Hello everyone!! I decided that this year I am going to be doing book reviews in groups of three, and just little short mini reviews. And it is finally time for me to do three more!

First up is a cozy mystery in the Lighthouse Library series. I really enjoy this series, which I started reading a few years ago. I am pretty behind now so I need to catch up! I just finished book 9, Death by Beach Read.

As always, I love the parts with Charles, the library cat who has moved out of the lighthouse library with Lucy. He is even a hero cat this time around! Lucy and her fiancée, Connor have moved into a fixer upper house on the beach. It is a historical beauty part of the Unpainted Aristocracy of Nag’s Head, and like some old homes, it comes with a bit of drama and secrets. I love books with houses that contain all these old legends and family ghosts and secrets – I can’t help it. I am that person who wanders through old homes and buildings and thinks, “If only these walls could talk.” It’s the history lover in me, I can’t help but wonder what lives have been lived there, what beautiful moments passed there, and also, what sad and tragic ones. Lucy and Connor’s home has quite the legend too – one that scared the child of the former owners away from the home for forty years. It was a sad tale, in a way, but I felt like the mystery unraveled very organically, and the resolution was filled with hope. We also get bits and pieces of Lucy and Connor’s upcoming wedding, which I am looking forward to as well!

And since we are talking about houses with secrets… let’s talk about Home Before Dark.

I have not read all of Sager’s books, but of the three that I have read, this is my favorite so far. This book is about Baneberry Hall, and the secrets it holds…and from what people say, what it remembers as well. After Maggie’s father dies, she learns she has inherited the house that launched her family into infamy – Baneberry Hall. Her family lived there for a brief time, not even a month, when Maggie was five, but it was the single most influencing event in her life. Her family fled one night, saying they would never go back, that it was haunted and dangerous. And then her father wrote a book all about it which went, as kids would say now, viral. But what really happened in those two weeks? Maggie is not certain she believes the story she has been told her whole life, and intends to find out the answers, despite having been warned off by her dad before he passed away, and then later by her mother.

This book kept me reading until the wee hours of the night, and then made me want to sleep with all the lights in the house on. It gave me the super creeps, and I could not put it down. I can’t wait to read another of Sager’s books and be scared out of my mind again!

And finally, Beaches, Bungalows, and Burglaries.

So, this book was a short little cozy at 164 pages. I enjoyed it, but I did feel like it needed a bit more, like it was bare bones. However, it was not a bad read – it just needed to be developed a bit more – the plot, the characters, the mystery. And now that I am finished, I can see why they are addicting because I am sort of wondering what happens in the next one. I also feel like the main character, Mae West, needs a pet of some sort. It just doesn’t feel right to read a cozy without a little animal sidekick! Maybe once she settles into her new of Happy Trails campground, she will adopt a little cat or dog.

Have you read any of these?