Book Review: Annie’s Autumn Escape by Debbie Viggiano  @DebbieViggiano @rararesources 

 

Annie’s Autumn Escape
by Debbie Viggiano

 

Annie’s big birthday is looming. Sixty! She feels half that age, even if the mirror tells her otherwise. Hubby Keith promises her a birthday to remember and doesn’t let her down, but packing his suitcase to shack up with a forty-something isn’t quite the memory Annie wants to make. Suddenly she’s single and – as an empty nester – very, very alone. The Bucket List she and Keith had promised to work their way through is but a dream, until besties Bella and Caz rally around Annie and whisk her away for a trip that will be remembered forever. Dubai. But it’s not all skyscrapers, bling, sand dunes, and sheiks. As the sun sinks over the horizon of Jumeirah Beach… might there also be love?

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Suddenly I was aware of being scrutinised by two American guys to the right. One was bald, with skinny legs and a stomach that flopped like exhausted knicker elastic. The other was pot-bellied and covered in the sort of tattoos that looked like a child had gone berserk with a biro. Neither were attractive, but I was nonetheless secretly thrilled to have them check me out… until they started to loudly discuss me. ‘She ain’t bad,’ drawled Skinny Legs. ‘Take it or leave it,’ said Tattoo Man dismissively.

 

I felt empowered. Like an Olympic swimmer. Look at me go! … I felt like bursting into song. Morphing into Helen Reddy. Belting out the first few lines of I Am Woman. I continued to pause poolside, milking the moment. ‘Annie,’ Caz urgently hissed. ‘For God’s sake cover up. You’ve fallen out of your swimsuit.’

 

Where are you, Annie? We’re worried you’ve been kidnapped by a sheikh looking to expand his grandad’s harem!

 

My Review:

 

This was wicked funny and cleverly amusing while also hitting some feels and tapping several social and aging issues. I adored it and knew that I would as after I read Willow’s Wedding Vows I immediately added this wily author to my list of favorites and swept her entire listing onto my TBR. Her characters are uniquely knowable and realistically flawed in the most humorous of ways.

Annie was prone to vivid daydreaming and given her active and colorful imagination, I hooted in mirth, frequently giggle-snorted, and maintained a near-constant gleeful smirk as I made my way through this delightful tale.   Being of an… ahem… mature age, I easily identified with Annie and her gal pals and envied their tight bond and highly eventful trip to the land of blingy Dubai. The storylines were engaging and cunningly paced with frequent comedic mishaps that often tugged a bit at the heartstrings while simultaneously tickling my funny bone.

Debbie Viggiano has mad skills!

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Prior to turning her attention to writing, Debbie Viggiano was, for more years than she cares to remember, a legal secretary. She lives with her Italian husband, a rescued pooch from Crete, and a very disgruntled cat. Occasionally her adult children return home bringing her much joy… apart from when they want to raid the fridge or eat her secret stash of chocolate.
Tweet @DebbieViggiano or follow her on Facebook!

Social Media Links –

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WEBSITE: www.debbieviggiano.co.uk

Book Review:  Forrest for the Trees (Green Valley Heroes, #1) by Kilby Blades @KilbyBlades @SmartyPantsRom

Forrest for the Trees
(Green Valley Heroes, #1)
by Kilby Blades

 

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

Forrest for the Trees, an all-new slow-burn small-town romance from Kilby Blades, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited! Kilby kicks off the brand new Green Valley Heroes series in the Smartypants Romance Universe with her enemies to lovers standalone!

 

 

Forrest Winters isn’t just a federal fire marshal; he’s a thorn in Ranger Sierra Betts’s side. The way he swings his big ax, fixes her with his chameleon gray eyes, and talks about his jurisdiction has a way of breaking her concentration. He has a way of showing up everywhere he doesn’t belong, including Greenbrier Ranger Station. And he really needs to quit stealing her bacon bites.

