Death by Coconut by Susie Black

May 25, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Death by Coconut by Susie Black
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Obnoxious Mystique Swimwear sales rep Simon Posnick was universally despised by competitors and customers alike. So the question wasn’t who wanted the lying, cheating scoundrel dead. The question was who didn’t. Mariel Levine, Laurie’s Fashions’ swimsuit buyer and Holly Schlivnik’s career mentor, is wrongly arrested for murdering Posnick by impaling him with the jagged edge of a coconut shell at the base of his skull. The wisecracking, irreverent President of Mermaid Swimwear jumps into action to uncover the real killer. But the treacherous trail holds more dangerous human predators than the alligators and black pythons in the Everglades. Everything turns out differently than amateur sleuth Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a vengeful killer.

He might have been a jerk, but he still didn’t deserve to die.

I was pleased by the character development that has happened since Death By Sample Size introduced Holly Schlivnik to the world. She has matured in all sorts of wonderful ways since I first met her, and her experiences solving the previous mysteries have clearly played a part in her personal growth. This made me want to go back and catch up on the titles in this seriesI haven’t read yet to discover more details about how that all occurred.

While the beginning and ending were fairly fast paced, I did find the middle portion’s pacing to be slower and sometimes uneven in certain places. This lead to my interest in the plot wavering for a while due to the reduced number of events that were leading the protagonist to the truth. If not for that issue, I would have given this a full five-star rating as everything else about it was memorable and entertaining.

The romantic subplot was woven into this tale beautifully. I especially appreciated how Holly balanced the role she played in trying to find the murderer with her attention to her private life. She’s a character I’ve grown attached to and was rooting for as she tried to make time for work, romance, and a lot of sleuthing along the way. My fingers are crossed we’ll get even more details about her personal life in the future.

This is the seventh instalment in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, but it can be read as a standalone work as well.

Death by Coconut kept me guessing until the end.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Montana El Diablo – The Infinite Adventures by Peter Martin

May 21, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Montana El Diablo – The Infinite Adventures by Peter Martin
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Humor, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Horror, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Montana El Diablo, the manliest man to ever man and the greatest Private Detective to ever detect privately, sits at his desk. It’s all very noir and cool.

The phone rings, but at the same time there is a knock on the door.
Which will he answer? It’s up to you. If you answer the phone, turn to page 30. If you answer the door, turn to page 58, but buy the book first.

Montana El Diablo, The Infinite Adventures is a unique user driven narrative experience where you, the reader, will determine the fate of Montana El Diablo. Cults, zombies, an alien invasion all await Montana El Diablo and, more importantly, you. Will you find the Leprechaun or will the Leprechaun find you?

Together you can forge forward and determine the fate of Montana El Diablo. Will you find success or fall into complete ruination in what has been called “a book” and “pretty neat”. That was from some pretty reserved people, so it was a party popping off for them.

Will the party pop off for you? Only one way to find out, that being to purchase the book and read it. With 60+ possible outcomes, 500 insightful footnotes by the author, the adventure is truly infinite*.

*Except for the fact that 60 is a very finite number**

**This is an example of an insightful footnote.

Any move could be Montana’s last one.

Mr. Martin had a wry sense of humor that worked perfectly for, as he put it, a “non-linear user-driven narrative experience.” I especially enjoyed the many off-topic sections he included in which he rambled on about subjects ranging from cat facts to how echolocation works to the etiquette of Korean bath houses. They were an amusing detour from the zombies, cults, and mysterious beautiful women that Montana El Diablo generally concerned himself with.

It would have been helpful to see more character development for the protagonist, especially since this was over three hundred pages long. As much as I laughed along the way and enjoyed the plot it self, I didn’t feel as though I got to know Montana particularly well as a individual. Yes, he loved flirting with pretty women, seemed to be extroverted, and was full of zany antics, but I’d find a bit harder to describe other parts of his personality. For example, what did he like to do during his time off from work? Was he close to his family and friends? What were his biggest hopes and fears? If I knew more about him, I would have happily given this a full five-star rating.

