The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

The Last House on Needless Street

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! What a ride! This kept me guessing the whole time. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, I was proven wrong.

The author did a wonderful in her research and the emotions ran high throughout this book. Up until the end, I was guessing the ending. I hope to read more of her books and I hope they are just as amazing!

View all my reviews

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hadn’t read many of the Sherlock Holmes books, so this one was new to me. I hadn’t realized that Watson was narrating much of it and that Holmes was such a minor part of it.

I rated it low because the book seemed to drag on and was summarized in the final chapter. I probably would have gotten just as much out of reading just the final chapter as I did reading the whole book.

The story was interesting and pretty much held up over time, but I still wasn’t a big fan.

View all my reviews

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell


The Family Upstairs
 by Lisa Jewell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had this book recommended to me many times, so I finally picked it up, without knowing what it was about. I got sucked into the plot immediately. It had me guessing for the majority of the book. I had no idea where it was going or how it was going to end. I loved it!

This was an easy read and I recommend it highly.

View all my reviews

The Family Upstairs

Perfect Stranger by Lindsey Powell

Perfect Stranger

Perfect Stranger by Lindsey Powell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed almost everything about this book. I had to suspend belief that a writer could completely forget about her phone and laptop for several days. Also, I was not thrilled about the ending. I had no choice but to get the next book in the series. I needed to know what happened. If you’re willing to invest in the whole series, then I’d recommend this mostly romance, somewhat suspenseful mystery book. 

View all my reviews

Makeup and Mystery

Bailey Sarian has a YouTube channel. She does amazing makeup jobs while telling a true mystery story. I have watched several of them so far, and I have been fascinated by the whole procedure. The makeup is wonderful. The stories are interesting. The whole process gives one a lot to think about. I still am not going to do a full face of makeup, but it’s still good to know that I can learn how, if needed.

Mystery/Thriller bingo

Theclockworkbook gave me permission to post some of the bingo cards that were designed and are posted on Instagram at @theclockworkbook. I did not design these. Here’s one of the cards. First is a blank one for you to fill out, and then one where I filled in the books that I read. This isn’t one of my favorite genres, so I haven’t read many of them. It’s still fun to look at.

The brown X’s are books that I have read. The green circles are books that I want to read. The pink circles are books that I have and I want to read. It still looks like I won’t be finishing up any lines any time soon, even if I read the books that I want.

Alcatraz Escape

Alcatraz escape

The above linked article from 2014 tells about the Alcatraz escape on June 11, 1962. We’ve heard about this escape over the years, where three men made a rubber raft of raincoats and attempted to paddle out of the San Francisco Bay.

They tell about the tests that were attempted by Mythbusters back in 2003. The video is interesting to watch. Depending on the time they left, they may have made it. Some evidence shows that they did.

Here’s the Wikipedia article on the escape: The Escape. There is a lot of information there.

Part of why they think that the men didn’t make it to shore had to do with being in the water for a long length of time. So many people do a similar swim annually, that I think that it was possible. The speed that they’d have to go would be not an unreasonable speed in a boat. I think there’s a good chance they made it. One day we might know?