Amy

There's a couple things I really liked (and/or that I found really interesting) about this story that I want to make mention of.

First up, I liked how it wasn't the ‘straight' guy suddenly catching feelings that started the ‘level up' of their relationship. Usually when I read these bi-awakening/bi-realization books, the romance aspect starts because the person having the awakening/realization starts seeing their friend differently. In here it's not, which I actually thought was nice.

Also, I really like Sloane and Dean's friendship. I always have a soft spot for the physically close male friendships - probably because that isn't something I see a lot in media. I like how, before the romance starts, there's heads on laps and foreheads against temples. It's a closeness and a softness that I appreciate.

I like that Sloane was pretty much chill about the whole awakening/realization and that there was no relationship angst. Honestly, despite both guys being in their mid-twenties, they do act like adults for the most part. And do talk things out - which is always a good thing for me.

This book had a decent chance of getting five stars, it just works that well for me, but the first time Sloane and Dean hook up, they are both drunk. That's a pretty solid no, for me, but the rest of the story was good enough, the characters were good enough, and the communication was good enough that it kept that from being a total deal breaker.

(And, I gotta say, I really like these last couple of romances I've read and how the ‘straight' guy just seems to shrug his shoulders and goes with ‘it's him' and doesn't really care about the rest. While I do and would love the whole ‘I'm bisexual' thing, I do also appreciate the totally chill vibe and the way it kind of feels like gender is not relevant. I also appreciate the fact that if they're going to ignore bisexuality, they do it this way instead of ‘this makes me gay now' that I've dealt with before.)

(Side note: I do kind of wonder with how Sloane talks towards the end of the book if he's somewhere on the ace spectrum. I'm thinking he could be demisexual/demiromantic because that's what his words put me in mind of.)

More like a 4.5, maybe, but it is a really, really good book. (And I can see myself loving the sequels even more than this one.)

I like the characters. We only get to spend time in three of the characters heads, which I feel was a little bit of a waste - I'm probably just used to the fantasy books that have a bunch of narrators. Anyway, I the characters are great, each having their own motivations and reasons for the things they are doing. (Which is something I find so fun, because even if they don't agree (or in one case, wants to kill one of the others) they are still so compelling to read.)

You know how some people are always calm and cool and put together in books? These are not. Very, very are not. Alba and Sevina are often dealing with stress and anxiety and Aran seems to be a breath away from a panic attack 80% of the time. I think it's a really nice way to help flesh out the characters, though.

This book does remind me a little of Claudie Arseneault's City of Spires series, especially in that there are these huge events happening, but the story is a very personal one. (It's also delightfully queer, though not quite as queer as City of Spires, yet.)

I do have a couple minor issues.

The first is that descriptions of things are pretty brief. I think the most that was described was the city we started out in. I do get that, because I do not need pages of descriptions about spaceship hallways - which I assume was part of the point, too. (I mean, you seen one spaceship, you've pretty much seen them all. Unless it's a living spaceship...)

The second problem I had was very much an ‘expectations vs. reality' issue. I expected this to be a first contact type book. It's not, really. I figured that by halfway through the book, we'd be chatting with aliens. ... It's only in the last hundred pages that we actually make it through the portal.

I didn't mind, and there was enough other stuff happening that it didn't feel like we weren't moving or getting anywhere, I just had to readjust my expectations.

(Does anyone else notice how much easier it is to write reviews for books you didn't like than ones you did? This was barely one page in my Works, but I have over three pages for another review of a book that will be lucky to make 2 stars.)

First of all, I want to give a huge thank you to the publisher for giving me the chance to read this before it was published! (And for also drawing it to my attention, because I'd never heard of it before.)

This book is super cute.

Sebastien and Elia are both sweet, awkward guys that are so cute and unsure when they're around each other. They both do have stuff going on, Sebastien more than Elia, that puts them on shaky ground, but they are likable, even relatable for all that one has magic and the other is a vampire. I like their friend groups, too and that they are at least a little fleshed out.

I don't know if there's any intention to make this a series, but I could definitely see some of the other characters getting a bit more attention. (Honestly, I think I wound up more invested in the side romance between Ronnie and Drew than I did the main romance, but that's just my own weirdness.) And I would really love to see these characters grow as people.

I also have to make mention of the racial and sexual diversity here, which is lovely to see. (A couple of side characters say ‘I'm ___.” Which is something I love. But...I was told by the person that I dealt with from HarperCollins (I think she was in marketing?) that Sebastien is demisexual. I can see that, but with what is in the book, I personally would not have put that together. Honestly, with the way Sebastien talks, I'm not even 100% certain that he, right now, knows he's demisexual. So, if this is a series, I would love to see that part of his story.)

I absolutely adore Pierre, Sebastien's pet bunny rabbit with dreams of world domination. Also, I have to add, the art is solid. I've read some comics where the art is confusing or, honestly, kind of ugly, but this art is nice, consistent and pretty bright, over all.

I don't usually do this, but, I think that there would be a lot of fans of Heartstopper that would also like this book.

The only real complaint I have about this book is that there is some, very light, background world building but it never is explained. We apparently have the magic world and the human world. We have a magic Paris and a human Paris (and Italy and likely more) but it's never really explained if they coexist together, if they overlap, how this is handled.

We have a magic school and vampires and cyclops and I'm not really sure what else. (A Frankenstein's monster, maybe? Fae, I think and maybe something else with pointy ears. Ooh, also an incubus.) But how, why? Are all the myths real? (Side note: are there werewolves? Dragons?)

Sebastien receives a phone call from the human world, but Sebastien also states that he's never been on these streets in the human Paris, either. So... How does this mesh? The first seems to preclude alternate dimensions, while the latter seems to preclude a Harry Potter like setting, where the human and the magic live side by side. (There's something about humans not being able to hurt the non-humans in the magic world, but how? What?)

These are questions I have, that if you are just here for the cute romance and the fun characters, you probably won't have the same questions, but I am craving more of a deep dive into this world building.

Honestly, this is the sort of book I would have never chosen for myself - but it was a paid for recommendation and so I prepared to read it. And I only stop recommended books if they are totally irredeemable. This book isn't awful in same way as that, just totally awful for me. Though, I will admit, I think I started to become immune to it by the 200 page mark (or so) and started just watching the pretty fireworks as the train wreck exploded.

The mystery itself is actually the only half decent thing in the story. (...I don't think I've ever said that before.) It's interesting because the mystery actually starts with not knowing who the victim is. Which I find a unique approach to the standard mystery. And because 1) there is no body and 2) none of the ‘sleuths' are official in any sort of capacity, it takes almost the whole book before they figure out who the victim actually is.

