31. Lamb to the Slaughter by Karen Ann Hopkins

read on my iPhone (Kindle Unlimited)
2014 self-published
293 pgs.
Adult Contemporary Murder Mystery
Finished 3/22/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.03 - 2998 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting: Contemporary Blood Rock, Indiana

First line/s: "Hugging myself, I tried to stop shaking.  I'd burned my last bridge.  Forward was the only way to go."

My comments:  I have very mixed feelings about this book.  The first thing I must mention is it needed an incredible amount of editing.  It was very disconcerting to have so many errors.  I enjoyed the setting, the small town Amish/Englisher countryside of Indiana being very similar to where I live in Pennsylvania.  Character development is where I'm scratching my head the most.  The story is told from the point of view of the three main characters - one being the female Sheriff, Serenity Adams, the third being her probably-soon-to-be-suitor, Daniel.  Naomi is a self-centered, very unlikable young lady right from the start.  There are only a few glimpses of someone we feel sorry for in her own point-of-view scenes.  It's not until after she dies and you learn more about her from her two boyfriends that you really understand what she's been going through and feel sorry for her extremely difficult life.  However, the "mean girl" personality portrayed earlier keep continuing to overshadow new information about here.  It's a back-and-forth ride that doesn't make sense.  Serenity is smart and impetuous.  I don't really like her, or even understand her.  And I don't think she's well suited for the job of sheriff.  Daniel's cool.  I get him.  But I don't get his attraction to Serenity.  At least not yet - maybe in the upcoming book?  And now the story...the mystery... the way it all come together....not super strong, but it worked, with holes.
     I enjoy books about the Amish community, especially this type that shares the non-Amish and Amish point of view.  Even with all my questionable points about this first in a series, I do think I will continue on and try another.

Goodreads synopsis:  "A well-crafted tale of murder begotten by the collision of two incompatible worlds."-Kirkus Reviews
           The death of a teenage Amish girl in a cornfield looks like an accident, but sheriff Serenity Adams suspects foul play. To solve the murder, she must investigate the nearby Amish community with the help of a man who was shunned years ago. 
          Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest. 
          Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate. At first glance, the case seems obvious. The poor girl was probably accidentally shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious. As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting. Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up. Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.

30. Cornerstone by Misty Provencher

(#1 in Cornerstone series)
read on my iPhone
2011 self published:  Corner Stone Publishing
230 pgs.
YA Dystopia/Fantasy
Finished 3/19/19
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 1388 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting:  Contemporary America

First line/s:  "I HATE PAPER DAY.  HATE.  IT.  But I still do it every week, sometimes twice a week, because my mom asks me to.  I know I shouldn't.  I know it doesn't help.  But I do it because I know that the only people in the world that we can count on is us."

My comments:  Cornerstone is the kind of book that draws you in immediately.  The first half of the book, well, I just couldn't put down.  The second half slowed down a bit and didn't hold my attention quite as much.  The instalove was the most offputting for me because I didn't understand what made Garrett so quickly drawn to Nalena.  Why hadn't he befriended her earlier?  The ending was not as much a cliffhanger as it was a segue into another chapter.  Will I read more?  Probably not, but I did enjoy this one. 

Goodreads synopsis:  Nalena Maxwell has been branded ‘The Waste’ at her new school, due to her mom's obsessive paper hoarding. Nalena desperately wants something to change in her life, but when she receives a sign (and it's the wrong dang one) inviting her into a mysterious, ancient community, too much changes. What she knew of her family, what she thought of her life and what she believed about her future, is no longer applicable. Seventeen years worth of family skeletons come crashing into Nalena's life and it is the boy...the one that smiles at her like he wants to hear everything she'll ever say...that already knows her powerful secrets. But it is only Nalena that can choose between protecting the life that is already crumbling beneath her feet and the one that might sacrifice everything she could ever have.