Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Review: All the Little Liars (Aurora Teagarden #9) by Charlaine Harris




  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1217 KB
  • Print Length: 240 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1250090032
  • Publisher: Minotaur Books (Oct. 4 2016)
  • Sold by: Macmillan CA
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B01D8F63DQ



Book Description

#1 New York Times bestseller Charlaine Harris returns to her Aurora Teagarden mystery series with a fabulous new book featuring the small-town Southern librarian.

Aurora Teagarden is basking in the news of her pregnancy when disaster strikes her small Georgia town: four kids vanish from the school soccer field in an afternoon. Aurora’s 15-year-old brother Phillip is one of them. Also gone are two of his friends, and an 11-year-old girl who was just hoping to get a ride home from soccer practice. And then there’s an even worse discovery—at the kids’ last known destination, a dead body.

While the local police and sheriff’s department comb the county for the missing kids and interview everyone even remotely involved, Aurora and her new husband, true crime writer Robin Crusoe, begin their own investigation. Could the death and kidnappings have anything to do with a group of bullies at the middle school? Is Phillip’s disappearance related to Aurora’s father’s gambling debts? Or is Phillip himself, new to town and an unknown quantity, responsible for taking the other children? But regardless of the reason, as the days go by, the most important questions remain. Are the kids still alive? Who could be concealing them? Where could they be?

With Christmas approaching, Aurora is determined to find her brother…if he’s still alive.

After more than a decade, #1 New York Times bestseller Charlaine Harris finally returns to her fan-favorite Aurora Teagarden series with All the Little Liars, a fabulously fun new mystery.


About the Author

Charlaine Harris has been a published novelist for over twenty-five years. A native of the Mississippi Delta, she grew up in the middle of a cotton field. Now she lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, her three children, three dogs, and a duck. The duck stays outside.

Though her early output consisted largely of ghost stories, by the time she hit college (Rhodes, in Memphis) Charlaine was writing poetry and plays. After holding down some low-level jobs, she had the opportunity to stay home and write, and the resulting two stand-alones were published by Houghton Mifflin. After a child-producing sabbatical, Charlaine latched on to the trend of writing mystery series, and soon had her own traditional books about a Georgia librarian, Aurora Teagarden. Her first Teagarden, Real Murders, garnered an Agatha nomination.

Soon Charlaine was looking for another challenge, and the result was the much darker Lily Bard series. The books, set in Shakespeare, Arkansas, feature a heroine who has survived a terrible attack and is learning to live with its consequences.

When Charlaine began to realize that neither of those series was ever going to set the literary world on fire, she regrouped and decided to write the book she’d always wanted to write. Not a traditional mystery, nor yet pure science fiction or romance, Dead Until Dark broke genre boundaries to appeal to a wide audience of people who just enjoy a good adventure. Each subsequent book about Sookie Stackhouse, telepathic Louisiana barmaid and friend to vampires, werewolves, and various other odd creatures, has drawn more readers. The Southern Vampire books are published in Japan, Great Britain, Greece, Germany, Thailand, Spain, France, and Russia.

In addition to Sookie, Charlaine has another heroine with a strange ability. Harper Connelly, lightning-struck and strange, can find corpses… and that’s how she makes her living.

In addition to her work as a writer, Charlaine is the past senior warden of St. James Episcopal Church, a board member of Mystery Writers of America, a past board member of Sisters in Crime, a member of the American Crime Writers League, and past president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. She spends her "spare" time reading, watching her daughter play sports, traveling, and going to the movies.


My Review

All the Little Liars is the ninth Aurora Teagarden mystery by author Charlaine Harris. This is the first  book in the series that I have read and the first book written by Charlaine Harris that I have read. I am obviously coming late to this party as I really enjoyed Harris's writing style.

The Hallmark Channel has brought the Aurora Teagarden series to life and obviously renewed interest in the series which had not seen a new edition for over a decade. I liked that this ninth book, All the Little Liars, was set in the present. The author did not feel the need to head back to the early 2000s. Social media and electronic devices are all featured in this tale of bullying, murder and mystery.

I enjoyed the characters in All the Little Liars. I felt like I knew everyone instantly even though I had not read another book in the series. I liked the setting of small town suburban Atlanta. I looked forward to delving back into the book whenever I had to put the book down. The mystery aspect had me puzzled for quite some time. All the Little Liars refers to a group of girls who are bullying another girl...a girl who ends up being on the kidnapped youths.

I liked Aurora a lot. She is honest and I loved how the book explored all of her thoughts. I liked how she dealt with her rude father. Right on! She is not afraid of anyone. I hope Charlaine Harris is planning on more Aurora Teagarden books!

Highly recommend All the Little Liars.



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