Which is the issue with the mystery: it's not investigated very well or consistently. Claire is a bad detective. Sophie is useless. I mean, you have this ghost tied to you, but it changes actually nothing about the case than if she'd been Claire's niece.

The only thing having a ghost influences with the mystery was the introduction to the case and I can personally think of at least three other ways that could have been contrived (and I'm sure inventive people can think of several more). It turns out that my original idea, that I put down in the first, vitriol filled review of this book (of which this is the third!) would have solved the mystery after, oh, 150 pages. (Or less.) What? Talk to the local ghosts. You can talk to them. You have a ghost that can talk to them attached to you. Do you do it? No! Why not? ... Who knows! (But, seriously, why not?)

Claire conducts one séance. Okay, more like half a séance. After the mystery starts, the only ghost she really talks to is Sophie. Which...I would expect there to be more, kind of random spirits and, really, it's a surprise that she doesn't utilize her abilities to interview the ghosts of the house. I can only imagine this was kind of a selling point for this story and it is underutilized.

The ‘ghost bff' sounds like the elevator pitch for a humorous book, right? This book is billed as ‘hilarious,' right? But the usage of the ghost bff actually brings up the most depressing, maudlin, unhealthy, toxic, unpleasant parts of this whole story. (And, to be fair, most of it is unpleasant.)

I can only assume that these depressive funk moments were to balance out the laugh out loud moments of the rest of the book.

...

Oh, wait, there was none.

I'm guessing that the strange similes and comparisons and random flights of fancy that Claire has is supposed to be funny - but all I really got was wishing that she'd see a good therapist. (She compares the Underground to being in the womb. I am truly never getting over that.)

Claire's just impossible to actually like. She doesn't take her job seriously, though it's the only way she can make money, apparently. She reads so much younger than she is. This is not a thirty-something that treats her job like a profession, this is a teenager that treats her job as a way to get drunk on someone else's dime.

After her first ‘bit of séance' - which was basically a séance without the ‘hold hands and open your channel' parts - Basher (the local skeptic and former cop) is talking to her and telling her that he'll figure out her tricks and to not do what she did - pretend to pass along a message - one that certainly did not exist - from one of Nana's loved ones.

‘“It's her birthday,” he said again, embarrassingly earnest. “She is old. Leave Nana alone.”
Claire held up both her hands. “All right, all right - you got me. Don't arrest me. Oh, wait, you can't.” She was snapping back at him like a sulky child, and regretted it straight away.'

...I hate her. I hate her so much. Then...Look, she's a medium. And she derides and belittles the ... profession (?). “The, uh, circle is broken, or whatever.” (I'm not a medium and am not even 100% sure I believe in this stuff, but, this is just another way she half-asses everything to do with her ‘job.')

I do not like the casual drug use in the book. It's not something I particularly like reading about, ever. Claire, as well as teen Alex, get high on marijuana. Claire has done cocaine sometime in her past. (Both of which caused me to look up drug laws in the UK to find out if they differ greatly from the US. They differ slightly, in that marijuana is illegal country wide in the UK and it isn't in the US (where it varies by state and almost half the states - at the time of me writing this - have legalized recreational marijuana).)

Look, the first night she spends with these clients of hers, she drinks enough red wine while she's eating that she was ‘feeling quite hot and sick' and then later on she ‘opens a window to cool down and suppress her nausea'. After which she proceeds to smoke enough marijuana with the aforementioned teen to get ‘pissed and high'. (And then admits to being ‘really quite high'.)

She gets drunk five times in this book, three times to the point of hangover, once to the point of blackout (the word ‘blackout' was literally used here to describe this!). Is it fun reading about someone getting dunk? Because I personally have never found it so.

‘It was unfair for someone to be annoying whilst living through legitimate sadness, because Claire wasn't allowed to be annoyed by it, which was even more annoying, and it locked her in an ouroboros of being a shitty person.'

(But she is a shitty person. Some people might like reading books about shitty people. I do not.)

She uses cutesy made up words like ‘investigatoring.' She uses the word ‘detectoring' - which is in actual word usage (even if my dictionary disagrees) though she probably does not realize it. She also uses it improperly, as I think she probably thought it meant ‘detecting' as in ‘sleuthing' not ‘detecting' as in what people do with a metal detector (which is how it's used!). She listens to three true crime pod casts because, of course, every millennial, ever, does that.

The ghostly bff that is even more of a painful character than Claire is. Sophie uses ‘lol' and ‘ohmigosh' in probably every conversation she's in. At least once. (Until shit gets real.)

These two are exhausting to be around. I read maybe ten pages of this book and I am already so tired, just hearing them talk and be terrible, obnoxious people.

(Also, Claire keeps a hair clip that Sophie was likely wearing when she was murdered in a plastic bag that used to contain cocaine. Just, you know, share my misery.)

Oh, and when Claire first meets the ambiguously gendered ‘Alex' she asks “Is that -andra or -ander?”

...

...

Instant friendship, just add water.

When the story starts off, Luke is drowning in feelings of failure and insecurity. He meets Landon who promptly throws him a lifeline. And the two are fast friends. Like super fast. If romance moved this fast, I'd be complaining, but it was simply lovely to read about Luke falling more and more with each conversation and meeting until he realizes that he is, in fact, falling for a man for the first time in his life.

One of the things I really liked here was that there was a lack of ‘gay' panic. In fact, he seems to miss the ‘man' part of the equation all together and panics over the ‘Landon' part of it, instead. The ‘falling for my best friend' (which is a favorite trope of mine) part of it and the ‘falling for the dad of my son's best friend' part of it.

Luke is desperate to be a good dad, despite the dead wife shaped wedge that was driven between them. (I don't usually like the ‘ex's are bitches' that some MLM books get, but with Riley, it worked okay for me. This was partially because it was/is super complicated and because we also deal with Landon'd ex who isn't a bitch.) And 95% of what he does is because/for Emmet.

So, when he realizes he's catching feelings for Landon - for the dad of his son's best friend - he freaks out. He also has a side of not wanting to mess up their friendship because there is no way that Landon could ever like him back. (The self recrimination is strong with this one.)

I don't usually like it when romances are only told from one perspective, but in this book, I'm actually glad we never get Landon's because I liked the slow, incoercible slide into feelings - and I think the first half of the book would have felt vastly different if we all knew that Landon was there already, waiting to catch Luke when Luke falls, as I suspected Landon fell first. (Also, Landon is not an enigma. Landon is very open and honest with Luke right from the start, so we really get to know him as well.)

