Wrap-Up of the 2022 Finishing the Series Reading Challenge

When I signed up for this challenge a year ago, I agreed to read books from between 5 and 8 series.  I ended the year by reading 17 books from 12 series. Most of these series were mysteries.  Here is what I read:

Stacy Green's Nikki Hunt Mystery Series
The Girl in the Ground

Nathan Dylan Goodwin's Morton Farrier forensic genealogical mysteries:
The Spyglass File
The Orange Lilies

P. K. Adams Jageillion Dynasty series
Royal Heir

Leslie Meier's cozy culinary series:

Easter Bonnet Murder
Mother's Day Murder
Father's Day Murder
Star Spangled Murder

Ellen Crosby's wine county cozy mystery series:
Bitter Roots

A. S. Stuart's ____
Evil in Emerald

Cleo Coyle's coffeehouse cozy mysteries:
Honey Roasted

Brad Thor's Scot Harvath spy series
Black Ice
Rising Tiger

Anna Castle's Francis Bacon cozy mysteries:
Lock Up Honesty

James Rollins' Sigma Force Series
Kingdom of Bones

Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series
The Omega Factor

Laura Childs' Indigo Teashop Mysteries
A Dark and Stormy Tea

Favorite Book:  Evil in Emerald

2nd Favorite Book:  Honey Roasted

Least Favorite Book:  Star Spangled Murder

Father's Day Murder

I expected to be returning back to Tinker's Cove, Maine for the fourth time this year for my June selection in the Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge. However, this installment of the Lucy Stone series takes place in Boston. Here we have Lucy traveling to Boston for a newspaper conference the week before Father's Day. As would be expected in a cozy mystery, someone at the conference is murdered. This time it was the newspaperman of the year Luther Read. The suspected cause of death was a new one for the series, an asthma attack. Since I have asthma myself, I knew exactly where the story was going. Other new aspects to the plot were that Lucy did not have any conflicts with law enforcement officers investigating the murder and none of her family members or friends were suspects. It's always good to see a series author keep the writing fresh with changes in the writing formula but it can easily go bad. This was not the case with the Father's Day Murder. My only issue with the book was that Lucy's family life took up too many pages in the novel. They were not pertinent to the plot so why were they there? In the other cozy mysteries that I follow, character development is worked into the plot action. While many of Meier's readers prefer to read about Lucy's family, I am not one of them. 

3 out of 5 stars.

Kingdom of Bones

Kingdom of Bones is the 16th Sigma Force thriller from James Rollins. The story began with a United Nations relief team in a small Congo village making an alarming discovery. An unknown virus is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state while plants and animals have grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. This phenomena is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle, known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones, and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. What made the biosphere run amok; a natural event or did someone engineer it? Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force have kept the world safe for years. However, even these highly trained scientists do not understand what is unfolding in Africa or know how to stop it. In order to head off a global catastrophe, the Sigma Force crew must once again risk their lives to uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent.

I usually love a James Rollins novel. I liked this one but I cannot say I loved it. It was highly technical concerning the biology of viruses which was way over my ability to understand. Also, the plot premise was a little too fantastical. Just because something could be possible doesn't mean that it's probable. The virus that the Sigma Force crew was investigating would mutate in the offspring of infected creatures. The DNA of the new creatures was sufficiently altered to make them more dangerous to humans but also too different from the species that they originated from. One other issue I had was why a military dog was taken along for this jungle adventure. Is it likely that a combat veteran would bring his dog on a hunt for a virus? The book just didn't seem like the traditional Sigma Force story.

3 out of 5 stars.

The Fugitive Colours

Nancy Bilyeau's The Fugitive Colours is the sequel to her 2018 novel The Blue. If you read The Blue you know that the main character is Genevieve Planche. After fleeing England for France, she met and married Thomas Sturbridge. Six years later they are back in Spitalfields for this installment of the series. It is 1764 and since men control the arts, sciences, politics and law, Genevieve is struggling to keep her silk design business afloat. Both Thomas and Genevieve are Huguenots, Protestants from Catholic France, which further makes them suspicious in the eyes of their associates in England. When Genevieve receives a surprise visit from an important artist, she begins to hope that, as a woman, she can be accepted as an artist. However, she soon learns that portrait painters have the world at their feet. Rivalries among them lead to sabotage, blackmail and murder and Genevieve gets caught up in their antics. Because she fears being exposed for her conspiracy and betrayal at the Derby Porcelain Factory several years back. The Blue novel is about that betrayal. 