I adored the creativity of this book. It’s difficult to discuss specific plot lines as every reader will have his or her own unique experience with that based on which options they choose as they read, but I thought the author did a great job of exploring many different options that ranged from logical to absurd depending on the scene. Some of my favorite moments were the ones that described the multitude of ways in which Montana El Diablo could die if he made the wrong choice. Given how common that type of ending is in the choose-your-own-adventure writing style, I don’t believe that should count as a spoiler so long as I avoid mentioning the specific circumstances of any of his deaths. All other potential readers need to know is that there were some unexpected twists along the way that made me think a lot of work went into developing them.

Montana El Diablo – The Infinite Adventures was a wild ride that I’d recommend to teens and adults alike.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Heritage Mountain by Karen Black

May 20, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Heritage Mountain by Karen Black
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance, Cozy Mystery, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In a world where the mystical and the actual coexist, adventure, romance, and a touch of mystery unfold. Set in the majestic Adirondack mountains, when Marco Cason leads an expedition to explore the history of the mountain wilderness, he doesn’t know his colleagues are guardians of the fae.

Searching for clues about ancient societies that inhabited the Adirondacks centuries before, the team delves into legends, navigates ancient maps, and learns that folklore about magical clans is based on facts. When a pixie introduces herself to Maria, the expedition takes a different path. The guardians realize the mountain is filled with mystical clans whose homes are under attack. Negligent use of dynamite, illegal mining, and disregard for nature and the environment has destroyed much of their habitat. It has also cost lives.

Faced with the truth about the existence of magical beings, Marco is forced to reevaluate everything he believed. Still, he becomes a central force when he battles beside the fae to save Heritage Mountain as elves, stargazers, and goliaths fill the pages and the explorers unite with the supernatural creatures to save the mountain from invaders whose greed is destroying their territory.

Themes of friendship, conservation, love, and acceptance flourish, as well as a heavy dose of karma.

The mountains are full of possibilities.

Romance and fantasy are often combined into the same plot, so I wasn’t too surprised to see that happen here. While the latter definitely took up more space, the occasional romantic moments scattered here and there provided additional depth to the characters and gave them some tender experiences interspersed among more serious and sometimes even dangerous ones. I think using this form of love sparingly but purposefully was a great decision for this universe.

The slow pacing and repetition made it difficult for my interest level to remain high even though I was quite curious about this book when I requested it. While I did feel as though I had a good understanding of who everyone was in the large cast of characters, introducing so many of them meant that the protagonists needed to repeat their reasons for being on Heritage mountain and, in some cases, their abilities to see or communicate with mystical beings over and over again. Unfortunately, this only slowed down the storyline even more and made it harder for me to remain highly invested in what was happening.

There was plenty of attention paid to the world building which made this a satisfying read in that regard. I wasn’t aware this was part of a series when I began the first chapter, but it worked pretty well as a standalone piece given the explanations of what seemed to be the most important events of past books. It was especially interesting to me to find out what the various types of magical beings thought of each other and how they organized their societies in order to remain hidden in a world filled with nosy and sometimes destructive humans.

Heritage Mountain was filled with wonder.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Dear Missing Friend by Susan McGuirk

May 19, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Dear Missing Friend by Susan McGuirk
Publisher: Sea Crow Press
Genre: Romance, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Three hearts. Countless letters. One impossible choice.

Through letters exchanged across oceans and Manhattan streets, Irish immigrant Catherine McGuirk navigates love, ambition, and heartbreak. Torn between her seafaring husband, the suitor she once refused, and her own dreams, Catherine’s fate unfolds in an intimate, epistolary saga of passion, resilience, and 19th-century life.

Not all choices are equal ones.

Being an immigrant requires courage and the hope that that things will improve. Some of the most memorable passages were the ones that described the prejudice Irish people faced when they came to the United States in the 1800s as well as how Catherine and her loved ones pushed through their struggles to find housing, employment, and a sense of community in cities and towns that were anything but accepting of them. These sections were written tenderly and with so much sympathy for all of the hard times this family experienced as a result of their social class and ethnicity.

I struggled with the slow pacing of this novel, especially in the beginning as the characters were being introduced. Since not everyone’s relationship to the protagonist was explained immediately, this only made those passages trickier to get through. This is something I’m saying as a reader who enjoyed the plot in general and was hoping to choose a much higher rating for it. I simply needed things to unfold a little faster and with a bit more attention paid to how everyone knew each other.

