Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Monday, March 24, 2025

Taking a Spring Into Horror via a mystery book tour


 Well, another change of season leads to another readathon from Seasons of Reading, the Spring Into Horror hosted by Michelle Miller for the entire month of April! Now, you are only required to read one scary book here and not only horror (thriller,suspense and such are fine) so with that in mind, my TBR for this challenge are all mystery themed, especially since there’s enough of a horror show in our daily headlines these days:

First up is the final entry in Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen Mysteries series fittingly titled  Jane and the Final Mystery.

Here, Jane is struggling against her declining health to work on what will be her last book but when her nephew Edmund tells her of a strange death at his former college nearby, she can not resist such an opportunity to right what has been made wrong.

Arriving at the end of this charmingly clever series is sad indeed but I have faith that Barron will give her dear detective a most proper send-off on page. I do hope that someone turns these books into must-see TV at some point, pure drama gold right on the table!:

Next up is a modern spin on the wives of Henry the Eighth with one of them looking into the death of her predecessor.

An Inconvenient Wife by Karen E. Olson has as it’s leading lady Kate Parker, wife number six to wealthy tycoon Hank Tudor whose fifth wife Caitlyn was discovered to not only be dead at their Tuscan summer home but without her head as well!

Since Hank has a solid alibi for Caitlyn’s death, her demise is far too close to how wife number two was eliminated so Kate decides to do some sleuthing before her number is up permanently.

As a fan of the Six Wives lore, I do love the premise of this book and that Kate has to team up with two of the other Tudor exes, one of which is Anna Klein aka Anne of Cleves, a rather unsung queen of the castle and a favorite of mine:



To round this TBR out, One Perfect Couple from Ruth Ware takes on the reality romance TV show to give it a deadly spin.

When Lyla agrees to go on the title show with her boyfriend of two years Nico, she hopes that this experience will take their relationship to the next level.

Unfortunately, that level is more challenging than she or any of the other couples who signed on here expected as a storm  knocks out the power on their remote island locale, leaving everyone cut off from the outside world with limited supplies and a dead body in the brutal bargain.

Survival becomes the name of the game for Lyla and she is determined to win but at what price and will she be alone at the end? I have to confess that apart from The Woman in Cabin 10, my success in finishing a Ruth Ware novel hasn’t been the best. However, based on the great word of mouth that I have heard about this particular book, that may change for the better, I’m sure:


Spring Into Horror begins on April 1(no joke) and there will be a 24 hour readathon held on the twelfth (you can check here for more info and to sign up). As April is my birthday month, this is a fun bookish way to celebrate for me and I hope that everyone else has a wickedly wonderful reading time as well.

My thanks to Michelle Miller for launching us into another reading season with some suitable scares and speaking of  suitably scary, I wish that the new Snow White could fill that bill.

 As a longtime fan of the Evil Queen (who I always found way more interesting in the original Disney movie than sad sack Snow there), this latest version of her Royal Heartlessness to be a little lackluster. A shame but hey, such a classic villain tends to rise again like the proverbial bad penny so her reign of terrific terror may never be truly over:






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