XOX

An old woman walked into a funeral house to arrange for her own funeral. She died a few hours later, in her home. She was killed and the mystery started this way.

A detective who was fired from the homicide team Hawthorne, was working as a consultant for the case.

Anthony Horowitz written himself into the book and act as Watson to Sherlock. This Hawthorne was a loner and a strange man. He is not nice or friendly, but could take up clues like no other. Anthony agreed to write his book if he could solve this murder.

The old lady, had killed a boy in a car accident almost 10 years back. Is this revenge? Or is it something else? She had a son who is a famous actor. Is it because of the son?

Goes a bit back and forth. I would give it a 4.5 stars.

April May discovered a scripture and she considered it pop-art. She called her friend Andy to make a video of it, thinking it is an art piece.

Turned out there are many similar incidents and her video is a the first one posted. So she become an Internet celebrity. She wanted to own this thing and used this as a opportunity to have a voice. Andy's father is a lawyer and they are started to earn for the video footage. Then she did something else, she discovered a code. Following the clue, she do something else and activate part of the statue. She also started dreaming of puzzles and found many people are doing the same thing.

This is about a robot and how we deal with being sudden celebrity. Hank did a really good job in dealing with that part.

I have been trying and failing to login to Booklikes. 

It is my fear that I would lose touch with all the reader-friends here. 

So when I see the post saying forwarding address, it is a good idea that I am being connected to you all in some way in case this failed completely. 

[Edited] Also in GR https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/119184213-xox 

Add me if you are from BL. 

Here is my Librarything address. Add me please. 

https://www.librarything.com/profile/XOX 

Please me a message of where you are and I would try to follow you in Librarything.... just in case. 

The review is not being sync to Librarything. I have not figure a way to do it yet. 

Good luck. I'm still going to be here as long as here is available. 

Harry Dresden is relatively happy being father, a brother and a lover.

As a grandson, his grandfather is a bit of a problem. He didn't know about Thomas and he hate vampires.

Now Thomas was found to commit an assassin attempt and caught, held prisoner that is hard to bring free.

There is a peace summit and Harry has duty in the White Council. He has been on-loan to the White Count by Mab to pay back two favors.

The tension build and things got tricky. How did he survive all these and keep sane?

The story itself is a well-written, and complex. Supernatural and humans act according to their natures and created a story with a lot of plots that are edgy and fun.

Cannot wait for the next book.

Grisha was under attack and the love of his life, Cara who turned a robotic killer into a someone who has something to lose. 

Rapp is to the rescue of course, but not before Cara was injured. 

The Russian president is behind the attack. But why?

To find out that the Russian President want war, and Rapp is there to try to eliminate the reason for war and try to save lives again. Rapp sometimes sound like more Superman than James Bond. 

Grisha want nothing more than to live the good life and spend time surfing with his girlfriend. That's not easier said than done when the people he pissed off are dangerous and he really has no friend. His only friend is Rapp really. Not even Coleman has he is responsible for his serious injury that has taken a year to heal. 

A nice story. Not as much action as the previous one. 

Mitch Rapp have found out that an ISIS supporter in the rank of Saudi and now the American President want this to be deal with without the official order. 

This is so outrageous and unfair to Mitch Rapp. Of course he is going to do it. 

As story goes, there is no one in his life except for the widow of the man who killed his wife and derailed his life. The guilt of being a participant of such tragedy bring Claudia into Mitch life, first as a decorator for his new house, and now as his partner handling logistics. 

Coleman is still out and tried to heal after the last mission. He recommended Claudia too. 

Situation arise that pushed this decision. Finally, Claudia is going to be his partner. 

The bad guys are well hidden. The ruthless Saudi has killed off ties that could reveal his secret as a traitor. 

FBI Joel is the guy being used to hunt Mitch. 

Nice action bit. A bit too much at times but it is fun to read as there are more intelligent bad guys make it more challenging. 

Irene involvement is minimum yet important. 

Mitch is being distracted by the widow of the killer who killed his late wife. Weird.

Claudia is the late wife and Ann is the daughter. They were being hidden in South Africa when words got out that they were being targeted for kidnapping and probably killed. A new player is in town and he is just as good as Mitch. Rare but possible.

Then there is a lot of trap and twists and a bit too risky even for someone as skill as Mitch Rapp. Then it would be just plot device to add lot of tension and action into the story. 

The more interesting plot is while the world leaders are acting more like sciopaths, the assassins themselves are more human than those politicians. In a way, it is strange. 

There is also humor and some laugh out loud moments. Coleman was hurt in this one and it got a bit emotional. 

Going to read the next one and see what happened next. 

Joseph Rickman might be dead but his plan was still on-going. 

Richman has this very intelligent plan of leaking damaging information regarding the CIA actions in the past that would be very damaging. Two of such email has already been sent and this is very worrying that more is likely to come. The obvious target is Irene and Mitch. 

Gould is the one who is causing all the pain for Mitch. He killed the love of his life Ann while she was pregnant. Mitch has a chance to kill him but he let him go and continue his life with wife and kid. 

The ungrateful Gould didn't do as promise and get back into business. 