So, with all of this stuff that I love, I was definitely planning on this book being a 2025 favorite, but then we reached one hundred pages that, honestly, bored me a little. It was just a lot of Luke and Landon making out and having sex and I don't know what it says about me that that is my least favorite part of a romance novel, but, yup, that's my least favorite part of a romance novel. (Pretty much all romance novels...)

Then the last hundred pages pulled it back for me. We had so much good family content, so much father-son content and so much football content. (Which, honestly, I know nothing about football. It makes no logical sense to my brain, but I didn't really feel lost and I might even understand it a little bit now.)

Couple final notes: This book ends the exact way I hate my romance novels to end. But...somehow, I didn't mind it. It works for the book and it didn't upset me the way these type of endings usually do.

This book is a bi-awakening. It is an ‘awakening' not a ‘realization' because Luke never felt this way before. There was no looking into his past and realizing that he repressed his feeling for other men before. Which I super appreciate. (I read a book once that was billed as ‘gay-awakening' and instead it was ‘gay-repression' and that was not what I signed up for.)

However, and your mileage my vary on this, the word ‘bisexual' was used I think once - when Luke was googling. Luke never says he's bisexual. Luke never says he's anything, besides in love with Landon, a man. He doesn't seem to need, want or care about a label. There is no ‘what does this make me?' angst. He's just in love with Landon.

I kind of liked it. I mean, I love the books where the person says ‘I'm bisexual' loudly and often. But Luke's just in love with Landon - and that's really as far as his thought process goes. I think Landon being a man is incidental to Landon being Landon. (Which, now that I write that, Luke might be pansexual.) And I like that for the romance.

(I am ping ponging between a three star and a four star rating. Even a 3.5 would cause me to round up to a four and I just don't know! This is one of the hardest books for me to rate in quite a while!)

I'm not gelling 100% with this book and it might be partially my fault. See, I didn't reread the first book in the series before going after this one. So where that has left me is not knowing what Sam and Alistair see in each other and being somewhat feed up with their minor disagreements and squabbles.

Because in this book, they are already an established couple - though not an established witch/familiar pair. Which does something a little weird for me. I both like that (because I like the more logical, lack of soul mates vibe) and dislike it (because I feel a little like they are meshing real well as a couple for me and the lack of this connection actually makes them feel a little more distant to each other to me).

I do have a vague memory of them not being a favorite pairing for me from the first book, too. (And, to be honest, I don't think I'm ever going to like Sam.) I'm just not fully behind them as a couple and as the excitement of them getting together has worn off, I think that is coming to the forefront.

I do still love the 20's Prohibition era setting, though. And all the slang. The slang is super cool. (I also want to say that someone got splifficated instead of boringly saying they got drunk.)

AND I thought I had things figured out and I go, yeah, Hawk is an author that would go this creepy. But then I get the reveal and I'm like, no, Hawk's an author to go even creepier!

Honestly, I think this is one of the reasons I like his books so much, because I don't like horror books, but his books walk right up to that line of ‘I enjoy this' without ever crossing over into the ‘I don't enjoy this' and I actually find myself enjoying the general creepiness that is offered in his books.

I love hockey. I do. Hockey is my favorite sport, the only sport I've ever really been a fan of. And this is despite knowing that it probably the most homophobic, sexist, racist sport you're going to find. (I say probably because while I know hockey culture can be a cesspit, I don't know how truly awful the other sports are. I'm just wagering hockey is the worst.)

Anyway, I went into this book with some trepidation, because I know that Sophie could be looking at a constant uphill battle, but I didn't know if this book was going more for the depressing or the uplifting sides of the story.

Ultimately, I think it was pretty well balanced. Sophie struggles, but she also succeeds - which is nice to see, because I grew to like her very quickly. Sophie is only 18, but she carries herself with a maturity and a self possession that people two and three times her age don't have. (I know I sure don't.)

She's easy to like and also, being honest, easy to get a little frustrated with because she is so focused on being the first woman. She's always super aware of how she comes off, of how if she's not perfect in every way that she'll ruin all the other women's chances of playing. I get it, that she has to be everything to everyone to succeed, but sometimes I just wanted to see her stand up for herself, without thinking about the optics.

Finally, the only reason this did not get a five star is ...

I feel like Sophie's team is just there. There are team members that are sent up/down mid-season or traded mid-season and I really felt nothing. (With maybe the exception of their two goalies, but I think that's really just me and my predisposition to get attached to goalies.) I've read other hockey books that make me mourn trades. This one, it was just something that happened.

The only character besides Sophie that I felt much for was Ivanov - who isn't even a teammate!

This does appear to be a debut book, and very little needs to be worked on, so I do hope that the sequels flesh the other characters out a bit more.

(Side Note: This is tagged/listed as LGBT. In theory, it might be. I'm guessing Sophie is probably under the umbrella, but as of this book, it's still just vague hints.)

Sure, this device is going to bring back people from the dead. Of course it's going to work well and be totally without side effects.

...

...

Okay, but in all honesty, I did enjoy it. I liked the crew we got together this time around, I liked the feeling of family among our four main characters (especially now that our two leads are no longer lying through their teeth to each other) and, to be honest, a creepy orphanage it one of the best places to set a haunting, in my opinion.

As for the plot, it was nice to really wrap up the events of our boys pasts and get closure there. There was a multitude of big reveals and twists - ones I had been putting together since the last book and was, almost universally, right.

I did, however, like that love and family saved the day. ... That was fun.

So, to be totally honest, I did not like this one as much as the first one - for several reasons.

Henry and Vincent are both keep secrets from the other. Vincent's secret is referenced a handful of times, usually in conjunction to how strange Henry is acting. Henry's secret is referenced roughly every time he takes over the narration, influences most if not all of his actions and is pretty much his entire story arc in this book. What's more, his secret is a direct lie. (I think Vincent's is, too?) I do not like secrets being kept - especially lies and even more especially when the secrets and lies are in such intimate relationships. (Also, Henry is lying to literally everyone. Everyone!)

When the truth does come out (maybe somewhere around the 50% mark) things did improve for me, which resulted in a higher rating than I had been expecting up until that point.

I find the secondary characters in this book insufferable and I do not want to spend time around them. (Not Jo and Lizzie. I am fully convinced that Jo and Lizzie are main characters and deserve a spin off of their own.) While I didn't love the secondary characters in the first book, I didn't hate spending time around them. In this book, I don't even want to read their conversations.

Finally, and this is just a minor preference, I prefer the haunted house stories over the more haunted area, haunted woods that this book features. Not a huge deal, but just a small preference.

