reviews

The Beginning of the Cookie Jar Author: Joanne Fluke Previously, in Raspberry Danish Murder, Hannah receives a terrible revelation about her now missing husband. Leaving readers on tenterhooks, Christmas Cake Murder dances around the crises by taking us way back in time (again). It’s quite a cop-out, especially since the last several books have been more maudlin than mysterious and even hardcore followers are just in it to see the resolution of the left-field soap opera-esque Ross situation (i.e. please, please remove him from the series). Still, the last several back-in-time books from Fluke have evoked some of the old [...]

Language let loose! Author:  Lane Greene Speak proper English.  We’ve all been trained from the very first day in school to pursue this difficult to define goal.  While many of us may think that we’ve probably pretty much mastered it, we’ve all probably struggled at times.  Linguist and author Lane Greene, would argue that the reason we struggle is because “proper” English doesn’t actually exist.  He makes his case in Talk on the Wild Side, a thoroughly entertaining look at language. Taking the long view, often commenting on the English language’s convoluted history over the past thousand years, Greene repeatedly [...]

Nature Cults, Failing Farms, and Criminals Author: Carolyn Keene In Nancy’s previous adventure, The Secret of Shadow Ranch, she threw on some cowboy boots and hit the Wild West in search of an old legend and a ghost horse. Now, it’s time for Nancy to hit the road again, although this time she isn’t going that far afield. Indeed, both a new mystery and a new friend appear right after a strange shopping experience. Before long, Nancy and friends journey to Red Gate Farm, a failing yet charming country residence. Joanne Byrd, the new age appropriate girl-in-need-of-help edition to the [...]