I LOVED this novel. While it is a sequel, new readers should be able to follow the book easily. I would recommend though, that you read The Blue first, mainly because the characters are so strong and the plot picks up right where The Blue left off.  This sequel is just as strong as The Blue, something that does not always happen with a series. There is alot of history in the story as Genevieve interacts with artists such as Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, and Thomas Gainsborough.

The setting descriptions were expertly written into the story. I could feel that I was living in eighteenth century England. Crime and attitudes toward women in the trades were a consistent theme. The problems of women artists was depicted as well. The author also gives us insight into how well courtesans worked together to both seduce and rob their clients. I found it amusing that prostitutes could have that much power. For artists though, competition was high and most of them were overworked and miserable.

All of the characters were memorable, from Genevieve to the famous artists and the secondary characters.  I cannot help but love Genevieve.  She is a headstrong woman intent on getting recognition in her profession. This is something that I can easily relate to as I came of age during the 1970s when women were just beginning to enter the workforce. Her husband is a high moralist but falters easily as most of these kinds of people do. He does not work in Spitalfields or London as he teaches one of the sons of the Earl of Sandwich and is not part of much of the action. His presence in Genevieve's life controls how she behaves though.  Genevieve employs two artists to help her create silk embroidery designs. Caroline is known to have a dark past but we don't really know what that is about until the end of the book. Jean loves politics and supports Genevieve 100% in everything she wants to do. He is quite likable, much more than Caroline.

As far as what the fugitive colors are, I cannot say without giving out too many spoilers. This novel is definitely a must read. 5 out of 5 stars!

Honey Roasted

Honey Roasted is the 19th coffeehouse mystery by Cleo Coyle, the pen name of husband and wife writing duo Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini. This series is my favorite cozy mystery series and I waited over a year for this installment of the series. I was not disappointed. Honey Roasted was a fun, relaxing read. 

The story opens with Village Blend coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi creating a new coffee drink for her upcoming wedding reception. The drink is made from honey processed coffee. The honey for the new Honey Cinnamon Latte was sourced by Village Blend owner Madame's old friend Bea Hastings. Bea has cultivated a rare, prize winning nectar from her rooftop bee hives. One night after the shop was closed for business, Clare finds a swarm of bees in the Blend's chimney and basement. She believes that the bees may have come from Bea's rooftop greenhouse and walks over to Bea's home for a conversation about them. However, Clare finds Bea unconscious on her balcony. The police determine that Bea attempted suicide but Clare disputes this idea knowing that Bea would never abandon her hives. She sets out to investigate what happened to Bea and discovers the world of competitive urban beekeepers. 

I enjoyed this novel. I read it in one sitting but had a few adverse thoughts about the story. Clare is depicted for the first time in the series as an anxious woman who can not make any decisions on her own. This is not in keeping with her character. Also, her relationship with Mike Quinn is portrayed differently. For the first time, they have problems. While this can be attributed to their approaching matrimony something felt wrong about how much stress they were under. They were not communicating at all. What has always made their relationship solid was their ability to talk with each other about anything. To suddenly start avoiding each other was unusual. Another different aspect to the story was that there was no murder, only an attempted murder. I thought alot about these differences from earlier books in the series and began to see that the authors needed to make changes in their series to keep it fresh. It was all entertaining anyway so were these changes damaging? I don't think so. When there is always a murder in the same place the reader can become bored. 

