September Books: 2000s Fiction

 I must admit that I am not really feeling the love with more current fiction at the moment. Still, here are the recent works of fiction I red last month.

My Name is Monster by Katie Hale (audiobook read by Christine Hewitt)

The book begins when a woman, who has always been called Monster, washes up on the shore of Scotland. She was in the seed vault in Svalbard when the final episode of ‘the war’ occurred. This had been going on for some time—sometimes the bombs dropped were nuclear and sometimes they dispersed ‘the sickness’ when detonated. Society had already deteriorated, with people having to try to get into safe camps and stay away from each other, but the final flurry of bombs wiped everyone else out, Monster assumes. She gets on a boat and heads towards Scotland, where she grew up, knowing her parents are dead, but wanting to see her old home. She goes into homes along the way to get food and othet necessities for herself. Eventually, she comes across a farmhouse and decides to settle there. It is near enough to a city where she can go and get supplies. In one trip to the city, she finds a feral girl in a small shop. She takes her home and gives her the name Monster, taking Mother for herself. 

This book started out really well. I was hooked from the start. The reader is really good. But as the book progressed, it got tedious, particularly in the second part, when the narrative shifted to the girl’s point of view. The ending was too saccharine for my taste. In the end, it was a disappointment, in spite of the writing, which was good and the reader, who really added to the story.

The Candy Cane Caper by Josi S. Kilpack (audiobook read by Pam Ward)

Every September, I click over to the e-book/e-audiobook section of the library website to see what new Christmas titles they have. I don’t like to read such books after the season is over and if I wait too long, the queue grows and I won’t be able to borrow them until the new year. This title was new to the library and available, so I borrowed it. It’s part of the ‘cozy culinary mystery series.’ I am unfamiliar with the series, but it seemed like it would be a pleasant thing to listen to, if the reader was good. She is quite good. The book, not as much. It was OK, but I don’t see myself seeking out any other books in this series.

The detective is Sadie Cunningham, who used to be a private investigator, but now apparently just stumbles into various crimes. She writes detective stories with a culinary theme, although that was really just mentioned in passing a few times and didn’t factor into the story, other than a focus on her enjoyment of cooking and baking. Sadie’s good friend and former neighbour, Mary, is in her 90s and living in a sort of care home/hospice situation. She can barely see or cannot see at all due to macular  degeneration (at one point the reader is told that she can see a little in her peripheral vision if she moves her head a certain way, but in the course of the story, people move around her room as if she was completely blind). Sadie wants to help Mary have one last special Christmas so she brings Mary’s ornaments from a storage unit and decorates the tree a granddaughter has brought for her room. Sadie discovers that these ornaments are very valuable antiques and when some of them are stolen from the tree, she is determined to find them and return them before Mary knows anything about it. 

The story was predictable and it was clear who took the ornaments well before the end. Other aspects of the story were also predictable. It was also a bit preachy at times, particularly when Sadie was in ‘conversation’ with certain people—it was like she was wagging her finger at them and lecturing them about how naughty they were. 

Murder on Birchardsville Hill by Ruth Buchanan

This was an e-book I found at the library website when I did a search of the Christmas books. Had it not been quite short, I would not have finished it, since I was pretty sure I knew what was going to happen almost from the start. Because it was short, I decided to read on and see if I was right (I was). It was also very religious, with several attempts to evangelise. Not my thing, so I skimmed over the ‘Jesus is king’ speeches, which oddly appeared suddenly and out of nowhere near the end of the book. 

The book is told from the point of view of Morgan Scott, who was orphaned as a young child when her parents were killed in a car crash. Her original name was Chen Meifung. She was in and out of foster care until she was 17, when she was adopted by an elderly couple with no other family so they would have someone to inherit their wordly goods. Morgan, who lives in Florida, is currently a historical true crime podcaster, although she used to be a journalist. It was in the latter capacity that she covered the trial of a guy who killed his family, shopped up the bodies, and dumped them in the Everglades for the alligators. She subsequently wrote a book about him. He hates her and continues to threaten her life. She wants to forget about him and a stalker fan, so she asks her assistant, who she has only met digitally, to book her a trip to Birchardsville Pennsylvania, where she will spend Christmas. She goes there, which is in the middle of nowhere, because a fan has sent her a whole packet of information about a crime that took place there in the past. Being from Florida, she is unprepared for the cold, which is much discussed. She meets her fan, the killer escapes, and the assistant posts her location on a social media platform. On Christmas Eve, mayhem ensues. 

This was easily the worst book I read in September.

Too Good to Be True by Ann Cleeves (audiobook read by Kenny Blyth)

I like Ann Cleeves Vera series, but I’ve not read any of her other series featuring Jimmy Perez. This novella is one of the latter and I enjoyed it. I would read more of them. In this book, Jimmy’s ex-wife calls him and asks him to come to the village where she lives to investigate the death of the local schoolteacher. Village gossip was that her current husband, the local doctor, was the culprit.

The Killings at Kingfisher Hill by Sophie Hannah

This is the fourth book in the author’s Hercule Poirot continuation series. For some reon I have yet to figure out, I do not like these as much as I like the original Poirots, but I like them well enough to read them when they come out. This one was somewhat predictable, which is unusual for Hannah.

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