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Killer in the Carriage House–saving a village
Killer in the Carriage House
Lisbeth invites her friend Kate to Asheboro to try to save the town. The only industry, a shovel factory, has long since closed its doors. Kate’s only work experience has been in managing large hotels, but she thinks she could possibly turn the town into a replica of a Victorian village. The source of the idea is the Victorian mansion left to the town by the deceased factory owner.
There are many unanswered questions involved in this project. Kate needs to get the townspeople, especially the shopkeepers, on board. She needs to research the history of the period and develop resources to help put the plan into action. Meanwhile, she finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery when she discovers the body of a young man she encountered the day before at the library. She also wants to learn more about the factory owner and his connections with both Clara Barton and Thomas Edison.
The storyline of Killer in the Carriage House is acceptable, but I had a hard time with the main character Kate. She isn’t believable to me as a project manager. She wastes a lot of time just waiting for things to happen and then complains that there are so many things to do. She also says that in her former position she was told what she had to do and was never in charge of initiating events. That does not seem in line with a hotel manager’s responsibilities. Her personal relationships are weak and not well defined.
The plot is better developed than the characters. I liked the plot resolution but was surprised that certain characters’ presence in town hadn’t been questioned earlier.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to St. Martin’s Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 3/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: Although this book is the second book in the Victorian Village Mysteries, it is the first book in the series for me. It was easy to pick up with the plot and characters and move into the tale.
Publication: July 9, 2019—St. Martin’s Press
Memorable Lines:
But to have someone—or in this case, something like an entire town—hand the whole unwieldy mess to me and say, “Here, make this nice, and don’t spend too much money”? I was left floundering.
“So, are you going to tell me about this new murder?”
“You mean the body in the library? Sounds like an Agatha Christie novel, but unfortunately it’s true.”
“You got tossed into a difficult situation, one that kept changing about every ten minutes. You did the best you could.”
A Plain Vanilla Murder–not so plain after all
A Plain Vanilla Murder
by Susan Wittig Albert
It is not like me to jump into a cozy mystery series on the twenty-seventh book. Who engages in that kind of craziness anyway? Amazingly, I didn’t find the lapse in character background knowledge to be a problem. While A Plain Vanilla Murder is not the best cozy I’ve ever read, it was very good. I particularly liked all the information provided on vanilla. I had no idea vanilla is part of an orchid plant or that there is such an active trade in exotic orchid plants.
This mystery has lots of threads. A professor is killed, and lots of enemies emerge as possible suspects. Could the motive be professional rivalry, dalliances or orchid laundering? All are sufficient to motivate an attacker, but what really happened? The main character, China Bayles, is a former criminal lawyer. This is one of the few crimes that land on her doorstep that leads her to become involved professionally.
Always interested in learning new things about a subject, I enjoyed the many quotes about vanilla that are included in the chapters as well as in the addendum. Susan Wittig Albert is a prolific writer as evidenced by this series that focuses on herbs and spices as well as the three other series she writes in addition to a number of independent books. I look forward to reading more by this author.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Persevero Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Mystery, Women’s Fiction
Notes: #27 in the China Bayles Mystery Series, but works well as a standalone.
Publication: June 4, 2019— Persevero Press
Memorable Lines:
Campus politics are labyrinthine. A dispute involving faculty can be vicious, even if it looks like nothing more than a petty turf war over a few inconsequential footnotes in an insignificant publication. It can also be something bigger, dirtier, and deeper.
My first thought was that he was the last person on earth to do such a thing. But of course you can never tell what devils live in somebody’s private hell.
Any time you have to sit down with a cop, you immediately remember the times you’ve jaywalked or parked where you shouldn’t or failed to return a library book and now have a humongous unpaid fine. It’s stupid, of course, but it’s a universal paranoia, and completely understandable.
Telephone Line–mystery set in the 70’s
Telephone Line
by Julie Mulhern
If asked to recommend only one cozy mystery series to be read in its entirety, I would select The Country Club Murders. It (like Ellison’s beloved Mr. Coffee machine) never lets me down. Telephone Line has characters you can care about. The main character, Ellison, really doesn’t want to live up to her reputation and find yet another dead body. Her interactions with her mother, a country club matriarch known as a force to be reckoned with if crossed, play out with great humor. The setting is Kansas City’s upper crust in the 70’s. It’s hard to believe the etiquette-following country club set can be involved in such shenanigans, but crime knows no boundaries. Ellison is aided by her kaftan wearing housekeeper with an investigative background, her boyfriend Detective Anarchy Jones, and her former boyfriend Taft, a lawyer.
