Month: November 2019

Twisted Twenty-Six by Janet Evanovich

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, MysteryLeave a comment

Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum, #26)Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Stephanie Plum #26
Publication Date: 11/12/19
Number of Pages: 320

This is the perfect book for a dark, dreary winterish afternoon (or even a sunny happy afternoon). The zany antics of Stephanie along with her family, friends, and co-workers will keep you smiling. Yes, sometimes they are over-the-top and a bit annoying, but all-in-all, they are an enjoyable and entertaining read.

Grandma Mazur was married for all of forty-five minutes before the groom keeled over – dead. Who knew he had a bad heart? Now, his other octogenarian mob cohorts are after Grandma because they are sure that she has ‘the keys’. Everybody knows that there are ‘keys’, but nobody seems to know what they unlock – but they all believe that there is a treasure involved. It is up to Stephanie, Morelli, and Ranger to keep Grandma safe. Of course, Grandma doesn’t help matters – she has to attend the funeral, the wake, bake sales, bingo – you name it.

Aside from trying to keep Grandma Mazur safe, Stephanie is having a pretty good week. Stephanie works for a bail bondsman and it is her job to bring in people who have skipped out on their bail. She’s had several skippers this week and has retrieved them all – including one who brought in a pretty good paycheck for her. So, her rent is paid and she has groceries in her cupboards. (Picture Dog the Bounty Hunter without the talent of skill).

Then, the first attempt at a kidnapping occurs. It was easy to tell they were amateurs, but that didn’t keep them from being scary. They enraged Stephanie’s mom so much that she took her iron to one of them, and the other one ran off. As the paramedics are there to see after the injured one – Lula asks:

“Is he dead?”
“Not yet,” Grandma said.
“Good thing,” Lula said. “If California found out a guy got killed with an iron, they’d ban them, and all those movie stars would be wrinkled all the time.”

Ranger has his security guys watching the house and trailing after Grandma and Morelli is investigating on the police side, but grandma and then Stephanie manage to get themselves kidnapped. They are in the hands of some really bad guys – can they save themselves? Will it be Ranger and/or Morelli to the rescue? Who knew Stephanie could drive a cement truck?

I was well entertained from the first page to the last. If there was a downside, it was that Stephanie is back to her dissatisfaction with her life. This seems to happen every three or four books and it gets a tad tiresome because she whines and complains, but is never willing to do anything about it.

An Unexpected Pleasure by Candace Camp

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Victorian Era (1837-1901)Leave a comment

An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands, #4)Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: The Mad Morelands #4
Publication Date: 1/15/18 by HQN Books (first published 7/28/2005)
Number of Pages: 432

The Moreland family is off on another wild and exciting adventure and this time Theo is the one at the center of things. Is he a murderer? Well – hang on to your hats and read the book to find out. The entire Moreland clan is on hand and it was fun to get to visit with all of them. There were wonderful visits with The Greats – twelve-year-old twins Con and Alex– who are featured in the next two books.

Theo Moreland, the heir to a dukedom, has always been a restless soul. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s traveled all over the world and still hasn’t found it. He’s home in England, but he’s feeling restless and unsettled, yet he makes no effort to plan his next expedition. That is so unlike him.

Megan Mulcahey comes from a large Irish-American family. While they aren’t wealthy, they do well enough. Megan is a successful reporter and she had to work hard to get there and to be able to write the kinds of stories she does. The only cloud in her life is the fact that her brother, Dennis, died ten years ago in the jungles of South America. He was murdered and they know who did it – but he is an English Lord and there is nothing they can do – especially from New York.

One night, Megan’s sister, Deirdre, has a dream about their brother Dennis. She’s had these dreams all her life and her father knows that they are prophetic. Dennis appeared in the dream begging for help – he needed something very precious recovered. That dream set them off on a mission to find this English Lord, to recover the precious item that had been taken from Dennis, and to see that this English Lord gets his punishment.

Megan and her family soon decide that the best way to infiltrate the Moreland household and find proof against Theo, is for Megan to pose as a tutor for the young Moreland twins Con and Alex. Megan doesn’t actually expect, as a female, to be hired for the position, so she is shocked when the duchess offers her the position.

Megan doesn’t expect to like the Moreland family – and certainly not Theo. However, that is exactly what she does – she likes them all very much – and she’s strangely drawn to Theo. He murdered her brother; how can she possibly be attracted to him?

The investigation takes many twists and turns before the mystery can finally be solved and Megan and Theo finally get their HEA.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.