Ornamental Danger

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Ornamental Danger: a holiday short story by Kerri Nelson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This short holiday mystery has Mandy Murrin serving as the town's Glitter Queen, where they have to dress up embarrassingly (it was saddled on her by a petty frenemy) and pick the best holiday decorations that the small town neighbors put out. They take it very seriously and it goes even more serious when the elderly lady who has won the last several years (and also has the best eggnog recipe) dies with the shattered remains of the trophy around her.

Mandy has to determine did the former winner merely die of old age or did someone clock her with the trophy to remove an obstacle to their winning this year's glitter prize? It was an entertaining story, a bit lightweight and not entirely memorable but fun.



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Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 22

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Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 22 by Adachitoka

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have no idea why I set aside this series (and Blue Exorcist at the same volume number, at the same time). I was annoyed a bit with Yukine when I looked back at my last review and now I'm annoyed with myself for waiting over a year to read this. This is the most heartbreaking of chapters. Yukine gives in to himself and the Crafter is right there to take advantage.

I have to agree with the Stray: Yukine is a selfish baby about it, not able to handle having another member of the family as Yato works with Kazuma. The Crafter uses Yukine's desire to be the one and only against him. He promises him the one thing no shinki should know: how they died and their life before.

Adachitoka has teased this past for the entire series. It's obvious Yukine was killed either by a parent (or a pedophile) and now we see the truth of it. We can leave it as everyone is hurting, including the stray.

The art is beautiful and now I need to not let a year go by before reading the next one.



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Public Anchovy #1

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Public Anchovy #1 by Mindy Quigley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Delilah O’Leary has a new pizza making challenge. She and her team have been hired as caterers for a library fundriser at one of the Genava Bay mansions, dealing with the wealthy elite. She thinks her biggest challenges will be Detective Capone's mother being the performer but she gets there and she's asked to make a 'free-from' pizza for someone who can't have gluten, diary or nightshade plants (and instead of being reasonable and having a salad). Delilah gets there and an odd man, the former head of the friends of the library, gives her a message for their hostess wrapped up in cryptic nonsense pulled out of the Maltese Falcon about seeing the lies they're telling and he includes Leona Capone in that. Even worse, Calvin Capone is playing piano for his mother and is there when the man falls down the steps to his death.

A storm traps everyone in the mansion so you have the stranded in a house by a storm with a murderer trope (and everything happening in 24 hours trope for those looking for such books for reading challenges) Somehow Butterball, Delilah's enormous cat, has smuggled himself into the catering stuff and is loose in the house and is potentially the reason the victim falls and I'll be honest this felt so contrived. I could have done without the cat this book, just saying.

The cast of characters were interesting though a bit on the predictable side as far as the murderer was concerned. Still I enjoyed the mystery and the setting. What I enjoyed less was Delilah's non-stop inner monologue about her and Capone. Yes, I'll grant you him not calling her back after last time would be upsetting. On the other hand, after the fourth time she thinks about how much he's missing out on not dating her, it got pretty old. I'll be glad when that part of the series is over and done with (and while Capone's reasoning made sense when his kid was young, it makes less sense now that he's a grown man with a kid of his own) I am looking forward to what comes next and thank you to the publisher for providing me with an arc.



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Daemons of the Shadow Realm Vol 02

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Daemons of the Shadow Realm 02 by Hiromu Arakawa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was much better paced that the opening volume. Yuru has tracked down his sister Asa and her clan while leaving behind his guardians. His daemons Left and Right are with him. Asa creeped me out with her enthusiasm upon meeting him and it seemed to do the same for Yuru.

Naturally enemies attack and that's mostly what this volume is about, them fighting each other first (and Yuru is a hard core bad ass) and then with each other against the common enemy. There is a lot more to learn about this world and I do like Yuru so I'm looking forward to more though I'm still on the fence about this one. I'm hanging in there because it's Arakawa's.



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