Karen E. Olson

This was a great mystery. I did start to write the characters names down, especially the wives and kids because a lot of people are introduced in the beginning, but actually, I did find it easy to follow. Great mystery, however, the ending is not super clear cut and leads you to believe Catherine (Wife #1) is behind it all, but doesn't come out and say it. I also feel like maybe Hank does have something to do with it. Definitely a game of who is outsmarting who and who is really ahead of the game? I'm thinking with the way it was left, maybe the author is going to come out with a second book? I guess we'll see! And this was a "Once Upon a Book Club" book, so of course, it was fun to open the gifts!… (more)

When I was in my twenties, I devoured all sorts of fiction and nonfiction about Tudor England-- including the book mentioned by the author in her Afterward. I could not resist An Inconvenient Wife, Olson's modern retelling of Henry VIII and his six wives. (Are you familiar with "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" as a way to keep those six women's fates straight?)

Don't worry. If you're unfamiliar with Henry and his wives, you'll still enjoy this book. The machinations of several characters are well worth the price of admission all by themselves. However, if you are familiar with that particular period of history, that knowledge will add some zest-- and some smiles-- to Olson's story. Not only that but there will be surprises, too, because this modern retelling is not a slavish imitation of the past.

An Inconvenient Wife is one of those books in which you can't say much about the story or its characters without giving something inadvertently away, so I am going to resist temptation and merely say that I enjoyed this book and the surprises I found along the way. Give it a try.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher)… (more)

The Missing Ink is a cozy mystery with bite. The premise and setting are promising, but I was not a big fan of the mystery itself.

One of my gripes with cozies is that the genre seems to always pull from the same pool of professions and settings. A cozy set in Las Vegas with a tattoo shop-owning protagonist immediately drew me in. I especially liked the way that Olson described Las Vegas and the business of the tattoo shop itself!

The reason why I'd say this is a cozy mystery with bite isn't because of the profession/setting combination, but rather, the way that the mystery is investigated. There is quite a bit of action in the book, particularly in the latter half, such that the book reads as a cozy thriller at points. I personally enjoy this style of book, but readers who'd like a very traditional cozy mystery may not care for this.

Unfortunately, I think the mystery was one of the weaker aspects of this book. The lives of many of the suspects are extremely intertwined together, making the mystery confusing to follow for me. I feel like I needed one of those corkboards with red string to help me connect all the dots!

This also made it difficult for me to care about the case. I found myself more invested in the protagonist and her shop than the mystery itself - which I feel is somewhat of a bad sign in a mystery novel.

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