TW: Transphobia and dead naming.

I knew I would like this, (Hawk hasn't let me down yet) but I hadn't expected to like it quite as much as I did.

I don't know if anyone else here has seen the tv show SurrealEstate, but that's what the book reminds me so much of. (Even if this series actually came first.) You've got people using both magic and technology to investigate a haunted house, a diverse cast and general haunting shenanigans that never truly get scary.

Honestly, I had a lot of fun with this book, though I will admit that I was more in to it because of the ghost hunting (they said Victorian ghost busting and I was there) than I was the romance. Though the characters are as fun and likable as I've come to expect from Hawk's work.

I'd also like to add that there is a surprising amount of stuff going on in this book - besides the haunting and the romance, we also get treated to a human culprit. And some surprisingly decent world building for the length of this book.

Likely more like a 3.5, but I don't think this book deserves to be listed by me as a 4 star read, so here we are.

As a whole, I did enjoy the book - but I do feel a little let down by what it could have been.

First of all, I'd like to say that the audio narration is kind of odd. Usually in the books I listen to, the narrator changes their voice a little for characters. This might not always be pleasant to listen to for me, but I'm used to it. I'm used to the dialogue and the narrative sounding different, having just a little different tone - especially when it's from the point of view of two - or more - characters. This book doesn't do any of that. The narrator uses the same voice for all characters, for dialogue, for narrative, for everything. I don't hate it, but especially at the beginning of the book, it is a learning curve.

I'd also like to take a moment and state that I wish books would not give so much away in the synopsis. When this books starts off, it feels so unbelievably slow. The book is very deliberate, which I'm okay with, but the problem is that I am waiting for the events mentioned in the synopsis to happen, combined with the very short length of this book, apparently, (apparently, it is only 300 pages long, so says the listing on Goodreads, anyhow) combines to make it feel much longer than 65 pages for the events of the synopsis to actually happen. I think that did this book a huge disservice.

Now, on to the more meaty bits.

I do like the romance. I would like to say that, first. Because I do think that these two are good together. I would like to see a bit more of the Oliver being good for Felipe, because what we see is more of the opposite. But they are good together and I think Oliver does help settle Felipe a bit. I also love the fact that these are two mature adult men. They have had a life, they are not consumed by each other to the detriment of literally everyone else and their jobs. Felipe is old enough to have a daughter in college (I think he's almost 40) and Oliver is not much younger. This I so nice.

However, I did have a little problems with the romance itself. So when our couple gets together, Oliver tells Felipe that he wants to take it slow. This leads into a kissing scene and a bit of a grope. Which is, apparently, taking it slow? Then, the very next day, they have sex. But, don't worry, not ‘actual sex' - as Oliver calls it. Because, apparently, we still exist in a world where the only ‘real' sex is penetrative sex.

Look, even without the voiced desire to ‘take it slow' the speed that they go from crush/dating/kissing/sexing would have been too fast for me. With this voiced, I actually, erroneously, thought that I might like the speed of the romance. (I didn't, obviously.) But it also feels disingenuous to have a character say they want to take it slow, get approval for this from their love interest, and then the speed that kissing and sexing happened. (Oliver requested to take it slow, Felipe initiated the first kiss. This also feels kind of not great.)

And, finally, calling penetration ‘actual sex' will never not piss me off.

Conversely, I did love the fact that, after the first sex scene, all others are fade to black. I liked that the focus for this couple - and, intentionally, the readers - is not sex, but the actual relationship.

However, as you'll notice, I've not said anything about the plot. That's because the plot was the weak link in this book. Well, that and the world building.

I will admit that there were a couple times I was listening to this book while I was at work or exercising and I just started to...fall asleep. My ears just quit listening, so I will admit that some of this may be on me, but the world building is...non-existent. At this point, I cannot tell you how this world works. (Other than the fact that religion hates anything with magic, which...yeah, that tracks.)

During the climax of the story, Felipe makes what feels like a leap of logic in doing something that he seemed to know how it would work, when I don't remember it being explained to us. And, also, I do not remember the various parts of the mystery actually being tied together. As I said, this could be on me. But, considering I don't remember it happening, if it did, it must have been a very brief mention.

And, finally, the mystery. Well... I thought it started well. The case was interesting enough, the stakes were raised and became personal - which is always good, especially when those involved don't hare off with the reasoning ability of teenagers.

I was involved in the case and, for awhile, I liked the romance/mystery balance. The mystery felt like it was getting a good amount of attention. But then it was like the romance took over, the mystery fell to the wayside. What's worse than that, at least for me, by roughly the 60% mark, it felt more like a why-dunit than a whodunit. Because...(keeping this kind of vague) there was more than one person involved. They figured some of the culprits very quickly. I figured out the rest of the culprits as soon as they were introduced to the page. Apparently, with Felipe and Oliver's actions, it was supposed to be some huge reveal, but I saw it coming so that did not have the payoff for me.

Now, that all being said, I am not against continuing this series because I actually like the two leads. I'm willing to deal with my issues, because, over all, this book might have been a little...well, shallow, but it was enjoyable and the characters are likable.

This might be the most supremely average book I've ever read. That's not a bad thing because - with few and notable exceptions - I would rather read an average book than one I actively hate.

The few things I found above average (Edwin's character, the last 10-15% of the book, the inventiveness of the magic system) are easily balanced by the things I found below average (the first 15-20% of the book, the primary uses for magic in this book being mostly really horrible, several characters being totally irredeemable slugs) leaving me with, as I said, an average book.

I would like to mention that, for me, the romance kind of ate the rest of the plot. And, unfortunately, I wasn't totally sold on the romance - which probably contributed to the average-ness of the book. And, really, I know they didn't, but it just felt like they had a lot of sex. I guess that's because I would have preferred if, instead of sex scenes, we would have actually had scenes that did something with the plot. Or if, maybe, the romance had been a slower burn, or not there at all, because the speed in which they go from hating each other to wanting to have sex with each other - no, sorry, they still hated each other even while they wanted to have sex with each other, there for a while.

Thankfully the romance does get a bit better for me, but really, the romance is just something else that is (in this case, barely) average.

I did wind up enjoying the book enough that I may continue the series - especially with the proper expectations in place.

Expectations of an average sequel to this average book.

More of a 3.5 but I rounded up for nostalgia, I guess.

There's 16 stories:

Cinderella Stella
Garfield plays Fairy Godmother to Liz's social outcast niece.

