Kindle Giveaway! hosted by I am a Reader not a Writer

Win a Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash ($229 value)

I just found out about this giveaway and it ends at midnight tonight, so don't wait to enter!

At first I wasn't going to enter but there are some books that are written in only ebook format that I miss out reading.  

Plus, whenever I ask someone reading an ebook I ask how the transition from paper books went.  

Every person said they love it, every person said they don't miss reading paper books.  

The readers are light weight and you can adjust the brightness and size of font!

There are several ways to add entries, posting on your blog will give you an additional entry.

Go for it!

Murder as a Second Language by Joan Hess

A Claire Malloy mystery.  I like the character of Claire Malloy but I'm not fond of the personalities of her daughter or the young man that works at her bookshop.   This was not one of my favorite story lines, but still worth reading.  It kept me involved enough to keep trying to figure out 'who done it'.   I like Joan H's writing and look forward to the next one. 

Claire Malloy—now a married woman of leisure—tries her hand at volunteering, but instead lands her right in the middle of another murder investigation.  Longtime bookseller and single mother, Claire Malloy has recently married her long term beau and moved out of her less than opulent apartment into a sprawling, newly remodeled house.  Her daughter, Caron, is making plans for college. All of which leaves Claire with something she hasn't had in quite a while: spare time. When her attempts to learn French cooking start getting "mixed" reviews, she agrees to help Caron and her best friend Inez in fluffing up their college applications by volunteering as an ESL tutor with the Farberville Literacy Council.  But her modest effort to give back quickly becomes a nightmare when she’s railroaded onto the Board of Directors of the troubled nonprofit. Vandalism, accusations of embezzlement, epic budget problems, and a cacophony of heavily-accented English speakers are just the tip of the iceberg. Just as she decides that it might be best to extricate herself, Claire gets a frantic call from her husband, Deputy Chief Peter Rosen. One of the students, an older Russian woman named Ludmilla, famed for her unpleasantness, has been murdered in the offices of the Farberville Literary Council. For the first time ever, Peter actually asks Claire for her help.

Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie

A Hercule Poirot mystery.   Agatha Christie was a genious.  Every book of hers that I have read were excellent.  I may go back and read them in series order, just for fun.  Each book is an entity to itself, no order is required, I just like to read books in order of when they were written. :)

Synopsis:
One day, Poirot notices 3 mistakes in his letter. When he asks his secretary, Miss Lemon, what's wrong, she tells him about the curious thefts in the boarding-house her sister is manager of and concern for her sister is interfering with Miss Lemon's typing abilities.  Poirot interviews the residents and finds the culprit. After everything is settled and the culprit is about to be engaged, murder strikes.  The police write it off as a suicide.  Poirot  investigates and comes across another murder many more twists and turns.

Storm Warning: The 39 Clues - Book 9 by Linda Sue Park

The whole story line of the 39 Clues is a bit unbelievable since 2 children and an unrelated guardian manage to travel all over the world, with unlimited funds and escaping near death in every adventure.  Yet, for a YA book, I find the characters enjoyable and continue to read the series.

Amy and Dan are going to Jamaica to find the next clue. They find out that their rival, Eisenhower knows where they're going and they start suspecting their closest friend, Nellie is betraying them. When they get on the plane Nellie tells them what she's doing but didn't tell them who she was working for.

On their way Amy and Dan found a bear claw, a serpent medallion, a small silver snake that's a nose ring, a strip of gold, and a dragon fang. These things were used to open a special box and their new friend, Lester got that kind of box for them but he sacrificed himself to prevent it from Amy and Dan's worst enemy, Isabel. Nellie brought Amy and Dan and the box to the person she was working for and that person told them to open the box in less than one hour. They had managed to open it and then the person told them that he was Fiske Cahill. Fiske helped them by telling them seven clues and Amy and Dan started to trust Nellie.

They found out that the next clue is in England and were told to win the clue hunt and bring all of the Cahill family including Dan and Amy's enemy's together. After that, they set off to England.

Borrower of the Night by Elizabeth Peters

This is the first book in the Vicky Bliss Mystery series.
I liked Vicky Bliss from the start and plan to read the rest of the series.
Somehow it is written in a Nancy Drew style mystery but I can't pinpoint why I was reminded of Nancy.
In this first book of the series, we meet art historian Vicky Bliss.  She is as beautiful as she is brainy--with unassailable courage, insatiable curiosity, and an expertise in lost museum treasures that will lead her into the most dangerous of situations.  The story takes us from Cleveland, OH to Germany. 

 A missing masterwork in wood, the last creation of a master carver who died in the violent tumult of the sixteenth century, may be hidden in a medieval German castle in the town of Rothenburg.  Vicky and her friend Tony are both history experts with several degrees, and throughout the book discuss the events of a Peasant rebellion in the time of the early Reformation so we can understand the significance of the historical clues to the disappearance of the last masterpiece of a Reformation artist. The prize has called to Vicky and Tony, and a bet between them take them into the forbidding citadel of Rothenburg and its dark secrets. But the treasure hunt soon turns deadly. Here, where the blood of the long forgotten damned stains ancient stones, Vicky must face two equally perilous possibilities. Either a powerful supernatural evil inhabits this place. . .or someone frighteningly real is willing to kill for what Vicky is determined to find.

The Dead in their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

Flavia DeLuce is growing up.  She's not the brash, showoffy little girl she once was, but a bit more reserved.  Perhaps this is due to finally dealing with her mother being found in a plane crash after she has been missing in action for the last 10 years.
I enjoyed the story and the deLuce family even though they were all extremely subdued.  

Synopsis:
On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train's arrival in the English village of Bishop's Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear.

Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd...

Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces' crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test.

Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself.

Surrounded by family, friends, and a famous pathologist from the Home Office - and making spectacular use of Harriet's beloved Gypsy Moth plane, Blithe Spirit - Flavia will do anything, even take to the skies, to land a killer

Duck the Halls by Donna Andrews

I always enjoy any mystery Meg and her family get involved in.  All the characters are like old friends that one sits back and listens to gossip about them.
The story line is a bit hard to believe that anyone could pull off the fiascos that ensued, but it still a fun story.

Synopsis:
A few nights before Christmas, Meg is awakened when Michael is summoned to the New Life Baptist Church, where someone has rigged a cage full of skunks in the choir loft. The lengthy process of de-skunking the church requires its annual pre-Christmas concert to relocate to Trinity Episcopal, where Mother insists the show must go on, despite the budget-related protests of Mr. Otis, an elderly vestryman. Meanwhile, when Meg helps her grandfather take the skunks to the zoo, they discover that his boa has been stolen—only to turn up later during the concert slithering out from the ribbon-bedecked evergreens.

It’s clear that some serious holiday pranksters are on the loose, and Meg is determined to find them. But before she can, a fire breaks out at Trinity, and Mr. Otis is discovered dead. Could this be a bit of nasty revenge from the now deposed Pruitt family? Or harassment from the Evil Lender? As Meg searches for answers she also races to finish all of her Christmas shopping, wrapping, cooking, caroling, and decorating in time to make the season jolly for Michael and the twins.