Home » Posts tagged 'tunnels'
Tag Archives: tunnels
The Path to the Last House Before the Sea–sad secrets
The Path to the Last House Before the Sea
by Liz Eeles
Alyssa has come to Heaven’s Cove to start life over, changing her name and her profession while harboring a big secret. She lives in a small wooden caravan on Magda’s property. Magda owns an ice cream parlor and returned a number of years ago to be close to her best friend Penny and husband Stan. Magda has her own secret that is eating away at her despite the happy face she presents to the world. Jack is taking a hiatus from his work to help out his dad Stan in the town’s only grocery store, a tiny place that the community depends upon. Their lives become intertwined as an unlikely romance develops between visionary Alyssa and nerdy Jack.
A major thread is Alyssa’s search for clues and information about a 300 year old tale of a missing couple and a smuggling ring. Her search for the truth puts Alyssa and Jack’s lives in danger. Meanwhile Jack is dealing with his soon-to-be ex-wife, her boyfriend, and his beloved adopted son.
Author Liz Eeles weaves all of these threads into a background of a wedding in Heaven’s Cove that the whole community is involved in. The setting is beautiful and the town’s residents are both kind and gossipy at the same time. If you like an interesting plot and characters in a clean novel, The Path to the Last House Before the Sea would be a great choice.
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: Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Notes: #5 in the Heaven’s Cove Series, but can be read as a standalone. There are characters from previous books who make cameo appearances, but each book in the series has new characters who are the focus of the current book.
Publication: May 18, 2023—Bookouture
Memorable Lines:
A hot wash of shame flooded through him. When had he become so…? He turned into the lane that led past the village green, unable to settle on the right word for his behaviour. Arrogant, maybe? Ignorant? Boorish?
“Three point one four one five nine…” he began to mutter under his breath. Reciting the mathematical constant pi from memory, as far as he could go, always calmed him down. The number was beautiful. It was fixed and unchanging—unlike his life right now.
Alyssa crossed her fingers, just in case, and watched seagulls—tiny white dots—swooping over cottage roofs, and a child’s lost red balloon floating into the sky. The village looked like a spider’s web from up here, with paths going in all directions and the church in the centre.
Death by Chocolate Chip Cupcake–literally a cliffhanger
Death by Chocolate Chip Cupcake
by Sarah Graves
Most cozy mysteries are fairly tame. They have an interesting plot with a great whodunnit puzzle, a little action, and a sprinkling or two of danger. With Death by Chocolate Chip Cupcake, you can take those expectations and turn them upside down. Then double the pace, add lots of adventure, and throw in some creepiness.
The settings are extremely important to the plot. Main character Jacobia (Jake) and her friend Ellie own a chocolate-themed bakery, The Chocolate Moose, in the island village of Eastport, Maine. A lot of the action takes place at a remote cliffside house recently purchased by Ingrid Merryfield, a past-her-prime actress. Formerly glorious but currently decaying, Cliff House sits at the end of a narrow peninsula. With one way in by car, boat access when the tides are right, earthquakes, swamps, and secret tunnels, Sarah Graves has created a setting that is the perfect background for her plot.
Merryfield is hosting a party to ostensibly show off her new house to old friends even before any remodeling has been done. The guests who are staying overnight are plunged into sudden danger as they are trapped when a ginormous tree is uprooted and blocks the egress just as someone starts murdering them one by one. Instead of a locked room mystery, we can call it a sealed island mystery.
Ellie and Jake have been hired and paid well to provide chocolate desserts with the proviso that they stay overnight to serve and clean up. Things go from bad to worse as Jake tries to save Ellie, Jake’s stepmother, and Jake’s daughter-in-law and get them off the island. Graves goes into great detail with the setting helping the reader picture the dangerous cliffs and rising tides.
Sorting through the characters, their motivations, and the numerous plot twists is a full-time job. In the conclusion, everything is spelled out and loose ends are tied up. Jake and Ellie are brave, self-sacrificing, and ingenious ladies, but two of my favorite characters critical to the plot are not main characters. My semi-heroes are Igor the Irish Wolfhound who has a recurrent role and Jake’s elderly father who should not be underestimated. Death by Chocolate Chip Cupcake is not the book for a calm afternoon’s read, but a cup of hot tea might go with it well as there are some wet, cold scenes.
I would like to extend my thanks to NetGalley 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. #5 in the Death by Chocolate Series. It could be read as a standalone, but would be enjoyed better with more character background.
2. Minor swearing (about 5 occasions)
Publication: March 29, 2021—Kensington
Memorable Lines:
…there are no dumb housewives in Maine. If there were, they’d get eaten by bears, poisoned by toadstools masquerading as mushrooms, or bled dry by mosquitoes so big they could stand flat-footed and look right over the barn at you.
So the whole line of thought was a vicious circle and for now I set it aside turning instead to thoughts of our imminent journey: Life jacket, check. Iron grip on the rail, check.
On the hearth, flames licked hungrily at the logs, curling their splinters to frizzled wisps.
education pathways 