.

 About The Author

C.A. Harms
Goodreads 
Website
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I am an Illinois girl, born and raised. Simple and true. I love the little things; they truly mean the most. I may have a slight addiction to my new Keurig—oh my, that thing is a godsend. And so fast too. I have two children who truly are the greatest part of my days, and their faces never fail to put a smile on my face. I have been married to my best friend for seventeen years, and looking forward to many more.

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorCAHarms/
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AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/C.A.-Harms/e/B0…

White As Silence, Red as Song

by Alessandro D’Avenia

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: Thomas Nelson (September 4, 2018)

Hailed as Italy’s The Fault in Our Stars, this Italian bestseller is now available for the first time in English.

“I was born on the first day of school, and I grew up and old in just two hundred days . . .”

Sixteen-year-old Leo has a way with words, but he doesn’t know it yet. He spends his time texting, polishing soccer maneuvers, and killing time with Niko and Silvia. Until a new teacher arrives and challenges him to give voice to his dreams.

And so Leo is inspired to win over the red-haired beauty, Beatrice. She doesn’t know Leo exists, but he’s convinced that his dream to win her over will come true. When Leo lands in the hospital and learns that Beatrice has been admitted too, his mission to be there for her will send him on a thrilling but heartbreaking journey. He wants to help her but doesn’t know how—and his dream of love will force him to grow up fast.

Having already sold over a million copies in Italy, Alessandro D’Avenia’s debut novel is considered the Italian The Fault in Our Stars. Now available in English for the first time, this rich, funny, and heartwarming coming-of-age tale asks us to explore the meaning—and the cost—of friendship, and shows us what happens when suffering bursts into the world of teenagers and renders the world of adults speechless.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book as I tend to avoid YA and it took a few beats to acclimate to the author’s innovative and slyly colorful writing style. I soon found myself fully immersed in the cleverly crafted and jagged, yet fascinatingly compelling, stream of consciousness of Leo, a post-pubescent teenaged boy whose thoughts tended to ramble and flit about in a captivating and heart-squeezing manner. Leo’s inner dialogue was wryly amusing as were his personal observations and hard-won and ironic teenaged wisdoms.

This wily author well remembers the insecurities and dramatics of youth and demonstrated remarkable insight into the rapid variability of their intense and extreme emotions, which soar to exhilaration as quickly as they can plummet to the vast pit of despair. I reveled in Leo’s inner musings as he obsessed over every nuance of his infatuation with the lovely and angelic redheaded schoolgirl named Beatrice.   His fertile imagination, creative use of nicknames, and fixation on defining colors kept a smirk on my face while reading. Leo’s world revolved around playing soccer, his batscooter, his study friend Silva, the drudgery of school and teachers, and his undeclared love for the perfection known as Beatrice. This ingeniously well-crafted story detailed Leo’s most transformative year of enlightening life-lessons.

About Alessandro D’Avenia

Alessandro D’Avenia holds a Ph.D. in Classical Literature and teaches Ancient Greek, Latin, and Literature at a high school in Milan. White as Silence, Red as Song was his first novel, published in Italy in 2010. It sold a million copies in Italy, has been translated into over twenty languages and was released as a film in 2012. Alessandro has since published four more books, the latest of which, Every Story is a Love Story, was published in October 2017.

Haircuts, Hens, and Homicide

by Stephanie Dagg

Goodreads

Amazon / B&N

Megan finds mayhem when she arrives in France to bury her Gran and sort out her affairs. She expected difficult encounters with civil servants and red tape but not with wandering chickens, an imperious policeman, and a dead body. Together with her unlikely new friend, the elderly and grumpy Alphonse and his canine equivalent, Monsieur Moustache, Megan becomes involved in investigating the fowl-related foul play that’s at work in this sleepy part of rural France.
She’s helped but mainly hindered by the people she comes across. These include the local mayor, who wants Megan to stay and set up a hair salon in his village to help keep it alive. There are the cousins Romain, the gendarme, and Nico, the clumsy but hunky farmer. They have always clashed, but do so constantly now that Megan is on the scene. Michelle, Romain’s terrifying ex who wants him back, appears along the way, as does Claudette, a wheelchair-bound old lady, and Kayla, Megan’s best friend, who is hugely pregnant but not above taking on the forces of French law and order when Megan finds herself the prime suspect after Alphonse is stabbed.

There’s excitement, humor and lots of ruffled feathers in this rom-com slash cozy mystery, the first in a projected series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

The first time I’d visited Gran in France I’d expected to see the entire male population wearing berets. My school textbooks had been resolute on the matter.

I didn’t know French women cried. I thought they only had one emotional setting: ferocity. Mind you, looking back I’d always been in Gran’s company when I’d met any French women and she had the knack of bringing that quality out in everyone.

There were a good few words I’d never heard before. I made a mental note to look them up later. You could never have too many swear words at your disposal in any language.

I’d become a good judge of what people were saying without actually listening. I mean, there’s only so many long rambling tales of child prodigies, cute cats and cheating boyfriends you can listen to without wanting to stick your scissors in your eye.

“I’ve always been attracted to older men,” Claudette went on, “so each of my men was twenty years old than me. Hans was ninety-four when we shacked up.” I fought desperately to keep my face blank, but ‘ninety-four’ and ‘shacked up’ are so not words you expect to hear in the same sentence. “I finished him off in four years,” was Claudette’s next deadpan remark.

Jason had been a slim guy so didn’t slim just represent the first four letters of slimy, after all?

Now for all I knew, my father might own a string of racehorses or a fleet of oil tankers or even a small Caribbean island, maybe several. Nah, it was far more likely he owned a beer belly, a clapped-out car and a pile of debt.

My Review:

This wittily amusing book was a delight from start to finish. Ms. Dagg’s writing sparkled with more twinkles than my friend Nikki’s disco ball. The lively storylines were cleverly crafted and just so much fun. I adored all the quirky and colorful characters, vibrantly detailed and glee-inducing escapades, the nimbly plotted chicken napping murder mysteries, and hilarious inner musings and insightful observations of the main character of Megan.

After the humorously whimsical Megan, my second favorite character was Nico, who despite his appeal and sweet nature, was a walking hazard and unwittingly wrought destruction and injury to any unfortunate object, person, or creature within his reach. The storylines were laced with all manner of clever little tidbits and lovable antics such as Catastrophe – the “little scabby tabby;” the duck that thought she was a chicken and avoided the duck pond; and the ancient kleptomaniac chicken expert Megan privately labeled “Chikipedia” and his ugly dog with the precious name of Monsieur Moustache.   The hardest part of writing this review was winnowing down the many pages of mirthfully rib-tickling favorite quotes I had marked. This was my first exposure to Ms. Dagg’s deft literary artistry and it left me with a greedy want of all her clever words.

Author Bio –

I’m an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than ‘belonging’ to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever-increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies , canaries, lovebirds and Chinese quail. Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it’s been a steep learning curve. I recount these experiences in my book Heads Above Water: Staying Afloat in France and the sequel to that, Total Immersion: Ten Years in France. I also blog regularly at www.bloginfrance.com.

I’m married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful.     

I’m a traditionally-published author of many children’s books, and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for thirty years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. Find me at www.editing.zone. The rest of the time I’m running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal’s poop.   

Social Media Links – @llamamum

www.facebook.com/StephanieDaggBooks/

www.bloginfrance.com

The Oddest Little Cornish Tea Shop

by Beth Good

Goodreads

Amazon US / UK  / B&N

‘I love Beth Good’s quirky style!’ Katie Fforde

It’s a big day for Charlie Bell – the grand reopening of her Aunt Pansy’s long-closed tea rooms in Tremevissey, a quaint Cornish seaside resort. But not everyone is happy for Charlie. The locals say the tea rooms are cursed. For Pansy was cruelly jilted by her lover, and walked out into the ocean, never to return.

