Tag Archives: book review

Two Bodies Are Better Than One by Erica Ruth Neubauer (2026) – BR00301 (R2026) – 🐸⚪⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 15 2026

Plot or Premise

A former mob enforcer and cleaner has a new identity and no worries, until an unknown body turns up on her lawn.

What I Liked

The initial premise was kind of interesting — a former mob assassin / cleaner who has (mostly) retired finds a dead body on her lawn. A young female detective looks into the murder, and also thinks there is something off about the retired woman too. After that, it is all downhill.

What I Didn’t Like

I hated just about everything in this book. I was going to quit, but the author is an Agatha winner and an Edgar nominee. It can’t be THAT bad, can it? It has to get better? Nope. I was going to quit at the 30% mark.

At that point, we had Lorraine (the retired mobster) running around trying to investigate the crime. Everybody she meets, literally everybody, the first words out of her mouth are insults. Not just men…the family of the dead guy, witnesses she wants info from, the cops. It’s supposedly “wit” according to the promo copy, because she’s old and saying things that turn people off and surprise, they won’t help her. Really? How strange. Despite the fact that she’s supposed to be street wise, really good with planning murders and body disposals, skating by in life unseen and under the radar.

Oh, and every man she meets, they’re obviously sexist pigs who deserve to die. Oh, and did I mention she has a dead husband that seems like she misses him in the first half of the book and the second half she’s joking that he’s dead. Okaaaay. Did I also mention that she’s trying to figure out the case, but she abruptly kills the ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS ANYTHING before finding anything out?

I had some hopes for the female detective. Some, not much. But the dead guy was a PI who was following a shady guy who was a drug dealer just before the PI ends up dead. It’s possible the drug dealer is into shady dealings with two other guys from high school. But other than Lorraine, the drug dealer is the ONLY real suspect. Yet at the 50% mark, Detective Mike has been investigating the case for several days and pauses to think, “What if the drug dealer killed him?”. Like, seriously? What the heck? He is the ONLY suspect at the time. There is virtually NOBODY else with any known motive. Yet she’s super smart and just figured out maybe he was involved? OMG.

I didn’t think this train wreck could get worse until Detective Mike accidentally finds some bad guys by random luck, there’s a farcical series of scenes moving a body, and Lorraine cracks part of the mystery with amazing deductive skills that make NO SENSE AT ALL. She makes a random guess that has nothing to do with any evidence, just “oh, it must be these two people”, one of whom WE HAVE NEVER MET. Oh, and a second mystery? It’s resolved by the person revealing themselves for fun and giggles.

Disclosure

I received a free copy of this book through Amazon First Reads. I am not friends with the author, nor have I interacted with them on social media.

The Bottom Line

An absolute train wreck of a book

This Book Made Me Think of You (2026) – BR00300 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
February 14 2026

Plot or Premise

A woman is surprised to find out that a local bookstore has a gift for her from her husband, who passed away six months before. He arranged for “A year of books” to help her heal.

What I Liked

The author had me at the initial premise of twelve books to help the surviving spouse heal and live again. Throughout the months, you see her reluctantly start to read again, try new things, and develop a life without him. Their life together is told through flashbacks and you see her come out of her shell with the help of family and new or old friends. She even travels to exotic locales that she always wanted to visit.

While contemporary or romance is not my usual jam, I picked it from an online book club list based on the wonderful premise, and it didn’t disappoint. I read through it in one sitting which let me escape into the book, except for the need for refreshing the tissue box every chapter. There is an intentional small plot hole that gets filled near the end, and I never saw it coming. I might have if I had read it over several days or weeks, but straight-through worked perfectly.

What I Didn’t Like

It is a bit schmaltzy at the end, with the typical rom-com-style “let’s avoid talking about something and just make huge assumptions instead” plot device, but it isn’t egregious. I was expecting a different “solution” at the end, actually 2 or 3 different ones, but mostly liked the one that showed up.

The Bottom Line

Come for the backstory and bring your tissue box

The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen (2024) – BR00299 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 27 2026

Plot or Premise

The Olympic gods still rule Earth, and once every hundred years, they choose champions to compete in the Crucible to see whose patron will lead the Gods for the next 100 years.

What I Liked

The trial of the Crucible is covered by this first book in the series instead of being spread out across multiple novels. In addition, the love interests ensure that nobody mistakes this for Percy Jackson stories aimed at a younger audience. Hades is awesome, while most of the rest of the Gods are caricatures. The trials are generally good throughout, with relatively realistic challenges and solutions.

What I Didn’t Like

When we first meet Lyra, I thought she was in her teens. Everything about her screams mid- to late- teens. A few chapters in, it reveals she’s 23. Wait, what? She is nowhere near streetsmart enough for 23, particularly with the life she’s been living and work she has been doing. Way too naïve. Equally, Lyra’s supposed curse is never fully explained, including how her existing friends “show up” for her during the Crucible but had never done so before, and she makes a couple of new friends relatively easily, but had never been able to before either?

The Bottom Line

Gods, have you met death yet?

The Compound by Aisling Rawle (2025) – BR00298 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 25 2026

Plot or Premise

In a semi-dystopian future where the world is at war, a TV show called The Compound puts 20 young men and women through a series of Survivor-like tasks, with Big Brother dynamics.

What I Liked

I gave this book to my brother-in-law for a new Christmas Eve tradition. I thought he would enjoy the cross-over stuff from the two shows. The mechanics of the game seem great, as each member tries to figure out how they want to play. Eventually, the dynamics stop being simply “fun” and the real emotions show through. And at least a couple of the roommates are a wee bit psycho.

What I Didn’t Like

I was hoping for more info about the outside world, what they were all “running” from, their backgrounds, and their motivations to join the show. And when it all comes to a head at the end, it seems weird that the show just keeps going.

The Bottom Line

Come for the show, stay for the spectacle

The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster (1984) – BR00297 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 24 2026

Plot or Premise

Alex Rogan, earthling, has been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada.

What I Liked

It’s hard to separate out the novelization from the movie it is based on. The story works great — Alex’s initial life being “less than” what he wants, his accidental recruitment, his balking at fighting in the war (“Save the Whales, but not the universe?”) and his battle testing turning him into a starfighter.

What I Didn’t Like

The book does a rather poor job of Maggie, Centauri, the beta unit, and even Grig. They are all pale imitations of the characters that are in the movie, even with more room to flesh them out. A few key dialogue sequences were obviously edited in the final script as they snap on screen, and the alternate versions feel a bit flat.

The Bottom Line

A slight step down from the movie it’s based on