#BookReview: The Midlife Male by Greg Scheinman

Male Self-Help/ Lifestyle Podcast Turned Book. This is essentially a podcaster turning his podcast (apparently of the same name as the title of the book) into a book. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from an interview from one of the episodes of the podcast, then the author continues the theme of the chapter with his own commentary for seemingly 2,000 – 3,000 words or so while including a few lists of various things related to the chapter at hand. As such and given the nature of the podcast in question, this is primarily geared towards adult males and yes, has the occasional cursing in it as a result, but there is enough here that women *may* find useful as well that it might warrant a read from a particularly curious woman. One refreshing thing to note is that there isn’t really anything “toxic” about the masculinity portrayed herein, Scheinman’s schtick seems to be mostly “embrace who you are, do the right thing, and have fun doing it”. Overall an interesting if not particularly deep read, and it will be interesting to see if the success in printed form mirrors the apparent/ claimed success of the podcast form. Recommended.

This review of The Midlife Male by Greg Scheinman was originally written on October 19, 2022.

#BlogTour: Killing Time by Brenna Ehrlich

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a workable yet promising debut featuring a pair of murders in a small college town separated by several years. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Killing Time by Brenna Ehrlich.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Compelling Mystery. Could Have Used A Bit Better Editing. This is one of those debuts where the author clearly shows quite a bit of promise – even if trying to wrap in as many tropes as remotely plausible within the story – yet could clearly still use some polish. The mystery (ies!) is actually quite compelling, and the reader finds themselves *wanting* to know who the murderer (s!) is. That noted, using third person to tell the stories of both timelines makes them a bit harder to distinguish – particularly without any kind of time reference at the beginning of the chapters. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Killing Time by Brenna Ehrlich”

#BlogTour: The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan

For this blog tour we’re looking at a solid mystery that utilizes the new podcast fad quite well but which could have used better pacing overall. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan.

Solid Mystery That Could Have Used Better Pacing. Reading through the other Goodreads reviews on this one, a common complaint is the pacing and bloat of this book – and I tend to agree, to a point. There was in fact a lot of going over the same facts of the case, and that probably added a solid 20 pages to the length of this book just in that fact alone. But it wasn’t something that I particularly noticed while reading, and indeed while reading I thought this was a truly solid use of an emerging technique to solve cold cases. And while the body count may seem a bit high for a town with less than 80K (real-world) people, a quick Google shows that it actually isn’t outside the realm of reality, even this Millenium (when until recently, violent crime was plummeting across the nation). It does in fact read a bit as a setup for a potential series with our former US Marshal investigator here, and it could actually be an interesting series if that is the case. Overall an interesting and compelling mystery that will keep you guessing until it wants to reveal it secrets – and then transitions into a bit more of an action/ suspense tale to finish up the case. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan”