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Booktube Love 

Part Four

I love watching Booktubers on YouTube and today I want to tell you a bit about my favorite ones. I am subscribed to a lot of Booktubers and I why love watching their videos and get inspiration from them. Since I want to share all my favorite Booktubers with you I will make this a recurring feature here on the blog so that I can not only share the links to their channel with you but also tell you a bit about them.

Priscilla is the booktuber behind the well-known channel The Readables. Her videos are so well made and the topics she adresses are really versatile - ranging from traditional book hauls, to reviews, Top Five Wednesday videos to discussions. She is a huge fan of manga and graphic novels and a lovely person to chat with on Twitter.

Ariel Bissett is a lovely Canadian booktuber and her enthusiasm is contagious. Her videos make you feel better instantly and her discussions are always really interesting and thought-provoking. She is not afraid to discuss things like Sex in YA-literature and that makes her stand out a bit in the booktube community. You can also find hauls, tags and many other fun videos on her channel and if you want to talk to her on Twitter you can add her here.

Charley from Charley Reads is another one of my all-time favorite booktubers. She is British and that alone makes me love listening to her but her videos are also really lovely and well made. She acts so naturally in front of the camera and her reviews are always honest and spot-on. Charley also does hauls, tags, monthyl wrap-ups and much more. Whenever a new video of her pops up in my subscription feed I need to watch it asap. I even arrived late for work once because I needed to finish one ofher videos. You can also find her on Twitter.

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Review

Murder Runs in the Family

by Anne George

 

Murder Runs in the Family is the third book in the Southern Sisters Mystery series

and I would highly recommend reading Murder on a Girl's Night Out

and Murder on a Bad Hair Day first!

First sentences:

“Pukey Lukey is here,” my sister Mary Alice murmured as she was ushered into the front pew beside me.

Summary:

Mary Alice has spared nothing for her only daughter's wedding - from seventy-five yards of bridal train to gourmet food for over three hundred guests and enough glittering elegance to make Mary Alice think about finding herself a fourth rich husband to pay for it all. Practical Patricia Anne has put away her aunt-of-the-bride blue chiffon and settled back into domesticity when fun-loving Mary Alice calls to say they have a post-wedding date with a genealogist from the groom's side of the family. Lunch is a fascinating lesson on the hazards of finding dirty linens in ancestral boudoirs that ends abruptly when their guest scurries off with the local judge, leaving the sisters with their mouths open - and finishing their luncheon companion's cheesecake - when the police arrive.
Their mysterious guest has taken a plunge from the ninth floor of the courthouse building - an apparent suicide. But given the scandals a nosy genealogist might have uncovered, the sisters are betting that some proud Southern family is making sure their shameful secrets stay buried. . .along with anyone who tries to dig them up.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

Patricia Anne and Mary Alice are back!

This time Mary Alice’s daughter Debby is getting married but soon after the wedding the groom’s closest living relative is not alive anymore. According to the police she took a plunge from the ninth floor of the courthouse and now it is once again up to the two sisters to solve the mystery even though Patricia Anne’s husband Fred tries to convince his wife that this investigation is none of her business.

With Debby and her new husband away in honeymoon Mary Alice and Patricia Anne try their best to solve the murder and not get harmed while doing so. Easier said than done!

Once again, Anne George wrote a funny and witty novel filled with lovely characters and a gripping mystery. I adored this one as much as the first two and cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

The books in the Southern Sisters Mystery series are:

• Murder on A Girls' Night Out (read my review here)
• Murder on A Bad Hair Day (read my review here)
• Murder Runs in the Family
• Murder Makes Waves
• Murder Gets A Life
• Murder Shoots the Bull
• Murder Carries A Torch
• Murder Boogies with Elvis

For more information about Anne George visit her Homepage.

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Review

Dog On It

by Spencer Quinn

 

First sentences:

I could smell him – or rather the booze on his breath – before he even opened the door, but my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours.

