110. A Bitter Wind. (Billy Boyle #20) James R. Benn. 2025. 379 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, world war II, mystery, historical fiction]

First sentence: The body was still warm.

Premise/plot: Billy Boyle (and friends) are back for their twentieth mystery. It opens on Christmas Day 1944. With a literal cliffhanger. Billy and a newly deceased man are quite literally in a precarious situation atop a ledge on a white cliff facing the English channel. Soon, Billy has a couple of murder cases to solve. So he is loaned out for a bit. While solving these crimes, he's forced to go to a war-torn Europe in search of one man who may hold the key to the murders he's trying to solve. The man he's in search of was a prisoner of war but has now escaped and is on the run. It won't be easy to find him, to rescue him, to get OUT and back to England. Many close-calls. Many new allies. Same old enemies. Perils abound. 

My thoughts: I didn't love this one as much as I usually love Billy Boyle mysteries. I do like that each one is different, unique, focusing on a little known fact of history. I do like that each book is based to a certain degree on real history--be it a person, a place, a battle, etc. This one has Billy Boyle traveling from place to place. By the time he returns to the original murder mystery, it feels like the pacing is a bit off.

All that being said, I do love the characters. And I do enjoy the series.

© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

   

109. Lost Evangeline. Kate DiCamillo. Illustrated by Sophie Blackall. 2025. 160 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, j fantasy, j fiction]

First sentence: There was once a boy who longed to go to the sea.

Premise/plot: An unhappily married man--a shoemaker--finds a little girl the size of a thumb. Together these two dream of going to sea. Perhaps one of them or even both of them believe it. His wife--remember how unhappily married he is--despises the girl, Evangeline. She sells Evangeline as an oddity to a rich neighbor. Evangeline escapes via a cat. (She convinces the cat that sea life is the best life.) By the time she returns home, her father has gone. Gone where? To look for her. So she sets off in search of him who is searching for her. Will anyone who is searching find the person they are looking for?

My thoughts: I did not like this one even slightly. As a kid, I would have despised it. It was weird--which could be good or bad depending on the reader's perspective. If this one wasn't Kate DiCamillo would anyone give it a great review? I'm not convinced. Would it be selling as well as it has? Probably not. It isn't that the writing is poor. It's not. That's why three stars. But the plot is just all kinds of weird. And the whole book is just absurdly whimsically melancholy.

© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

   

108. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. J.K. Rowling. 2003. 912 pages. [Source: Library] [4 stars] [mg fiction; mg fantasy; series book]

First sentence: The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.

ETA for 2025: I am listening to the Harry Potter series on audio book narrated by Stephen Fry. Is this a long book? YES. Is it a very long book? Also YES. Am I attached to the characters? VERY MUCH SO. If the book gets tedious it's because some of the characters are tedious, if that makes sense. I do sometimes feel that Harry Potter is insufferable at times. His attitude, I mean, particularly when it comes to friendships and "dating" if you will. But I am liking this one more each time I reread it.

Premise/plot: Harry Potter and his friends struggle to keep things together as a new year at Hogwarts begins. Lord You-Know-Who has returned. But the Ministry of Magic (among others) are determined to bury their heads in the sand. (Perhaps because they are more involved with You-Know-Who than they'd like to admit. Perhaps because they would rather believe that Harry Potter (and company, the Order of the Phoenix) is lying than that HE has returned. You could argue either.) The staff and students are on high alert--namely from Dolores Umbridge (and those whom she represents as High Inquisitor). The year won't be easy. The foundation of Hogwarts is being shaken about. 

Meanwhile, Harry Potter is continuing to have dreams and visions. His scar is still bothering him. He's beginning to realize that he and You-Know-Who share an unbreakable bond. 

My thoughts: It is so easy to feel overwhelmed by the weight of the books in these series. The pacing is all over the place for me. On the one hand, the books never fail to have about one hundred pages of the most intense, fast-paced, action-packed DRAMA. On the other hand, so much time is spent getting to that point. Like you've got eight plus months of more mundane chronicling of school life--always taking a chapter or two for the Christmas holidays--and then BOOM end of school year, BIG show down. In the middle of the book, I'm always am I sure I want to keep reading. At the end of the book, it's like this is why I do keep reading. 

© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews