Mrs. Pollifax on Safari

 Fiction by Dorothy Gilman

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

The Mrs. Pollifax series is about a retired lady who goes on adventures all over the world as a spy for the CIA. She is able to do this because nobody suspects a little old lady of being anything but an innocent tourist. In this book she goes on safari to try to catch an assassin!

I've read quite a few of the Mrs. Pollifax stories in the past, and I'm not sure which ones. This one seemed to be one I had not yet read; it was a fun and light mystery.

(Also I don't like the new cover; this is a better cover in my opinion: )

I also read by this author: The Clairvoyant Countess and Kaleidoscope

NPC's

 Fiction by Drew Hayes

https://www.audible.com

"NPC" is a video-game term for non-playable-character, and it's used for all the background "extras" found in games that are there to move the story along. In this book, the NPC's in a knights and wizards style role-playing game suddenly become able to take part in the game by themselves.

This was a fun little fantasy story with a good voice performance. I liked it, although it does require some suspension of disbelief.

I also read recently by this author: The Case of the Haunted Haunted House

Black Cake

 Fiction by Charmaine Wilkerson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This novel has recently been made into a TV series. The preview for the show looked interesting, so I wanted to read it. 

The story begins with a 1965 wedding on a Caribbean island. (I think it's Jamaica, but the author never actually says so. She literally just says The Island.) The bride is missing, but her dress is found on the beach smeared with the eponymous black cake. It moves around in time from the present to various points in the past to unlock the story. 

I really liked the characters and the plot; I could see how the story would make great TV. The book, however, told the story in such a strange way. Maybe it was because I've had a lot going on recently and I had to keep putting it down and picking it back up, but it was a little hard to follow. I think the TV show will be better. Still, it was a good book.

Holly

 Fiction by Stephen King.

https://www.audible.com

The title of this book refers to Holly Gibney, a character who has been featured in several Stephen King novels. (I read Finders Keepers, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider but there may be more.) I love Holly, so I was happy to see a book devoted to her come out.

But the story begins with Jorge Castro, English professor, out for a run one night in 2012 and then abducted by a pair of old people he actually knows. What could they possibly have kidnapped a grown man for? It will be up to Holly to eventually unravel this mystery when a case of hers intersects his in 2021.

This was a really great story but definitely not a lighthearted one!

I also read recently by this author: Fairy Tale

Pineapple Street

 Fiction by Jenny Jackson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is about the Stocktons, a super-rich family in New York City. There are Mr. and Mrs. Stockton, Senior, plus two daughters and a son, along with two grandchildren, and they are consumed with the types of problems rich people have: Who is a good-enough suitor for youngest daughter Georgianna? Should older daughter Darley have given up her career to raise her two children? And what about son Cord and his lower- (than us) -class wife Sasha; why can't she just leave everything the way it always has been in the family home?

This is a good story with some really funny bits, but the characters really make the book. I enjoyed it a lot.

This Time Will Be Different

 Fiction by Misa Sigiura

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Seventeen-year-old CJ Katsuyama has recently discovered a love of flowers while helping her Aunt Hannah in the family flower shop. But her mother has much bigger ambitions; she wants CJ to go to business or law school and Make Something of Herself. In the meantime, Aunt Hannah has also hired a very cute boy to help in the shop as well. Also, CJ 's mother has never told her who her father is...

All of these elements are part of a normal mix for a coming-of-age story; what makes this book different is the characters. I really liked CJ and wanted her to find herself. 

There's also the added element of  CJ's Japanese heritage; the family flower shop is so much more than just a store to the Katsuyamas. The business had been stolen from CJ's great-grandparents during the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War Two and finally bought back by the family thirty years later. But now it seems they may lose it again.

This was a good story and I liked it. It did seem to have some awfully mature elements for a YA novel, so it's definitely for older teens.

The Case of the Haunted Haunted House

 Audible Original Fiction by Drew Hayes

https://www.audible.com

This book was the sequel to The Case of the Damaged Detective, and it was similar to that story.

At the beginning of the story, Sherman Holmes and his assistant Joel Watson have set up shop, calling their firm "The World's Greatest Detective Agency,"  and ensuring (it seems) that only weirdos and kooks would consult them. Or, it turns out, desperate people... A young woman called Lauren comes in with a case no one else wants to take: she works for a ghost tour that might really be haunted?

Sherman will solve the case of course, and there will be plenty of laughs along the way. This was another fun story.