Blog Tour ~ Murder at the Highland Games

I was given this book to review from Netgalley and Bookouture for a fair and honest review.

When a fun day out in the Scottish Highlands turns fatal, there’s only one solution: call for Ally McKinley!

It’s the annual Locharran Highland Games and Ally McKinley has never seen her little village so busy or excited. Everyone’s enjoying the Scottish dancing, the bagpipes, and cheering the competitors on. But there’s a hitch in the proceedings when champion challenger Archie Armstrong drops dead in the middle of tossing the caber. Rushing to the scene, Ally is the first to spot that Archie’s death was no accident – this was murder!

Ally flings herself into a new investigation and soon discovers that more than one person may have had a murderous motive, including some of the current residents of her cosy little guesthouse. Patti, Archie’s glamourous wife, seems intent on acting like the perfect widow, but rumours of infidelity have been flying. Is her performance too good? Could her uncle, cranky gamekeeper Angus, have finally snapped, furious at Archie’s treatment of his niece? Or was it one of the frustrated local competitors, desperate to end Archie’s winning streak?

Determined to crack the case and fueled by more than one piece of her famous shortbread, Ally begins to narrow down her list of possible culprits, but is thrown for a loop when her chief suspect is found dead by the loch, a mysterious and threatening note clutched in their fingers. With a killer at large, can Ally finally uncover the truth? Or, as the sun sets over the highlands, will this game be her last?

I really like this series. I love the fact that the main character is a senior, but she doesn't act old. Not to say that sometimes she doesn't feel her age, but she just doesn't act elderly. She is also not overly silly or anything like that.

So in this one there are some foreigners from Canada who are visiting as one of them is a champion in the games from Canada and wanted to compete in Scotland. He is naturally hated because he isn't from Scotland, so it wasn't surprising that he ends up murder at the games, but would someone murder because he was winning? 

Of course, Ally is hosting the Canadian family at her B&B, so she is naturally curious and a bit invested in trying to figure out who might have done it from the competitors to the family. Another family member is murdered, and it seems that maybe someone has it out for the family. 

I think one of the things I liked about this one is that I felt that Ally was so busy with trying to help the family that she really didn't do a lot of sleuthing, a lot of what she found out just kind of came natural and she really didn't figure things out till it was a bit too late, kind of on accident. I really don't like when sleuths are to overly nosy or it seems like that is all they do and they are never at their actual work. So that was refreshing. I like that the detective doesn't mind her helping a bit with things by asking questions. I really like Ross her boyfriend too. 

The mystery was decent, but I figured things out even the motive so maybe it was to easy to figure out or I am just getting better at figuring them out...lol. A few times I found myself asking Ally why she wasn't thinking about this or that as it was on my mind...lol. It was kind of fun to find that I was right, so it didn't really lessen the enjoyment or anything. 

I think if you like cozy mysteries this is a fun series and I would highly recommend.

4 stars

Dee MacDonald

Dee MacDonald grew up on an isolated farm in the Scottish Highlands. An only child, she’d often get fed up of reading and listening to a crackling radio, so her mother encouraged her to draw and to write ‘wee stories’, which she’d sew together into little books.

As an adult, her working life took her all over the globe as an air stewardess, into the world of TV, where she worked in Market Research and Sales, and then into hospitality, running B&Bs for over ten years.

After first finding her love of writing as a little girl, Dee became a published author of cosy crime and women’s fiction in her seventies. She lives by the sea in Cornwall with her husband, and has one son and two grandsons.

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week in Review #141

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

I can't believe we are about to head into April in a few days. Time sure does fly. Hope everyone is doing well, the weather has been so crazy lately. We have gone from 90 to 40 and back up to 70 over the last few days. I would just like some nice spring weather! Well, without storms.

Nothing has happened this week worth really talking about, my life is pretty boring.

What I read:

• Murder at the Highland Games - Fourth book in the Ally McKinley series and I really enjoyed it. This is a good series.
• Outlaw Mountain - Seventh book in the Joanna Brady series and I really enjoyed it.
• Battle Ground - Finished up my reread of Dresden Files, now I am ready to tackle the new book. 

What I am Reading:

• Come Through Your Door - The latest book in the County Kerry series. This is her more gritty mystery and not cozy.
• Happy Are the Meek - This I am struggling with a bit, the writing style is very different even for a book from the 80s.

Hope you all have a great week!

Two Bloggers One Series ~ Broken by Karin Slaughter (Will Trent #4)

 So I am pretty sure that I am not as big of a fan of this series as Barb, but maybe after this one they will get better. After you see what I had to say, go on over and check out what Barb thought at Booker T's Farm.

When Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner’s death. He doesn’t understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him. He doesn’t understand her role in the death of Grant County’s popular police chief. He doesn’t understand why that man’s widow, Dr. Sara Linton, needs him now more than ever to help her crack this case.

While the police force investigates the murder of a young woman pulled from a frigid lake, Trent investigates the police force, putting pressure on Adams just when she’s already about to crack. Caught between two complicated and determined women, trying to understand Linton’s passionate distrust of Adams, and the complexities of this insular town, Trent will unleash a case filled with explosive secrets—and encounter a thin blue line that could be murderous if crossed.

I left out a few details from the blurb of this book, and I suggest that if you haven't read the Grant County series yet that you read it before you read Will Trent because it will spoil something major from that series.

In this one we are going back to Grant County, and I hope it's for the last time. A young woman was murdered and the young man who was accused of it has killed himself while in custody or did something else happen. 

Sara Linton is back in Grant County to visit family, and she was brought in to talk to the young man because she was the only person he would talk to as she use to be his doctor when he was a little kid. When they get there, the man is dead and Sara wants to know what happened and ask Will Trent to look into things.

There are a lot of secrets in Grant County, especial within the police and Trent has to figure out what is going on and why Sara has it out for Lena Adams and try and figure out what happened to the murdered girl and everything else. 

So, I despise Lena with a passion, she is from Grant County series, and I hated her there and so it really lowered my enjoyment of this story. I also hate Frank so that didn't help either. I want to be done with Grant County, and it seemed like maybe this will be the last one set there. Let's get back to Atlanta and stay there. I like Will, but he is a very different type of character and there are some things about him that I don't like and some things I can't talk about because I don't want to spoil the Grant County series by mentioning them. 

I liked the ending of the story, but there was to much Lena and Frank, so I just didn't care much for the story as a whole.

3 stars

Feed Your TBR #13

It's time to FEED YOUR TBR and I have a couple books you might find interesting!! I am curious about these books though I may not be anticipating them. These picks are almost out so not a lot of waiting involved.  (Feed Your TBR is my version of Waiting on Wednesday now hosted by Wishful Endings)

Hatchet meets Survivor in this high-action, humor-filled middle grade adventure about two kids stranded in the wilderness, whose annoyance with each other rivals the roaring rapids and ferocious predators they must face.

12-year-old Sadie Hahn didn’t plan to eat grubs on camera to win a contest. And she definitely didn’t plan to win first prize—a guest appearance on a Youtube show hosted by America’s favorite 13-year-old survivalist Radley Shaw. But she’ll do anything to cheer up her little brother Silas, who’s too young to qualify.

Rad has millions of followers and exactly zero real-life friends, so the contest is a great chance for him to hang out with kids his own age. But it’s hate-at-first-sight when Silas throws a wrench in his plan and Sadie decides Rad is just a clueless poser who doesn’t know the first thing about survival.

Disaster strikes when their scripted rafting trip turns into a real fight for survival. Lost in the mountains, Rad and Sadie must find shelter, build a fire, forage for food and try not to become food for a hungry predator. But can they stop bickering long enough to hack it in the wilderness? And will that be enough to keep them alive?

Sounds like a fun middle grade survival adventure! Comes out March 31st from Knopf Books for Young Reader.

When a murder occurs in a small town in Upstate New York, retired police detective Graham Sanderson, is drawn back into a vortex of violence, deception, and a series of murders which get dangerously personal.

Graham Sanderson thought he’d left it all behind. His years as a Washington, DC, homicide detective, his tragically dead wife, pain, violence. Taking over his father’s house in the remote Finger Lakes region of rural New York, and looking after his shut-in brother, Tommy, seemed like a respite. That is, until the first body is found.

The chief of the town’s small police jurisdiction, who is also a family friend, asks for Graham’s assistance. Graham’s instincts immediately kick in and he soon discovers there’s more to the area – the people, its brutally quiet, sophisticated hierarchies – than he or his family ever knew.

David Swinson's latest novel is a soulful, rural noir story about the extremities to which it pushes a community, the fear it instills in the hearts of adherents and doubters alike, and need for it nevertheless. As Graham delves deeper into the strange and then stranger circumstances of the murders, his own beliefs become challenged. What do you finally stand for when you’ve got nothing left to lose?

This sounds like an interesting mystery. Comes out March 31st from Mulholland Books.