The realistic and bittersweet ending fit the characters and the era they lived in perfectly. While this was a work of fiction, it was loosely inspired by the life of author’s great-aunt. There was a section at the end that shared some of the research Ms. McGuirk did about her family tree in the 1800s and this relative in particular. I love it when historical fiction authors use real life as inspiration for their work, and despite my struggles with the pacing I thought this was a good example of how to use a few historical records to imagine what might have happened generations ago that was never written down. Life was incredibly difficult back then for the vast majority of people, and I liked the fact that this was acknowledged as Catherine lived out her days.

Dear Missing Friend was thoughtful.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , ,

TV Review: This is a Gardening Show

May 18, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Title: This Is a Gardening Show (Season 1)
Director: Brook Linder
Starring: Zach Galifianakis
Producer: Chris Kim
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars (6 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

Follows Zach Galifianakis as he approaches gardening with curiosity and self-effacing humor, blending comedy with appreciation for the planet while providing accessible tools and tips.

The future is filled with plants of all sizes, shapes, and colors.

I loved Zack’s sense of humor in this series. Whether he was asking kids about whether tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable or joking about placing bets about what color certain potatoes would be before they were dug up, he brought so much laughter to topics like climate change and sustainable farming that wouldn’t generally be thought of as funny. Some of the points he made about what our future will look like if we don’t change how we grow our food were quite serious, so it was helpful to have those moments bookmarked by plenty of laughs along the way.

Each episode was about fifteen minutes long which unfortunately didn’t leave much space for exploring their topics in depth. I think twenty-five to thirty minutes would have been a better length, especially when Zach and his guests began talking about the history of agriculture and how certain wild foods have changed over the millennia thanks to selective breeding that are difficult to distill into a few short sentences.

Speaking of the historical segments, they were by far my favorite portions of these episodes. For example, wealthy Victorians thought that tomatoes were poisonous, and their reasoning for that was as logical as it was surprising. I also enjoyed the moments in later episodes that talked about how ancient civilizations like the Egyptians used composting not only to enrich their crops but also to reinforce some of their cultural beliefs as well.

This Is a Gardening Show was educational and amusing.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Movie Review, Television Show Tagged With: , , , , ,

Audit This! by Anne Kane

May 15, 2026 By 1 Comment


Audit This! by Anne Kane
Publisher: Changeling Press
Genre: Erotic Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

No matter how you add the numbers, Nick is one hunk of an auditor!

When government tax auditor Nick finds himself obsessed with the work of romance author Khloe Matters, there’s only one thing to do. Audit her! But getting a closer look at the author in her own home just makes him switch his obsession from the writing to the writer.

When he accompanies her to a writers’ festival, things heat up in a hurry. Neither of them is being entirely honest, and as the weekend progresses so does the hilariously tangled webs of deceit as each of them seeks to further their own agenda.

Anything is possible in a hotel room.

This was an excellent example of how to explore the enemies to lovers trope between two characters who are instantly attracted to each other. Despite the disagreements between them, I genuinely bought the idea that Nick and Khloe could be a great match due to how carefully these scenes were written and how hot the chemistry was between them. Kudos to Ms. Kane for putting so much effort into those early scenes that established why these two had such a mixture of feelings about each other.

I would have liked to see a little more time spent exploring the conflicts between Khloe and Nick. The solutions to them made sense, but I was slightly surprised by how the characters reacted to what could have been bigger issues depending on how one thought about them. Had another scene or two of discussion been included, this would have been a five-star read for me.

A great sense of humor is something I love discovering in the erotic romance genre, and there were plenty of laughs to be found here. Trying to attend a professional work conference while also entertaining a new love interest leaves a lot of room for good-humored conversations along the way, especially when said love interest also happens to be one’s auditor. The playful dialogue was a great addition, and I would have happily read an entire novel’s worth of conversations between these two.

Audit This! was a funny and sexy tale.

Filed Under: Erotic Romance, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

OldTown: Fly, Sparrow, Fly by A. K. Frailey

May 14, 2026 By Leave a Comment


OldTown: Fly, Sparrow, Fly by A. K. Frailey
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Rhona Dewar takes her niece, Syn, into her home after a tragic accident. Together, they discover the healing powers of nature, dedicated kindness, and disarming honesty. Cultural identity, mystery, and humor bring this family drama to life.

On her sixteenth birthday, Syn’s brother, Andy, gave her a secret gift: an ancestry DNA test. As he suspected, the results proved that she was not their father’s daughter and carried not an ounce of Asian blood. Though she had her mother’s Scottish heritage, her father was a mysterious Venezuelan. Was she the child of an unrevealed love affair? Since Syn consistently outperformed him scholastically, Andy uses the discovery to punish Syn, slyly teasing her about her unusual intelligence. In a desperate desire to protect her parents’ marriage, Syn hides her feelings and the test results.

After Rhona and her husband take Syn into their home, suspecting deeper wounds than the ones caused by the accident, they learn the truth about Syn’s parentage. Rhona confronts her sister, Nia, and the forthcoming revelations astound her. Supported by her husband, the revealed talents of townspeople haunted by their own shadowed pasts, and a sense of earthy humor, Rhona navigates turbulent family and community issues. The poem, Fly, Sparrow, Fly, guides Rhona as she helps her niece fly free from the painful misconceptions that have held her bound.

Acknowledging the truth is the first step to becoming free.

Relationships between friends and various family members can be complex at times, and Ms. Frailey did a good job of exploring both the best days these characters shared with each other as well as the worst ones when they struggled to understand each other’s perspectives. There was a nice balance here of wholesome moments and more serious disagreements between certain characters depending on which scene was currently unfolding, and sometimes both happened at almost the same moment!

I struggled with the slow pacing, especially as it pertained to how much time it took for Syn receive the results of her ancestry DNA test and realize that she wasn’t actually biologically relate to her father. While I appreciated the character development that happened along the way, my interest levels did begin to wane as more chapters went by without the main conflict coming into focus. It would have been helpful in my opinion to either have Syn discover this family secret much earlier on or for additional conflicts to be introduced early on to keep the characters busy until the big reveal.

There were some interesting plot twists later on that added extra layers of meaning to earlier scenes. They fit the themes well and made a great deal of sense based on what I’d already learned about the characters. Will other readers see them coming in advance? It’s hard to say, but I liked how naturally they flowed into each other and into the storyline in general.

OldTown Fly, Sparrow, Fly was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Mainstream Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

A Trinity of Chosen – An Age of Avarath by JP Behrens

May 12, 2026 By Leave a Comment


A Trinity of Chosen – An Age of Avarath by JP Behrens
Publisher: Budget Shakespeare Aspirations
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Billy has felt forgotten and invisible since the day his mother passed away. He tries to escape into the fantasy worlds of video games and books.

One day, while at the mall with his step-mother, they get into an argument and Billy runs away. She tries to give chase, but Billy loses her in the crowd. Before she can find him, reality shifts and Billy finds that no one can see or hear him any longer.

However, one blind girl by the name of Miranda can perceive him by his aura. She’s been trapped in the mall, invisible to the world, for over fifty years. Complications force them to flee the mall and enter the world of Avarath.

Together, with the help of Tuac, a carnivorous, affable giant, and Swift, a feral nine-year-old boy, they must confront their destiny as The Chosen of Avarath. While searching for a way home, they will influence a world.

But whether the change they bring will be good or ill, no one can say for sure.

Anything is possible with a little luck and effort.

Focusing on friendship was a great decision for these characters. Given that Billy didn’t know Miranda, Tuac, or Swift when the first chapter began, I was impressed by how close they all became later on. It’s not easy to weave such a thing together, especially when the protagonists are also attempting to survive in a dangerous world where many different types of creatures are actively hunting them down. Kudos to the author for understanding the importance of these relationships and spending so much time developing them.

I had trouble with the pacing of this novel. Some scenes sped by while others felt much slower to me due to the time spent on dialogue and descriptions of the unusual places the characters visited. While I preferred the faster pacing, I could have adjusted to something slower, too, if every chapter had been written that way. More than anything, switching between the two speeds was what interrupted my immersion in the plot and encouraged me to select a lower rating.

With that being said, the world building was strong and creative. Some aspects of it need to be kept out of this review for spoiler reasons, but I can say that I truly enjoyed the early scenes that showed how Billy shifted into this alternate reality while at the mall with his stepmother as well as the later descriptions of how dragon eggs were incubated and hatched. The inclusion of so many little details like these made this world come alive in my imagination and kept me reading despite my struggles with the pacing.