Pretty fun story, despite such a focus being on a character I'd never heard of before. Garfield is...surprisingly helpful.
Food Fight!Giant anthropomorphic food seeks revenge on Garfield.Dislike the art: Garfield looks wrong. And also, this was just trying way too hard to be a superhero rip off.Won't PowerGarfield exercises his self-control to stop eating lasagna. For thirty minutes.Fun and kept the attention where it belongs: on Garfield.GilbertGarfield helps apathetic neighbor.Over all, okay, though mostly forgettable.

Who Stole My Orange Meringue Pie?
Garfield puts on his detective hat when someone eats his pie.

Cute and quirky and just an enjoyable read. Would have been more fun if the culprit had been more unexpected.
**Meyer the LiarA new mouse visits. A mouse that cries wolf one too many times.Super fun, love Garfield and Odie in this one.The Little Green BoxGarfield finds a Genie. This will end well.Liked it, but it's a lot like all the other ‘found Genie' stories.The Big Fang TheoryA look at the bully dog Fang.Meh. Never really needed this. Extra star for Garfield being protective of the kittens in the neighborhood and a chicken himself.The Mailman and the Make-BelieversTwo criminals are going to steal a letter from Jon's mailman. While Garfield and Odie play pretend.Loved this one. There's a good plot, lots of Garfield action and it's just generally fun.Space OddityPooky goes on an alien adventure....Barely okay - and, really, only okay because of how peculiar it was.**Up is DownIt's Halloween and Odie finds a magic wand that a demon wants to use to enslave humanity.Nice amount of Garfield, Odie and Nermal and just pretty fun all around.All in a Day's Cosplay...Non Garfield woman decides she's going to cosplay as Garfield at the ‘big cosplay convention'....Do I even have to say how much I hate this story being included here? There is no Garfield characters and it's just these people cosplaying as them. It doesn't belong here and it has no bearing to this collection. (Also, very very unfitting artwork.)...Can I give it negative stars? Because I would.Thanks 4 GivingGarfield decides he's going to help some of the stray cats find furever homes this Thanksgiving.I never thought I'd be crying over a Garfield story, but this is my life now.Little Red Riding CatNermal decides that if Garfield can eat a big meal right before bed, so can he - and is rewarded with a nightmare.Meh. I didn't like this. Didn't like the art or the story or the fact that it was all about Nermal. Also didn't like the fact that it reads like a fever dream.Elf EsteemJon and Liz are buying gifts for the local orphanage, meanwhile one of Santa's elves is massively incompetent and takes it upon himself to deliver a gift to a little girl living in Garfield's house.Okay. Nothing to write home about and nothing to make me hate it.Nermal & the Three BearsNermal dislikes the way this fairytale is going and tries to rewrite it.Fourth-wall breaking and a story almost like Little Red Riding Cat.

We also get 6 ‘Garfield Sunday Classics' in the back.
*****

Grabbed on a whim from my library because my mind was dead and I needed something mindless to read. This fit the bill aptly. Fun and somewhat enjoyable but there were some issues I had with continuity. For example, the strips kept flip-flopping between Lucy charging the traditional 5¢ and a new 7¢ - with no rhyme or reason behind the changes. Also, the colors changes drastically at time. (Like the school that was suddenly grey and I briefly thought they were in a cemetery because just a couple panels ago, it was definitely not grey.)

Also, oddly enough, the comics are sometimes not in chronological order. Or there's a lot of days missing so I can't help but wonder if there were more to the joke than was was actually published here. Finally, I was reading some of the back matter and discovered that the original creator had died and I wondered the reason for some of the oddities was because more people were drawing them and they didn't make sure everything was compatible.

Well, this was unexpected.

So, despite the inauspicious beginning, I wound up really loving this book. (Edited to add: And, for one, the X meets Y marketing wasn't totally off, because it does remind me quit a bit of The Goblin Emperor in odd ways.)

When it starts off, I really didn't like Kadou and pretty much hated Tadek - the later to such a degree that I had to go refresh my memory on the synopsis and make sure that he was not the second lead/love interest because...that would have been a dnf right there. (Somewhere around this time I also discovered that I had attempted this author before and had quickly dnf'd that book. So I was a little...worried going into this book.)

Thankfully, he wasn't and shortly thereafter, Evemer was introduced - who I liked right from the start but I couldn't see how a relationship between him and Kadou would form. But it worked out because Kadou grows both on me and on Evemer by leaps and bounds. He also grows as a character, in all honesty. (Tadek to a degree as well, but not enough to actually want to read the sequel novella that seems to be all about Tadek.)

While this is predominantly a slow burn romance, there's also a complementary side story that is an investigation into coin forgery that works surprisingly well alongside the romance. I never felt bored by either or like one was just passing time for the other. Also, they do kind of tie together so they don't feel like two separate stories.

Finally, a note as to why, exactly, it took me this long to read this book. I was listening to the audiobook. This is a solid book - over 500 pages - and the audiobook is equally as solid at over 18 hours.

Usually when I ‘read' audiobooks I either talk about the amazing narrator (like Joel Leslie who I think is amazing) or pretty much ignore the fact that it was an audiobook because the narration...doesn't actually do much.

This, however, is one of the unfortunate situations that I have to say, if you can get a print copy of the book, do it!

The narrator was not bad, like I've unfortunately come across books where simple words are mispronounced, but there was a technical lacking to the audio, I think.

There were times when the narrator would read a dialogue line and then there would be a dialogue tag - for example (Note, this is not the actually lines used, only an example.): “I wold like to know where that idea came from,” she said evenly. And the narrator read the line like a strident harpy, so because you hear the words before the dialogue tag, you have to quickly re-register the tone in your mind as the conversation continues. This happens several times - more often than not, with the non-male characters. (Which is a whole other subject about the strident harpy-ness of non-male character voices in this book quite often when it is not needed.) (And I could likely get into how some narrators struggle with voicing those that are not their gender. But I won't.)

Second problem with the narration is how the speaking volume changes wildly and without notice. I've seldom come across this problem in any other audiobooks. But in this book, I actually couldn't just set the volume and leave it there. Conversations would often raise to such a degree that it was hurting my head before I got my volume turned down. And then there would be scenes that the volume would start out at a normal level, but then it would just start dropping - or a few words would be said so low - that I had to turn the volume back up. Until the next time that the volume rose drastically. Over all, not earbuds friendly. Bear that in mind, folks.