With several murders upsetting the city, Ellison has to work hard to stay alive and take care of those she loves. Her dead husband’s blackmailing schemes give her some insider knowledge, but will she be forced to reveal information to Anarchy that will embarrass her family and cause her to relive past traumas?
Although Telephone Line is a great mystery with a surprise ending and lots of humor, it contains a serious side. It deals with rape and the inability of the justice system to adequately support the victim.
I would like to extend my thanks to Edelweiss and to Henery Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #9 in The Country Club Murders series, but can be enjoyed as a standalone.
Publication: June 18, 2019—Henery Press
Memorable Lines:
“Mother—“ maybe I could reason with her (and maybe Gloria Steinem and Hugh Hefner would run away together) “—this is ridiculous.”
“It can’t be Mother.” Mother only called early when things were dire—when she’d heard I’d found a body or when someone with newly acquired wealth was put up for membership at the club.
“Painting centers me. Does that sound too woo-woo?”
“I’m from San Francisco. There’s nothing you could say that would sound too woo-woo.”
Toxic Toffee–Jethro and Puff add humor
Toxic Toffee
by Amanda Flower
As I read Amanda Flower’s latest cozy mystery, Toxic Toffee, I was delighted to see familiar characters, like Jethro the polka dotted pig. I was amused by the introduction of a huge fluffy pet bunny named Puff and intrigued by the mysterious death of a rabbit farmer whom everyone loves. Reading about the construction of a ten foot toffee rabbit and other Easter treats was appealing to this chocoholic as well.
All of this sweetness is wrapped up in an intriguing mystery that starts in New York City where Bailey, chocolatier extraordinaire, and her naive Amish relative Charlotte have been filming candy making for a TV show. They soon leave the fascinating Big Apple where Charlotte’s Amish is frequently “showing” as she encounters a very unfamiliar world. They return to Holmes County, Ohio, where they help Bailey’s grandmother in their Amish candy shop. Bailey is approached by the son of a murdered man with a request that she help solve the mystery of his death. She agrees because of her community ties. Although “Englisch,” her ancestry is Amish and her grandmother is very respected in the community.
Threatening notes and a late night attack ramp up the danger level for Bailey and the concern level for her boyfriend, Deputy Aiden Brody. There are plot twists, turns, and surprises all the way to the end. Suspense, humor, and interesting characters make Toxic Toffee a must read for cozy mystery lovers.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #4 in the Amish Candy Shop Mystery series.
2. I believe this could be read without reading the previous books in the series, but I think this is one of the best so far in the series.
Publication: June 25, 2019—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
“Not lucky. Blessed. Luck is an Englisch idea, not an Amish one.”
…I couldn’t live in fear. I would be afraid enough to be careful, but I would not allow myself to be stifled by fear.
“In my opinion, it’s better for a young person to leave the faith and be Englisch than force themselves to be Amish and make everyone around then miserable.”
Into the Frying Pan–medical mayhem
Into the Frying Pan
by Sarah Osborne
If my opinion of this book were based on the likability of the characters the plot centers around in Into the Frying Pan, it would get a low rating. Fortunately the main characters, pediatrician Ditie Brown and her detective boyfriend Mason, along with Ditie’s adopted daughter Lucie and Ditie’s close friends Lurleen and Danny, do not like these people either. Sadly they were an odd group of former friends from Ditie’s medical school days.
The tale is full of suspicions and secrets when one of the group is killed during a Civil War reenactment. Ugly motives and complicated relationships emerge. Will Ditie be able to protect herself and her children while interviewing former friends to discover the murderer?
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press) for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #2 in the Ditie Brown Mystery Series but great as a standalone.
Publication: May 28, 2019— Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press)
Memorable Lines:
I hung up not sure what I was feeling. I’d put Phil in a category of lousy human being and now he was trying to ease his way out of that box.
Agatha Christie would have loved this gathering. A small clutch of people with one murderer in the mix.
“You see, I learned the hard way that some people get broken by their past and don’t recover from it—that was Carl. I did everything I could not to be like my mother, but Carl became his father. He ran around, had schemes to get money, and always wanted more than he had. I thought I could love him into being a better man, but you can’t do that for another person. They have to do it for themselves.”
