Morgan St. JamesRezensionen

Murder on the Menu by Morgan St. James is a fun cozy mystery which takes place in Portland. While the mystery aspect of the book takes a bit to get going, the story is fun and easy to read. The dialogue between characters is oftentimes witty and always enjoyable. A reader can easily spend an afternoon trying to figure out who the murderer is with the main character, Chili Pepper. If you are a cozy mystery fan you will enjoy this read.

I received this audible book from the publisher via a LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway.

I received this audible book from the publisher via a LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway.

This was my first book in the Silver Sisters mystery sisters by Morgan St. James and Phyllice Bradner, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's a cozy mystery which takes place in Portland, OR - which is close to home - so that was fun to hear names of streets and neighborhoods and restaurants that I recognized.

The first half of the book (or so) tells us about Chili Pepper who was offered a new restaurant position in Portland. The murder doesn't happen until a ways into the book, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who it would be. After the murder occurs, the two Silver Sisters show up and take over the second half of the book. I found the book entertaining and loved the play on words throughout. I'm not much of a cozy mystery fan, so I may not be the best judge of the book. If you are a cozy mystery fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy this book. (I've seen a lot 5 star reviews.)

It was read by Kathleen Bond and runs just a little over 6 hours.

I chose to listen to this book after receiving a free audio copy from the author through Librarything. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

Mack Peters goes to Watson Falls to find a friend’s sister, Greta, who is a reporter. Greta went to look for her godson, Tony, and it turns out that she was undercover. She and Mack meet a couple of times while they both try to figure out what’s going on in Watson Falls. What they find is more shocking than they imagined.

The characters could have been more developed which would have made the story more suspenseful. There was a surprise at the end about two people who were interested in each other, but I had no clue. If they had shown interest in each other during the story, that would have made it more interesting.

The narrator was great. His timing and pace were perfect, and his voice is an enjoyable one to listen to.

I did like ending, and I would listen to Watson Falls again or read another Mack Peters book even though I think this could have been an outstanding book with some tweaking.

I received a copy of this audiobook free in exchange for an honest review. As this is a mystery, I will be leaving a spoiler free review. I enjoyed this book. The plot was good and it had a very interesting premise. It was a tad formulaic in parts and could be a bit predictable at times, but overall it was a very solid read. I'm looking forward to what the author can do with this series as it continues. I do hope that there is some more depth added to the characters in future installments as they have great potential to be more than they currently are.½

A great read with the Silver Sisters and family. This is the first time I have listened to a book in this series. The story is captivating involving a chef moving to Portland, starting a new position and solving a murder with the help of her friends and quirky family.

If you like mysteries and food combined into one book. this is the one to read.

Silver-sleuths, cozy-mystery, verbal-humor, situational-humor, murder-investigation, multiple-murder, multicultural, chef, amateur-sleuth, family, family-dynamics, relatives, relationships, relocating, law-enforcement, vegetarian, restaurant, housemates*****

Chili Pepper gets a fantastic offer from an old schoolmate of hers from their hometown in alaska to move to Portland Oregon, share a big old house with him and two others, and become Executive Chef at a fantastic new vegetarian restaurant. It means that she has to up stakes again (this time from California), leave her TV job, and have the whole thing vetted by her extended family. All goes well until the first body is found at the base of the stairs. Then it's time for the Silver Sleuths (headed by Godiva Olivia DuBois of the advice column and her twin sister) to swoop in and get things going in the right direction.
It might seem a little "out there" if you haven't met this crowd before, but that's only a good reason to go back and read some of the earlier laugh riots! Absolutely LOVED it!
Kathleen Bond really gives it the Crown Heights Brooklyn seal of approval while being incredibly versatile in differentiating the many characters.
I won an audio copy from Marina Publishing Group (Publisher) via LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Listening to this audio book was a pleasant experience. "Pleasant" is probably about right, for this is a very cozy mystery. It moves along slowly and the author seems to spend more energy, and time, in building out the characters and the environment rather than developing any great criminal plot. The narrator is simply excellent and brings the book to life, giving each character their own recognisable voice.