Finally, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but sometimes in animated shows, there's a person talking while their off screen and their voice sounds funny. It almost sounds like they are being recorded in a slightly echoing room. It sounds like there's no richness to their voice. I don't like it when shows/movies do that, but I can kind of understand why they do - because that person is off screen, likely at a distance, so they would likely sound different. However, this book does it a few times, totally randomly. The first time it happened, I actually checked my headphones jack to make sure that it hadn't come partially unplugged - and then I was worried that one of my earbuds quit working. But it cleared up to just do it again later, for no reason that I could discover.

Now, all that to say, I do not blame the narrator. His voice sounds good - when he's not harpy-ing it - but I think he was not directed appropriately. To me whoever was in charge of the recording really fell down on their job, and then the quality control didn't...control it well.

So, yeah, this is definitely a case of if you can get the print version - do it!

So, I actually got this book for free before I tried Sherwood's Villainy series. Likely if I hadn't have, I would have never read anything else by her - that how much I disliked that whole thing. (Reasons of which are in my reviews of them and I am not getting into here.)

I think the reason I wanted this book was the whole renovations thing. I think around the time that I got it, I was really into all those home remodeling/makeover shows. In that aspect, this book is a grave disappointment because - for being the hook that got me interested - it's pretty much non-existent. We spend as much time dealing with Ash's homophobic mother as we do the renovation part of the story. (...Likely more.)

I do like the whole feelings realization between best friends (as that's a particular favorite trope of mine) though the trigger for it being a photoshoot where the guys are being photographed by two (likely straight) women that are using them as models for their gay romance webtoon - and that are previously described as fujoshi's feels somewhat...exploitive. (Which, to be fair, feels like a trend in this book. You have a ‘dedicated bottom', the aforementioned fujoshi's that want to know about gay men's sex lives and the fact that the town has a betting board for who will ‘confess' when they finally do get together. (Something I do not like, at all, and feels very disrespectful.))

I also really did not like the gay guy saying that gay for you happens. I love it as a trope, but ‘gay for you' shouldn't even be a thing. Ever. It should be ‘bi for you' because that's what it actually is. And, in fact, this book is just kind of a bi-erasure example, anyway.

And I have to say, I am used to books not being slow burn - I do wish I could find more than one author that gets what I mean when I look for slow burn - but this is absolutely the fastest burn I think I've ever come across that wasn't a novella. I am not a fan of how after they get together almost every time the guys are alone together, they have to have sex. It's not the only thing they do, but there is only one instance that it doesn't happen - and that is because one of them is upset.

And then the ‘epilogue' is actually from a third guy's perspective and is just the set up for the second book in the series - a trend I do not like at all. (...And that I blame Marvel for.)

Anyway, while the book wasn't ‘bad' per se, it had way too many things I don't like and niggling little pet peeves for me to say it was actually good.

When I originally look at this book, I think it said this was the last of the series. I thought when I finally gave in and got the physical copy from my library instead of waiting for them to get the ebook, that I would be finishing this series. Alas...

Anyway, this is always interesting for me, because I usually watch the show before reading the books, so I can compare things and see what has changed. Once again with the books - just like the show - this is a return to the more soft, fluffy that I have come to expect. (Season two and volume four were both departures for me, for different reasons.)

As a whole, I tend to enjoy both the show and the books for different reasons. With the show I like how expanded everything is and how much more we get from the secondary characters. With the book, I love how tightly it stays focused on Nick and Charlie.

However, with this volume, there are two things that I think the book did significantly better than the show.

Tori's conversation with Charlie on the Ferris wheel and the ending conversation between Nick and Charlie. (I talk about my thoughts on these scenes further in the spoiler below, for those that have not seen the show/read the book.)

For Tori's conversation:
Things were really left hanging here in the show. Without the payoff of her saying that neither her nor Michael are straight, the whole series of scene's with him and her at the fair, really has no point. They don't play up a level of insecurity, they give absolutely no reason to have this conversation.While to a degree I can understand skipping the Michael bit - because Tori pretty much outed him and with us not knowing any conversations that they have had, that is seriously not a cool thing to do - but more could have been done with this scene.So, in the book, Charlie flashes back to Michael making a couple of casual comments to him and Nick indicating that he is attracted to men. They could have had those scenes actually in the show. It's already so casually queer that this would have been a non-entity and Charlie still could have had a light bulb moment of realization without Tori having to say anything. But we didn't get to see that in the show. (Though it is kind of (unintentionally, I'm sure) hilarious that Charlie (a gay kid) tends to assume straight.)For me, the Tori aspect is much, much murkier. So, we have Issac who is ace and aro - he does not exist in the books. (Aled being...somewhat vague about everything I don't know where he is on any of this.) While I'm not the biggest fan of Tori being ace (it feels like this is yet another case of the standoffish, cold person in media being the asexual person) I thought that this would have been a chance for the show to have a person that is ace and alloromantic - as this is very distinctly different than someone that is ace and aro, I feel.However, I did find out that the author states that Tori is ace and on the aromantic spectrum (which, granted, so is demiromantic, which would still be different than aromantic) so... I hope that the shows reasoning wasn't 'we already have Issac, we don't need Tori being ace too.'

About the Nick/Charlie conversation at the end:

It already upset me with the show that Nick didn't tell Charlie at the end of season three that he was interested in a different school. One that was much further away. I didn't like it on the show and I felt that it ended on somewhat of a sour note because of this.The book handles it so much better. Nick tells Charlie and Charlie deals with it rather well. And I'm hoping that the show - assuming it does come back for a season four, which is a pretty big assumption to make, I think - doesn't make a bigger thing out of this. Really, for how much Charlie struggles to have people see him as not fragile (to see himself as not fragile) it would be a huge disservice to his character if the show would turn it into a drama-filled meltdown.And if it doesn't come back for a season four, I just feel that this should have been added to the ending, so it wouldn't have felt quite so...much like a bomb waiting to drop.

Now, both these scenes could have been saved to be expanded upon for a season four - but as of me writing this, no such season has been confirmed by Netflix. So, if that was/is the plan, it smacks of poor decision making and counting your chickens before they are hatched, to me.

Rant over. Liked the book.

First, I want to say that I mostly enjoyed this book. Both guys are pleasant enough to read about and be in the head of. I liked that, even for the short length, it wasn't a speedrun romance with them madly obsessing over each other within moments of meeting. I liked that there were absolutely no misunderstandings in this book.

To me, May-December romances mean something wildly different than this. Which is actually for the good. (I am not a fan of most age-gap romances, which probably leads to questions as to why I even went with this book - the the answer is because I'm enjoyed other work by this author and I managed to get this book free.) There is maybe 10-12 years difference in their ages. Matthew is 34. Skye's age is never mentioned directly, but he has been in art school for a while. So maybe 22-ish. To me, this is not a ‘May-December' romance.

