Summer Reading

I finished a couple of books that I thought I'd review:

Putting on the Dog by Cynthia Baxter: It really wasn't that good, and I don't feel I'm overly picky when it comes to cozy mysteries. The sleuth was nosy and wishy-washy. Her annoying boyfriend whined through the whole book. Jessica kept saying how great he was, but I never saw it. Although, she was really no prize either, insisting that she wanted to make it work with the boyfriend in one paragraph, and getting drunk and slow-dancing with a movie star alone in his mansion in the next. Then she'd get mad that the boyfriend was jealous. Um, hello? The solution was really telegraphed quite a bit, too, and I didn't care that much by the end. If I weren't so compulsive, I would have stopped halfway through. Also, this woman is a vet, and she keeps leaving her dogs in her van while she runs errands. And it's summer! Duh! She says she cracks the windows and leaves water, but seriously, that's not gonna help. All in all, I really wanted to like these (Mystery? Animals? Crazy famous people? Yay!) but this one was just not great. I might check reviews of the others in the series to see if they get better, but I'm not too hopeful (this was #2).

I also read Halfway to Half Way by Suzann Ledbetter. The first in this series (mystery/romance) is South of Sanity, and these are cute. Hannah Garvey manages a retirement community that serves as home to some elderly busybodies who love to solve crimes. She's kind of their den mother. They're good-natured, funny, light reading, and I enjoyed this newest installment. You don't have to read them in order (although if you read this one first, it gives away something that happens in early books), and they're all funny.

I'm now reading The Science of Harry Potter and Hurricane Hannah by Sue Civil-Brown.