The Bakersville Dozen

Title: The Bakersville Dozen

Author: Kristina McBride

Publisher: Sky Pony Press, August 2017

Genre: young adult, thriller, mystery

Pages: 304

Obtained: from publisher in exchange for an honest review






Summary: Thirteen high school senior girls were featured in a video created by someone anonymous.  The video focused on something about each girl's sex life and quickly went viral online.  Now the girls are disappearing.  Bailey Holtzman, one of the girls from the video, receives a note taking her on a scavenger hunt that begins by leading her to the body of one of her missing friends.  Can she figure out who is kidnapping her friends before another loses her life or goes missing?

Thoughts:  I loved this author's suspenseful, tense writing style.  She has a good grasp of teens, the issues they face, and what they like to read.  (She had a love triangle in there.  That was a must when I was a teen.)  I wanted to keep reading and finished the book in three days.  The mystery was a good one and she was able to put a creepy feel into it, which I love. There were plenty of suspects, red herrings, and lots going on.  It kept me guessing all the way to the end.

There were some things about this book, though, that bothered me and seemed over the top.   This may just be a personal preference, but there was mention about drugs and alcohol that I thought was not necessary, especially in a book for teens.  Lines just seemed kind of thrown in there.  For example, when talking about what munchies to bring to a get together, one girl said she wanted "magic" brownies.  Maybe this was put in because this is what is selling, but I just didn't think the story needed it and would have been better without it.  Also, there were some things that were just not consistent with the characters personalities which is hard to describe without giving too much away.  Since I mentioned in the summary that the protagonist finds the body of one of her missing friends, I will use that as an example.  Baily leaves the body there.  This is a girl that seemed to really love her friends and I could not believe she would just leave the body there.  The author tried to show that she was trying to save her other friends and leaving the body there would help to rescue them, but it somehow didn't work for me.  The whole book was not like this, but there were a couple of other small things that just didn't fit.  I felt like if this book had been cleaned up a little more it would have been fantastic.  Nevertheless it was a really entertaining, fast paced whodunit with lots of secrets and lies.

I recommend The Bakersville Dozen to any mystery / thriller lover that is okay with over the top.  It is recommended for ages 14 and up, but I would say 16 and up due to the drugs, alcohol, and sex.  This author has three previous novels and because of her fantastic psychological suspense writing I am hoping to read at least one more.



                                                                    





I ordered the "Breakfast Tea Sampler" from The Whistling Tea Kettle which is an online tea store.  I stumbled upon this company while surfing the web and just loved the name. The company also has two tea houses located in New York- one in Troy and one in Ballston Spa.  My order arrived quickly and was well packaged.  The tea samples were in a colorful box which had a card inserted in the top describing each of the six teas and providing brewing instructions.  Each tea was in a black and orange, good quality resealable bag.  On the back of each bag was a sticker with recommended brewing instructions and a brief description of the tea.  My thought when opening this package was what a wonderful gift this would make if the tea was good.

The first tea I chose to sample was Ancient Forest , an organic, black tea from the "ancient trees" of the southwest province of Yunnan in China.  I cut open the bag with scissors. The leaves were black and light brown.  They were long and thin.  They had a sweet, earthy scent.  I put 2 teaspoons of leaves in my teapot and poured 12 ounces of water over the leaves.  I let this brew for 3 minutes.  The liquid was a dark orange brown and also had an earthy scent.  The taste was sweet and earthy, smooth and rich.  It was a high quality tea.  I really enjoyed this tea and brewed another cup later on in the day.  I tried brewing for 4 minutes and did not taste much of a difference.

At $18.90 and $4.95 for shipping, and the website stating that the sampler provides enough leaves for 18-36 cups of tea, this is a reasonably priced high quality gift or way to try new teas.  It is such a nice feeling to receive something so pleasing to the eye in the mail, but then to have the tea be enjoyable as well really makes your day.  I will review the other samples in future posts.