While this book is advertised as a being able to be read as a standalone, I think it would be best if new readers start with another book in the series. The story presupposes knowledge about the Blend and the characters.  Highly recommended. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Orange Lilies

The Orange Lilies is the 4th Morton Farrier, Forensic Genealogist story. In this installment of the series Morton's own family history comes alive when he visits his Aunt Margaret. Before the death of Morton's father earlier in the year, Morton was told that he was adopted and that his birth mother was actually Aunt Margaret. Morton brings girlfriend Juliette along for the visit. Being afraid to ask Margaret the important questions, he is glad when Margaret opens up to him freely. She explains that she was raped when she was sixteen-years-old and sent to visit her grandmother in another part of England until she gave birth. The Farrier family insisted that she let her older brother and his wife adopt the baby. They were married, owned a home and had a good income. Margaret does as she is told and returns to her home after she recovers from the birth. However, before she leaves, her grandmother tells Margaret about her own grandparents. This information is also discussed between Margaret and Morton during his visit with her.  The family history is that Morton's great-grandfather, Charles Ernest Farrier, died in a trench in WWI. Morton finds, though, that there is something off about the story of Morton's conception as well as his great-grandparents' lives.

The Orange Lilies is a fascinating story with many twists. As Morton researches his family, he takes the reader through his online research. Morton shares the genealogy clues (the twists)  with his aunt as together they look at old family photos and documents. Morton also talks every day with her about how his digital research is progressing. As Aunt Margaret learns the ins and outs of genealogy research, the reader likewise learns how to conduct research. There are also several surprises along the way that keep the reader wanting to read.

The story has three alternating plots: 1914, 1974 and 2014.  The 1914 plot concerns Charles Ernest Farrier, the 1974 plot concerns Margaret and her grandmother during Margaret's pregnancy and the 2014 plot is about Margaret and Morton. All three plots are fully developed and fascinating in their own right. I would not be able to pick a favorite one. They were all entertaining. I love this series. I am an amateur genealogist and enjoy reading about Morton going to this office and that office in order to find information. We see the tedium that genealogy research can be but also the excitement when a fact or person is found.

If there are any mystery fans out there who have not yet read this series, I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars.

Trust

Trust is Sharon Mitchell's 2nd book in her When Bad Things Happen series of psychological thrillers. Her first book Gone was fantastic. Novels 3, 4, 5 and 6 have already been published.  Selfish was published in May 2021, Instinct was published in October 2021, Reasons Why was also published in October 2021 and Mine was published on January 7, 2022. The author is currently writing the 7th novel in the series. 12 books are planned for the series and it looks like they are all going to be fantastic.

The publisher's summary:

Elizabeth thought that after all they'd been through, the bad parts were over. Guess not. After saving herself and her little boy from abductors, Elizabeth yearns to put the terror behind them, to cocoon with her sone, safe and secure at home. Court hearings confirm that they suffered the worst betrayal possible. She never dreamed that she'd have to battle the law to protect her medically fragile boy when his life and sanity are on the line. When her son is targeted and taken, Elizabeth will do anything to save him. 

 

I absolutely LOVED this book. It continues the story of Elizabeth Whitmore and her four year old son Timothy from Gone. In this installment of the series Elizabeth is awaiting the trial of her ex-husband who tried to kill her. She keeps her son within her eyesight at all times and does not let him socialize with other children. Elizabeth does not trust anyone near him not does she trust her neighbors who try to be friendly. Timothy is not speaking since the attempted murder but he did have a late onset speaking ability from birth as well as a seizure disorder. However, whatever gains he made in speech he lost. We see inside Elizabeth's mind as she grapples with day to day decisions on who to trust. Elizabeth does eventually trust someone but it turns out horribly bad.

The novel was full of emotion but had plenty of suspense. With Elizabeth's emotions highly charged the reader cannot figure out what she is going to do and this is what creates the suspense. I don't think that she even knew herself how she was going to handle each new day. As I was reading, I thought that the villain might be Elizabeth's tormented mind.  However, Timothy's court ordered psychologist becomes the villain toward the end of the story. I was surprised at the psychologist's actions and did not see her machinations coming. It was a great ending.

5 out of 5 stars.

Royal Heir

Royal Heir is the 3rd installment of the Jagiellon Dynasty Series by P. K. Adams.  It takes place in Poland and Lithuania beginning in 1563.  The series began as a historical novel about Queen Bona. Bona has already passed away when this story began and it did not seem fulfilling or interesting to me. The plot concerns the son of Bona's best friend. 