The story is set in Portland, Oregon and the general vibe of that city comes across well. The main character is a chef who gets an opportunity to make a big step forward in her career. The main story revolves around her, her friends and relatives, and the big house she finds herself living in. There is, also, a murder mystery plot vying for the listener's attention.

Listening to this work was a very pleasant way to while away a few hours.

Max left the police force after his father was murdered and went to Europe for a while. While there he found tee shirts in every city with the same saying. When he returned to the United States he obtained a patten on that saying and several others and became very successful and had plenty of time to do whatever he wanted.
His friends suggested he visit a small town in Washington and he decided that it would be a good road trip. When he gets to the town he is approached by a waitress whose sister has gone missing and asks for his help. As it turns out the waitress was friends with Mac’s friend in LA and the suggested trip was so he would help her
Greta to he sister who has gone missing is an investigated reporter who has gone looking for her godson Tony.
Greta gets in touch with her sister so she won’t worry and is put in touch with Mac. The mystery of Watson Falls begins to unravel .
I received this audio book in exchange for a review.
It was an exceptional mystery. The narrator was very pleasant to listen to. Will definitely be watching for more of this author’s books.

A quick read. A fun look at Portland. It's hard to say if it was the direction, the narrator or the writing, but it felt a bit stilted and choppy. The first paragraph packed in so much information about Chili Pepper that I had to laugh. I had a hard time getting into the characters mostly because of the awkwardness of the reading. A satisfying mystery, though not a particularly surprising ending. Perhaps if I had read some of the earlier books in the series I might have enjoyed it more.

Murder on the Menu audiobook begins rather slowly, and the dialog is rather stilted. It doesn't give you a sense of who the characters are. It gets better when the twins show up and it switches to their point of view. The narration was good with the reader able to give each character a different voice.

Watson Falls follows Mac, a former cop, who has gone through some drastic life changes after the murder of his father. The beginning of the book follows him after he quits his job and travels as he grieves and tries to find himself. After starting a new business venture which makes him wealthy, Mac is tricked in to assisting a friend of a friend in finding her missing sister. While this was an "easy read", the story was very predictable. I was able to figure out what was happening at the compound in Watson Falls very early in the story. The way the town of Watson Falls was written felt unbelievable. I also was annoyed that the town of Leavenworth was described at Scandinavian more than once. Having been there myself, it would definitely be described as German or Bavarian. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but was not blown away by it.

The story line is intriguing but the writing was too simple. The suspense never really happened. The characters could of been built up more to get us more involved and the sex scenes written out. They didn’t add to the story. The narrator did a good job up changing with the scenes but at times was a bit monotone.

This book was received as part of the early reviewers program on Library Thing. Thank you for providing the opportunity for me to read and review this book.
I thought this book was fair. In many ways, the story needed more detail, nuance and sophistication. I had the thing figured out after he began to explain the clinic where the boy disappeared. As a previous reviewer noted, the author falls down the stereotype rat hole with the way he characterizes women. I think men are also subject to stereotypes—all are 6 foot tall, handsome, etc.
There is a lot of room for improvement with this novel, as it currently reads like a book written by someone who is barely a freshman in college. The story isn’t tight like a Baldacci, Christopher Chambers or Faith Hunter novel. Some background on why folks stay in Watson Falls would’ve been good. I suspect the author knows where the story is weak.
I did like learning the back story of the primary character regarding his late parents and his source of income (the patenting of the saying is epic, but could’ve been funny if told just a little differently). The basic premise of the story was fine, but there are many gaps in the story and it all wraps up in the end.
If this is the beginning of a series, I hope the next story in the series is tighter.
The ending seemed cheesy and formulaic to me.
The narrator was excellent. He did a great job of distinguishing the different character’s voices. Usually male narrators do a good job of distinguishing male voices, but the female voices all sound the same. This isn’t the case with Holbrook. It was a pleasant surprise.