When a series of suspicious fires, an underhanded co-worker, and a cagey Parks Police Chief threatens her job and the park itself, Sierra grudgingly agrees to partner with Forrest. Their side investigation may be her best shot at preventing the framing of an innocent man. But can his firefighting expertise and her detective skills lead them to the real arsonist before Forrest breaks her with his charm?

‘Forrest for the Trees’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #1 in the Green Valley Heroes series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe

 

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

He wasn’t a full-on curmudgeon, but half of one, a right she supposed he’d earned from managing to keep himself alive for so long.

 

“Please tell me you didn’t name your axe.” “I name all my axes. It makes them feel special.”

 

Just remember. That “no sex ’til the third date” crap is for people who secretly hate themselves and resent their bodies.

  

My Review:

 

Shame on me. I’d never heard of Kilby Blades before picking up this book and I reveled in her clever and original arrangements of words. I fell right into her smooth and easy storytelling and I was quickly invested in her uniquely endearing and quirky characters as well as smirking, sighing, and deathly curious about their exploits and endeavors. I have always enjoyed my visits to Green Valley and haven’t found a clunker yet in the Smartypants collective. Forrest for the Trees kicks off a new series and I am totally committed, hooked, enamored, and inquisitive of what will come next. In the meantime, I’ll be perusing Ms. Blades’s listing of twenty-one published books. Where have I been?

 

 

About the Author
 

Kilby Blades is a USA Today Bestselling author of Romance and Women’s Fiction. Her debut novel, Snapdragon, was a HOLT Medallion finalist, a Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize Semi-Finalist, and an IPPY Award medalist. Kilby was honored with an RSJ Emma Award for Best Debut Author in 2018 and has been lauded by critics for “easing feminism and equality into her novels” (IndieReader) and “writing characters who complement each other like a fine wine does a good meal” (Publisher’s Weekly).

During her career as a digital marketing executive, she moonlighted as a journalist, freelanced as a food, wine, and travel writer, and lived it up as an entertainment columnist. She has lived in five countries, visited more than twenty-five, and spends part of her year in her happy place in the Andes Mountains. Kilby is a feminist, an oenophile, a cinephile, a social-justice fighter, and above all else, a glutton for a good story. Follow her everywhere @kilbyblades.

 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kilbybladesauthor 

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kilbyblades

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kilby-Blades/e/B01N4770M0

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BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kilby-blades

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/kilbyblades

 

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Newsletter: https://smartypantsromance.com/newsletter/

 

Book Review: For Love Or Honey by Staci Hart @imaquirkybird

For Love Or Honey
by Staci Hart 

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

When the devil comes to town, you have to meet him head-on.

Which is exactly what I did when Grant Stone rolled into our small Texas town, driving a sports car I could fit in the bed of my truck, wearing a suit as black as his soul. He’s here to acquire mineral rights to half a dozen farms in town.

And there’s no way he’s getting mine.

I don’t make deals with the devil.

So when he challenges me to show him the small town ropes, my motivation is the prospect of seeing him make a fool of himself. He might have an angle, but if he thinks he can finagle me into endangering my bee farm, he’s got another thing coming.

Until the line in the sand is washed away.

My farm in danger. A town in upheaval. A man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

And me in the middle.

When the devil comes to town, you have to meet him head-on.

And when he sneaks into your heart, he’ll only break it.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

He began to speak, the deep, easy lilt in his voice hypnotic. When I glanced around me, everyone’s pupils could have been pinwheels— they even leaned toward him just a little. The man was a black hole.

 

And the town singles were flapping around in his orbit like moths. He was new, shiny, rich, and this town’s dating pool was stagnant and covered in pond scum. There were two ways to find love in Lindenbach— either you married your high school sweetheart or you left town and brought somebody back with you. So an eligible bachelor with a sports car that cost five times the town’s median income would get noticed. Recently divorced, middle-aged Dolores James, who’d quit paying attention to fashion somewhere around 2002, literally adjusted her boobs— hands in the cups and everything—before sauntering over to him, lashes flapping and smile on full blast. He didn’t even look at her when she bumped into him.

