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Hooked on You–Riley and Hayden’s story
Hooked on You
by Kathleen Fuller
Riley and Hayden went to the same high school, but barely knew each other. She went off to New York City hoping to find success as an artist while he pursued a career in baseball. Both find themselves helping out at family businesses—a yarn shop and a hardware store in the dying little town of Maple Falls. Author Kathleen Fuller has created damaged, but likable characters and surrounded them with loving, supportive people. Will the pair overcome their pasts? Can they save the businesses and the little town?
Join the BB’s (Bosom Buddies) who are Riley’s grandmother’s friends, and the Three Musketeers, an unlikely group of three young women as they welcome the loner Riley with the friendship she never had.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Romance
Notes: 1. #1 in the Maple Falls Romance Series which should be read in order.
2. Includes a map of Maple Falls and Discussion Questions
Publication: 5/11/2021—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
A riot of colors, textures, and fibers filled the canvas in front of Riley McAllister. She tilted her head to the right. To the left. Then, with careful precision and pointed tweezers, she started to apply a hair-thin golden thread to the narrow bead of glue on the peacock feather in the center, the final touch to a project that had taken over three months to complete.
Mimi’s lilting Southern drawl filled Riley’s ear, triggering the tiniest spark of homesickness, which always surprised her. After nine years of living in New York City, she should be over it, but every time she heard Mimi’s voice, it came back again. Riley’s life in Maple Falls had been a big disappointment, but that wasn’t Mimi’s fault.
On Spine of Death–hidden bones
On Spine of Death
by Tamara Berry
Tess, a thriller writer, believes in using real life as an inspiration for her fiction. Sometimes that means investigating real murders that happen in her newly adopted small hometown, even on her own property. She also sets up scenarios to see if a situation is possible even if not probable. She is quite successful and has been able to renovate (i.e. make livable) a cabin she inherited from her grandfather. Newly divorced, she lives there with her teenage daughter Gertrude. In this book there are an assortment of interesting characters including two undercover FBI agents: Nikki who acts as a bookmobile librarian and Jared, a strapping young man who works construction for Tess as she tries to transform her grandfather’s wreck of a hardware store into a bookstore. Jared doesn’t do well as an undercover agent because he can’t “lie his way out of a paper bag.”
It is during the demolition of parts of the store that skeletons are discovered. Judging from similar hatchet marks on the bodies, it seems there has been a serial killer at work. The plot takes off from there as the story becomes more and more complicated. It appears the murderer has returned and is trying to frame either Tess’ family or the sheriff.
Woven through the mystery there is a lot of humor in situation and dialogue. There is also some romance and sabre rattling as Jared and Sheriff Boyd are both attracted to Tess.
The ending is dramatic and full of action. There is resolution of the mysteries but also a hook to make the reader want to read of Tess’ next adventures which will assuredly include some of both the romantic and investigative varieties. She may even find time to reach some of her publisher’s deadlines for her next book. Be ready to suspend reality and enjoy some over the top humorous situations in On Spine of Death.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #2 in the By the Book Mystery Series. I recommend reading this series from the beginning rather than trying to read this book as a standalone. It is a series where you will benefit from meeting the characters and watching their relationships develop.
Publication: November 29, 2022—Poisoned Pen Press
Memorable Lines:
She also knew that the more exhausted the sheriff was, the more likely he was to cave. That was a trick Gertrude used all the time. Requests for increases to her allowance always occurred with greater frequency whenever Tess was approaching a deadline.
There was no telling how or why rumors spread so quickly in a place like this, where social media existed mostly in the form of the church calling tree and chance encounters at the grocery store, but there was no denying that they did. No one went so far as to throw stones at her or start waving pitchforks in her face, but the hostility was palpable.
Tess had always assumed that hackers were social misfits, living off Mountain Dew and whole bags of Doritos in the dark. A humorous hacker who could manipulate her like playing a drum opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
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