Ashleigh's Bookshelf

The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Kirsten Weiss When Maddie gave up her international career to return to her California hometown, she didn't realize she would still be job-hunting nine months later. A temporary job as curator of the Paranormal Museum wasn't exactly what she had in mind. But, when a dead body is found before her first day and her best friend is arrested, Maddie knows she needs to help figure out what happened to clear her friend's name. The more cozy mysteries I read, the more obsessed I become with when the murder takes place. In this book, the murder is at the end of the first chapter and, given the description, I was pretty sure it was a character that the reader had yet to meet. However, because this character had at least been mentioned in the first chapter, I was pretty sure I knew who the victim was. (I was right!) The book started a little slow. There was a lot of background information in the first chapter, but by t...

Crisis at Comicon Irene Vartanoff As a female artist in the male-dominated world of comics, Chloe is looking forward to Comicon. However, when the evil Mistress Miraculous threatens to ruin the event, Chloe must use her secret superpowers to save the convention. This book starts very strong. The prologue was extremely engaging and I liked the time skip from the prologue to the first chapter. Roland would hate me saying this, but I could almost picture the movie with the voiceover explaining what happened in the prologue and then saying "Let's back up a few days so I can explain how we got here." The prologue flows fairly nicely into the first chapter, although there is a little too much information given and too much narrative. Instead of telling me what happened months earlier, I would have preferred to have another flash back to see it happening. By the end of the first chapter, I was interested in the story and wanted to see what would happen...

Arrowed Avery Daniels When Julienne arrives at the Enchantment Canyon Resort, she expects to spend her days training the staff and her nights with her boyfriend. But, someone has other ideas. First, a high-powered executive is executed with an old-fashioned arrowed, literally grabbing Julienne to utter his final words: "The curse got me." Now, the new owner wants her to focus her attention on finding the killer and saving the resort's reputation. As if that wasn't enough, her boyfriend's ex checks in, determined to rekindle their lost romance. Will Julienne be able to solve the mystery before it's too late? Although this is the fourth book in the Resort to Murder series, this is my first time reading this series. After a brief scene to provide the setting for this book, there is a lot of background information in the first chapter, some of which was repeated, either within the chapter or in later chapters. Having not read the previou...

Second Chance Option by Elizabeth Spaur Tess graduated from college when she was thirteen and has always found herself helping others more than she cares for herself. When her little brothers sign her up for America Ninja Warrior, she realizes it is time to put herself first for once. Enter Cade. A third generation navy man, Cade never thought he would ever settle somewhere permanent. But, when his college football coach asks him to help rebuild the team, he finds he cannot say no. When he learns about Tess's competition, he can't help himself from volunteering to train her. He never expected to fall for her. I enjoyed this story, but parts were very confusing. Although this is the first book in a series, there were many times where I felt I was dropped into the middle of the story without knowing what happened in the beginning. Both of the main characters, as well as many of the minor ones and an entire football program, suffered some very traumatic...