The Tao of Apathy by Thomas Cannon

5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book as part of a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

A satire about the inner workings of a hospital and the interactions between the lower and upper class employees.

Not only are some of the characters in this book familiar, I think I've worked with them. This book about a dysfunctional hospital staff was an entertaining read to say the least. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. For me, it was like The Office meets Scrubs. The story was well written and some of the characters were easy to relate to while others reminded you of people you worked for. There is no real way to categorize this story as it's so much rolled into one. I would definitely recommend it regardless of what your usual reading genre is.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

Available on Amazon at the link below:
The Tao of Apathy

A Disguise to Die For (Costume Shop Mystery #1) by Diane Vallere

5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book as part of a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

Margo Tamblyn returns home to Proper City, Nevada to help her dad run Disguise DeLimit, a costume shop, after he suffers a heart attack and is unable to run the shop on his own. During a detective themed birthday bash in which they supplied the costumes, the guest of honor is found dead. Margo's friend, Ebony, who was hired as the party planner, is caught holding a knife over the dead body. Margo is left to play a real life detective and clear her friends name.

This cozy debut is absolutely fantastic! I read the whole book in one sitting as I could not put it down. I enjoyed getting to know all the characters and felt they were really well developed. Margo, the main character, is likable and has a quirkiness to her that is very endearing. I love how she wears a different costume everyday and the way she confides in her cat, Soot, at times asking his advice on different matters. As far as the murder itself, the story had enough possible suspects and twists that it was able to keep me from figuring it all out before the reveal. There are also costume ideas and recipes in the back. I look forward to future books in this series and learning more about Margo and her friends

Available on Amazon at the link below:
A Disguise to Die For

Death Loves a Messy Desk (A Charlotte Adams Mystery #3) by Mary Jane Maffini

1 out of 5 stars.

Charlotte Adams is a professional organizer and nothing makes her happier than freeing people from clutter. Her free time lately though, has been taken up solving murders. Her latest is when she is hired by a woman to assist in organizing a coworker’s hopelessly cluttered desk. But when the coworker behind the mess goes missing, tempers rise within the company. Now, Charlotte must open a brand-new folder and she hopes it won’t be filed under M for murder.

I thought I was really lucky when I snagged the first 4 books in this series at a library book sale. How rare is that?! The first one didn't leave me feeling too fortunate though and I had to force myself to finish the second one. Halfway through this third book, I was done and abandoned it altogether. I spent so much time rolling my eyes, that I was giving myself a headache. The way the main character, Charlotte, just inserts herself into these cases and acts like no one else is even trying to figure out who the killer is just really bothers me. She has no reason to be involved and comes off as a huge busy body. I also find it laughable that she's so quick to insult Nick, a police officer and husband to her friend Pepper, for being stupid and always bumbling things up, yet she is far from bright herself and when it comes to bumbling, she's just as bad, if not worse, than he is! The rest of the characters are just sprinkled in here and there with no real purpose and don't really offer much to this story as they did in the previous books. I really didn't care who the killer was so I didn't even bother to read the end.

Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge (Singaporean Mystery, #3) by Ovidia Yu

2 1/2 out of 5 stars.

I received this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

Rosie “Aunty” Lee is an amateur sleuth and restaurant owner in Singapore. This is the 3rd book in the series.

It could be because I did not read the first two books, but I did not like Aunty Lee as much as the characters in the book did. I got the impression that she was a much loved individual, but for me, she wasn’t overly likable. Mind you I didn’t hate her or find her completely annoying or anything like that, I just didn’t see her as a lovable character. What I did find a little annoying is that she used way too many food analogies. I also didn’t feel like she really connected with any of her friends. I felt she mostly used them for information. I didn’t feel any real relationship between any of them. There is one thing that did really bother me though….a little over halfway through the book, Aunty Lee made a comment about how bipolar medication, for people who suffer from the disease, does nothing but cause people to be addicted to it and all these people need is to eat better and exercise regularly and all that “bad energy” would just go away. Having worked with mental health patients, I found that to be a ridiculous statement, and given what was going on at the time it was stated, didn’t understand why it needed to be said.

As for the rest of the characters, they were rather bland and forgettable. I never felt like I got a sense of who they were and how they really fit into Aunty Lee’s life or how long they had been there. I also didn’t get a sense of their feelings or connections to each other. There was also something that continued to be “off” about this story while I read it, but until the end, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Simply put, I never felt like I was reading a mystery book. I didn't feel like there was really any sleuthing or investigating going on like you have in most amateur sleuth type mysteries.