Charlie dismisses the ‘curse’ as superstitious nonsense, but by the end of the first day, her world is in tatters, and she’s not even sure the tea rooms can open again.

Then in walks a rugged, taciturn man with a sexy smile and everything he owns on his back, looking for a summer job . . .

Is Gideon Petherick an angel in disguise? Or is history about to repeat itself?

The latest novella in Beth Good’s quirky and popular ‘Oddest Little Shop’ romcom series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

…‘are you having it off with that total sex god, Gideon Petherick? … Oh come on, don’t tell me you’re too shy to admit it. I’d be telling anyone who’d listen if I’d caught someone like that.’ Elsie wriggled oddly beside her, as though her knickers were too tight and she was trying to adjust them. ‘After all, look at him. It’s not like he isn’t the sexiest beast on two legs in this back-of-beyond village. If I was you, I’d have jumped his bones soon as he walked into my place.’

Elsie fell silent suddenly, then made a kind of strangled moaning noise in the back of her throat. She was staring at Gideon’s rear as he bent over the pool table to take his shot. ‘Christ, will you look at that? I bet that’s a mouth-watering parcel in tight, white cotton boxers… Like two hardboiled eggs in a hanky,’ she finished under her breath.

‘Maybe a little bit handsome,’ she ventured, careful not to let him see how sexy she found him. Even though she had probably given it away once or twice. Okay, definitely twice. ‘Definitely not as hot as Poldark. But you’re … passable. It wouldn’t be a hardship to be seen in public with you, let me put it that way. Especially in a posh car,’ she added shamelessly.

My Review:

I have come to the end of my Beth Good stash and am feeling a bit melancholy and rueful having completed this one as it is the last treat in the bag for me as I’ve now finished all the published installments of the Odd Little Shop series. I enjoyed the curiosity prickling storyline and adored all the colorful characters in this one. Poor Charlie, she had worked so hard to reestablish her family’s business but a string of disasters struck during the Grand Re-Opening the of the Cornish Tea Rooms, mainly due to personnel issues, like grossly incompetent ones. The locals had long claimed the Tea Rooms were cursed, but Charlie didn’t think so. Luckily, all was not lost as a very sexy knight in shining apron named Gideon arrived on her doorstep seeking a job. Gideon had the ladies all a flutter and overheating and caused Charlie to have recurring problems with concentration and breathing.   They worked well together and found their collaboration leading to a different kind of business after-hours, which produced high temperatures in other rooms besides the kitchen.

How unexpected and ingenious for a series to not overlap in some way. I personally believe the divine and sublime Ms. Good should continue this cleverly amusing series into perpetuity, and why not? Cornwall appears to be a treasure trove of quirky villages with which she could continue to apply her own distinct and special blend of witty wares. I have cherished each of her five uniquely appealing and mirthfully entertaining novellas and she has hooked me with her pleasantly addictive style, and like a crack-head on the pipe, I feel rather desolate with the inability to reach for more.

Author Bio –

Born and raised in Essex, England, Beth Good was whisked away to an island tax haven at the age of eleven to attend an exclusive public school and rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Sadly, she never became rich or famous herself, so had to settle for infamy as a writer of dubious novels. She writes under several different names, mainly to avoid confusing her readers – and herself! As Beth Good, she writes romantic comedy and feel-good fiction. She also writes thrillers as Jane Holland, historicals as Victoria Lamb and Elizabeth Moss, and feel-good fiction as Hannah Coates.

Beth currently lives in the West Country where she spends a great deal of time thinking romantic thoughts while staring out of her window at sheep. (These two actions are unrelated.)

You can find her most days on Twitter as @BethGoodWriter where she occasionally indulges in pointless banter about chocolate making and the Great British Bake Off. Due to a basic inability to say no, she has too many children and not enough money, which means she needs as many readers as she can get.

