Review: Lily

Lily by Anna K. Payne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Short, quick read.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There are really two stories that are going on here and the intertwine with each other. Lily is at the end of her rope. She is divorced three times and pregnant with her third child, all from different dads. She is invited to a Bible Study and wonder why God would ever want her.
Meanwhile she witnesses a murder during a freak storm at the beach and now the killer is out to get her, and she keeps calling the undercover cop who rescued her, she just does not know why.

Will Lilly make until the end of the story or will the bad guy kill her? Will the cop and Lilly ever realize how they feel? Will Lilly accept Jesus? I am fairly sure you can guess the answers. But take a look anyway.
Recommend to those who want a light simple read of a Christian nature. While I have seen some call it a cozy, to me a cozy has a mystery. This is not a mystery in that we know who did it. It is more a drama of what will happen in the day to day life of the title character.

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Review: Pineapple Puzzles

Pineapple Puzzles by Amy Vansant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third in the series of Pineapple Port and the characters are much the same. Before I go further, I was given a copy in exchange for an honest review. I am also part of the author's street team that promotes the series.
Amy has again written an interesting story. There is a murder out there who is killing people and making them look like accidents. Then, so that people know, the killer is leaving pieces of a puzzle behind as a sign that it is them doing it.
Charolette, our hero, is trying to figure out the person doing the killing as part of her training for being a private eye under the auspices of her neighbor the police chief and her boyfriend's uncle, Samus, who was a private eye at one time. Telling you much more of the story gets to giving clues to how it ends.
The one gripe I have about this, and it is the reason it only got 4 stars, is that the ending did not wrap things up. Someone who should be in jail is not. I suspect that is so the author can set things up for a future book but I am old school and like my stories not to be continued. Still, it is not a bad ending, and I have seen a lot worse than this in stories that I have read lately.
I recommend to anyone who wants a fun, light-hearted mystery. Though the series has been promoted as a Cozy, I would not recommend it as a Cozy. It is not bad, just there are some things in it that do not fit in the Venn diagram of what makes a Cozy.


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Review: The Last Librarian

The Last Librarian by Brandt Legg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am not sure where I picked up this book, just that it was in my  library and it looked interesting.  I was a little hesitant in reading it at first.  It was coming across as a 'save the whales' type of book. That was just the leaning of the author I am sure.  In reality, a book about saving books has to be a little bit about saving the environment.  I get ahead of myself.
Our story takes place in the near future. There has been a natural disaster, a plague, that has killed off a large percentage of the population of earth. In order to survive, the war that naturally follows, a one world government is created.  As that government flourishes so does the population of the earth, and the prosperity as well.  In order for things to continue to flourish, the government puts rules in effect for everything from reproduction to reading.
Everyone also has their own computer devices.  They do everything for them.  Even provides them the books they are going to read.  This makes the needs for libraries a thing of the past.  One small device can hole a library of books.
Eventually all the libraries are closed, except for one. And the Last Librarian is soon going to be out of a job. Or is he, a close friend has discovered that words are being changed in books and comes up with an idea to save the most important books in the library.  It is a race against time and the risk of losing his life but our hero takes it on.
Fun stuff in the book comes in the form of quotes from authors we know. Liberal quotes from Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 are scattered through out the book.  Another thing scattered through out is cussing, but it is safe  cussing. It reminded me of the original Battlestar Galatica.  In order to get cussing past the censors, they made up a few words.  Same here, but I am sure that it was not done to get it past the sensors.  There is one moment of intimacy hinted as well but I had to read the paragraph twice just to make sure I read what I thought I read.  This book is safe for kids, though I am sure many would get a little bored with it.
My only real problem was the ending. In order to make sure the second story would have a place to start we are left with many of the plots in the story left hanging.  If I could have I would have taken off a 1/2 star for that. 
In the end a good book. It is kind of long (or seemed so to me).  I would say that any one looking for a good adventure story would like it. 

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