 

I’ll be your somebody. I hadn’t realized I’d needed one until then.

 

 My Review:

 

While this crafty wordsmith is a fairly recent discovery for me, every Staci Hart book I have picked up so far has been a guaranteed smirk factory with a few delectable sensual scenes hotter than a blazing furnace tucked inside. Her latest missive, For Love or Honey, continues this streak of winning word combinations with snort-worthy humor, irreverently amusing observations, and heart-squeezing and emotively insightful inner musings and revelations. I adore her clever humor, engaging storytelling, and flawed yet endearing characters. While I would never want to live in their tiny Texas town, I have whole-heartedly enjoyed my brief drop-ins with the Blum sisters.

 

About the Author

Staci has been a lot of things up to this point in her life — a graphic designer, an entrepreneur, a seamstress, a clothing and handbag designer, a waitress. Can’t forget that. She’s also been a mom, with three little girls who are sure to grow up to break a number of hearts. She’s been a wife, though she’s certainly not the cleanest or the best cook. She’s also super, duper fun at a party, especially if she’s been drinking whiskey. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, sleeping, gaming, or designing graphics.

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Book Review: The Naked Fisherman by Jewel E. Ann @JewelE_Ann @valentine_pr_

The Naked Fisherman
by Jewel E. Ann

USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Jewel E. Ann returns with an addictive new adult romance about a young woman who discovers years of Sunday sermons didn’t prepare her for the many lessons of the crude and sexy man who is now her boss. 

It’s official.

I’m eighteen and a young woman with endless possibilities on my way to reunite with my mom in Colorado after five years apart—she had a little weed incident in Nebraska.

At the airport, she springs the news on me … she’s leaving for a month of job training. And me? I’m left on my own in the basement she’s renting from the fisherman, aka her landlord who lives upstairs.

He’s ten years older than me. Never wears a shirt. And makes it hard to remember all the things I learned at Christian Academy.

Did I mention he’s also my new boss?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I needed the fire department to extinguish the embarrassment from my face.

 

“You deserve to have your breath taken away … every day.” Those. Those ten words. They wrapped around my heart like sticky peanut butter and jelly fingers.

 

Even if Fisher didn’t share the same emotions, I knew he would always be my first love—that really good kind of love where my brain had no say. The kind with no logical explanation. The kind that took a special place in my heart as first. God willing, I would go on to love another. Have a family. And die in the arms of my husband. But …first would always be Fisher Mann.

 

I know they say love is patient, but it’s not. Love is the brightest star in the sky. It doesn’t have an off switch or a timer. It doesn’t wear a watch or look at a calendar.

  

My Review:

 

Jewel E. Ann is a gifted raconteur with an excellent memory. She well recalls the distressingly awkwardness, angsty self-consciousness, and ego-centrism of being a teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood while believing herself to be an adult woman ready to make her own way. Ms. Ann is also remarkably insightful in tapping into and rocking the damage caused to the psyche by the hypocritically judgmental and stridently rigid teachings of conservative religion. She knocked me back to that period of confusion in my life when wanting to establish my own identity while struggling against my parents’ weird religious beliefs where everything was a sin and everyone else was going to hell, yet it was oddly okay for them and their friends to cheat on their spouses and swear like angry sailors with a hangover.

Reece’s storylines were far more entertaining and comical than my own memories but this crafty author captured all the feels with remarkable clarity and deftly perceptive observations. I adore her unique and knowable characters, even when I want to give them a whack with my Kindle. I was totally invested and completely engaged in this tale and continued to ruminate about it when grudgingly forced to put my tablet down and do some dreaded adulting.

I am tapping my little foot in pique and hissing with disdain at the demonically evil cliffhanger – which are vile contrivances that I despise with the heat of a thousand suns. While the wait is thankfully brief one of two weeks before the release of the second half, I have a feeling it will seem like the longest two weeks of my existence.

 

 

About the Author

 

 Jewel is a Wall Street Journal & USA Today best-selling author with a quirky sense of humor. When she’s not saving the planet one tree at a time, you can find her role modeling questionable behavior to her three boys, binge-watching Netflix with her husband, and writing mind-bending romance. 

 

Connect with Jewel

Website: https://www.jeweleann.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7505427.Jewel_E_Ann

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-E-Ann/e/B00IJYHDIG/

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

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/485996228236493

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Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jeweleannauthor/

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeweleannauthor

Book Review: Matchmaking At Port Willow (Port Willow Bay #2) by Kiley Dunbar  @KileyDunbar @rararesources  @HeraBooks

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Matchmaking At Port Willow
(Port Willow Bay #2)
by Kiley Dunbar

 

Beatrice Halliday has been working hard at the Princess and The Pea Inn loved up with landlord Atholl and enjoying planning events for the locals. But at Christmas, there’s a kick – as she realizes she’s expecting.

Despite being fearful of the future, Beatrice is graced with a distraction: the prospects of helping a romance flourish when a married couple spends their first child-free holiday at the Inn – and it becomes clear they need some help rediscovering each other. In true Beatrice fashion, she can’t help meddling.

Featuring the story of first love, a new family, a marriage in crisis, and an octogenarian love affair, you’ll fall head over heels for this heart-warming rom-com.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Sometimes tourists stopped them in the street when they were on days out in Fort William or Inverness, wanting a selfie with a true redheaded Scotsman of the clan warrior type. She’d come to think of it as the Outlander effect.

 

Years ago, she would joke with her girlfriends – thank goodness for girlfriends – about the need for regular marriage maintenance sex. Maintenance sex was a bit like sending your car for a service to keep it roadworthy… If Ruth’s sex life was a car, its road tax had well and truly expired and it was up on bricks in the driveway.

 

My Review:

 

This was a fun and satisfying women’s fiction read with clever wry humor and interesting twists on several familiar tropes with something to appeal to just about everyone. The book started with a dumped broken-hearted traveler hoping to save her career in the back of beyond who wasn’t all that sympathetic on arrival as she was aloof, self-serving, and acted like a snob, but she grew on me. I also enjoyed the empty nest couple with the exasperated menopausal wife hoping she could reconnect with her workaholic husband on their holiday. However, the majority of the storylines belonged to the loved-up innkeepers – an anxious older mother-to-be and her ever attentive and lovable Scottish weaver, the perfect BBF with a delicious burr in his voice. Rounding out the cast was a small village full of gentle and unique characters and family members.   The storylines were engaging, the characters were endearing, and the writing was insightful, amusing, and easy to fall into. Sigh, I need more Scotsmen in my life.

About the Author

Kiley Dunbar writes heart-warming, escapist, romantic fiction set in beautiful places, with One Winter’s Night being shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Comedy Novel Award 2021.

Kiley’s five novels include The Borrow a Bookshop Holiday (May 2021), One Winter’s Night (September 2020), Summer at the Highland Coral Beach (2020), Christmas at Frozen Falls (2019), and One Summer’s Night (2019).


Social Media Links 


website and newsletter:
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https://www.facebook.com/KileyDunbarAuthor/

 

 

Book Review: The Accused (PI Charlie Cameron Book 4) by Owen Mullen @OwenMullen6   @rararesources  @BoldwoodBooks

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The Accused
(PI Charlie Cameron Book 4)
by Owen Mullen

Amazon  / B&N  / GP / BB

When Private Investigator Charlie Cameron agrees to take on a cold case, he is drawn back into Glasgow’s dark underworld…

Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron knew Kim Rafferty was bad news the moment they met. Desperate people always spelled trouble in his experience, and Mrs. Rafferty was as desperate as they come. What she was asking for was insane. If he agreed to help the wife of the notorious East-End gangster, the consequences for them both could be fatal.

Twenty-four hours later, another betrayed woman with a hopeless case is pleading for Charlie’s help. The PI is her only chance to keep an innocent man from serving a second prison sentence for murders he didn’t commit.

