Oct 12 2018
Precious and Grace begins with Mma Ramotswe, founder and proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, reflecting on the people in her life: people who are late, others who are still with us; family, particularly her husband Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; friends and colleagues, from the formidable Mma Potokwani who runs the local orphanage to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/12/precious-and-grace-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Oct 05 2018
It took me three tries, but I finally found enough time to get past the first five percent of the book to dive into this excellently rendered fantasy world. Which isn’t to say that the first five percent was bad, just that it’s awfully dense with chimney-climbing stuff, and given my heavy reading load, it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/05/steeplejack-steeplejack-1-by-a-j-hartley/
Oct 01 2018
I likened reading Darcey Bell’s A Simple Favor to enjoying a bananas smoothie of noir tropes and modern mom issues, and will extend that simile to say that I wasn’t sure how much I liked the aftertaste, but was pleased to have read it ahead of seeing the movie starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/01/from-page-to-screen-a-simple-favor/
Sep 22 2018
Y’all, that was bananas. Imagine every noir trope/betrayal/plot twist thrown into a blender and served up with a healthy dose of modern mom issues, and you have this completely insane book that I read essentially overnight when I should have been sleeping. Granted, I was trying to crush the book ahead of going to see …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/22/a-simple-favor-by-darcey-bell/
Sep 16 2018
About 60% of the way through this book, I thought, “Wtf, this isn’t going to be about what I think it is, is it?” and then it fucking was. And while I was okay with the events that led to the book garnering its own #WTFThatEnding, I was legitimately pissed with how the book has …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/16/behind-her-eyes-by-sarah-pinborough/
Aug 10 2018
I love the idea of Gossip Girl with a murder mystery twist, so I was super thrilled when I finally got my hands on the first book of this series. I’ve read *every* single Gossip Girl novel (in all honesty, the TV show was a huge disappointment in comparison) barring the Psycho Killer mash up, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/10/pretty-little-liars-pretty-little-liars-1-by-sara-shepard/
Jul 10 2018
So I thought that reading this on my Fire would be superior to reading on my Paperwhite but the sketches weren’t formatted very well for Kindle so meh. I did really like the idea, tho, that you could find clues in the sketches to help you solve the mystery (why yes I was a Cam …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/10/the-con-artist-by-fred-van-lente/
Jun 27 2018
Q: Every series has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. Reading A Study In Brimstone, I figured this series would mostly be a light-hearted spoof, so have been greatly excited by how it has developed into an intriguing, complex ongoing narrative with the release of My …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/27/an-interview-with-g-s-denning-author-of-my-grave-ritual/
Jun 11 2018
Okay, look, I read and review a ton of mystery series of varying quality over at Criminal Element and there is only one rule: each book should solve a major crime. The one exception to this rule that I’ve encountered before Truly Devious was also what I felt was the weakest of Louise Penny’s critically …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/11/truly-devious-truly-devious-1-by-maureen-johnson/
May 26 2018
I seriously underestimated my reading load (again) and spent the last few chapters of this book in a reading panic. Fortunately, it’s a good, fun read, tho I feel that the last half of the book, a mash-up of The Hound Of The Baskervilles and Warlock Holmes’ origin story, suffered from the same flaws that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/26/the-hell-hound-of-the-baskervilles-warlock-holmes-2-by-g-s-denning/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire