Book Review - The Mummy Case (Voice of the Nile, No. One) by Dawn Stewardson

Book Description
Her voice...
...came from beyond the grave. When her ancient jewel-encrusted burial tomb vanished, a long-dead Egyptian princess spoke, demanding its return.

Her voice...
...was sensuous and held secrets of ages and was heard only by rookie investigator Marina Haine. Marina found the missing sarcophagus, but the mummy inside wasn't the princess--she was a modern, murdered woman.

Her voice...
...was not nearly as unnerving or mysterious as Revington York, Marina's raven-haired prime suspect.

Her voice...
...both warned of danger and sang of love. Marina had every reason to believe Rev would land behind bars--but the princess was planning a very different kind of future....

***

February 7

I read this years ago but didn't realize at the time that it was a duet and had a cliff-hanger ending, so I was left bereft. So being in an Egyptology kick lately, and now having the concluding book, I decided to give it a go while waiting for the third Amelia Peabody mystery to come in at the library (which is coincidentally called The Mummy Case).

While The Mummy Case as a whole is highly improbable, it has a certain charm and was a cute read. Even though it is a Harlequin book, I liked that it dealt less with the romance and more with the mystery, probably because it is part of a duo. I've read Dawn Stewardson books before and have been impressed with how well she can develop the plot and characters in so few pages. I look forward to reading the completion the Voice of the Nile. ;P

3.25 stars

Book Review - Girl in the Mirror by Mary Alice Monroe

Book Description
Charlotte Godowski was used to the horrified stares she received from strangers. She'd learned to accept her facial deformity, until one cruel incident compelled her to have the surgery that changed her life forever.

Charlotte Godfrey is beautiful beyond compare. In Hollywood, where such beauty is power, her rise is meteoric. Suddenly she has everything she could want: acceptance, a future and a love she believes can see to the true beauty within.

Charlotte Godowski and Charlotte Godfrey are two sides of the same women -- a woman who can trust no one with her secret. But when fate forces Charlotte to deal with the truth -- about her past, about the man she loves, about herself -- she discovers that only love has the power to transform a scarred soul.

***

November 19

"Girl in the Mirror" is one of those Jackie Collins-lite books; a mixture of Lifetime movies, soap operas and Jacqueline Susanne. I occasionally have an urge for such type a book and I have to say that this was an entertaining one! The story was rather engaging, the characters were just about as good as they could be for this type of book (I don't mean that disparagingly in any way), and it was an easy, breezy read. Yes, a lot of it is implausible and the surprises really aren't, but it's pure fun and fluff! :)

3.5 stars

Book Review - The Vision by Heather Graham

Book Description
The gift of sight comes at a dangerous price

When Deep Down Salvage begins the hunt for the Josephine Marie, it seems like any other dive . . . until Genevieve Wallace sees the vision of a dead woman in the water, her vacant eyes boring into Genevieve's very soul.

Terrified and confused by what she saw, Genevieve is haunted by the memory, but no one -- including her diving partner Thor Thompson -- believes her. When a dead woman washes up on shore, everyone assumes this is Genevieve's "vision," but Genevieve knows the truth: the dead woman is not the ghost she saw but another victim of the same brutal killer.

Sensing that the threat of death is coming closer, she and Thor are forced to acknowledge that some things can't be explained, but simply are. Somehow they have to link a violent past with a present-day mystery or risk losing themselves in an abyss of terror.

***

May 5

While at the beginning I wasn't too sure I would like Thor - he was too arrogant and jerky - and then I wasn't too sure about Gen - can you say prickly? - I ended up liking them and their story all the same. Actually the plot and mystery is what really kept me reading. I liked that it was harder to figure out whodunnit then the others in this 'series,' but I did have it narrowed down to two suspects and did pick the right one. Although I'm still not sure exactly why they did it, but then again, when you're a serial killer, do you really need a reason?

The only thing that really bothered me was everyone's outlook on Gen. She's a frickin' Mary-Sue when it goes to someone else's point-of-view or if they're talking about her when she's not around, and I really got sick of hearing how sensual she is, how perfect, how tall and slim, how her smile is perfect - gag me. When it was through her eyes, everything was fine and I liked her, but really, I can only take so much of hearing how perfect she is. At one point, a local musician said something to the affect that she's Key West's 'jewel' (or gem, something like that) and it was like come on, give me a break. Talk about overkill. There was nothing in the book to even get the impression that she's that well known about the island.

Anyways, aside from my rant, I liked it and thought that the mystery aspect was the best part of the book and it kept me guessing and hooked until the end.

4 stars

Book Review - Haunted by Heather Graham

Book Description
Love is everywhere. . .

When does a gift become a curse?

Matt Stone doesn't believe in ghosts. But there are those who are convinced his home, a historic Virginia estate that dates back to the Revolutionary War, is haunted. Pressured to get at the truth about some strange happenings at Melody House, he agrees to let Harrison Investigations explore the house. But he isn't ready for beautiful, intriguing Darcy Tremayne.

As a paranormal investigator, Darcy has learned to believe in the unbelievable. And she's given Matt fair warning: sometimes people don't like the skeletons she finds. She never dreamed that the warning would apply to herself. For she's about to discover that Melody House holds much more than a simple mystery form the distant past. What it holds is a very real and lethal danger, one that will cast her into a struggle against the worlds of both the living and the dead.

***

May 4

I picked up Haunted after I had finished The Seance, and I was unaware that they both feature Adam and Harrison Investigations. I'm all set to read The Vision that I just picked up from the library. Even though I've completely juggled around the order of when they were written, it's lucky for me that they are standalones. In the prologue it gave background information about Adam's son, Josh, who was mentioned just briefly in The Seance, and he plays a big part in this book, so I was happy to find out all that information before I get to next book that features Harrison Investigations.

Now to get to the main story in Haunted...
Even though with the way Darcy was written you would think she was a Mary-Sue, she wasn't and I liked her just fine. Now Matt on the other hand, well he was a jerk, plain and simple. I never could like him much and that detracted a lot from the book. It seems that Heather Graham must make the male lead a hard-core skeptic that just will not believe (until the end of course) in anything paranormal and thinks the female lead is crazy or delusional or something. It would be nice if it was reversed or if maybe, just maybe, the hero is open-minded enough to say, well maybe there is 'something' out there that cannot be proven. *gasp* Is that even possible? Can a hero ever truly be open-minded? Not in these books. He has to be so narrow-minded that his thought-blocks must fit neatly into their right-shaped holes (e.g. triangle block into triangle hole, etc.).

I really enjoyed the whole Darcy/Josh/Adam/Ghost hunting thing. I thought the author did a good job describing how Darcy went about finding out about the ghosts and that's what made this book good. I really did like Darcy a lot and she was a sympathetic character who stood up for herself and acted like an adult with poise and class (unlike some other character I could mention). The mystery did keep me guessing because I was never quite sure who the ghost was or what had happened, although I had narrowed down who was behind everything to two people, leaning more on the actual culprit (yay me!), for lack of suspects. So overall, the mystery was very good, though I wish Ms. Graham would bring in more people so it isn't as easy to figure out. All in all, not as good as The Seance, but a good and entertaining read.

3.5 stars

I forgot to mention that there were tons of editing problems, which seem to be a mainstay in H.G.'s books. Once Clint's name is changed to Cliff and Josh was referred to as Matt, plus numerous other things that cropped up everywhere.