Dennis Boyd is on the run, and as Charlie fights against the clock to keep him out of jail, he crosses a line that puts him on the wrong side of the law and pits him against his old friend and ally, DS Andrew Geddes.

As the body count grows, and the defense for his client falls apart bit by bit, Charlie refuses to accept the inevitable. But everyone has their limits – even the infamous Charlie Cameron. Will he be forced to admit that this case may be the one to beat him…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Secrets. Everybody had them. The only people who didn’t were six feet under.

 

He’d helped me more often than I could remember; he had a good heart. But if you wanted to find it, you had to be prepared to dig.

 

She stepped back to look at him. ‘How do you manage to stay in such good shape?’ ‘Clean living. Avoid it at all costs.’

 

She rummaged in her bag again with the enthusiasm of a panhandler, except the silver and gold she was after were dried leaves and paper. Diane inhaled hard enough to suck the oxygen from the room; when she spoke, there was smoke in her voice.

 

When it suited him, Andrew was a paid-up member of the Awkward Squad.

 

 My Review:

 

Owen Mullen is a master storyteller but he must have a dark and dastardly soul as his well-crafted storylines were dripping with gripping intrigue while raw, gritty, and cringe-worthy with violence and twisted cruelty. I found I was flinching and needed to take it in stages and periodically put my kindle down and walk away. Finishing took me quite a bit longer than expected yet I couldn’t leave it alone. I was hooked, ensnared, and addled by my unrelenting curiosity as the clever wordsmith wasn’t giving anything away. I had to know the who, why, and how as his well-honed mystery seemed unsolvable. The little pea in my brain was working overtime and although my meager gray matter failed to crack it, the beleaguered yet persistent bloodhound Charlie Cameron came through. I was so proud of him I now feel compelled to read all the previous books in this series.

In addition to a new addiction for crime thrillers, I came away from this book with a new entry for my Brit Words and Phrases List with wide boy – which is British informal for a man earning a lot of money in a nefarious or illegal manner. Not at all the image I had pictured 😉

 

 

About the Author

 

Owen Mullen is a highly regarded crime author who splits his time between Scotland and the island of Crete.  In his earlier life, he lived in London and worked as a musician and session singer. He has now written seven books and his first gangland thriller for Boldwood, Family was published in January 2021.

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/owenmullen6/

Newsletter Sign Up Link: https://bit.ly/OwenMullenNewsletter

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/owen-mullen

 

Book Review: Show Down (Juniper Ridge #3) by Tawna Fenske @tawnafenske

Show Down
(Juniper Ridge #3)
 by Tawna Fenske

Amazon / B&N / GP/ Apple / BB

They called me America’s smartest entrepreneur. So how was I dumb enough to let my dream girl get away?

Blame ego, blame my need to prove I could build a business all on my own. Hell, blame my parents—God love ‘em—for thinking I’d have problems prospering with a hammer instead of a law degree.

Turns out I’m doing just fine with a chain of luxury resorts bearing my name, but it’s a cold comfort when the woman I love hates my guts. Can’t say she’s wrong, considering how things ended.

I set out to win Lauren back, scoring a spot on her family’s reality show social experiment, or whatever it’s called when someone buys an old cult compound to build a tiny town. Works for me, since I’m a builder who loves a challenge.

But getting Lauren to forgive me proves way more than challenging. Between a botched baking class, sexy bumper car battles, and a bizarrely hostile fish, it’s clear she’s in no hurry to pick up where we left off.

Good thing I’m no quitter, especially when it comes to her.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

You’d have thought I’d confessed to killing kittens while wearing white after Labor Day.

 

If it makes you feel better, my mother asked me last week when I’m scheduling a baby. Like I might pick one up at the grocery store on my way to spin class.

 

Clean hankies, holding the door, getting nailed in a closet full of Purina? It’s the stuff every woman dreams of.

