Dear Readers, March was a great month for reading.  I completed my goal of 7 books this month. I read 2 horror, 3 mysteries and 1 science fiction. I read 3 new release thanks to Netgalley. I read 2 books from a series. One was Sacred, the third Kenzie and Gennaro book. The other was Fletch, the first book in the Fletch book series. I read two 5 star books, one 4 star books, three 3 star books and one 2 star book.

Five Star Reviews:

Table for Two by Amor Towles comprises 6 short stories and one novella. This collection is fantastic. There are way more hits than misses in the collection. Amor Towles is my favorite writer of literature today. His writing has this timeless quality that draws you in. The short stories reminded me of Charles Dickens and O. Henry. Where each story has a moral at the end. Towles is great at adding little twists in his stories. They do not shock you but squeeze my heart. These twists make the story more personal. The novella is a noir set in the golden age of Hollywood. The writing channels James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard. It begins with a theft that goes wrong. The story includes quirky characters from 1930s Hollywood. The novella acted as a continuing story for Amor Towles’s first novel Rules of Civility. The pace of the stories works well for the most part only 2 out of the 7 I thought could be shorter. The 6 short stories make up the first half of the book and the novella takes up the back half. Table for Two was published on April 2, 2024.

Fletch by Gregory McDonald is a swinging 70s mystery. When most people think of Fletch they think of the Chevy Chase movie based on the book. While the film sticks pretty close to the book in terms of plot, the character of Fletch is different. In the book the character of Fletch is extremely smart, a former war hero, charming, and kind of an asshole. The movie version of Fletch nailed the charm and him being an asshole, but it missed his intelligence. Fletch is an investigative journalist, which already makes this novel stand out. No rules hold him back, he will do anything to get the story. When we first met Fletch, he was deep undercover. He posed as a drug addicted beach bum. He was doing a story on drugs at the beach. His cover is excellent. A wealthy man approaches him with a proposal. This man, thinking Fletch has little means, wants him to kill him for insurance money. The book has two mysteries. First, find out who is selling drugs at the beach. Second, discover what is the deal with the rich man who wants Fletch to kill him. The pace of this novel should be studied. The plot moves very fast. The mystery starts very quickly. The ending is very satisfying as it merges the two mysteries flawlessly. Fletch was published on March 12, 1974.

Four Star Reviews:

Sacred by Dennis Lehane is a dark mystery involving a cult and a dark family secret. Sacred is the third book in the Kenzie and Gennaro series. This book is a wild ride, that went to places I did not suspect. The book starts with a bang as Kenzie and Gennaro are kidnapped within the first chapter. They get an offer they can’t refuse, it’s more money than they have made before but way more dangerous. The pace of Sacred is great once the story gets going it does not stop. The twists and turns are throughout the book. The story is about two missing people one is a missing girl a dying father wants back before he dies. The second person missing was the first detective on the case and Patrick Kenzie’s mentor. This case is personal. The ending was the best in the series so far. The ending is very brutal and satisfying for the audience. Sacred has one heck of a chase scene that kept my heart rate racing. It involves multiple cars, guns, and a rainy night. The bad guys are well written and they all get what they deserve in the end. Sacred by Dennis Lehane was published on July 23, 1997.

Three Star Reviews:

When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi is a book about what would happen if the moon suddenly turned to cheese. Is it horrific? or is it hilarious? The book doesn’t know and keeps asking questions of its characters. The book doesn’t have an answer to the most critical question. Why did the moon turn into cheese? There’s never even a guess. It just happens and the world has to deal with it. The story reminded me of the film Don’t Look Up which is a very bleak comedy. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a bleak comedy. This tone did not work for me. The book has some funny things but the tone is all wrong. The book has no main characters and very few returning characters. The story is comprised of vignettes about how people react to the cheese moon. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for giving me a copy for review. When the Moon Hits Your Eye was published on March 25, 2025.

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager is a twist-filled thriller. Middle of the Night begins with a scene at midnight. A ten-year-old boy wakes up and finds a slit in his tent. His best friend is missing. The best friend was never found. The boy now a man returns to the house 30 years later to sell it for his parents. The man is still haunted by the instance. He always wakes in the middle of the night. He starts seeing strange events and feels the presence of his best friend. He slowly begins to remember what he blocked. Sager writes a compelling mystery that hooked me from the start. After the initial hook, the story slows down a lot. The book has a lot of exposition to get through and familiarize the reader with the neighbors. I think it was effective but at the same time boring. The story is told in a unique manner. One perspective is from the present day. There are also eight perspectives from the flashbacks of the day before the incident. The reader keeps getting teased about this incident that was done to the missing boy who fell flat for me. The ending pulled everything together and I enjoyed liking it, but not loving it. There were a lot of twists and turns some were clever and some I saw a mile away. The best twist is a personal one to a character that I gasped at. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager was published on June 18, 2024.

White Line Fever by K.C. Jones is about a girls’ trip gone bad when they take a shortcut on a haunted roadway nicknamed The Devil’s Highway. The novel starts with a bang showing an amateur ghost hunter taking a ride on the highway. It doesn’t go well and we the audience get to see how the haunting works. I have read many horror stories about haunted places and objects but never read a story about a haunted highway. The unique setting of a highway is used pretty well. The horror of the story lingers in your mind as you drive. The haunted highway transforms it into a nightmare. The narrative follows two characters. Dave is the highway’s first victim. Livia has just split from her husband and needs a girls’ trip. Livia is the main character. She also has flashbacks about her time in a junkyard. The flashbacks show how all the girls on the road trip became friends. The story has two villains Livia’s overbearing father and the entity that haunts the highway. The pace of the story is a little slow after the awesome introduction scene. The group of girls starts realizing what is happening. They begin understanding how to stop it. The book gets very good at the 65% mark. The book’s action does not stop until the satisfying ending. I was asked by the publisher to read White Line Fever after I reviewed K.C. Jones debut Black Tide. Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for allowing me to read White Line Fever. White Line Fever was published on March 18, 2025.

Two Star Reviews:

Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel is a nightmare about nightmares. I did not like this book, and sometimes I hide that fact to the end. But Listen to Your Sister never gelled with me. The back half of the book was way better than the first half. The premise of the book was very solid and a great idea. The premise is about an older sister who is 24. She is raising her younger brother who is 16. She has helped and given up a lot for her other brother who is 23. So she has sacrificed a lot. Every time she sacrifices, a demon is born that rests in her head. However, something happens in this book that releases them all. It has a great premise it was one of the reasons I picked the book. I ended up hating most of the characters, Jamie and Dre feel like caricatures rather than characters. At the midway point is when they start to get developed but it is way too long. Most of the book is a nightmare come to life. Dream logic is a very hard thing to get right and make sense. This book has no rules whatsoever. I almost feel like the author has ADHD because there were so many tangents. I wanted to like this book but did not connect. I received Listen to Your Sister from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin. Listen to Your Sister was published on February 4, 2025.