The publisher's summary:  

At twenty-eight, Julian Konarski runs the family estate outside of Krakow, and he finds the job boring. Leaving the day to day work to his steward, he spends his free time reading Machiavelli, debating philosophy with friends at the university, or drinking at taverns at night. It is while on his way back from one such revel that Julian witnesses a brutal attack on a young nobleman in a dark alley in Krakow's ill-repute district. When the attackers flee, Julian rushes to aid the victim, but the unfortunate man dies in his arms. But before the last breath escapes the nobleman's body, he entrusts Julian with a mysterious message. Filled with sympathy, Julian promises to fulfill the dying man's wish and find its intended recipient.

When the judge presiding over the inquest dismisses the death as a result of a drunken brawl, Julian decides to conduct his own investigation. Aided by his cousin Rozalia and an impoverished noblewoman Magda, he soon discovers a connection between the murdered man and the household of Princess Anna, heir presumptive to King Zygmunt August. The search for justice becomes a desperate race to stop the throne from being usurped - but by whom? And will Julian avoid the deadly trap his elusive opponent is determined to set for him? 

I am sad to say that I did not like this installment of the series. It was dull. If you have not read the earlier books in the series, you will have no idea who the characters are. The main character, Julian, is not specifically named until page 57. Every paragraph begins with the word "I" and even though I had read the prior books I was not sure who "I" was. I kind of thought that he was the son of Queen Bona's female assistant but after a year passed from the time the last book came out, I was not sure. The author wrote alot of inner dialogue.  Each page we hear about Julian's thoughts, what he wanted to do on a given day, what he wanted to eat, etc... Even the crime to be solved was not known until around page 83 and I could not tell if this murder was the one that the plot would concern. All our information about it comes from Julian's thoughts.  

The series started out well with books one and two.  If there are subsequent books in the series I hope that the author will go back to the writing formula that has worked for her in the past. This is her fifth novel but only the first bump. I can't see that any action in this story will advance the series for future novels so let's hope she gets her groove back.

The Girl in the Ground

The Girl in the Ground is the 4th Nikki Hunt Mystery and I couldn't read it fast enough.  It is an edge of your seat crime thriller that captured my full attention in the first pages. Nikki is an FBI special agent working in her home town of Stillwater, Minnesota. The story opens with construction workers unearthing the skeleton of a girl in Stillwater. Nikki's boyfriend Rory Todd is working at the site and calls her when the bones are found. While Nikki knows instantly that the girl was murdered, she is shocked when Rory tells her that he knows who the girl is. The dead girl is his childhood girlfriend Becky, and he was the last person to see her alive before she went missing twenty four years earlier.  Rory, of course, becomes a suspect and Nikki is told to step away from the investigation. Soon it becomes clear that Becky was pregnant and that Rory was the father of her baby. However, Nikki still believes that he is innocent and investigates that case anyway. When Nikki finds a potential link to two pregnant girls who were found murdered years before, she believes that she may solved the mystery of all of the murdered girls.

The character Rory seemed somewhat different from his appearance in earlier novels in the series. He is incredibly untrusting of the police despite that fact that his girlfriend is one of them. While it is normal to fear law enforcement when you are a suspect in a murder, he even began lying to Nikki over mundane matters. I think if I was a suspect, I would take some comfort from knowing that my girlfriend could help me. Rory acts differently.  

 

The mystery concerning the pregnant girls being murdered was well thought out. The main missing woman is a surrogate for a wealthy couple who are unable to have kids. When she disappears they think that something sinister must have happened to her because she was not the type of person who would just disappear. Nikki is a close friend of the couple and decides to help them out and look for the girl. Her main investigation, though, is to figure out how Becky died and why. Nikki believes that the missing surrogate is connected to all of the other missing girls as all of them were pregnant. She has alot of cases to look into in order to solve the crimes.  

This latest installment of the series was a fun read. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Spyglass File

The Spyglass File is book 5 in Nathan Dylan Goodwin's Morton Farrier Genealogical Mystery Series. I have read several books in the series and, to date, all have been awesome. This book counts as a selection for the 2022 What's In A Name Reading Challenge in the compound word category as well as The Cloak and Dagger and Finishing the Series Challenges.