Updated, 11/15/22.
I did finally get a copy of this book. I tried to hold my aforementioned issues with getting the book aside, and the novel itself was fine, but there are clear big errors in creating the story. There are two types of problems with how this book is written: the first are cropped story details that would make no sense to any person, ever.
All of these details don't render the book impossible to read, and it's very particular details that are weird and specific, but the circumstance they are written into the book just make the readers stop reading, come out of the world of the book, and go, that's just wrong and continue back in the story. There are a number of these. Not horrific, just sentences or details that you read and they just hit you like a clunk.

The second problem are issues with the blunt way the author writes. The comments on female characters are abhorrent and I'm actually very surprised by the female gender expression of the author. Similar to this are the elementary way the author has to wrap everything up in bow, provide exposition on the scene. Readers are not dumb people, and if the book is written well, those following along don't need the handholding, or breadcrumbs to get us there. I figured what was going on in the city by about the first third of the story. It leaves the reader bored. The tone of being omniscient, or dropping hints about knowledge that wouldn't normally be known by others just feels cheap. And the end, just dues et machina'ing the personal traumatic events to main character is very doorknob question-y. I ask if the solution proposed, does that actually do anything for Mac? Without spoiling too much, having an answer to the who, that often doesn't solve the grief and the trauma suffered.

This story has an air of pulp fiction (not the movie.) I actually was wondering at what age group this novel was aiming at, as young adult readers may find the easy to read format, easy to follow, save for the misogynistic main character. Then again, this story screams daytime television story -- it's fails to be noir enough to be a detective novel, and there isn't enough intimacy to be a bodice ripper, but rather cheap in the way women are reduced to their physical appearances more often than not. I don't know what this story was-- it was like a beautiful painting. The scene lovely and very easy to look at. But once you look at it close up there are just weird details, things to look at and furrow your brow. Maybe sell it to Netflix. They can fix it.

Example: the part about having night vision goggles in the trunk of the car. this character would have been so forward thinking that he would move the binos over to a new car as the first thing to do, while picking the car from the dealership?"

Example: why would the waitress want to be seen with the convertible down, as they drive through town, to her house. if there was such a concern about outsiders, flagrantly riding in what I am assuming is the new i8 just doesn't sit with the rest of the story."

Example: It just doesn't make sense for a transplant physician to lose his own father to a failed match, or at least to be bitter about another candidate getting an organ, and UNOS would lose their minds if they ever heard, and they would hear, that a physician was paying patients for their place in UNOS.

Example of the second: female characters are either sexual conquests, sexual creatures or matronly overweight women. The last line of the book mentions our main characters wants to end up... entertaining one of the female characters. The first line mentions how a woman exercising is an object of sexual desire.

Example of the second: when the security guards are chatting, while Mac is watching them, "guess it's time for our walk around. although this place is buttoned up so tight it'd take a miracle to get in who wasn't supposed it."

-----------------------
Received an email stating this:

"CONGRATULATIONS! You are a Library Thing winner of a free link to the audiobook WATSON FALLS: A Small Town with a Deadly Secret narrated by Matt Holbrook."

Within the email there was no link to the book. I had reached out to the email sender and the librarything associated author, but have received no response. so that's a bust. it looks like no one has gotten the book either, so it all seems very poorly done. best of luck, hopefully it works out but for right now it doesn't look like it has.½

first-in-series, senior-sleuths, cozy-mystery, puntastic, verbal-humor, situational-humor, murder, murder-investigation

This is a fun first in series about a group of eclectic seniors who have more wit than hair. The mystery is a good start, but the humor had me rolling in the aisles it is so over the top funny. The publisher's blurb is pretty good, so no need to recap. Enjoy!
Stephanie Brush really gives it the Brooklyn seal of approval while being incredibly versatile in differentiating characters.
I got my copy on sale from Chirp.

I really couldn't get into this book. The writing style didn't speak to me at all.

I wish the author all the luck, but this book wasn't for me.

Following Jeanette , a ballerina who's life is more tragic than the ballets she could perform, Devil's Dance is an emotional journey that almost became too much at points It speaks to the writing skills Adams has, but was often too graphic at times for me. I fond the switching of perspectives a bit confusing at times. Adams is certainly a skilled writer, but not my genre of choice going forward.

