Book Review: Dead Over Heels

Author: Charlaine Harris
Title: Dead Over Heels
Publisher: Berkley
Publish Date: Aug 5, 2008
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: What's the world coming to when you can't relax with a glass of ice-cold beverage in your own backyard without a body falling from the sky into your garden?

Part-time librarian and amateur investigator Roe Teagarden has good reason to ask herself this question when the remains of one of the Lawrenceton, Georgia police departments finest catapults into her flower bed. The mystery deepens as two federal agents arrive to investigate the murder. Its only when Madeleine the cat provides a clue that Roe begins to realize that using her yard as a temporary landfill may have been no accident and that Roe herself could be in terrible danger


Review:I started reading this series when I stumbled across one of the movies on Hallmarks Movies and Mysteries. I enjoyed the movie, mostly because I hadn't read any of this series before. Dead Over Heels is one of the movies I've seen, and I have to say, if you have read the book you will be shaking your head quite a bit with the changes they've made to Aurora. I mean, Candace Cameron as Aurora? DJ Tanner as Aurora?

All of the quirkiness that Aurora has in the books is gone in the movies. I would have loved to have seen Candace wearing Aurora's daily eye glasses, especially her Saturday specs. I understand that their is a big jump between the time the book was written and these movies, but wowie.

But back to the book, Charlaine really keeps the action flowing in the lives of her characters. Aurora is married to Martin, and now her ex Dectective Arthur is also separated from his wife. Geeze! This coming from a girl who seemingly had a hard time getting dates? I guess all that money she inherited helped.

So this mystery involves a police officer being killed and falling out of plane and landing in Aurora's yard. Then there's the librarian that is beaten as well as Aurora's bodyguard's hubby getting knocked out.

Lots of weird goings on, with little explanation for why. I still have a hard time figuring why a supposedly wealthy "Roe" is working part time at the library.

Unlike most cozy mysteries, I didn't really feel like Roe is a sleuth. She did help her friend Sally out in some sleuthing, but overall, I felt like this was a day in the life of Aurora Teagarden sort of book, and I'm not really sure if Aurora is a person I like all that much. Her husband, I really didn't care for at all. About the only character I really liked was Madeline the cat, who liked to walk across Martin's Mercedes. I think I would too.

The ending was one I didn't see coming, but then again, I just couldn't figure it out. I even went back and re-read parts of the ending, to see if I could understand it better, but no.

I'm going to keep plugging along with this series, because I'm a glutton for punishment. (Also I really want to go back and read The Julius House, because that was the first movie I saw and I want to see how it compares)

Book Review: A Bone To Pick

Author: Charlaine Harris
Title: A Bone To Pick
Publisher: Berkley Crime
Publish Date: January 1, 1992
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Going to two weddings—one of a former lover—and a funeral for a member of her disbanded crime study club keeps Aurora “Roe” Teagarden quite busy for a few months. Unfortunately, her personal life seems to be at a standstill—until her fortunes unexpectedly change.

After the funeral Roe learns that Jane Engle, the deceased, has named her as heir to a rather substantial estate, which includes money, jewelry, and a house complete with a skull hidden in a window seat. Knowing Jane, Roe concludes that the elderly woman has purposely left her a murder to solve. So she must identify the victim and figure out which one of Jane’s ordinary-seeming neighbors is a murderer—without putting herself in deadly danger...

Review: I started reading this series, because in a fit of boredom watched The Julius House on Hallmark. I've been slowly trying to make my way through the series, which as I have expected is similar yet different and some of the changes made in the movies made me shake my head.

Roe starts out at the wedding of her ex and then ends up at a funeral of friend from the "Real Murders" group which has now disbanded. This friend has left her quite an inheritance. She also left her a skull in her new home and a mystery to solve.

This is where I start wondering about this series. This book is really about Roe and not so much about finding out anything about the skull she finds in the window seat of her new home. There's no investigating at all.

One of the things that really got me was how Roe felt she was rich when she inherited $500,000. Yes, that's a lot of money, but even by early 90s standards it wouldn't be enough to make you feel you are rich. She makes some decisions that make me question how smart she is.

In the first 2/3 of the book, Roe's mom is on her honeymoon, when she returns, I realized what an intensely unlikable person she is. For a woman with a great career of her own, she really focuses on her daughter's marital status, rather than helping her find her way in the world. Roe is, after all, a part-time librarian.

