Kills the other people in the photo: a police commissioner, mafia boss, and a priest. Occasionally haunted by dead mother and grandmother and dogs. Confesses to friends after burning down the church. They help her escape the police. She hides in a forest research station. 

That being said, there were some amazing moments. I loved the top line on this page. 

I maybe too deeply felt the middle paragraph of this page. The attempt to being an amazing, engaging teacher, the crushing of the system. 

I really enjoyed this passage. 

Anyway, it was sometime in the last third of the book that I began to wonder if the protagonist was actually the murderer. It didn't seem fully likely, but possible. She was a strange lady who didn't use anyone's actual name. She was emphatic about the idea that the animals - the deer - had done the murdering. 

Then she gives a deer hoof to the departing neighbor?

After being so focused on the deer prints?

And after the first death she was so weird about the plastic bag she hung in the tree to freeze. I kept expecting something more from that; however, I had not expected it to be a murder weapon. 

Questions for the discussion: 

And why did her friends help her?

What is actually wrong with her? (Physically)

How do you think she dies? 

author info

Overall opinion: I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't re-read it.

Truth, Lies, and Second Dates

By MaryJanice Davidson 

Fiction

301 pages

Paperback

Borrowed from Library 

So the library barcode obscures a good chunk of the synopsis, so I'm prevented from doing it the lazy way and have to type up something myself. Ah well. 

 Captain Ava Capp, commercial airline pilot, doesn't like going back to her hometown where her parents died and her best friend was murdered. However, twin brothet of aforementioned victim happens to be on Captain Capp's plane one day, as they are heading into aforementioned hometown, convinces Capp to attend 10 year anniversary memorial for victim. 

Doctor Tom Baker (medical examiner, not two hearted alien) is fascinated by the cold case and, when he runs into Capp and really drunk twin brother after the memorial, the physical attractiveness of Capp. 

Capp might still be in danger. Crimes are unsolved. You see where this is heading...

Davidson writes books that are very easy to read (I got to chapter 5 while my child was reading MAD Magazine. They don't let you check those out, but you can sit in the library and read them.) and have a lot of humor. 

This is the third book in a series, but they seem to be related, not sequential. So, even though I haven't read the other two, it didn't seem to matter.  

A funny book was desperately needed, as it’s seem to have taken about 2.5 weeks after the end of the school year to stop constantly clenching my jaw. I probably need a new job. 

One thing that Davidson did was compile a list of 60 tropes that she engaged with during the construction of this novel. 

Page 1 of the list:

For the most part, this novelists works are an anomaly in the range of books I typically enjoy; however, I continue to enjoy each one I've read. 

And I only got home with this book less than 17 hours ago, so it was a fast read two. 

Off to find books 1 & 2. 

(But not really, right now, because my tbr pile is tall.)

A Lesson in Vengeance

By Victoria Lee

369 pages

Hardback

Owlcrate

YA

Gorgeous cover

and bonus fun inside of dust jacket

and the books is cool and the pages are gilded silver

Dark academia - set in a boarding school, there is mystery and magic and unreliable narrators.

author info

signed! 

author letter

a very pretty book. 

This was a great read, and a stand-alone novel, which is really nice. 

The Lovely Bones

By Alice Sebold
Paperback
328 pages

It's bittersweet and sad. The protagonist is murdered as the book begins, and the story follows the aftermath her death causes for her friends and family.

I read this in one day.