What is is, however, is a size difference romance. There is constant references to how much smaller Skye is than Matthew. I think, if my foggy memory is right, that at one point Skye acknowledges that Matthew is three times his size. Which honestly sounds crazy to me, but whatever.

What I didn't like is the mentions of Skye being elvin and fae looking. Not things I really like a focus on. Also, it needs to be mentioned that there is some homophobia, assumed homophobia and internalized homophobia in this story. Not exactly what I was expecting from a light read.

But, over all, I enjoyed it, even if I didn't love it.

I love getting to spend time in Widdershins, again. In fact, that was the only thing I loved about this book. Widdershins is just an amazing city and I adore all the talk about it ‘knowing its own'. (And, to be fair, Mr. Quinn is in fine form in this story.)

This was, however, my least favorite Widdershins story because I simply cannot stand Maggie Parkhurst as a narrator. I find her to be a very weak character - both as a character in a story and she is constantly mentally berating herself for not doing more and being ‘only a secretary' and I find this insufferable. And her constant mooning turns very frustrating very quickly.

(I'd also like to mention that despite how different Persephone and Percival are, I am a little weirded out that apparently the only people Maggie has even been attracted to are these twins. And how quickly she looses interest in one in favor of the other. It's just...all very strange.)

Edited to addI'll be honest, after reading some of the reviews, there was a lot going on in this story that I didn't pick up on. Most likely because I didn't care because the cliff notes version doesn't have any real human emotion in it. That is all.

I did not like this book.

It starts off suitably well. It has an interesting setting with a lot of world-building questions and gives us a decent lead in Binti.

Then the peculiar almost time jumps start happening. The narrator will go something like: Later, after unpacking, Binti would ask for a tour of the ship, but right now she just stared at it in wonder.

And then we have the speed run mentality of this whole book. Not only is there absolutely no time for us to settle into Binti's life because we only know about her family and friends back home through a couple lines of memories, ... well, I'm going to tag this next part under spoilers but it happens in the first half (first quarter?) of this very short book.

The starship Binti is on is attacked by aliens. These alien's apparently kill every other person aboard this ship. Binti only survives because of this ancient little trinket she has (more about this below). This is all well and good - but then she starts mourning these people. These people that we do no know, never met, never heard speak, because of the speed run structure of the book. Also, when Binti mourns them, I'm not sure if she's just naming one person, or if it's a whole litany of names because this is not made obvious in the audio book and, to be fair, Binti's name is like two feet long. So, it could be either.

But, because I do not know them, I also do not care. She also, later, calls one of the boys ‘the boy she was coming to love.' ... When you literally never see them interact once.

What's at least as bad as this lack of emotional connection for me is the lack of scientific curiosity.

Binti is supposedly the first of her people to ever be invited to this planet-spanning college. But she has no scientific curiosity. (I can only assume she's one of those ‘but not too' indications.)

Binti has this ancient device she found on earth (yes, oddly enough, she apparently lived on Earth...) that saves her from being killed by the Meduse. It also facilitates her communicating with them. Her response when asked how this is possible? “I don't know.” She never even thinks about investigating. Never shows any curiosity - and certainly not the level of curiosity I'd expect from her.

This is like a spark notes version of the book. LOL Where's the rest of it?

So, no, I did not like this book. At all. Why then, you may be asking, did I finish it? Good question. It was entirely down to two things.

1) My library has recently reduced the number of books patrons can borrow from Hoopla in a month so each of these book have to count for me.

2) I am desperate to reach my Goodreads challenge goal this year and this short book puts me one book closer to it, so if I had to listen to it while exercising for two days, I can do that.

(Also because it was recommend to me several different times through different places - the one that stuck being my library.)

Meh.

First of all, do not be like me and read this before Chameleon Moon. You will understand nothing. You will not know who these people are and nothing in their characterization here will make you care. Nothing about the world will be explained - just a few hints dropped that would be more than enough for someone that had read Chameleon Moon.

The plot, as it is, seems okay enough.

The writing style seems a little purposefully abrupt and choppy in dialogue. I say purposefully because none of the non-dialogue is that way, so it feels like it's a stylistic choice (that I personally do not much care for).

Honestly, if more of this is what I can look forward to from the novels...Yeah, I'm not sure this is a series for me.

So, I had actually thought that this book was finally headed in the right direction. There was more danger, more peril, more adventure. (Even the somewhat exaggerated cover comes from a scene where the boys brakes are cut.)Also, there was a lot of emotion, specifically from Joe, in this book. I liked that and I want to say I am very happy with the narrator of this series.

There's just this feel to the book that something bad might happen to the kidnap victim - when, really, there was never that feel from the previous book. Likely because in the previous book we barely spent any time around people that actually loved or cared for those that were kidnapped. In this book we see a boyfriend and a dad both come a little unglued. (Okay, to be fair, the dad more than a little.)

However, then we get to the denouement, and it was just straight up, so disappointing.

Huge spoilers to follow as to who the culprit was and why they did it.

Once again, it was another teenager as the bad guy. Once again, it was one of the Hardy's love interest that was the bad guy. UGH! She had kind of weaved a Moriarty web and, really, managed a shocking amount. That, however, doesn't change the fact that she is a teen and is less than threatening. I mean, sure, she threatens the boys with a taser, but there is no solid reason why they didn't just jump her. Look, even on the off chance that she's some kind of judo prodigy (which, she's not. It would have been mentioned.) they are supposed to be capable and there are two of them. They could have at least tried to fight back.What's especially awful is that this whole thing - two entire books - are just this girl throwing a temper tantrum 'because daddy spent money on something I didn't want'. Seriously, that's really the motive.I don't remember if it was ever mentioned what kind of job her dad did - I don't think it was - but he quit his job and invested in the purchase and running of an amusement park. Then her mom (his wife) lost her job. Which means that now this girl won't get to go to the elite private school - unlike what her plan had been - this year and will have to slum it at the public school. Still. Because of this, she won't ever be able to get into Princeton and will probably not even be able to afford community college. Because we've certainly never heard of student loans or scholarships. No! Daddy had to pay for everything.Well, pay he does, because she destroys his investment, makes him loose money and has to be sent to a reform school for girls - which! Interesting to note, is NOT the 'bad news' reform school that has been dangled over Frank and Joe's collective heads.

You know what, I've talked this book into loosing a star.

Yeah, some of it was good, just about any other culprit - for literally any other reason - would have netted a two or three star instead of this mess.

