EX MARKS THE SPOT.....A TAIWAN TREASURE HUNT REVEALS WAY MORE THAN TREASURE......(****)

 Ex Marks the Spot by Gloria Chao (2024)

     A whole lotta stuff going on here. Childhood sweethearts-to Hight School enemies-to....well, who knows?......an international treasure hunt loaded with confounding clues, riddles and Mandarin language symbols.....and a something-of-an-outcast teen girl coping with the treasure hunt, the sweethearts to enemies, an extra player to make it a romantic triangle....and her frustrating quest to connect with her Taiwanese culture and discover her own identity. I'm already fully exhausted from all that on her behalf.

     Gemma's late grandfather left her the treasure hunt clues which lead to Taiwan and possibly a much needed inheritance to help with her upcoming college tuition. . But the only path to Taiwan is through that ex-sweetheart/current enemy Xander, who's organized a summer tour through that country for himself and other Asian students. Sparks fly, incredible complex treasure clues get revealed through the stunning landscapes, mountains of mouth-watering Taiwanese cuisine are consumed. and deep family secrets rock Gemma and Xander's worlds together.

     Truly intricate, maddening treasure clues, but if you're no puzzle fan (like me), you might feel tempted to skim through those sections and go right to the emotional moments. And as much I'm impressed at the cleverness of the hunt on display, it's Gemma and Xander's journeys to self-revelations that make up the story's beating heart and that 's what really kept me turning the pages to the end.

     As our leads delve into the world of their grandfathers, the book evokes some beautiful picture-postcard imagery and enough delectable food to make you want to schedule an immediate flight out. . Ambitious and entertaining.

       4 stars (****)

BOOKED FOR MURDER......AN ACTRESS TURNED BOOKSELLER TURNED SLEUTH.....(***)

 Booked For Murder by P.J. Nelson (2024)

     I gravitate to a cozy mystery for the same reasons I think other readers do.......something about the setting, the characters or the peculiar situations of the crimes catches my attention, something that makes this particular cozy stand out from hundreds of others.

     "Booked For Murder' does have all the familiar tropes firmly in place...... small town where everybody knows everybody else, a bookstore to die for (and somebody does)., and a plus-sized cat lounging around at the most pivotal moments.

     The lead character (and amateur sleuth) Madeline Brimley is what initially drew me in. I'm a theater nerd/buff and Madeline's a failed actress of indeterminate age who's inherited a combo Victorian house-bookstore from her late Aunt Rose. Madeline's spotty, up-and-down theatrical career can't possibly equal the drama besetting her in her first few days of taking over the house and its store.

     Somebody torches the gazebo behind the house and Madeline receives threatening phone calls from what sounds like a backwoods hood. And worst of all, someone ends up stabbed to death in the store, maybe an unlucky innocent victim whom the killer mistook for Madeline. Even the worst play she ever acted in can't compete with this this level of life-threatening melodrama.......

     In true cozy fashion, our heroine ends up as part of trio of would-be sleuths, along her Aunt Rose's lifelong friend Philomena and local minister Gloria. Suspects abound and Madeline, alternately bold and foolish, attempts interrogating them with results ranging from confounding to downright perilous. And along the way, there's lots of witty asides referring back to her checkered career in the theater.

     A quick and mildly entertaining read, but with a few major problems in characterization and plotting. The author has some of ,well let's say the less educated characters talking like they escaped from a community theater production of 'Deliverance' and after the climactic reveal, the book rambles on as if we're simply content to hang out with Madeline and pals. I think it'll take a few more books in the series to earn that privilege from readers.

       3 stars (***)

WHAT THE WOODS TOOK......TROUBLED TEENS VS. HORROR IN THE WILDERNESS (*****)

 What The Woods Took by Courtney Gould (2024)

     Scary. Heartbreaking. Breathless. Gasp-inducing. And an incisive examination of five troubled, broken young souls, thrown into unimaginable horror.

     "What the Woods Took' manages to pack all of this into one page-turning package. After a relatively slow start, author Courtney Gould pits her five distressed teen characters against a terrifying mixture of every horror movie trope you've ever shivered through.

     Devin, Sheridan, Ollie, Aiden and Hannah, all given up on by exasperated parents and guardians, find themselves forcibly dragged into a wilderness survival program in the backwoods of Idaho. The guide-counselors in charge, barely older than their unhappy campers, are tasked with taking the group through a 50 day hike,.......presumably to instill self-reliance, self-worth and lose their bad attitudes.

     But things go, as we all knew they would.....horribly awry.

     Something's slightly 'off' about this neck of the woods and when their two guides disappear, the group's left to fend for themselves. Even as they squabble and wrestle with their long held inner demons, they become more aware that they're not alone in these woods. And whatever might lurk behind the trees doesn't have their best interests at heart.

     Author Courtney Gould creates perceptive, emotional portraits of her five characters, particularly, the two leads - angry free-with-her-fists Devin and sarcastic, bullying (but terribly vulnerable) Sheridan. The girls at first despise each other on sight and your heart aches for them as their own troubled pasts and current dangers serve to slowly but surely lower their guards with each other.

     One of those rare books that takes you on a frightening thrill ride but never forgets that its best special effects don't come from what creeps out from the dark, but from the humans you come to care about and fear for. I'd recommend buckling up and take the ride.

           5 stars (*****)

DUST.....AMID CLIMATE CHANGE CHAOS, A PARTIALLY DEAF GIRL COMES OF AGE...(*****)

 Dust by Alison Stine (2024)

     So much of this book did truly haunt me and pull on the heart strings with its depiction of a teen girl besieged by both a catastrophic climate and parents who've essentially imprisoned her away from the outside world.

     Set in what I'm assuming is the not too distant future, the book offers up a preview of dreaded coming attractions - overwhelming floods in one part of the country and terrible droughts and dust storms in another.

     Thea's father, obsessed with premonitions, has taken her, her little sister and mother away from the floods of Ohio to try farming amid the stark arid plains of Bloodless Valley in Colorado. It's an unforgiving landscape of little or no water for crops and afflicted with whirlwinds of dust that build into cataclysmic storms the rival those that swept across the land in the 1930's depression.

     Even worse for Thea, whose hearing is partially impaired, her father imposes a 'live off the grid' life for his family.. Meaning no friends, no phone, no internet, no social contact with outsiders unless necessary and only the most amateur attempts at home schooling. that don't interfere with farm chores.

     Allowed a part time job in their little town to help family finances, Thea begins to experience everything she's been denied - friendships, the town library, a sense of empathetic community and the sweet stirrings of first love with a deaf boy who can teach her how to converse with ASL. And even as the brutal existence in Bloodless Valley reaches near Biblicial proportions, Thea faces a reckoning for her to break free of her father's severe constraints, and for better or worse rejoin the world at large.

     Author Alison Stine vividly creates a bleak, nightmarish environment surrounding Thea and all the well drawn charcters who fall into her orbit, forever changing her. 'Dust' must have really kept a grip on me when I realized how fast I found myself racing through it. That's the sure sign of highly recommended read.

         5 stars (*****).

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