 

 My Review:

 

I will never tire of the smooth wordcraft used in the creation of Tawna Fenske’s deftly written and irreverently amusing characters as well as their delightfully sizzling and romantic entanglements. I enjoyed this couple although I wasn’t sure I was going to, as they weren’t all that likable or relatable to me at first blush. But I could relate to their humbling experiences and the insights of their inner narratives as they found their way back to each other for a second chance at mitigating the regrets of the humiliating public drama that punctuated their first go-round. Every installment of this series has been easy to fall into, cleverly entertaining, perceptively observant, and enticingly salacious. I have learned to preemptively keeps fans on high and cool drinks close for hydration.

 

About the Author   

Website 
Amazon
Goodreads

 Facebook
Twitter 

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When Tawna Fenske finished her English lit degree at 22, she celebrated by filling a giant trash bag full of romance novels and dragging it everywhere until she’d read them all. Now she’s a RITA-nominated, USA Today bestselling author who writes humorous fiction, risqué romance, and heartwarming love stories with a quirky twist. Publishers Weekly has praised Tawna’s offbeat romances with multiple starred reviews and noted, “There’s something wonderfully relaxing about being immersed in a story filled with over-the-top characters in undeniably relatable situations. Heartache and humor go hand in hand.”

Tawna lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, stepkids, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets. She loves hiking, snowshoeing, standup paddleboarding, and inventing excuses to sip wine on her back porch. She can peel a banana with her toes and loses an average of twenty pairs of eyeglasses per year. To find out more about Tawna and her books, visit www.tawnafenske.com.

 

Book Review:  Rule Breaker by Kelly Collins  @kcollinsauthor

Rule Breaker 
by Kelly Collins

Amazon / B&N/ BB

 

She grew up privileged. He grew up poor. Will their differences bring them together or tear them apart?

To an outsider, attorney Danielle Stratton has it all— a high-powered position at the family’s firm and a monthly stipend that provides all of life’s luxuries. What they don’t see is the man behind the scenes pulling the strings—her overbearing father, The only way to free herself of her bonds without losing it all is to hire a husband and collect her inheritance. But will the boy who abandoned her in high school a decade ago be the man who can save her today?

Jason Moran wants more, but Rock Creek certainly isn’t Aspen, and the doors that have opened to others because of wealth and influence have been slammed in his face. When his high school nemesis shows up looking for a husband for hire, it’s the perfect way to get what he needs … revenge and connections. But will igniting an old flame get him burned?

She’s a pampered princess looking for a way out. He’s a poor man seeking a way in. Will breaking all the rules divide them even more, or can they meet in the middle for love?

 

My Rating:

My Review:

 

Second chance romance is one of my favorite tropes so it was a pleasant surprise to fall into one with Rule Breaker. The trope may be common but storylines were fresh, engaging, and easy to follow with an evenly balanced cast of villains and likable humanity.   I adored Jason, I’d marry him without a monetary reward, allow the cash would definitely be a bonus.

ABOUT KELLY COLLINS   

 

  Goodreads  / Website  / AmazonFacebook / Twitter / Pinterest /  Bookbub

International bestselling author of over 30 novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.

Book Review: A Lesson in Murder (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #7) by Verity Bright @BrightVerity  @Bookouture 

A Lesson in Murder
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #7)
by Verity Bright

 

Amazon  / B&N 

When Lady Swift is invited to her old school, she walks through familiar classrooms, finds her favorite books in the library… and surely that’s not a body? Time for a lesson in murder!

Autumn, 1921Lady Eleanor Swift is invited to her old school, St Mary’s, as a guest speaker. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wadsworth, has asked that Eleanor talk about her intrepid travels around the globe – traveling the Silk Road by bicycle, crossing the Himalayas, and even befriending the Maharaja of India. But in the circumstances, perhaps it would have been a good idea to talk about her career as a daring detective…Because no sooner has Eleanor brushed up on her times tables then she is greeted by terrible news: Mrs. Wadsworth has been murdered. Eleanor is utterly devastated but she owes it to her dearest teacher to find out who killed her and why. So, alongside Gladstone the bulldog, it’s best paw forward to track down a villain.