The mystery itself was not very complicated and I was able to figure it out almost immediately. I do read a lot of mystery books though so I won’t rate down for that.

All in all I can’t say that I loved this book, but I also didn’t hate it. I found it to be ok, but it’s not one that will stick with me. However, due to not having read the previous books, my rating will lean more towards 2 ½ stars rather than 2 as I think that is fair.

Lit Gloss: A Rose by Any Other Name by Crystal Carroll

3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

I received this book as part of the First Reads Goodreads giveaway.

I honestly am not sure how to write a review in regards to this book as it is so outside the scope of my usual reading material. Basically, I decided to enter the giveaway because it sounded intriguing......and it was. I found myself really enjoying each story, some more than others, and had a hard time putting it down. Although I think it would help to have a general knowledge of Shakespeare and the plays these shorts are based on, I don't know if it's absolutely necessary since I am not familiar with all of them but I still enjoyed each story.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

Available on Amazon at the link below:
Lit Gloss: A Rose by Any Other Name

Putting On The Dog (A Reigning Cats and Dogs Mystery #2) by Cynthia Baxter

2 out of 5 stars.

Putting On The Dog is the second installment of the Reigning Cats and Dogs series by Cynthia Baxter. It features Dr. Jessica Popper, a veterinarian turned amateur sleuth.

Dr. Popper stands in for a fellow vet at a charity dog show where she gets to hobnob with some of Hollywood's finest and not so finest. It's during this time that the death of a sleazy celebrity photography happens and even thought its been ruled an accident, Jessica thinks it was murder and decides to investigate.

I read the first installment and thought it was ok, but wasn't crazy about the main character. I decided to read the second in hopes that there was some improvement. Fortunately for me, I found the story this time around to be better than in the first book. Unfortunately though, the same cannot be said for Dr. Popper. I seriously have grown to dislike this woman. She is selfish, pushy, and childish. She uses her friends and seems willing to sacrifice her love life and her career all to investigate the murder of someone she didn't even know. I'm thinking the books would be much better if she wasn't in them.

Dead Canaries Don't Sing (Reigning Cats & Dogs Mysteries, No. 1) by Cynthia Baxter

2 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Dead Canaries Don’t Sing is the first book in the Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery series by Cynthia Baxter. The story centers around Dr Jessica Popper, a veterinarian turned amateur sleuth, and her entourage of friends and animals.

I found this book to be just ok. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. The story was a bit long and at times boring. There was a lot of filler that didn’t need to be there which detracted from the story itself, but it wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read. A few, more pressing issues for me were with some of the characters. I found Jessica, the main character, to be somewhat dislikable. I say somewhat because there were times that I liked her and found her entertaining, mostly though she could be irritating, pushy, and childish. For starters, I couldn’t understand why she immersed herself into trying to solve a murder that she had absolutely no connection to. Not to mention that she does so in such a pushy manner that it’s a wonder she survived to the end of the book without getting herself killed. She also lies and uses her career as a way to interview some of the people who knew the victim, which for me, really put into question if she has any ethics. Then there is her relationship with her on-again, off-again boyfriend and private investigator, Nick. For reasons that I could never figure out, she has a major commitment phobia. She continually tells herself that she doesn’t want to lose her independence so she treats him like a walking case of herpes, only running back when she needs something from him. I kept wondering why he even had anything to do with her as it was obvious to me that she has some real issues that only a trip to a psychiatrist could cure.

The other character I had a problem with was her landlord, Betty. I know that they were supposed to be friends as well as landlord/tenant, but regardless I would not appreciate someone overstepping their bounds as Betty did. She came off as nosy and too involved in Jessica’s personal life. I’d probably move if I was her.

I'm not really going to tap on the murder itself because I'm still a little confused as to why she even bothered with it. She had no connection to the victim or anyone they knew. She wasn't a suspect or knew anyone that was. It's baffling to me that someone would spend that much time away from their own job just to nose around a murder investigation because they found it fascinating.

Aside from that though, it was an easy, light read that filled some time for me and I always love books that involve animals. There were plenty of those. I have the second installment and will read it, hoping that the author waters down Jessica’s insane relationship issues and makes her investigating tactics a bit more subtle. If not, the next book in this series may be my last.