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THE SHROUDED QUEEN - Ashley Tropea

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Amunet Khada is a royal princess of Ashorah. Her life is a preparation to become the queen. Attending her are a number of servants who are generally treated fairly, though harshly if they don't follow protocol. The servants know their place and they know that they are all expendable. When the Kaldfolk attack the palace and the king is killed, Amunet, now queen is whisked away by trusted guards, under the guise of being a servant, while her servant, Samira, is made to be a decoy - anticipating that she would be killed as the new queen. Instead, however, she is captured while the Kaldfolk put her through a series of trials intended to discern her divine powers. Knowing her role is to impersonate the queen so that the true queen can make her escape, Samira continues the deception to the best of her ability, knowing that the rigorous trials could end her life at any moment. With Amunet on the run, trying to reach the god of the underworld before she loses her powers, and Samira trying ...
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A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH - Charles Finch

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Charles Lenox is a Victorian gentleman who enjoys relaxing in his private study with a cup of tea, a nice fire, and a good book. He also fancies himself a bit of a detective and explorer, even if only from the comfort of his favorite chair. When his good friend, Lady Jane, comes seeking his help, Charles is only too happy to oblige. One of Lady Jane's former servants, Prudence Smith, has died by an apparent suicide, but Charles suspects something much more nefarious. He believes that Prudence was murdered by means of a rare but extremely deadly poison. Being as rare as it is, it shouldn't take long to find out who had access to such a potion, thereby narrowing the possible suspects down, but it's definitely not nearly as easy as one would hope. A second murder complicates his investigation because his prime suspect for Prudence's murder is now the second victim. Still, Lenox is confident that the key to solving the crime lies with the poison that caused the beautiful bl...
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THE BLOODY AND THE DAMNED - Becca Coffindaffer

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Val is a young assassin-for-hire who is known, quite ominously, as "The Butcher." She has secret teleportation abilities and hides her identity to protect not only herself but her younger sisters, as well. The world of the privileged, those who live in the sky, is brutal to those who live more earth-bound and constantly fight for control of water. But the problem with having a secret as dark as being The Butcher, is keeping the secret. When someone uncovers Val's other identity and uses her sisters as a blackmail tool, Val has to seek out an old friend - a thief whose heart Val once broke - for help. I had high hopes for this book and the opening third or so were really exciting and a great introduction to the characters and Val's abilities, but the rest of the book really slowed down and became overly complicated in a world that was not being well-defined. Val as The Butcher is a pretty cool, kick-ass character. But I'm not sure we ever get any background on how ...
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THE BROTHERS MCKAY - Craig Johnson

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A wealthy, but unlikable local, Pepper McKay, is found dead in a local fishing stream, murdered by a blow to the back of his head. It might be easier to find someone who didn't want him dead, but among the most likely suspects are the man's four sons, all of whom had a motive for killing their father.  Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire will investigate the homicide, but he'll have to be quick about it because three different wildfires in the area are roaring his way by the unpredictable winds. And just in case he needed to be distracted from the events at hand, Walt also will have to try to understand and work with the former Russian spy, Maxim Sudorov, who voluntarily checks himself into Walt's jail, but treats it like a luxury hotel. Maxim's role is to provide Walt (and the reader) with clues and the comparisons of what's happened with the McKay family, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov . Like the previous book in the Longmire series...
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FEAR THE REAPER - Davide Housewright

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Former St. Paul police detective, Rushmore McKenzie, is on a weekend getaway with his wife and a group of friends, including Bobby Dunston, a current police detective. They are in northern Wisconsin having drinks at a local winery when a man carrying an AR-15 walks onto the winery property and starts to point his weapon at all the people on the patio. McKenzie and Dunston react the way you hope police would - rushing the man and disarming him just as a burst of shots fire harmlessly into the sky. The local sheriff applauds the quick action of the two men, but the local DA and judge remind the men that Wisconsin is an open-carry state and since he hadn't fired his weapon, he had every right to carry it onto the business and they the two men could (and perhaps should) be arrested for assault.  The sheriff, being busy enough with other work and in just a little over her head, asks McKenzie to help do some investigating - why was the man sent there (as determined by a text on his phone...
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THEY'RE PLAYING MY SONG - Bruce Pollock

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One of the main reasons I selected this book was because of the subtitle: Fifty-Two Great Songwriters Discuss Their Craft . I'm generally fascinated by the music world and the ability to write lyrics and compose music. The possibility of getting more insight into how different people make this happen is compelling for me. Author/editor Bruce Pollock has been writing about music and interviewing musicians for publications for more than half a century and this book collects 52 of those interviews (some, as he notes in his introduction, for the first time since their original publication, and some newly updated) going back as early as 1973. I generally liked what was presented here - we definitely do get a glimpse of some true genius at work. And who doesn't enjoy learning how a popular or favorite song was conceived?  Perhaps I'm on my own with this, but while I recognized a majority of the names of the people included here, there definitely were a few people whose name was p...
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THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY - Erik Larson

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 One of the biggest events to take place in the United States in the 19th century, that was not a war, would have to be the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago ( World's Columbian Exposition). Noted non-fiction author Erik Larson takes readers on a deep dive into the machinations behind the event and ties in the workings of one of the world's most noted serial killers after England's notorious Ripper. The background on the fair is truly fascinating. Larson's research really captures the political maneuverings behind such a massive event, how it would benefit the city (and its politicians), and the struggles to actually make it happen. The number of challenges and disasters was rather staggering to me. What I found most interesting was the work behind the Ferris Wheel - something to rival France's Eiffel Tower - and its own successes and failures. (A bit of a side note - I learned from my father that my grandmother had gone to this fair and I couldn't help but wonde...
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