Sweet Tea and Secrets–a web of lies
Sweet Tea and Secrets
by Joy Avon
Like the main character, Callie Aspen, the plot of Sweet Tea and Secrets seems to exist in limbo in Joy Avon’s latest cozy mystery. Callie has quit a job she loves as an international tour guide and moved back to Heart’s Harbor to help her Aunt Iphy run Book Tea, the local tea shop. She is waiting for a local rental to be restored to livable condition. She doesn’t actually contribute much help to the tea room in this book. To top it off, Deputy Falk, an additional enticement when she decided to move, seems less than enthusiastic about Callie’s return to town.
The plot follows the same erratic pacing and intensity as we see in Callie’s personal life. Callie gets pulled into the investigation of a cold murder case that revolves around a web of lies. It is hard for Callie and the reader to know which characters are reliable. My interest would ramp up, and then I would find myself wondering when the book would end. The ending was a surprise in regards to the mystery, and the author didn’t leave any loose ends. There were a number of subplots that were interesting but sometimes too distracting when acting as red herrings. I was glad Callie’s personal relationship with Falk showed forward progress. I would read another book in the series, but I hope it will have more of a focus on the tea room like the first books in the series do.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Crooked Lane Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #2 in the Book Tea Shop Mystery Series
Publication: June 11, 2019—Crooked Lane Books
Memorable Lines:
But nothing happened. Just those lights teasing her from the darkness. Telling her she wasn’t alone.
“So far everybody seems to have been lying about everything.”
Seeing Red–who’s in the freezer?
Seeing Red
by Dana Dratch
Living right across the street from a four story Victorian turned into a B&B and run by a handsome, blue-eyed British gent could be a real plus for Alex who is currently single and a freelance writer. In Seeing Red by Dana Dratch, there are an abundance of interesting characters, lots of twists and turns, and an adorable pup named Lucy. Alex ends up with a full house of temporarily upended friends as she tries to discover the identity of a baby as well as several frozen bodies. Throw in some art fraud and a vengeful health inspector and you have an engaging plot with lots of twists and turns. I enjoyed the book but was a little let down at the end as things just got tidied up a little too quickly and easily with few apparent consequences. I do want to read the next in the series to follow the characters and look for improvement in the resolution of the next plot line in Red Hot.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #2 in the Red Herring Mystery Series, but could be read as a standalone
Publication: May 28, 2019—Kensington
Memorable Lines:
“She’s been looking at that poor innkeeper the way a hungry freshman looks at a vending machine.”
Baba, our dads mother, was ninety pounds of Russian dynamite. Not quite five feet tall and who knows how old, she was a strike force of one. Literally. She’d recently saved me from a psycho killer armed with nothing but common sense and a cast-iron frying pan.
“Mom can’t stay here,” Nick said, quietly. “Not with Baba here. Those two are like garlic and chocolate. You can have one or the other, but never both.”
Tell Me No Secrets–missing delivery man
Tell Me No Secrets
by Lynn Chandler Willis
I’m gong to work hard at sharing Tell Me No Secrets by Lynn Chandler Willis without giving away a very important theme that emerges and defines the rest of the book. Ava Logan, publisher of a small-town weekly, has her own difficult childhood history but was rescued and raised by her foster mother Doretha, who is also a preacher. Later she escapes from an abusive marriage when her policeman husband is killed on the job. She has three children and is in a relationship with the county sheriff Grayson Ridge who is the complete opposite of her deceased husband.
Trouble starts when Ava spies a backpack in the river during her daughter’s baptism. It belongs to Scott, an employee of the paper who has gone missing. The rest of this page turner is devoted to an investigation to discover what happened to Scott and why. Setting is extremely important in this book as much of it relates to customs of the backwoods of the Appalachians where there are “granny witches” who don’t really practice witchcraft; they treat people with herbal remedies. Religion has different flavors there, and dousing rods are not uncommon.
You’ll enjoy meeting the regular characters that populate this book. Not everyone is painted with the same brush, but they are all depicted realistically. There are also characters to feel ambivalent about and those that are downright evil. Social problems both in and out of the “holler” are addressed as well. Just when you think the book has drawn to a satisfactory conclusion, the investigation takes a turn and everyone is presented with a surprise ending.
I would like to extend my thanks to Edelweiss and to Henery Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: This is #2 in the Ava Logan Mystery Series but works well as a standalone. We jump right into the current mystery with the first lines of the book: “People don’t just disappear. Unless they do.” The author, however, does an excellent job in the first chapter of putting the new mystery in the context of what we need to know of the characters’ backgrounds.
Publication: June 11, 2019—Henery Press
Memorable Lines:
Praying for the best, expecting the worst. Sooner or later, the two collide and you’re left numb to both.