A Trinity of Chosen – An Age of Avarath was filled with adventure.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , ,

Let’s Fast Forward to the Good Stuff by GetChrissy

May 8, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Let’s Fast Forward to the Good Stuff by GetChrissy
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

No more waiting around. It’s time to fast forward to the good stuff!

Ross is the most impatient person you’ll ever meet. You don’t want to keep him waiting in line too long because things will get ugly, fast! He wants to zoom through life, and tired of all the waiting that comes along with it. He wants to speed things up a bit. One day, a weird woman leaves a mysterious package for him that will change his life forever. Ross is in for a magical journey which is powered by his thoughts, but soon things begin to take a bad turn. Ross is in for the craziest ride of his life that you don’t’ want to miss!

Excitement comes in many forms.

Ross was a fascinating main character whose flaws made me want to learn more about him even though I found his quick temper and impatience irritating. He had such a short-sighted view of the world that he was often blindsided by things a more rational and thoughtful person would probably be able to predict in advance at least occasionally. While I don’t know that I’d want to hang out with him in person until he’s matured a bit, he sure did make this tale a memorable one.

There were some plot holes involving the mysterious woman and the package she left for the protagonist that made it hard for me to follow the storyline at times. I had several questions about how her present worked and how she became aware of Ross’ existence that were never satisfactorily answered, especially given that the warning about what would happen if he overused it seemed to be brushed over in later chapters. As much as I enjoyed the playfulness of this story, these issues prevented me from choosing a higher rating.

I enjoyed discovering the wild scenarios Ms. GetChrissy came up with for her characters as they continued to play around with their newfound power and figure out what it could and couldn’t do for them. She had some imaginative and sometimes wonderfully frightening ideas about what this device could do and how someone who was impulsive might push the boundaries of how to use it while attempting to skip over all of the boring parts of his own life.

Let’s Fast Forward to the Good Stuff was creative.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bear Country by Mary Hallberg

May 6, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Bear Country by Mary Hallberg
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Woman versus nature

Casey doesn’t want to go on the camping trip. She’s not a big outdoors person, and would rather stay inside with her paintings — and her air conditioning. But it’s her high school graduation trip, and her mom is making her go.

When one of Casey’s classmates disappears during the night, the teachers and park rangers assume she’s at the library and aren’t concerned. But Casey’s crush, Trevor, isn’t so sure and wants to go looking for her. A handful of others agree to join him — including Casey, despite her disdain for the woods.

But the trek turns deadly when the group encounters the reason their classmate went missing — an enormous, predatory grizzly bear, hellbent on destroying everything in its path. Now Casey and her classmates must find their way back to civilization without becoming bear food.

Never turn your back on nature.

There were some entertaining plot twists along the way as Casey and her classmates attempted to outrun and outwit their pursuer. Readers who are already familiar with this genre may be able to predict some of them ahead of time, but this wasn’t something that relied on the element of surprise in order to shock and frighten its audience. Instead, it was the journey from beginning to end that mattered with the plot twists providing the characters extra opportunities to learn from their most recent attempts at escape and try something different the next time they were attacked. I thought that was a good way to prolong what could have otherwise been a much shorter work.

The explanation for why the bear was so strong and aggressive was what held me back from giving this book a higher rating. While there were a few hints shared about its possible origins, they were not developed enough for its behavior to make sense to me. Knowing this information was critical in order to understand why a bear would suddenly begin attacking so many humans in a busy national park, especially given that none of the attacks were provoked or included usual reasons for an animal to behave this way such as a mother protecting her cubs.

With that being said, I loved the man (and woman) versus nature themes. Most of the characters knew little to nothing about camping, hiking, or coexisting with apex predators in the wild, and they did make a few mistakes early on that more seasoned campers would have avoided. The plot explored both the fear of the unknown and the anxiety some people feel when surrounded by nothing but trees and wildlife. These are themes that aren’t included in the horror genre as much as I’d prefer to see, so I was thrilled to find them here.

I should note that this was a pretty gory read, just as it should have been given the subject matter. Fans of that type of horror, take note!

Bear Country kept me perched on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »