#legalfiction – Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint Reviews – November Recap – Is Your December a Ho Ho Ho or a Hum Bug?

November wasted no time getting us right into the winter mood with an early snow and frigid temps. Of course, we celebrate Thanksgiving and that’s usually about the time Mother Nature rears back and blows an ill wind. We got a weather break both coming and going to southern Illinois to celebrate with our daughter and enjoyed dinner with our son as well, although our granddaughter and her family were not able to join us with our great-grandchildren. Fortunately, they are not so far that there won’t be other opportunities. Unfortunately, it appears a four-hour auto ride is harder on us than it used to be.

Hoping to get a good Christmas pic of Punkin to post, but nothing successful so far. In the meantime, our son got into the mood with his dog, Cooper, whom I’ve written about before. We think she’s part mini-Aussie and Jack Russell. The mini-Aussie part comes out in boundless energy and smarts and the rest with personality and more smarts. Also—it appears she is photogenic! I used to take yearly Christmas pics of the family until the idea was met with groans all round. Now, everyone is scattered around the country. Not so easy to gather for a family photo anymore.

Reading and reviewing is hit and miss—it’s that time of year. Thank heaven for audiobooks! We reviewed a total of thirteen books in November—six in audiobook form, with the CE contributing three (ebooks). As always, the major source of our books is the library (audiobooks as well as ebooks), NetGalley, author and publisher requests. The links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.

Rosepoint Publishing - November Recap

The Gift from Aelius by Michael Colon (CE review)
Soaring Above by Amanda Hughes
Dogged Pursuit by David Rosenfelt (audiobook)
Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox (audiobook)
Greetings from Lavender Valley by Tammy L Grace
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (Audiobook-Bookclub)
A Walk Among Heroes by James McDevitt (CE review – 5*)
Muddled Through by Barbara Ross
Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (audiobook)
Grid Zero by Andrew Diamond (CE review)
Judge and Jury by Stephen Penner
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci (audiobook)
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner (audiobook)

Favorite Book of the Month

The CE gave five stars to A Walk Among Heroes and in fairness must award the favorite to his five stars. It was a good month for ebooks as well as audiobooks!

Favorite for November – A Walk Among Heroes

My Reading Challenges page…sorry still didn’t get it caught up. I swear, I’m not sure how I got so far behind.

I’m trying to promote my posts more quickly with social media as well as blog hopping. The Goodreads landing page now shows 173 books read of a goal of 150, so I’m at 115% of the challenge. A JavaScript problem, I guess, is that the code stopped at 136, and won’t ever show I’ve achieved the 2025 goal. That will impact a number of other little Goodreads goals. I’ve actually achieved their little ribbons for every month (last being November, of course). Assuming December, that should open to other ribbon goals, including the Grand Slam and Nailed It. Have you checked your Goodreads Achievement ribbons lately?

As you no doubt noticed, I tried this year to include some Christmas reads, audiobooks, and movies this year—something cheery for the holidays. Not easy, as I usually avoid those. And I actually found a couple I enjoyed! Hope you did as well.

Thank you again for your visits and comments. I always appreciate your comments and I’m trying to respond faster. Keep those likes and comments coming—and I thank you for each and every one!

Have a great week!

The More the Terrier: Andy Carpenter Book 30 by David Rosenfelt #AudiobookReview #AnimalCozyMysteries

in Animal Cozy Mysteries

Book Blurb:

The next installment in David Rosenfelt’s bestselling Andy Carpenter series brings a lone pup to his doorstep, but when it comes to dogs, The More the Terrier.

Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter is relieved to be headed back to Paterson, New Jersey, after a week-long family vacation in the Adirondacks. He’s ready to put the holly jolly season way behind him and settle in at home with his three dogs. But when they finally arrive, there is an extra dog eagerly awaiting them, as well as one anxious dog sitter.

When the dog showed up on the doorstep a few days ago, the sitter knew Andy would know what to do. Indeed, Andy recognizes Murphy, who the Carpenters fostered before the dog went home with BJ Bremer and his mother. BJ wanted to learn all he could about caring for Murphy, which made Andy like him immediately.