Week in Review #140

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

How are we already in the middle of March. This month is flying right on by! This week wasn't too bad, had a few days that felt a bit long, especially with the storms. I know some of you in the north are getting hit pretty bad so I won't complain to much that tonight is going to get down to 15! I have been spoiled to the warmer weather though I know winter is not over yet...boo.

Anyway, hope y'all have a great week and happy reading!

What I read:

• Name Withheld - I enjoyed this one, I really love the Beaumont series! 
• Charlie Thorne and the Royal Society - Finished this series and it was okay. My least favorite series from this author.
• The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle - This was fun! I love middle grade mysteries!

What I am reading:

• The Examiner - This one is going okay so far. I started out with an ebook but thankfully the audiobook has come in and it's a full cast audio so lots of fun.
• Overkill - The first book in the Sam Shepard series set in New Zealand and I am enjoying it. 
• The Treasure of Ocean Parkway - Second book in the Ocean Parkway series and so far, it's been a good mystery.
• Happy Are the Meek - This is the first in the Father Blackie Ryan series, it's from the 1980 and different. The writing style is taking a bit of getting use too.
• Barbary Moon - One of my paperback retro romances and I am enjoying it so far. 

Did you read anything good!

Feed Your TBR #12

It's time to FEED YOUR TBR and I have a couple books you might find interesting!! I am curious about these books though I may not be anticipating them. These picks are almost out so not a lot of waiting involved.  (Feed Your TBR is my version of Waiting on Wednesday now hosted by Wishful Endings)

Fil Furetto is a terrible criminal. He can’t pick a lock or crack a safe, and he’s hardly menacing. The only things he’s good at are cooking and watching over the arena his crime family calls home. But then he stumbles upon a mysterious Someone is planning to sabotage the frontrunner at the arena’s next big event, The Baskerville Dog Show. Fil's Uncle Sal is furious—no one does nefarious acts under the Furettos' roof without his say so!—and tasks Fil with protecting the defenseless dog.

Dot Hernandez is a Corgi with a vision. Win the Baskerville, collect the prize money, and finally launch her designer doggy fashion line. So when a scrawny ferret shows up with a warning that someone is trying to take her out of the competition, she’s skeptical.

But as mysterious mishaps befall her, Dot is forced to admit there’s something fishy at the dog show, and she agrees to team up with Fil to find the culprit. Is it a canine competitor? One of their human trainers? Or an old enemy out to ruin the Furettos? Only one thing seems if they don’t figure it out, both Dot's fashion dreams and Fil’s family could be in danger.

This middle grade book comes out from Storytide on March 31st. It looks so cute!! 

A hijacked New York subway train, an anonymous killer, and a young man trapped by his hidden past converge in a breathless, breathtaking thriller

Do not turn off your phone
Do not get off the train
I know who you really are

Fired and walked out by security on his first day at his new job in New York City, Ben Cross thought his day couldn't get worse. But he couldn't be more wrong. Getting on the 1 train headed uptown, Ben starts receiving text messages from an anonymous killer, showing that they've already killed someone, then pointedly killing another as they got off the train to prove they aren't bluffing and to ensure Ben follows orders. But Ben wasn't picked at random—he has a history that no one is supposed to know.

At the same time, A NYPD detective, Kelly Hendricks, is on punishment duty with the transit police. The first one on the scene after the first murder, she gets on the train to find out what is really going on.

Switching rapidly between Cross and Hendricks, as the hijacked 1 train heads from South Ferry to 181st, the secret to the killer lies in Ben's own history—why he's been targeted and punished.

This sounds like an interesting thriller and comes out March 24th from Minotaur Books.

Week in Review #139

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

So February was kind of a rough month for me and I kept forgetting to make a Week in Review. Hopefully March will go better. So, in February, I got a really bad case of poison ivy and man it about took me out. I was so miserable! I am finally getting back to normal.

I can't believe we are already ending our first week in March! It's been pretty decent here weather wise but it's storm season now and I am not happy. We did have a nasty storm Friday night, but it didn't get to bad at our house but sirens did go off.

Hope y'all had a great week! Happy reading!

Need to feed your tbr? Check out this post!

What I read:

• The Sower's Secret - This was a cute middle grade book about one of the Parables in the Bible happening in this town and kids have to save the day. Review here.
• Knife Edge - Gritty Irish mystery and I liked it, but don't think I was in the mindset for it at the time of reading.
• Well-Schooled in Murder - I enjoyed this one! It was a kind of sad and has some dark themes but was good.

What I am reading:

• Name Withheld - Next up in the Beaumont series! 
• Charlie Thorne and the Royal Society - The last book to finish up this series.