Roe is the typical low self esteem heroine. What I find I don't like about her, is how she feels she must have a husband to be complete and this theme continue throughout the book, as you see her start a new relationship and start to screw it up at a bbq to welcome her to the neighborhood.

I think Aubrey seems like a nice sort, but it is easy to see early on, that he isn't going to be the guy for Roe, especially as he's an episcopal minister.

The best part of this book involves Madeline the cat and her kittens.

The mystery was solved so quickly and without any real indication that anything was going on.

This book wasn't even 300 pages long and yet nothing really happened, and yet I'm going to move on to the next book.

Rating: 2 flowers

Book Review: A Fool and His Honey

Author: Charlaine Harris
Title: A Fool And His Honey
Publisher: Berkley
Publish Date: Sept 13, 1999
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Aurora Teagarden should be used to surprises by now. Yet when a local handyman begins dancing naked in her yard, she’s thrown for a loop and suspects it could be a bad omen of unwelcome events to come. When her husband’s niece, Regina, appears in Lawrenceton with a baby in tow and evading questions, tensions escalate. It’s not much longer before Regina’s husband is found murdered and Regina herself has disappeared, leaving both her baby and a large amount of money behind.

Traveling north to Ohio seeking relatives to care for the abandoned child, and accompanied by a friend of Regina’s who seems to know more than he’s letting on, Roe and Martin search for clues that will point them to Regina’s location and why she abandoned her baby. There’s a killer at large and Roe, snowed in in rural Ohio, will have to peel back the layers of secrets to find the truth before more people die.

Review: This is book 6 in the Aurora Teagarden mystery series. My library doesn't have them all, so I read this one after book 1, plus it is the latest book to be made into a movie for the Hallmark Mystery channel.

I got interested in this series, when I watched The Julius House (which I really want to read). I like Roe but I did have mixed feelings about Martin in this book. I really couldn't get over his not knowing anything about caring for a baby when he had a child with his first wife. That made me shake my head a little bit. What father knows nothing about diapering or feeding a baby? This book was written in the late 90s not the 50s (and even in the 50s I bet father's knew more about babies). It was also hard to figure out how a surprisingly spunky woman let her husband dictate her life, especially in regards to having children

Regina and her hangers on, including her baby made for a much different mystery than I'd expect from a cozy mystery series. There are a couple of things going on that make this short novel a lot more complex than most of the mysteries I read.

First we have Regina, who just shows up on her Uncle's doorstep, baby in tow. Then her possible lover shows up at the same time she disappears and her husband is found dead leaving baby Hayden with Roe and Martin.

So there's the dead husband and the whole baby mystery going on, definitely something different from the typical cozy. I can't say that enough. I was also surprised that the group "Real Murders" wasn't part of the story line, but again, I haven't read the other books.

There are things going on with her mother's husband, John, but nothing, and I do mean nothing will prepare you for the ending of this book.

I actually had to reread several pages of the last chapters because I didn't believe what had happened.

Rating: 4 flowers

Book Review: Real Murders

Author: Charlaine Harris
Title: Real Murders
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Publish Date: December 1, 1990
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: 
Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases.


It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.

Review: I have never picked up and actually read any of Charlaine Harris' books, even though the entire Sookie series sits on one of my bookcases.

Yeah, my TBR pile is that big.

A few weeks ago, I watched on of the made for tv movies based on the Aurora Teagarden series on Hallmark Mysteries and More, and I enjoyed it, so I wanted to see what the books were like.

Real Murders was a really unique book. Its a sort of cozy mystery, but with a little darker flair to it. Aurora is an interesting heroine. I had to remind myself that this book was published in 1990 (when I was still in high school). She's a 28 year old librarian, with a little bit of inferiority complex. So yeah, I liked her. (I definitely don't see her as Candace Cameron Bure).

Real Murders is an interesting if somewhat macabre group of people, though the group play more a part in the actual murders than in solving them in this book. Someone is targeting them and using murders that the members know about as inspiration.

I was surprised at how little actual sleuthing was done by Roe, which was another thing that set this book apart from other "cozies."

I'm not sure where Aurora falls in the mystery genre, but she's a wonderfully quirky character and there are the typical 2 guys that start vying for her attention. (Why is this always a mystery series thing?) I look forward to reading more of this series.

Rating: 4 flowers