When Andy goes to take Murphy back to the Bremers, though, instead of the happy reunion he expects, he finds BJ’s mother in tears. It turns out Murphy ran off…after BJ was arrested for murder. Andy had hoped for a quiet Christmas vacation, but he likes Murphy’s family and his golden retriever, Tara, likes Murphy, so he can’t resist getting involved. The case isn’t as simple as Andy thought it would be, though, with BJ suspected of murdering one of his professors. With nothing to go on but Andy’s own conviction in BJ’s dog-loving character, proving his innocence would be a Christmas miracle.

With equal doses of doggy humor and courtroom drama, as well as Andy Carpenter’s traditional humbug Christmas spirit, David Rosenfelt delivers another winner.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

My Review:

Another doggy series and one I adore from David Rosenfelt and Grover Gardner. No, Gardner didn’t help write it, but his familiar voice and the way he narrates Andy Carpenter keep you coming back for more. This is number thirty? No problem—I’m already looking forward to number thirty-one (except I hope we don’t have more of the Jersey mob in the next one),

Yes, it’s a popular and successful formula, but these characters all come together in each of their roles perfectly drawn and work beautifully. Even better, you could come in on number thirty as easily as number five as the author supplies the reader with enough background info to show you how they relate to the overall main character, Andy Carpenter.

Still, those of us who know and love Andy at this point remember that Laurie (his wife and ex-cop) still starts Christmas before Halloween, he’s still paying for (and threatening to cut them off) his buddies at their favorite haunt, and he still walks and talks to his dogs while pondering his cases. All except for Sebastian who he has finally acquiesced to allowing him to do his business without the long walks. Tara hasn’t rescued Andy lately, could still do so, but patiently listens to his arguments without comment.

In this episode, Murphy, a terrier, shows up at Andy’s door step one evening, a past rescue, Andy’s main passion. He remembers her of course and tracks down the mother and son who adopted the dog. Unfortunately, the son has been arrested for murder. Of course, Andy will take the case even as he vows to stop being a criminal attorney. These cases just keep popping up keeping him from fully retiring.

While you might think this formula could get old, it doesn’t for several reasons. I love the sarcastic sense of humor, the quick wit that keeps him on his feet both with dealing with law enforcement, other lawyers, and in the courtroom. That sharp mind almost misses nothing and when it does, niggles at him until he susses it out.

These stories are deemed cozy mysteries, but they far exceed the cozy concept with deeply complex and layered storylines and always keep you second guessing. Love the courtroom “dance” and I usually learn something new. In this case, the metaverse. Metaverse!!—really?

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Animal Cozy Mysteries, Animal Fiction, Holiday Fiction
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
ASIN: B0CWB2412M
Listening Length: 6 hrs 34 mins
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The More the Terrier – Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: David Rosenfelt, a native of Paterson, New Jersey, is a graduate of NYU. He was the former marketing president for Tri-Star Pictures before becoming a writer of novels and screenplays. “Open And Shut” was his first novel; “First Degree,” his second novel, was named a best book of 2003 by Publishers Weekly. He currently lives in Southern California with his wife and 35 dogs.

Facebook
Website

The Narrator:

Grover Gardner’s narration career spans twenty-five years and over 550 audiobook titles. AudioFile Magazine has called him one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and features him in their annual “Golden Voices” update. Publishers Weekly named him Audiobook Narrator of the Year for 2005. His recordings have garnered 18 “Golden Earphones” awards from AudioFile and an Audie Award from the Audio Publishers’ Association.
http://grovergardner.blogspot.com/

Happy Autumn Weekend to you from Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint Reviews – August Recap – Dog (or Puppy) Days of Summer

Rosepoint Reviews-August Recap

August is a roll of the dice here, the only thing you can really count on is the humidity.

