All I Ever Wanted, by David Neth (author), Drew Malone Nienhaus (narrator)

David Neth, 2018

Leo and his mother have faced some challenging times, struggling to make ends meet, since Leo's father left. With very little money, Leo is looking for the perfect Mother's Day gift, when he finds a gravy boat in a local shop. It looks a lot like one of the family heirlooms they had to sell for money to get by on, and he hopes his mother will really like it.

It turns out to be a genie's lamp.

The genie, whose name is Felix, of course offers him three wishes. Well, not so much offers. He needs Leo to accept and use those three wishes.

Death Unholy (DI Tremayne #1), by Phillip Strang

Phillip Strang, September 2017

This is the first of the DI Tremayne murder mysteries. Tremayne is in his fifties, an older cop accustomed to older ways, not entirely comfortable with the changes--but not ready to retire, much though Superintendent Moulton would like him to. His partner is DS Clare Yarwood--young, eager for a career in homicide, and very comfortable with computers, the internet, and what they can do.

For both good and ill, she's also not old, hardened, and cynical, like Tremayne.

This case starts with what doesn't at first glance appear to be a murder, just a strange and unexplained death, apparently by spontaneous human combustion. But Tremayne doesn't believe in unexplained deaths, especially not the kind that leave no evidence of the cause.

Little Red Rodent Hood (Hamster Princess #6), by Ursula Vernon (author), Eva Kaminsky (narrator)

Recorded Books, September 2018

Ursula Vernon is, as always, a delight.

In this case, she takes the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and turns it inside out and sideways, with wonderful results.

Princess Harriet Hamsterbone and her friend Wilbur respond to a plea from a very odd young hamster girl, dressed all in red. and mount their riding quail to go to the aid of her grandmother. Grandmother's cottage in the woods is surrounded by weaselwolves of nefarious intent...

The Tuscan Child, by Rhys Bowen (author), Jonathan Keeble (narrator), Katy Sobey (narrator)

Audible Studios, February 2018

Hugo Langley, English airman, son and heir of a baronet, is shot down over Italy in 1944. Sofia Bartoli, young mother, and wife of a soldier fighting in North Africa, finds him, and hides him in the ruins of a monastery bombed by the allies after the Germans had occupied it and turned it into a military strong point.

Thirty years later, Joanna Langley returns to her father's home to arrange his funeral and settle his estate, such as it is. Most of it was lost to death duties when Hugo returned home at the end of the war, his father dead, the estate occupied by British troops for most of the war, and his wife and son departed for America. Joanna is the daughter of his second marriage, and her mother died when she was eleven.

Malice at the Manor (Penny Summers #2), by J. Marshall Gordon

Taylor & Seale Publishing, April 2018

Penny Summers, a former Navy public affairs officer now out of the Navy and starting her own landscape design business, has traveled from Maryland to North Carolina with her friend and teacher, Madison Lerrimore. They're there to visit Brantleigh Manor, the (fictional) last garden designed by Frederick Law Olmsted before his death. A secondary goal is for Madison to meet and reconcile with her former stepfather, Wayland Morgan, who has become a Civil War enthusiast and reenactor, and who works as a docent, impersonating Olmsted, at Brantleigh Manor. They're staying with Penny's great-aunt, Zelma Porter. Penny doesn't really believe in her aunt's claimed psychic abilities, despite the fact that she (Penny) has her grandfather, Zelma's late brother, Jack, in her head making comments and suggestions.

That sounds like a lot going on. It only scratches the surface. Madison's goal in meeting her former stepfather again isn't reconciliation. She's got a serious and legitimate grudge, regardless of what one thinks of her method of resolving it.

Benjamin's Bride (Lawmen's Brides #2), by Natalie Dean

September 2018

Mary-Lee Jameson's father, Texas Ranger Aurelius Jameson, left some crucial papers with her and rode away from the home she lived in with her nanny and the housekeeper, when she was twelve. It was not long before, her father missing and presumed dead, her uncle, Augustus, arrives to take her from Oklahoma to Kansas. He has no time to waste from his criminal activities on raising his brother's daughter, so he sends her to school.

Eight years later, he still wants the papers he suspects her father gave her, and which he still hasn't found. At twenty, she's working as a teacher, but he figures he can force her to marry Lance Townsend, who'll beat out of her the papers' hiding place and split the wealth with Augustus Jameson.

Because the papers are the deeds to gold mines. Mary-Lee knows that now, and that she's rich if she can hang on to them--and a dependent victim if she allows herself to be forced to marry Townsend.

Single Malt Murder (Whisky Business Mystery #1), by Melinda Mullet (author), Gemma Dawson (narrator)

Audible Studios, June 2017

When the uncle who raised her dies, Abigail Logan inherits a highly regarded whisky distillery in Scotland. Unfortunately, Abi is a photojournalist experienced at doing her work in war zones, not a distiller, or even much of a whisky drinker. With her friend Patrick, a writer for Wine & Spirits, and her Irish terrier, Liam, she heads off to  Scotland, expecting to attend her uncle's funeral, settle the estate, and put in motion plans to sell the distillery to someone better qualified to run it.

That lasts until, on the one hand, people start telling her that women can't run distilleries, and on the other hand, the threatening notes start arriving.

Hiding With the Billionaire (Billionaires of REKD #1), by Donna K. Weaver

Emerald Arch Publishing, September 2018

Billionaire romances are not usually my thing; they often feel especially artificial. I can't necessarily claim this one is grounded solidly in reality, but I like the characters. They, including the four billionaire friends, seem like real, credible, likable people.

The basic background: A few years ago, some Harvard students, while still in grad school, created a game which hit it big, and sold it for millions. With that money, they started their company, REKD, and created a new game, a competitive arena type game, and went big into esports. Our first billionaire, Rafe Davis, is the CEO of the company, and persuaded his friends to locate in his native North Carolina, to be near his mother, stepfather, and younger siblings. Another of the friends, Kayn, has a sister, Ahri, who got married three years ago, to a guy Kayn never approved of.

For the past year, their marriage has been getting steadily worse. Then one day he comes home, tells her he's leaving, and oh, by the way, she needs to get out, too, because otherwise she'll be in real danger. Go to her mother, or her brother.

Dark Tide Rising (William Monk #24), by Anne Perry

Random House/Ballantine Books, ISBN 9780399179914, September 2018

Businessman Harry Exeter comes to Oliver Rathbone, who summons old friend and Thames River Police Commander William Monk, on a nasty, wet, cold evening.

Exeter's wife Kate has been kidnapped. The kidnappers are demanding a large ransom--one he can, with some difficulty, raise. He's ready to pay, in order to get his beloved wife back. Yet it has to be delivered on Jacob's Island, less an island than a slum built on a swamp and sinking into the river. He needs knowledgeable and trustworthy escort to even get to the right spot.

Of course Monk agrees. It's the only think to do. (Even the US was still decades away from the events that led to today's now long-standing Never Pay Ransom policy on the part of law enforcement.) He carefully selects a small team of his most trusted, reliable men, and escorts Exeter when the time comes.

Captive on the Fens (DI Nikki Galena #6), by Joy Ellis (author), Henrietta Meire (narrator)

Tantor Audio, September 2017

DS Jospeh Easter's daughter, Tamsin, is about to marry Niles, a young detective constable with the Greenborough police force. Freddie Carver, a vicious criminal boss formerly based in London and more recently hanging out in Spain, is apparently in Greenborough and planning to stay. Joseph and DI Nikki Galena are determined to  catch him before he becomes a fixture in their district. Two dead young women have turned up, both apparently held prisoner and tortured for some time before being killed and dumped.