But when the art teacher is also found dead, Eleanor is sure someone is trying to do away with the people who taught her everything. As Eleanor delves into possible motives, she discovers a clue in the most unlikely place: her mother’s old school diary. Does the route to the murderer lie within a secret passageway her mother uncovered? Can Eleanor nail the culprit in time or is the killer coming for her next?

A totally gripping and glamorous 1920s cozy! Fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey, and Rhys Bowen are in for a treat.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

The staffroom had the air of a space that had just been bustling with activity and was trying to catch its breath.

 

He ran a hand over his tousled mousy hair, which looked as if he had trimmed it himself in front of an inadequately lit mirror.

 

I really don’t know how you fit your colossal brain under your bowler hat. Surely, Mrs Butters must have needed to let the seams out?

  

My Review:

 

I continue with my love of the adorable Lady Swift and Clifford, her wizardly wise, ever-ready, and perfectly prepared butler. I will never tire of her humorous adventures and shenanigans or the smooth and engaging storytelling of the writing team known as Verity Bright. The storylines were colorfully detailed, pleasantly familiar, cleverly plotted, wryly amusing, and with, as usual, the culprit and motives being 100% unpredictable until the very last chapter.

About the Author

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Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humor, before embarking on their first historical mystery. They are the authors of the fabulous Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s.
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Book Review: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian @vera_kurian

Never Saw Me Coming
by Vera Kurian

 

I’ve never met someone like me, but when I do, eventually, I think it will be like two wolves meeting in the night, sniffing and recognizing a fellow hunter.”

Meet Chloe Sevre. Freshman honor student. Average-seeming, legging-wearing, hot girl next door…and diagnosed psychopath with an IQ of 135. Her hobbies include yogalates, frat parties, and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her.

Now Chloe and six other students at John Adams College are part of an unusual clinical study that includes smartwatches to track their moods and movements, in exchange for free tuition. The study, led by a renowned psychiatrist, has inadvertently brought together some of the most dangerous minds who feel no guilt or fear. When one of the participants is found murdered, it becomes obvious they’re all in danger. Chloe goes from hunter to prey, and joins forces with two other psychopaths in the program to discover why they’re being targeted – if they could only trust each other.

Wildly entertaining with compelling characters and a vividly conjured campus setting, NEVER SAW ME COMING will keep you up all night, pinned to the page, wondering why you’re rooting for a would-be killer.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

There was the FOMO part of me that wanted to stay and hang out and do what everyone else was doing their first week of college. But then there was that other part of me. My only consolation was that once I was done with Will, I could throw myself body and soul into what college is supposed to be: romantic intrigue, baiting girls into stupid fights for fun, having affairs with professors.

 

The trick to undetected mischief is to have a look on your face like you’re just heading home to do laundry.

 

He reminded me of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast except with better hair.

  

My Review:

 

This was a stellar read; brilliantly paced, cunningly plotted, and breathtakingly insightful. The storylines were deftly penned and perceptively written from multiple points of view and I was quickly pulled into an oddly compelling and somewhat disturbing vortex of devious scheming, emotive story threads, keenly clever snark, and shrewdly detailed observations and inner musings. I was intrigued, perplexed, enthralled, and riveted during perusal and cringed with annoyance when my reading was interrupted, as I didn’t want to miss a thing. Vera Kurian may well be an evil genius as well as a master storyteller and has titled her book with 100% accuracy, as I never would have foreseen this ending on the horizon.

 

About the Author

Author Website

Twitter: @vera_kurian

Instagram: @verakurianauthor

Goodreads

Vera Kurian is a psychologist and writer and a longtime resident of Washington DC. She has a doctorate in social psychology, specializing in intergroup relations, political ideology, and quantitative methods. She has studied fiction at Breadloaf, Sewanee, VONA, and attended juried workshops at LitCamp, Colgate, Juniper, and the Marlboro Summer Writing Intensive. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was a semifinalist for the Mark Twain Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Contest.