Social Media Links –

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BethGoodAuthor

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BethGoodWriter

The Craft Room
by Dave Holwill

Goodreads

Sylvia Blackwell is tired. Her grandchildren are being kept away from her, and the expected inheritance that might finally get her middle-aged son to move out has failed to materialize – thanks to her mother’s cat. It is becoming increasingly difficult to remain composed. On a romantic clifftop walk for her 47th Wedding Anniversary, an unexpected opportunity leads to a momentous decision that will irretrievably change the course of her life.

The Craft Room is a darkly comic tale of sex, crepe paper, murder and knitting in a sleepy Devon town, with a ‘truly original’ premise and genuinely jaw-dropping moments. What would you do if unexpectedly freed from bondage you never knew you were in? How would your children cope? How far would you go to protect them from an uncomfortable truth? You can only push a grandmother so far…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

His back prevented him from doing any heavy lifting (though not from swinging golf clubs or working on his vintage Aston Martin) so he was acting as driver, organiser and supervisor. He decided to exercise his supervisory skills, straightened his tie in the mirror, and hopped out again to rally the team. An hour of encouraging sarcasm, withering looks and occasional shouts of ‘come on!’ later, the van was loaded and they headed off… He made the best of it, helping them along with encouraging remarks like, ‘careful those stringy arms of yours don’t come out of their sockets son,’ and, ‘I think your mother’ll have to carry this one, it’s probably a bit heavy for you.’

‘It’s almost funny you know,’ Ron said, as the silence grew oppressive, ‘we probably won’t be out of debt now until one of us dies!’ ‘Ron!’ Sylvia exclaimed, ‘you shouldn’t even joke about that.’ She tried not to overdo her shock – in case Ron realised she had already started work on his eulogy.

Those people were incredibly dull, and refused to accept that Batman: Year One is credible literature – bloody snobs… I wanted to love that book group Frank, I have read all the Hardy Boys mysteries, did they care?

… looking at the sad, impaled remains of what to him would always be a tweedy, waist-coated, wise old friend (rather than a big, vicious bastard that would bite your hand off if you stuck it in the wrong hedge). Don was not really a country boy at heart, and his only experience with wildlife came from books and cartoons.

My Review:

This book and its main character were superbly crafty, in every sense of the word. Laced with wry wit and wickedly clever humor, this cunningly observant and insightfully written book was found treasure. I am having a hard time classifying the genre beyond literary fiction. The storylines were highly entertaining, well integrated and smartly paced.   While the narrative was skillfully written and slyly amusing, the humor was dark, furtively devious, and brilliantly stealthy. The pace was slow yet pleasantly relaxing while secrets were gradually uncovered and the body count quietly ticked up.

I relished this well-honed book from start to finish. The characters were well-drawn, fascinatingly flawed, and rather loathsome, even the ones I admired or pitied the most. Yet I was captivated and my curiosity was on red button high alert. I took great delight in the author’s artful handling of the inner musings of the undetected and repressed sociopathic characteristics of Sylvia.   Sylvia was the craftiest of the crafters, a dependable and stalwart community participant and longtime Sunday School teacher who had diligently plotted and schemed  while she  labored tirelessly to maintain her position as the reigning community queen bee for decades – until her latest entry was ranked as second place. Gasp! This painful slight seemed to signal the turning of the tide for Sylvia as her patience, and apparently, her conscience had worn thin. Soon thereafter, she seemed to be uncannily present during a series of accidental deaths. Not all of which were her fault, although she nimbly and resourcefully may have hastened them, just a bit.

Author Bio

Dave Holwill was born in Guildford in 1977 and quickly decided that he preferred the Westcountry – moving to Devon in 1983 (with some input from his parents).
After an expensive (and possibly wasted) education there, he has worked variously as a postman, a framer, and a print department manager (though if you are the only person in the department then can you really be called a manager?) all whilst continuing to play in every kind of band imaginable on most instruments you can think of.

