Review: Murder in the Paperback Parlor

Murder in the Paperback Parlor by Ellery Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second book in The Book Retreat Mysteries. This book grabs you before you’re halfway through with the first chapter. The same main characters are back at Storyton Hall for a week of Romance Readers during Valentine’s Day. One of the things I enjoy about this series is that it adds to my TBR list, with many references to many books and character.

Ellery Adams has a very gift of telling a story all the while keeping the reader engaged, and entertained. The mystery is great but don’t think you have it figured out because Ms. Adams has twist and turns that will keep you guessing, changing your mind, and most of the time, will prove you wrong.

Jane is a single mother to twins Finn and Hem, she helps her Aunt and Uncle run Storyton Hall, a little retreat for people to come and relax, and is also the guardian of Storyton Hall. She also coordinate’s theme retreats, for guest that usually has to do with books. Although murder is never planned for these retreats and usually throws a wrench into her itinerary. While trying to save the retreats and with the Fins that are to protect the library, she helps the local sheriff solve the murders of her guests.

This is a delightful series. The description of Storyton Hall and the events makes me want to go to one of these retreats in person.


View all my reviews

Review: The Diva Haunts the House

The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have really come to enjoy this series, it quickly became one of my favorites. The characters are more life like and feel like old friends when I read the books. The pace was quick, the mystery and plot were good, and how can you not like a book centered around Halloween.

I love how Sophie has so much patients to deal with Natasha, because I wouldn't. But as I read this series, Natasha is needed in the book. Even if she's self-centered, egotistic, picture perfect within herself, her home, and with her show, her neediness . She does help break up the ho hum dum and she brings in the comic relief. Sophie also gets some good jabs at Natasha and she doesn't even realize that Sophie is being sarcastic towards her. I enjoy the other main characters that play parts in the series, Wolf, Sophie's boyfriend and detective on the police force, Mars, Sophie's ex-husband and Natasha's boyfriend (Don't ask), Humphrey who runs the local restaurant and is friends with both Mars and Sophie, and Sophie's neighbor Nina. All the character's fit well with each other, and in this book, both Natasha's mom Wanda and Mar's mother June are here to help Sophie with the haunted house.

Sophie is getting ready for Halloween and is getting a haunted house ready for the town to come through. June tells a story about an old vampire that use to stay at the house when it was a boarding house. When one of the kid's mother's boyfriend is murdered at Mars and Natasha's costume party, they notice that there are two puncture wounds in his neck. Was June's story just a story, or is there actually a real vampire on the loose?



View all my reviews

Review: Slay It with Flowers

Slay It with Flowers by Kate Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 Star Review. I really didn’t care for this book. I felt it was very slow moving, the main character Abbey was on my nerves almost like one of my children are when they are being whiny and annoying. I felt like the character just wasn’t developed well, unless this is the way the author intended her to be, if that’s the case then the author has succeeded.

The mystery part was good, it did take me a while to figure it out but I eventually got the suspect long before I finished the book. The plot seemed like it would have been a really good one but it seemed flat, like it was just thrown together. I know the books are good because the first one in the series I read was much later and I enjoyed it very, very much; I decided to read the earlier ones. I am glad the books have gotten better and the main character is much more developed. I will continue the series, because they do get better and are enjoyable, but this one I was disappointed in. I don’t like to give bad reviews, sometimes they can’t be helped.


View all my reviews

Review: Blackberry Pie Murder

Blackberry Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5 Star Review. Hannah is back in her 17th book. This whole series a delightful read, it's fun, quirky, , light hearted, funny, enjoyable, and downright entertaining. If you've read something "heavy" and just want something that is lite reading, then this whole series is for you.

The characters have grown throughout the series and feel more like old friends than just characters in a book that would soon be forgotten after you close the book. The book is pretty fast paced and is a great page turner as you wonder what is going through Hannah’s mind and you can’t wait to see what she does, or what dessert she’s whipped up. I’ve tried several recipes from many of the books and they are easy to make, which is good for me since I can’t bake if my life depended on it!

Although Hannah has two guys interested in her at the same time, one might think this would be confusing but it really isn’t. Both Detective Mike and Dr. Norman are both very much a part of Hannah’s everyday life and it’s hard not to picture either of them in it. But this time, our amateur sleuth really needs these guys to help her solve the mystery of who attacked the man that Hannah accidently hit with her truck that finished him off, and caused her to get arrested for vehicular homicide.

While Hannah and her sisters, Andrea and Michelle are trying to keep their sanity trying to plan their mother, Delores’s wedding to Doc Knight, Hannah’s partner and friend Lisa, needs a ride from the mechanic’s shop where her car is being worked on. Hannah is more than happy to leave the wedding planning to go and pick her friend up. A storm brews in Lake Eden, and while Hannah and Lisa are traveling back to the Cookie Jar, the rain pours down making visibility difficult to see. A branch lands in the middle of the road and when Hannah tries to avoid it, she ends up hitting a man that no one in the town knows. Hannah is arrested which causes problems between her sister Andrea and her husband Sherriff Bill. Not only does it cause them problems, but it also causes problems between Bill and Mike. With the whole town behind proving Hannah’s innocents, Hannah does the two things she does best. She creates some delicious new recipes and sets out who the stranger is and why someone had fought with him to where he stumbled into her path.


View all my reviews