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Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand
Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala and Danice Cabanela (Narrator)
Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely and Lisa ReneƩ Pitts (Narrator)
A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas and Kate Reading (Narrator)
Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman and George Guidall (1973) (re-read)
Deck the Hallways by Kate Carlisle
A Design to Die For by Kathleen Bridge and Vanessa Daniels (Narrator)
Dewey Decimated by Allison Brook and Marilyn Levinson (Narrator)
Fly Me to the Moon, Volume 2 by Kenjiro Hata
The Game is a Footnote by Vicki Delany
High Spirits by Carol J. Perry and C.S.E. Cooney (Narrator)
Into the Windwracked Wilds by A. Deborah Baker
Komi Can't Communicate, Volume 3 by Tomohito Oda
Kowloon Generic Romance, Volume 2 by Jun Mayuzuki and Amanda Haley (Translation)
Lore Olympus, Volume Two by Rachel Smythe
Lost Places by Sarah Pinsker
Monkey Prince by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang (Illustrator)
The Neapolitan Sisters by Margo Candela
Nightmare of the Iguana by Ursula Vernon
No Judgments by Meg Cabot
Seven-Year Witch by Angela M. Sanders
6 Times We Almost Kissed by Tess Sharpe
Soul of a Killer by Abby Collette and L. Malaika Cooper (Narrator)
Steeped to Death by Gretchen Rue and Kristin Price (Narrator)
A Tale of Two Princes by Eric Geron
Vampiric Vacation by Kiersten White
Wined and Died in New Orleans by Ellen Byron and Amy Melissa Bentley (Narrator)

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4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
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Deck the Hallways: 02/02/23

Deck the Hallways

Deck the Hallways by Kate Carlisle (2016) is the fourth book in the Fixer-Upper mystery series. Shannon Hammer and her crew are heading the remodel of a local mansion. The goal is to convert it into low rent apartments for Lighthouse Coves's most vulnerable residents.

After run ins with nearly everyone on the remodel project, a corrupt bank president is found murdered, locked in one of the mansion's rooms. Shannon's own father is one of the suspects, so she must be on the case!

Kate Carlisle doesn't do subtlety. I've commented on that before, more than one. This particular mystery suffers from this problem. The opening scenes of a mystery must set up the situation that will lead to the murder and introduce the reader to the murder victim, along with a few reasons why they will probably end up dead. Multiple, shouted fights between the victim and various potential murderers is overkill.

Holiday themed mysteries, like wedding themed ones, often get too focused on the special event to the detriment of the mystery. For this novel, there's also the hard deadline to fix up the mansion in ten days. There's no reason given as to why they are starting this late in the year when Christmas eve is the deadline.

The short number of days really highlights how little mystery or plot there is here. It's really a novella with some padding to get it up to a more standard length for a mystery.

The fifth book is Eves of Destruction (2017).

Three stars

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