Other players are involved. All is trying to get to the secrets and used its advantage for blackmail and caused maximum damage. 

Overall, it did caught the spirit of things. Although not enough twists, there is still enough action to keep things interesting. 

Mitch is not young anymore. He used his youth to gain lot of experience in dealing with really horrible persons. It is scary to know that he would not hesitate to kill if he thought that person would do harm to innocent people. 

So when he was hunting down a terrorist head, he go at it with all he got. And he almost got it. 

Now it is the turn of the terrorist to hunt him back. 

He got more than one side of of enemy that he has to deal with. An crazy politician is running for president and is likely to get in position. This is a mean bitch who is pretty selfish and would do anything, including harming innocent people if she could gain more vote and more power. 

The rest is just a bit of nicely laid out plan that could work if there is no one to stop the bad guys. 

The use of deadly virus in the plot is very timely and scary as well. 

Good read. 

Matthew is 12 and he is afraid of germs. 

This condition is triggered by the death of his baby brother who he didn't got the chance to meet in real life. He just know that his baby brother died and he thought it is his fault. 

So he tried to stay away from germs by being careful and clean. Also his need of staying away from germs make him stay home a lot and he was afraid to go to school. 

He watched his neighbors through the windows. He recorded what he saw in his notebooks. 

A toddler went missing and right before he was missed, Matthew was watching him through the window. 

Melody is a strange girl who wants to be Matthew's friend. They communicate via email. Now that the toddler Teddy is missing, and Matthew is house-bound. Melody is going to be his sick-kick investigator. 

Things got more interesting. There is also a bully called Jake who was Matthew's friend. 

The missing Toddler Teddy and the three young friends are going to solve this. 

The story is exceptionally touching. It is wonderful. 

Highly recommended it. 

Unexpected and very good story. Matthew is 12 and is afraid of germs. What I don't expected is the start of a Rear Window type of story. 

A toddler is missing and Matthew is the last person who saw the baby. So while the adults, parents, neighbors and police are all looking for the missing child, Matthew started his own investigation. 

As he didn't want to leave the house, he has a side-kick, Melody. 

Matthew suspected that it is a neighbors who had taken the child. And he is going to find out. 

Once it turned into an investigation, it run really well. 

Bank: $51

Book read for 22 

  $3 

Roll dices: 10 

Landed on 31 

 I have considered reading Lethal Agent.  

Max is a young celebrity because his family is rich and his parents are involved in sex tape leaked. 

He is 22 and handsome and with a healthy attitude toward people in general. He also has to say goodbye to his bodyguard as he is retiring. The new bodyguard is handsome and was assigned to protect his mother. He also had a crash on him when he was a teenager. 

So this is like bodyguard for celebrity adding a gay romance into it. 

As romance goes, it is not bad. It is about how the rich seems to find their own meaning to spend time when they are not making money or spending money. 

The bodyguard is nice too with a protective side. He was the son of the family doctor. 

As a series goes, it is quite a nice one. 

Reading this for pride month. 

Matt has been suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attack since he was a young man. 

Learning from his years of experience in trying to cope with his mental illness. He give advises to his himself and his younger self and let us read them too. 

The part about panic attack is very useful. Panic attack has also different in degree and his sharing of it would be helpful to think ahead of time on how to react to it. 

The rethinking of human relations with online device including phone, computer, iPad is helpful too. 

Who we are and what we care about and how we invest our time show how much we care about things? 

If we put all the hours of the day into a times-sheet and do a periodic analysis of it. We would find that we care more about online game than our family members. Care more about online media than our loves one. 

If that is true for us, then we need to rethink our strategic on time management. 

Nicely done. Easy to read short chapters. 

David was in the hospital. He was there because he was being hit on the head one too many times. While he was there, he needed to rest and didn't checked out of the hospital by himself. 

A thief came to his room and stole his boots. He likes his boots and wants them back. So he tried to catch the thief. He did met someone else and he knocked him out. The thing is, this guy was working for MI5. 

So... his left one agent partner-less. He was then ordered to stay longer in the hospital to help out this agent. There was some highly radioactive stored near the hospital. The agent got news that there is a danger that someone would steal these radioactive materials that could be used as poison or dirty bomb. 

The running around is a bit strange. So who is the bad guy here? 

There is some actions and some plot twists. It is an OK fun read. 

George is a girl. She has an older brother Scott and best friend Kelly. She is being bullied in school by a boy named Jeff.

All is good and well with exception that only George knows she is a girl. 

There is a school play Charlotte's Web. George wants to be Charlotte but she isn't allow to audition for the part because the teacher didn't know she is a girl yet. 

It is hard and confusing for a young transgender child to tell their family and friends of their gender. A lot of things are so depending on the perspective of gender. What to dress, what roll to play in a school play, and the expectation that comes with it. 

Good that George school is LGBT friendly. Even so, it is still not easy for a young child to find acceptance. 

Good that George has a best friend Kelly. Who after George told her, not only accept her as she is, but helped out by letting her dress for a day out to the zoo with her uncle. George could finally go out as Melissa. 

It is hard to find good book on transgender child. This is a really good one and by reading, more adults and children might get how to be around transgender children that might be more helpful to them.