His debut novel, Weekend Rockstars, was published in August 2016 to favorable reviews and his second The Craft Room (a very dark comedy concerning death through misadventure) came out in August 2017. He is currently in editing hell with the third.

Social Media Links –

https://www.facebook.com/daveholwill100

https://twitter.com/daveholwill

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584279.Dave_Holwill

https://www.instagram.com/dave_holwill/

http://davedoesntwriteanythingever.blogspot.com/

The Oddest Little Chocolate Shop

by Beth Good

Goodreads

Amazon US / UK  / B&N

Treat yourself to something delicious . . .

‘I love Beth Good’s quirky style!’ – bestselling author Katie Fforde

When Clementine discovers that Monsieur Ravel’s beloved chocolaterie is about to close, she rushes to rescue it – without thinking through the consequences.

A lost Persian cat, a depressed but utterly gorgeous French chocolatier, an allergic shop assistant in search of true love, the oddest little chocolate shop Clementine has ever seen . . .

Can Clementine save them all, or has she bitten off more than she can chew?

A delicious, feel-good novella set in the world of chocolate-making from popular romantic comedy writer Beth Good.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… she was twenty-three and every chocolate she consumed seemed to find its way unerringly to her hips, thighs and squashy bottom. So she had sworn not to touch chocolate for an entire year, one of those absurd promises you make when you step on the scales after a long period of backsliding and wonder if cutting your hair would make a difference.

Her reflection stared back at her mutely: a too-tall blonde with flyaway hair that simply would not behave on this windy day, slanted hazel eyes and a generous mouth. Generous, her mother used to say, because it was forever opening and spouting words. And usually at the worst possible moments.

Clementine considered the very real possibility of throwing herself out of the window but then decided she would not fit through the narrow frame. Attempting a dramatic suicide and getting her hips stuck would not help matters. Or salve her wounded ego.

My Review:

In less than a week I have become an ardent worshipper at the altar of the comedic goddess known as Beth Good, no joke – I will fangirl her hard.   She is found treasure and a recent discovery for me. Her perfect arrangements of words fill me with rapturous glee and a cascade of giggle-snorts while adding a near-constant smirk and impish twinkle to my facial expression. Her cleverly amusing tales are packed with snappy humor, original and uniquely quirky characters, and a delightfully engaging and entertaining writing style. I adored her calamitous Clementine with her highly active imagination, clumsiness, death touch to mechanical devices, and riotous daydreams.   The Oddest Little Chocolate Shop was definitely a tasty treat from start to finish and the source for my latest Brit Vocab List entry of dogsbody, which Mr. Google told me was informal British for, “a person who is given boring, menial tasks to do,” what we Americans would call a gopher – someone to go-for whatever the boss wants. Despite my natural tendencies and preference for sloth, I have come to adore the divine Beth Good to the outlandish degree of giving wistful consideration toward enlisting as her ever-faithful dogsbody.

Author Bio –

Born and raised in Essex, England, Beth Good was whisked away to an island tax haven at the age of eleven to attend an exclusive public school and rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Sadly, she never became rich or famous herself, so had to settle for infamy as a writer of dubious novels. She writes under several different names, mainly to avoid confusing her readers – and herself! As Beth Good, she writes romantic comedy and feel-good fiction. She also writes thrillers as Jane Holland, historicals as Victoria Lamb and Elizabeth Moss, and feel-good fiction as Hannah Coates.

Beth currently lives in the West Country where she spends a great deal of time thinking romantic thoughts while staring out of her window at sheep. (These two actions are unrelated.)

You can find her most days on Twitter as @BethGoodWriter where she occasionally indulges in pointless banter about chocolate making and the Great British Bake Off. Due to a basic inability to say no, she has too many children and not enough money, which means she needs as many readers as she can get.

Social Media Links –

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BethGoodAuthor

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BethGoodWriter