Ashleigh's Bookshelf

Up to No Gouda by Linda Reilly After the death of her husband, Carly has moved back to her small Vermont hometown to pursue her life-long dream: opening a restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese. Despite the fact business is booming, her new landlord decides not to renew her lease. When her best employee becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Carly embarks to prove her friend's innocence, maybe saving her shop in the process. The first chapter of this book is a huge backstory with a lot of information that will be repeated later in the book. However, once I got past that, I found this story fairly enjoyable. I liked the characters and I found myself trying to solve the mystery along with Carly. While I did figure out the whodunit before her, I didn't catch the motive until just before she did. I did have a few issues with the book. There were times when the dialogue felt a little forced and not natural. There was also the scene where Carly share...

Cyn & the Peanut Butter Cup Pru Warren When a nonagenarian steals an FBI agent's gun in the middle of the grocery store, Cyn and Rhys both wonder if their jobs are on the line. Cyn loves being Maddy's caregiver, but the old woman with short-term memory loss is proving to be more of a challenge than she expected. Rhys has wanted to work for the FBI his entire life, but he keeps screwing up. When Maddy's past comes back to haunt her present, Cyn and Rhys must help her, possibly finding some romance along the way. While I found the spiciness of this romance a littler more intense than what I am used to, I really enjoyed this book. The author does a great job with the voice. I loved that Maddy's chapters were in the present tense while Cyn and Rhys were in the past. I only had two minor issues with the book. The first is the abrupt change in the story around chapter fifteen. We go from a leisurely day of volunteering to a different voice in a dif...

Mr. Monk on the Road by Lee Goldberg After finally achieving a relaxed clarity he hasn't known since the death of his wife, Mr. Monk decides it is time for his brother to address his agoraphobia. After putting sleeping pills in his birthday cake, Mr. Monk and his assistant, Natalie, move Ambrose into an RV and set out on a tour of California. Of course, it wouldn't be a vacation if Mr. Monk doesn't assist in a few homicides along the way. But will his brother appreciate his efforts or is it too much for him to handle? Having been raised by someone who owns more Lysol wipes than Mr. Monk, I have always been a fan of the television show and was thrilled to learn about this book series. The first chapter of this book is mostly background information, which I didn't mind too much because it reminded me of all the major characters, since I haven't seen the show in over a decade. (Actually, it made me question whether I even watched the final season...

Babies On Board (Part 2) by Susan Marie Chapman illustrated by Natalia Loseva When Grumpy the Iguana, Green Parrot, Mr. Squirrel and Little Mouse set out for a night at the beach, they never expect to spend the night helping baby sea turtles find their father. Since I have not read the other books in the series, I was not as familiar with the characters as I felt I should have been. I didn't really know much about them or their friendship. However, the story was cute and I enjoyed watching them figure out how to assist their friend with his hatching babies. I did have a little problem with the fonts. I was reading an advanced e-copy, so perhaps this will be fixed in the final publication, but I noticed the author used different font colors to separate the dialogue from the text. While I liked this concept, it was inconsistent. On one page, it looked as if a different font was used in addition to a different color. At one point, one character's d...

Pixie's Gift by Raven Wolfe Four years after the death of her brother, Stephanie is still tortured by nightmares about the water. Meanwhile, Adam is numb from the recent loss of the woman he loved. They don't know each other yet, but a gift from Pixie is just what they need to begin healing. Despite its short length, the story was a slow read. It contained very little dialogue and there were many times I would have rather been shown information instead of having it been told to me. There were also numerous grammatical and proofreading errors and the book overall was formatted as a webnovel instead of an e-book. That said, I enjoyed this story, although I would have liked to have seen a lot more worldbuilding. I didn't really get a much of a sense of where and when this was taking place. For some reason, probably because of the cloaked woman on the cover, I kept wanting to think this was set in the Victorian era, even though there were pl...

Well-Offed in Vermont by Amy Patricia Meade Stella and Nick can't wait to move into their new house in rural Vermont. There's just one problem: a dead guy in their well. Forced to stay in a privative hunting cabin, the newcomers take it upon themselves to solve the mystery so they can finally unpack their moving van. I found the first chapter of this story extremely engaging, especially since it ends with the beginning of the mystery. However, the second chapter then opens by giving background information on two characters that had yet to be introduced to the story. Since a lot of this information is revealed later, I would have much preferred to learn Alma's backstory slowly. I think it would have made her a more interesting character and possibly even a suspect. Instead, because I knew about what happened to her son, I felt about four steps ahead of Stella. Although I found the story enjoyable, there were many aspects that felt as unrealistic as a c...

To Ride a Unicorn Vanessa Westgate A delightful step-by-step guide to catching a wild unicorn. Although I selected this book to read with my young children, I found myself enjoying it as well. The narrator provides exciting, fascinating directions to catching a unicorn in a wild, even including how to ride one. The dialogue felt natural and the story was engaging. My only "complaint", if you can even all it that, is when the unicorn is hiding. My children, even my three-year-old, love to find hidden pictures. In several instances, however, the unicorn was in plain sight. My children would have preferred looking for the unicorn instead. Overall, however, I truly enjoyed this story. I would rate this story four and a half quills and place it on my top shelf.