Summary:
As sidekicks, Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 have nothing on Chet and Bernie. This charming detective duo make their debut in Dog On It, the first volume in Spencer Quinn's new mystery series. The fast-paced and funny tale is narrated by the inimitable Chet, Bernie's best friend and canine partner, whose personality and preferences are never in doubt: "I liked to sleep at the foot of Bernie's bed, but my favorite napping spot was in the breakfast nook, under the table with my back against the wall, all cool and shady, plus there was often good snacking around Bernie's chair."

Bernie's enterprise, the Little Detective Agency, limps along, waiting for the next job to arrive. While Chet freely admits that he doesn't always understand the humans around him, the mutt who failed to graduate from the police academy quickly establishes that he's got a nose made for sniffing out trouble -- as well as the tasty morsel.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

Dog On It is the first book in the Chet and Bernie mystery series and it is told from Chet’s point of view. Yes, I know that this doesn’t sound special but Chet is Bernie’s dog. These two are an amazing team.

Bernie is the middle aged owner of the Little Detective Agency and he’s okay in his job but his secret weapon is his dog Chet. He helps Bernie in every way he can and always tries to tell him stuff but as it often happens in the human-dog-communication, Bernie is not able to understand Chet’s barking all the time.

I have a dog myself and what was so brilliant about this book is the way Chet is described. Everything he does or thinks – because of him telling the story we, as readers, know exactly what he knows – is typical dog behaviour. I would love to know what my dog, Felix, is thinking most of the time and Spencer Quinn did just that – he gave Chet a voice and enabled him to communicate with us readers.

The story itself is also really gripping. A young girl goes missing and her mother tries everything to get her back and hires Bernie to find her. During the case both detectives – human and canine – get into serious trouble but with the help of their trusted friend there is always a way out.

Dog On It is a fast paced story and an entertaining read for dog lovers and mystery readers.

The books in the Chet and Bernie mystery series are:

• Dog On It
• Thereby Hangs A Tail
• To Fetch A Thief
• The Dog Who Knew Too Much
• A Fistful Of Collars
• The Sound And The Fury
• A Cat Was Involved (a short story)

For more information about Spencer Quinn visit his Homepage, Facebook or Twitter page.

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Showcase Sunday is weekly meme hosted by Vicky at Books, Biscuits & Tea which was inspired by In My Mailbox from Kristie at The Story Siren.

It is a possibility for us to show what amazing books we got during the week.

 

On Saturday morning my mum asked THE question: "Do you want to go to the bookstore with me?" Hell yes, of course I wanted and that's also why some books made it home with me. 

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

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Review

Heat Wave

by Richard Castle

First sentences:

It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body.

Summary:
A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

I am a huge fan of the TV-series Castle. I watch it religiously every Friday and when I catch a rerun the chances are high that I will watch it too even though I know the case already. I adore the characters of the series and I love the actors playing them.

When I first discovered the books in the Nikki Heat series, that Nathan Fillion’s character Richard Castle is writing in the TV-series, in a bookstore I just had to laugh and put it down again but I was drawn to them each and every time I saw them. Finally my mum got me the first two books for Christmas and after reading Heat Wave I can tell you that if you like reading mysteries, I would recommend checking it out.

The characters in Heat Wave are strongly based on the series characters in Castle and while I was reading them I saw the actors as the characters but I think this is not only understandable but also wanted.

The case I Heat Wave is the murder of a rich New York real estate tycoon and pretty similar to the cases in the TV-series. Rook is, like Richard Castle, interested in the case but cannot always be serious about it and brings new and interesting ways of seeing the events that could have happened while Nikki Heat is the (almost) always correct and straight-forward police officer who wants to bring the bad guys down and give certainty to the family members and friends left behind.

I really enjoyed reading Heat Wave and if you embrace the similarities between the books and the TV-series than the reading experience is much more entertaining.

The books in the Nikki Heat series are:

• Heat Wave
• Naked Heat
• Heat Rises
• Frozen Heat
• Deadly Heat
• Raging Heat (expected publication: September 2014)

For more information about Richard Castle visit his Homepage, Facebook or Twitter page.