A good month for the garden though; all of a sudden tons of tomatoes, and I’m thinking salsa! But salsa from little yellow pear tomatoes? They are so sweet! Unfortunately, also a good month for squash, not one of the CE’s favorites, but I haven’t resorted to sneaking any squash on my neighbor’s porches in the dead of night yet. Wasn’t really happy with the frozen results from last year, so yeah, no more squash. Not really good for melons and haven’t made pickles for a while so sticking to short season cool weather crops and starting round two of sugar pod peas and bush beans now.

Last month we were surprised by our daughter bringing us a puppy (though I’d vowed NO PUPPIES), a little female we named Cooper to the brother she kept. A Mini-Aussie/Jack Russell mix—probably a mixed breed only someone younger with more stamina should have even considered. These are high-energy dogs, even as an adult.

Frosty, our Bichon, was laid back, low key, easy and calm. Cooper bounces off the walls and has no off switch. You can’t help but love a puppy, but after a week, I was exhausted and yelling Uncle. As our son had indicated interest, I broached the subject to him and his wife again. They took her. Obvious from the beginning she was smarter than I, also became obvious to everyone else we have one very darling and precocious pup. Cooper While Cooper lives with our son and Mel, we get granddoggy rights and are looking forward to playing, walking, working on tricks and discipline with her—and then sending her home. I miss Frosty so much and our kids were both encouraging us to get another dog. We said no more dogs. Cooper is a handful–but so sweet—and I’m learning it’s great to be a granddog parent.

September will find us happily “on the road again.” (Celebrating another anniversary with our son.) No, not to Texas this time, but September will be an iffy month for reading and reviews. I have a few reviews scheduled, but it will not be a normal, or even, regular schedule. I need some down time and looking forward to riding my bike and playing with our granddog before winter hits.

A diminished month for books (we were busy with puppies!)—we read (or listened to) twelve books in August. These are still predominately from NetGalley as well as my local library with both audiobooks and digital. (As always, links below are to my reviews that include purchase info.)

Rosepoint Reviews - August Recap

The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer (audiobook)
Frank’s Shadow by Doug McIntyre (CE review)
Split by Alida Bremer
Sanctuary Motel by Alan Orloff (CE review)
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (audiobook)
For All The World by Jean Grainger
Devil Makes Three by Ben Fountain (CE review)
Memory Man by David Baldacci (audiobook)
No Mistaking Death by Shelley Costa
Trial By Jury by Stephen Penner (CE review)
White House by the Sea by Kate Storey (audiobook)
The Rotting Whale by Jann Eyrich

These included historical fiction, literary fiction, legal fiction, biographical fiction, crime thrillers, and one new eco-mystery series.

Favorite Book of the Month

I couldn’t help but be caught up in The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah even as the story used a familiar trope but in an Alaska setting. I must issue a bravo, however, to Jean Grainger for her radical writing departure into a new series in which she built a unique “family” who holds no familial ties. I’m looking forward to discovering the path the author takes with these colorful characters.

Book of the Month for August—For All The World by Jean Grainger.

My Reading Challenges page… I have 100 books of a goal of 145 in Goodreads (at this point five books ahead of schedule) and still riding at a 97% feedback ratio in NetGalley. And **BIG** surprise, I’ve caught up the Reading Challenges page and discovered I’m woefully behind in both the audiobook and historical fiction categories. Whaaa? Two of our favs? How’d that happen?

Okay, I’ve had the chance to work on both the Instagram and the Twitter, BIG X, feed. I’m not sure what I did or how it happened, but got both feeds back and thank you for the helpful comments. Still, I’m frosted that there is no longer a free Tweetdeck. You’ll pay for the same privilege of scheduling tweets now and it’ll certainly be a “cold day in ….” before I’d throw my Social Security money at Musk. I see he’s messed with the twitter home page now and you know how we feel about change. Have you signed up? How do you feel about the loss of Tweetdeck? (Not sure who created this super graphic of the tweet bird impaled on the X and I must say it wasn’t I, although I thought it perfect for this discussion.) As for the new Dogecoin logo–I have yet to see it–a Shiba Inu? Huh?! Have you?