A pretty good mystery. I liked the characters. The story was good. I might have to go back and read some of the earlier books. It looks like a good story to follow

A fun mystery set in California with great characters and a good mystery to solve.

Scammed is about a group of neighbors trying to solve the disappearance of their HOA Vice President and Treasurer shortly after the HOA had received several million dollars to fix the canals.

I loved the colorful characters that formed this little group of detectives. There was Cami who own an advertising agency, an author who use to be with the FBI, a retired Colonel, Cami’s friend, Kate who runs Fraudbusters, an actor, and a real estate agent. The author wrote the characters so convincing that I wanted to join them every night to try to solve the mystery behind the disappearances. The writing was good and the story kept my attention throughout. An interesting tidbit; the author mentions on her web sight that she waited years to find the right book to kill off an HOA President that she had issues with in real life.

Thank you to LibraryThing, Morgan St. James, and Marina Publishing Group for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

An interesting mystery. Only downside was the frequent references to a previous book in the series. I think two thirds of those reference could have been removed without hurting the story.

I was expecting Scammed by Morgan St James to be a breezy, entertaining mystery from the title and the cover picture. I was mightily disappointed. The story is about the murder of a man and disappearance of his wife following an HOA meeting in upscale Venice Canals, CA. Neighbors meet every night to discuss the information they’ve found during that day that will help them solve the crime. They are essentially shallow beautiful people who constantly stop what little forward motion there is in the plot to order food from nearby restaurants, take bathroom breaks or change into designer jeans and stilettos. The name dropping is mind numbing. The crime turns out to be, of course, relevant to current societal problems but that doesn’t make the book interesting.

This book seems to be part of a series. I doubt I’ll ever find out.

This book falls into the category of Cozy Mystery, which both my partner and I really enjoy reading.

I received an eBook version of this book in return for a review.

I won't go into the details of the plot - the amazon.com description below does this admirably - but I would like to say that I enjoyed it a lot. This is the second Silver Sisters Mystery I have read and the quality is excellent.

The characters are all well-defined and, in this case, even the villains are likeable enough with enough good points that you find yourself thinking "they'd be interesting at a dinner party".

It is though, the Silver Sisters and their extended family that you read these books for, as the mystery comes second. When their mother Flossie and their uncle Sterling - both ex-magicians - are invited on a sea cruise for magicians you know they are going to be right in the thick of it, and they are.

My one complaint is that I would probably have enjoyed a slightly more definitive denouement.

With a potential best seller completed and a lucrative film deal on the cards, the authors do not want Fat Vinny to queer the deal. Out of options, it is decided that the only solution is to bump off Fat Vinny. OK, so the plot is a little lame in general. Bump off Vinny, really? The need is hardly clear as at times as it seems a deal can be made that works for all without the need for murder. There is enough humor throughout to keep you interested and the last chapter is a real jaw dropper that more than makes up for any minor plot shortcomings along the way. A light easy read you won't regret buying.

An excellent cosy mystery.

Like many cosy mysteries the investigator(s) are quirky. In this case they are a pair of retired stage magicians, one of whom is the mother of twin daughters who have their own adult children, so Grandma Flossie and great uncle Sterling must at least be in their 60's, although my guess from their description is that they are at least 10 years older than this. I understand that in the other books in the series the twin daughters (who are also rather quirky) are the investigators, but here it's the old retired magicians (although they still do a turn once a week for the old people in a home).

And what better place to set a mystery being investigated by magicians than Las Vegas? The basic outline of the plot is adequately described elsewhere, so I won't go into it here. The plot is excellent, and the crimes are unusual both in their execution and their raison d'etre, with amusing and unexpected twists and turns.

Highly recommended, but I should also mention that I received a copy of this ebook through the Early Reviewer's giveaway.

I thought this book looked like I fun read when I wanted to win this book in the giveaway. This book did not let me down. I enjoyed the characters and had a great time reading this book. I would read more books in this series. * I received this book from a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for an honest review*