“Just cause you ain’t the enemy don’t mean you’re our friend. Right, Momma?” Such wisdom from someone deemed simple.
You could set your clock by the depth of Nola’s southern accent. Up until lunchtime, she worked to keep it in check, careful with her pronunciations. After lunch, tire became tar and fire became far.
Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches–secrets in the family
Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches
by Karen Rose Smith
Along comes a fairly gentle cozy mystery in Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches by Karen Rose Smith that is half personal relationships and half murder mystery. Interestingly enough, Smith manages to tie in a lot of the personal issues with the murder. Daisy, a widow, owns Daisy’s Tea Garden with her Aunt Iris. This mystery begins with uncomfortable anticipation for Daisy and her staff caused by the upcoming visit by celebrity food blogger Derek, known for giving unfavorable reviews. He is found dead after his visit.
There are so many questions about Derek’s death that Daisy must try to answer while juggling personal dilemmas with her college age daughter Vi and with Foster, Vi’s boyfriend, who is also an employee of Daisy. Her other daughter, Jazzi, is undergoing emotional trauma because of possible rejection by her birth mom. Daisy is moving slowly in her relationship with former detective and current local woodworker Jonas. Daisy’s parents live in the same town, and her mother tends to be critical. What a lot of things for Daisy to deal with at one time!
At the teashop, business is off because potential customers are deterred by the possibility of poisoning. Daisy needs to find the murderer to save her shop and her employees’ jobs. Her major method is listening as she informally interviews suspects and watches for their reactions. The characters are interesting, and I enjoy visits to the tea shop where all kinds of teas and goodies are available as well as more substantial fare such as soups. Before the murder, bus loads of tourists frequently stopped for tea, but the murder has squelched enthusiasm for the tea shop. As the setting is Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, there are some Amish references as Daisy and Jonas interact with Amish friends and employees. Willow Creek is a welcoming little town, and Daisy’s Tea Garden, set in a charming Victorian house, is a comfortable spot to chat with a friend. Come on in! The tea is hot, the hostess is friendly, and the treats are (not literally) “to die for.”
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #3 in the Daisy’s Tea Garden Mystery Series, but works well as a standalone thanks to the author’s ability to dive right into the plot while simultaneously providing background.
2. Three original recipes are included at the end of the book for items served in the tearoom.
Publication: May 28, 2019—Kensington
Memorable Lines:
“I know a therapist who’s very good with teenagers. She has a cat who sits in on most sessions. She finds that Lancelot relaxes her clients. He’s very loving, and in that intuitive way cats have, he knows whether to come closer or stay away.”
Daisy felt as if she was living in more than one universe—one filled with the tea garden and friends and customers, tea and sweet goods. And the other with a family dilemma she didn’t know how to handle.
The tea might have been brewed for them, but by their expressions and body language, she could tell tension brewed between them.
Something Borrowed, Something Mewed–canine sidekick
Something Borrowed, Something Mewed
by Bethany Blake
Celebrating the 4th of July in Sylvan Creek, Pennsylvania, means a weeklong pet-centric Wags ’n Flags affair complete with fireworks, patriotic decorations, dogs in costumes, and the canine All Paws on Deck Rowboat Regatta. This year pet-sitter and pet bakery owner Daphne Templeton and her Basset hound sleuthing sidekick Socrates are immersed in solving crimes. Daphne’s sister Piper is engaged to be married. The wedding planner has multiple bookings set up at the same venue and at the same time and has plans to abscond with all the bridal payments. Murder ups the ante on the scam. Who is behind all the nefarious shenanigans?
On the personal scene in Something Borrowed, Something Mewed, Daphne and her detective boyfriend Jonathan seem to be getting emotionally closer at a time when physical separation is imminent. Daphne’s fun and a little wacky friend Moxie is Daphne’s support throughout it all. Humor is injected as Daphne has interesting, but fairly one sided, “conversations” with Socrates throughout the book as she tries to solve the mysteries swirling around Sylvan Creek’s celebration.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #5 in the Lucky Paws Petsitting Mystery Series
Publication: May 28, 2019—Kensington
Memorable Lines:
…a black whirlwind flew past our feet and Tinkleston finally launched himself at the world’s meekest, most clueless and most accident-prone cat, who went flying off the icebox with a familiar, plaintive yowl.
I prized allegiance to family and friends. I also admired people who looked out for lost souls, whether they were siblings or Chihuahuas and pugs with oversized personalities. Or very insistent cats.
“I won’t even ask why you rode something you pedal to a biker bar.”
education pathways 