Series Sunday: A Tiny Collierville Murder

(Tiny House Mystery #1) 

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

"I'll be coming after you six ways from Sunday." ~ 85%

My Series Sunday pick is A Tiny Collierville Murder, the first book in the new Tiny House Mystery series by Abby L. Vandiver. Meet Nixie Culpepper. She thinks the tiny houses on HGTV are just too cute. She is delighted to land on the ranch where they are designed and built. But her excitement is short-lived. So much for a cross country adventure. In only a few days, she gained a stalker and is embroiled in a murder investigation.

Nixie needs to find out whodunit before leaving Collierville. So she enlists the help of an unlikely source: her Yugoslavian grandfather who loves Elvis, tells corny jokes and FaceTimes her regularly. Their relationship was one of the best things about this book. Loved their interaction. Nixie also has a Japanese grandmother that wants to be a famous YouTuber. What a cast of characters! It was fun watching this mystery unfold while getting to know a new set of names, personalities and dynamics.

"Forget what I told you about using your gut. I think your gut is sour." ~ 48%

Familiar bookhearts already know my struggle with reading this author. Her books are the definition of cozy mystery but the lack of editing/proofreading really burns my biscuit. I am semi-happy to report that I was able to take off my professional copyediting hat and enjoy the story for what it was: a fun new character with adorable grandparents traveling the country with her dog and tiny house in tow.

Do I recommend this new series? Hmmm, I am deciding to let it ride out before I continue on. Give myself a break from Vandiver's books. But if you are looking for a light-hearted murder mystery, then try A Tiny Collierville Murder. It may pacify that urge.

Title: A Tiny Collierville Murder

Author: Abby L. Vandiver

Published: October 2017

Pages: 159

Edition: eBook

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

   

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"School was hard for me,  for lots of reasons. One was I couldn't read until, like, ninth grade."

~ The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook

"After all, we'd reached a point in Detroit—and yeah, I've added fuel to this fire—that unless you actually live in Detroit, you can't say you're from Detroit." ~ pg. 67

Edited by Aaron Foley, The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is a collection of essays, short stories and poems written by Detroit residents about the neighborhoods they know best.

I have lived in Detroit (and surrounding metro areas) all of my life. There are certain streets and "hoods" that everyone in the city identify with. Yet the city is larger than it looks; there are streets that I have never even heard of. There are so many neighborhoods that the cross-streets blur. So I picked up The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook as a self-test. Let's see how much I really know about the great Motor City in terms of neighborhoods and its stories.

My first impression of the book is its size. Very thin at only 152 pages. Is it really going to cover all of the major neighborhoods? Then I flipped it open to browse pages and was instantly turned off. The font—and this is no exaggeration—is like 7 pt. single-spaced. I closed the book and put it down for almost two weeks debating whether to return it for the eBook version, struggle through with a pair of reading glasses, or simply not read it at all. But I wanted to support the local author so I tried again.

"Need great high schools? Go to Detroit School of the Arts, Cass Technical High School." ~ pg. 24

Second go-round, I browsed the Contents and read the Foreword. The mention of Houston-Whittier and Cass Corridor interested me enough to read further...until I felt eye strain and words began to blur somewhere around page 50 about the oh-so-familiar Mack Avenue. So I set it to the side once again.

Third go-round was a sad realization. I could not finish this guidebook no matter how interesting the subject, how credible the author or how amazing the stories told by talented writers may be. So I skimmed through based on chapter titles. I am sure The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is a great gift to the book world but the packaging is a thumbs down making it difficult to enjoy.

Title: The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook
Edited by: Aaron Foley
Published: August 2017
Pages: 152
Edition: Paperback
Challenge: Popsugar—A Book by a Local Author
Rating: 🖤

 

L Dot's Freestyle / We Family

I got bloodlines in Orleans
That explains the VooDoo
Got words and numbers in my pen
Thank God for journals too
Wit and intelligence from Choctaw of Oklahoma
Incense and candles are our usual home aroma
Spirits influence lives of the Sioux
Everyone claims to be Indian though
Every day I see a new freckle
Visual evidence of the Irish speckle
Curvy like a true southern belle
Those southern roots did me well
May not be the same hue as you
But my family's black is magic too
And thank the heavens for motivatin'
Us to excel in our lanes
We break glass ceilings and chains
And we are always expressing
How much family is a blessing
I freestyle so casually
'Cause we family
Boom spadealaka ♠️♥️ Boom spadealaka                                             

Meet the Parents

Yes, I hang out with my parents!

We pray. We vacay. We cook for each other. We play cards. We shop. We read. We go to concerts. We frequent restaurants. We group iMessage. We FaceTime. We chill and just talk. We in a whole different mode.

Homie & Chickadee are my support system, my EV.ER.Y.THING, my hearts. ♠️♥️

  

Series Sunday: Black Panther

(Black Panther: World of Wakanda #1) 

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

"But you do not yet know what should be shared and what you should keep to yourself." ~ 28%

My Series Sunday pick is the first issue in the Black Panther: World of Wakanda Marvel series by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Yona Harvey. Ayo and Aneka are young women recruited to an elite task force trained to protect the crown. It is presented as a love story.

For only $0.99, it was an okay eComic short to get me in the mood for the action-packed, highly anticipated superhero movie release. But the story has holes causing Marvel amateurs like myself to be lost. I am not already familiar with any of the characters; it would have been helpful to describe the setting more and at least Ayo and Aneka's past since this is the first issue of World of Wakanda. Although the illustrations were detailed and eye-catching, it was still just okay overall. For these reasons, I will not continue with reading #2-6 in the comic series. I much rather see it live and in color.

Click Image for Marvel Film Info

Yes, it is Black Panther opening weekend! I went to Wakanda and enjoyed every second. So much so, that I want to see the movie again in total cosplay. By the looks of social media, my people showed up and showed 👏🏾all 👏🏾the 👏🏾way 👏🏾out!

If you have not seen Black Panther, read the deets below then immediately close this browser window, open your preferred movie app, buy show tickets, logoff the internet, and head to the nearest movie theater. Thank me later!

Title: Black Panther: World of Wakanda #1

Authors: Roxane Gay, Yona Harvey
Consultant: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Color Artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Illustrators: Afua Richardson, Alitha Martinez
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael P. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whittaker, Letitia Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Danai Gurira, and more black magic actors/actresses 

Published: November 2016
Released: February 16, 2018

Pages: 36
Time: 2 hours 15 minutes

Edition: eComic / Movie

Comic Rating: 🖤 🖤

Movie Rating: 🍿 🍿 🍿 🍿 🍿

 

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

Do you know how long I've...no, WE have waited for today? It is finally Black Panther movie release Friday! Watch the video above where the cast answers the web's most searched questions. #ButFirst...

"Welcome to your training as women and warriors of the Dora Milaje."

~ Black Panther: World of Wakanda by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yona Harvey