If the last chapter had been handled differently, this would have been a one star read. But, because this is the first of a continuing mystery (seems like it will be a duology) I will be a little less harsh. This is entirely because we don't really get a mystery resolution and, more than that, we do not get a confession.

For me, I don't really believe the mystery has been solved until the culprit admits to their dastardly deeds - a ‘and I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you meddling kids' if you will. Because this book does not have that, this was another bad mark for it - until the last chapter ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Indicating that the mystery isn't over and I still might get my moment - or the culprit might not be the actual culprit. (Either way.)

Now, other issues I had.

The cover. It has only the most tangential bearing on the mystery herein. It was, in fact, a scene from a dream/nightmare that Frank had. It does not actually happen in the book, nor anything that even vaguely resembles this moment. (How desperate are they for action/adventure moments if the cover has to come from a dream? Judging by the lack of verve in these stories, very.)

The revolving door of girlfriends, crushes, and maybe's. In the first book Joe had a crush on a girl. Okay. In the second book, he is not interested in any. Good. (After all, it was all I could do to put up with Frank's girl trouble in the second book.) In this third book, Joe is dating a totally different girl than the crush in the first book. And, in fact, is dating a girl that hadn't been mentioned previously. Which, admittedly, feels kind of odd considering the fact that so far every single book has taken place in Bayport with at least some scenes in school.

I wish that the boys would either get steady girlfriends - like they had in the original series - or that they would just quit being interested in girls. Because, honestly, this is going to annoy me much more than the ... lackluster mysteries.

Which, this mystery wasn't bad, it's just... I don't know. It's the best so far, if that means anything?

(Also, side note, Frank sounds like such a middle aged man sometimes. It's hilarious.)

edited to add, because I forgot
Also, also, also...

The ride? You know, the one that sounds so awesome an all the teens love? I've seen and read things about how things like this (loud music, specific images, (and these do not sound like happy images) and movements (though this one less than the other two)) have been used as torture and/or brainwashing methods. So... And, honestly, this ride does not sound fun or exhilarating in any way. The kids that ride it seem to love it, but there's a lack of any real reason/explanation why, as far as I can tell. ... Other than the fact that they are teenagers.

I'm going to be bluntly, cruelly honest: I did not enjoy this book at all. There was one single good thing about this book and the rest was a high school mess and I do not read the Hardy Boys books for that.

The Good
We have the return of Chet and Iola! Yes! Two of the original friends of our boys are back. Of course, there is no explanation as to why they weren't in the first in the series - nor are any of the other school kids that were in the first book in this one. But I would have forgiven a lot for Chet and Iola. (Just not this book.)

The Bad
I do not like the mystery here at all. Look, I don't remember the Hardy Boys books that I used to read very well, but never remember them going up against other high school student. Honestly, this was...peril-less. I NEVER felt any real danger. Even the first book in this series had some slight peril and danger. This one has none.

The Ugly
...The usage of crush-at-first-sight. Frank meets a girl that he is immediately drawn to. Okay. Not fine, but I can deal with it. She makes a few possibly suspicious actions. Joe calls her out on that to Frank. Frank literally will not listen to Joe, doesn't want to hear it and puts blinders on. Of course Joe was right, which I knew LONG before Joe even did. Also the reasoning behind the ‘case' they were solving. (HUGE spoiler!) I do wonder what C's girlfriend thinks about C's reason for doing all this is to get back at the girl he had a crush on that kept turning him down. Like, for example, does she think her boyfriend actually likes her and yet is still totally obsessed with this other girl?

Look, there are plenty of YA high school drama llama books. I know. I have, unfortunately, read some of them. I did not expect it here. I also did not want it here.

(It seems unbelievable, but, so far, this series is even worse than the Nancy Drew Diaries.)

... Is any of this supposed to be taken seriously?

The set up for the new Hardy Boys Adventures:

Frank and Joe, though still high school students, have ‘retired' from detective work. While sleuthing, they had neither a detectives license or insurance and, as such, kept getting sued. Last year, they were finally issued an ultimatum to either ‘retire' from all detective work, or go to a ‘reform school' that is described as basically a cross between Arkham and Alcatraz. (Student die each year trying to escape from the island to get away from the mysteriously named correctional programs.) (And apparently going there ruins your life as you cannot get a job or get married if this is on your record. (I'm assuming not literally, but that no one wants to hire or marry a ‘reform' student.))

Needless to say, they are only paying lip service to the ‘retire' aspect and are still happily meddling. (All while woe is me-ing over how terrible their life would be if they get caught sleuthing.) One of their co-students describe them as ‘Sherlock squared' and assume they are ‘packing heat'.

...

This is not rhetorical. Is any of this actually supposed to be taken seriously? Because this is not an adventure book. It's a farce. It would make an amusing screwball comedy from the 40's.

Considering the fact that the name of the local coffee shop and teen hangout/study spot is ‘the Meat Locker' - the actual legal name - I have my doubt that any of this is supposed to be taken seriously.

(I have many remarks that I could make here, and NONE of them are PG. Although, there is actual cursing in this book (and I do mean real cursing, not the people that think ‘sucks' is a bad word) so I'm not sure this book would disapprove.)

And that's not even getting into the case du jour. And how it's all based around a local urban legend that the brothers, who have lived there their whole lives, have never even heard about.

‘Neil was basically telling me about a criminal organization that had been operating right under our noses for our entire lives. Was it possible that the Red Arrow had always been part of Bayport and somehow escaped Frank's and my notice?'

And, later...

‘It's impossible to keep a secret in a town like Bayport where everybody knows everybody's business.'

(Except for the League of Assassins the Red Arrow that has been operating there for decades and our two super sleuths never even noticed. Even though now they notice the symbol on half a dozen houses and businesses and bicycles when they walk around town.)

It's just silly. Plain silly.

Was it enjoyable? Sort of, as long as you don't try to take it seriously.

I, however, am also disappointed at the ending. Besides the fact that, even before the case actually started, I had a strong suspicion as to who the ‘bad guy' would be (and was, unfortunately, right) our intrepid duo had to be rescued. I did like the fact that they were not infallible and made a stupid choice and then couldn't macho themselves out of it - HOWEVER, them having to be rescued is as sad as Nancy stumbling across the mystery solution in her new books and these are things that are just watering down the competency of the characters.

Finally, I grabbed a two pack audio download from my library with this book and the sequel. So I will be listening to it right quick. (Probably at work later this week.) Though I will admit, if the story doesn't change - pretty drastically - I will be stopping the series there.

(Side note: I'm slightly upset that while the new Nancy Drew series allows Nancy to keep her friends, Frank and Joe are breaking in a new set of pals and crushes.)