Thirty-five and a Half Conspiracies, by Denise Grover Swank

Denise Grover Swank has done it again! Created a romantic, thrilling, scary, exciting, funny, twisty-turny mystery featuring Rose Gardner, Arkansas' answer to Miss Marple.

To avoid spoilers, even the smallest one, I'll just say that this book is everything you've come to expect from a Rose Gardner mystery, and from Swank, and more. Swank's writing gets better every outing and this is a case in point.

This series is fresh, different, and loads of fun. There's love, hate, fear, passion, joy, happiness, sorrow, and even a little envy in here. There's a little dog, a sad friend, a loyal protector, a mysterious sister, and evil b*tch, and a lawyer who knows exactly which side of the law his clients walk upon.

The upshot of this series, I think, is that we all have to grow and change to live and love successfully. Sometimes, we find lifelong friends and partners along the way, people who make us more than we are alone, and sometimes we find people who are only moments in our lives and not meant to be there forever. Facing adversity makes you stronger and really can't be avoided anyway, so you have to take the bull by the horns. Sometimes, we find that those we love have committed sins and that, no matter how much we love them, we can't get past those. This series of books is a woman's journey and in addition to being fun, exciting, and a little (occasionally a lot) sad, it's also got some deeper truths to be mined and paid attention to. We are all works in progress.

Thirty-Five seems to be approaching some sort of climax and a culmination of the things that have come before. Not that I expect Swank will end the series any time soon, but just that many questions our protagonists have had will soon be answered and there will be some sort of wrap up of a major story line. I say this with great hope of finding out just what the heck is going on, as well as for seeing where the author takes our heroine next. I cannot wait for the next installment to come in May.

I want to point out that I read this book is about five hours all told, and that the denouement, several pages long, had my heart pounding and my palms sweating. I am not lying.

If you have not read Twenty-eight and a Half Wishes, or the other six books in this series, you'll want to do that first, but I promise you it's worth it. Denise Grover Swank never fails to satisfy her readers. Click on the pic to get it.