When the story begins, Morton Farrier is no longer at the top of his game.  His career as a forensic genealogist is faltering and he does not want to accept any new cases. Morton prefers to spend time working toward locating his biological father.  However, when an intriguing case appears, Morton is compelled to help a woman find the relatives that she lost during the Battle of Britain in WWII. He soon discovers that the answer can only be found in a secret document called the Spyglass File. 

As always, I enjoyed reading about the methods Morton uses in his geneological research. Every step he takes forces him to look in different places for information. This is how we get the twists and turns of the story. The mystery element is provided by Morton going from up to down and vice versa in his research. 

The Battle of Britain has been well researched by the author. It was fascinating to read about this particular battle. I don't believe I have ever read any WWII historical fiction novels that focused on just one battle. All the others cover the entire period of the war. It was a treat to learn all of the details about it. What made it even more interesting was that one of the characters in the book worked for a spy agency. 

The Spyglass File is an extraordinary tale. I highly recommend it and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

2022 Finishing the Series Reading Challenge

It’s back for another year!!  This challenge is focused on finally finishing those series that you’ve started but not yet completed.  It was previously hosted by Bea’s Book Nook, but Celebrity Readers has been hosting it since 2018.  I am proudly rejoining this challenge in 2022 at the B List Series Finisher Level which requires that I read books from 5 to 8 series.  Some of the series that I read that I expect to see new books published for in 2022 include the Somershill Manor medieval mystery series by S. D. Sykes, the wine country cozy mystery series by Ellen Crosby, Anna Castle's Francis Bacon Mysteries, Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry series, Alison Stuart's Harriet Gordon historical mystery series and Cleo Coyle's coffeehouse mystery series.  Alka Joshi's Jaipur trilogy will conclude next year too.  In addition, I need to work on completing Nathan Dylan Goodwin's Morton Farrier Geneological Mystery series which is set in England, Susan Finley's Tangled Roots historical geneology series, and Janet Macleod Trotter's India Tea series. 

guidelines:

• The challenge will run from January 1st, 2022 to December 31st, 2022.  Books must be read during this time frame to count.  Sign up is open from now until December 1st, 2022, so you may join even just for the last month of the year.
• Series can be already completed as well as still ongoing.  For ongoing series, the goal is to catch up to the most recent book published by the end of 2022.
• We don’t care if you have only 1 book or 10 books to read in order to finish your series, as long as you’ve started the series before 2022 (ie read at least one book in the series), it counts.  Re-reads are not required.
• Any format and length of book counts – print, ebook, audio, ARC, etc.
• Series can be any length (even if it’s just a Duet).
• Crossovers from other challenges are totally acceptable!
• Reviews are not required, but highly encouraged.

new this year:

A side Finishing the Anthology challenge has been added to the challenge this year!  For this side challenge, you must have read at least one story in the anthology prior to 2022, and then obviously finish it this year (I don’t care if you DNF a story, as long as you give them all a try).  There are a few “read an anthology in a year” type challenges, but what the host was really looking for, and thus far hadn’t found, was one where you’d already started the anthology and just want to get it off your TBR once and for all.

how to play:

• Declare your intentions to participate in this challenge somewhere on the internet!!  You do not need to be a blogger to participate, there are many ways to declare.  You could write a blog post, create a reading challenge page, create a Goodreads shelf containing series you hope to finish, post about it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
• Some things you could include (but that aren’t required):
  • A link to the challenge page so that others may find us and join the fun as well (feel free to download the button at the top to use in your posts).
  • A list of series you hope to read for this challenge.  You could even get fancy and list the length of the series, or the books you’ve already read, etc.
  • The level you are aiming for.
• This year only one link up will be posted for the whole year.  This is where you can add links to your reviews or any wrap-up/overview posts you wish to share.
• Go forth and READ!!  And have fun!!
• Use the hashtag #FinishingTheSeries2022 on any social media to keep up with other participants!

the levels:

Participants are offerred 3 different “Celebrity” levels of achievement for this reading challenge:

C-LIST SERIES FINISHER ⇒ COMPLETE 1-4 SERIES.

B-LIST SERIES FINISHER ⇒ COMPLETE 5-8 SERIES.

A-LIST SERIES FINISHER ⇒ COMPLETE 9+ SERIES.