Marie Claude Gagnon

I had never read any steampunk, but it's not my last book in that sub-genre I can tell you.

Eliza Braun and Wellington Books, esquire are agents of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, but really different kinds of agents: Braun is an active field agent and Books is an archivist. But they unite to solve the mystery of why dead bodies, missing skin, blood or even bones, are found around London.

Phoenix Rising is an adventure set in Victorian London and were Eliza carries more weapons than a soldier and Wellington surprises his partner with his inventions.

I gave it 4*

Sophie is a criminal law attorney. When no divorce lawyer is available to meet a big client, she finds herself stuck with the case. She's far from being at ease, having gone through her parents' divorce. But maybe another kind of lawyer is exactly what was needed in this divorce...

The story is entirely told through letters, emails, articles, decisions and other types of documents. Even though it could make the story hard to follow, I thought that it was successful in that book. I felt like I had learned a lot about Sophie, her parents, friends and colleagues, Mia (the divorcing client), her daughter Jane and the ex-husband. It was an easy and fast read. The back cover presented the book as funny; I did not laugh a lot, but was entertained anyways.

Disclaimer: I received the book through the Giveaways program.

This book has many qualities, but enough faults to get 3*...

I really enjoyed the setting: Italy during and after WWII. The Germans are trying to resist the advance of the Allies, and to do this, all means necessary are taken, even pillaging and killing those that are supposed to be their allies, the Italians. In the middle of all this, the Rosati family tries to survive and will pay the ultimate price, first during the war, and then ten years later when a killer stars attacking the survivors.

Liza is a publicist and a sudoku passionate, who after getting tired of Hollywood life decided to go back to the small town where she grew up, Maiden's Bay. Jenny is a young actress, represented by Liza, who had a really bad experience in Mayden's Bay, experience a director is set to use to give more dimension to her interpretation in a movie that is filmed on location. Liza needs all her talents to help Jenny when one of the movie's major is found dead...

Liza write a column on sudoku in the local newspaper and one of these columns is provided at the beginning of each chapter of the book, which I enjoy. I enjoyed the first book in this series, but this time, the fun was not as present. Some of the characters were weak (I guess playing with somebody's head is not as easy to render in a cozy book as the author thought) and I had a hard time with the end of the book (not the solution itself, but rather how the guilty was outed by Liza). I will probably check for the third at the library anyway.

Ichmad finds himself the head of his family when he is only 12 years old. Living in village under occupation by the Israeli, his only hope is to study and help his family reaching for a better future.

I won this book through Goodreads Giveaways program and I'm really happy it got me to read it, since I would probably not have done otherwise. This book broke my heart, kept me up way too late at night and was my companion on this sick day at home. I loved that book! The story of Ichmad and his family is a good illustration of the horrors of the conflicts between Israeli and Palesticians, but also shows that cooperation and mind-openness may still bring good in the world, even in these parts of the world. I hope Ichmad's and Menachem's dream becomes true someday soon!

Michaël is 15 when he meets Hannah who's more than twice is age. For 6 months they are lovers, their relationship based on the books they share and their ignorance of each other's life. Their secret meetings stop abruptly when Hannah disappears. Years later their paths cross again: Michaël, now a law student, attends a trial in which Hannah is one of five accused. Observing Hannah's tentative to defend herself, Michaël thinks he has discovered the secret she has hidden all her life. To better understand the love he's never gotten over, Michaël decides to write their story.

This book tells the story of a man marked for life by his first love. But also shows the destiny of the children of those who participated into the Holocaust, the children of all those who obeyed or closed their eyes to the horrors of the camps. Michaël's story talks about emotions with the distance given by time, which adds to the feeling of detachment Hannah's secret obliges her to have. I loved that book.

Note: My review is about the French version of the book

This was my first Jaine Austen mystery, but surely not the last. When her cat Prozac causes the death of the local witch's (or rather the actress who played one on tv) parrot, Jaine finds herself in a lot of troubles. Troubles that get even bigger when the witch is found dead. And, since it seems that it is not enough problems, she enters into a bet with her neighbor Lance to find out which of them will get a date with the new beau of the neighborhood. Throughout the books, there are funny “comments” from Prozac and emails from Jaine's parents. It was a funny and easy read.

“The Killer Is Dying” intertwines the stories of three persons: a killer for hire, a detective whose wife is dying and a boy living by himself after his parents left.

The three characters are linked but they never meet. The idea of the book was really interesting and could have given a great book.

Sadly, that's not what happened.. At the start of each chapter it was often confusing and hard to distinguish the character it was about. It may even take a few paragraphs before it becomes clear. But for me, the worst part was that all along I was waiting for something to happen, really happen. But at the end, the solution to the mystery is told, not shown. Detectives might be used to it, but this mystery reader does not like it.