The Running Bibliophile

In Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum, #23) by Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Plum's latest bail jumper, Larry Virgil, decides to commit a similar crime that he was already arrested for by hijacking an eighteen wheeler full of Bogart Ice Cream. When he flees from Stephanie and Lula, they decide to pursue him in the stolen truck, but then, a dead body covered in chocolate and nuts falls out of the trailer when they open it. Who killed this person and made him look like a Bogart Bar?  What can I say about about this installment of the Stephanie Plum book series? I absolutely enjoyed Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum, #23) . It did read slightly different than some of her other books in the series, but I found it to be extremely entertaining, and I had some laugh out loud moments.  However, there was one moment I didn't care for . . . Stephanie slept with Ranger even though she's engaged to be engaged with Joe Morelli. I am a bit tired of the "love triangle". Also, if...

You're invited to a murder . . . that is how the ad read, but in all actuality, it's an invitation to an unsupervised birthday party at the vacation home of Dusty Ellis. Meg Redding is the only one who knows the true motive behind Dusty holding the murder mystery party . . . to find out who murdered his twin sister and why. However, when one of the guests turns up dead, everyone is on edge and don't know who they can trust in The Murder Game by Janice Harrell. The Murder Game by Janice Harrell is a young adult novel that I read as a teen. I remember being completely on edge the entire book and was taken by surprise when the killer was revealed. When I decided to reread this book as an adult, I didn't remember much about it other than what I've already mentioned. What I enjoyed about reading it as an adult is that Janice Harrell did a nice job of laying out motive of several of the characters and giving clues as to who the killer was, and as an adult, I was able t...

While recently in my local Sally Beauty Supply store to buy something else, I decided to see if they still had a particular product in stock that I had noticed the last time I was there. I made my way over to the nail care aisle, and low and behold, the nail polish strips I loved were there. There were two different color selections of Dashing Diva Gloss Ultra Shine Gel Palette that I couldn't decide between, so I decided to buy both. The first color I decided to try out was the Palm Beach palette because I was absolutely in love with the colors. These color strips were relatively easy to put on but my biggest complaint is that they pinched together while smoothing them out on my nails leaving a bump. Following the directions to get the excess strip off, I was dismayed to see that it made the edges of my nail strip very rough. Using the file the way they recommended, I filed my nails into the shape I like. However, it left the nail strip a bit bubbly at the edges. Overall, I was v...

Cream Puff Killer (Lexy Baker, #13) by Leighann Dobbs opens with Lexy Baker needing a lift to deliver her pastries to a meeting. Nan and the rest of her gaggle offer Lexy a ride, but they have to get Ruth's Oldsmobile out of storage first. When their Uber driver drops them off, they find a dead body in the storage unit, which causes the police to open up a cold case from years ago. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this installment of the Lexy Baker cozy mystery book series, the one thing that seemed a bit far fetched is that Lexy, Nans, Ruth, and the rest of their group would take an Uber to get Ruth's car instead of Lexy just taking an Uber by herself for her delivery. I know that this needed to happen for the plot to play out, but this was the one thing that really bothered me about the book. I thought I knew who the killer was and what the motive was early on, but to my chagrin, I was off base. Once it was revealed who it was, I groaned to myself and put my head in the palm o...

The Face on the Milk Carton (Janice Johnson, #1) by Caroline B. Cooney opens with Janie Johnson and her friends laughing and joking at lunch about the missing children on the milk carton. As Janie takes a closer look at the carton, she realizes the face staring back at her is that of her three year old self. How could this be happening? Even though this was an extremely popular book in my middle school years, I had completely forgotten about The Face on the Milk Carton until a friend marked it as 'read' on Goodreads.com. I immediately ordered a used copy of this book as well as some of the others in the series. I was surprised that there were five books in the series as I thought there were only two books.  On top of that, I was stunned to find out that Caroline B. Cooney was the author as I knew her only as writing horror novels for young adults. I must not have read the book as a kid because I think I would've remembered who wrote it. However, I do know that I did watch...

Surprise, Surprise! (Horse Crazy, #4) by Virginia Vail opens with Emily Jordan being excited that her parents and brother are coming to visit her at Webster's Country Horse Camp. Much to Emily's surprise, they brought her best friend Judy with them. The fourth book in the Horse Crazy book series was written extremely well for the target audience. I remembered loving this series as a child and had to reread it as an adult. It brought back all the feels, and it made me wish I had attended an overnight horse camp when I was a kid. And, I didn't remember anything about this book, so it was like reading it for the first time. Major themes of the book included jealousy and feeling left out. The way that Virginia Vail dealt with these topics was done perfectly because who hasn't felt like Emily at some point in their life? I loved the fact that the author had Emily and Judy discuss how they were feeling because it teaches kids that communication is key and not to assume thin...