I Was Thrilled To Get This ARC from Net Galley. I love a good Charlie Donlea Tale!

 When this popped up as an ARC available via Net Galley, I could not have clicked the request button any faster than I did.  A couple years ago I got a copy of Some Choose Darkness via the Kensington's Between the Chapters Facebook group. I enjoyed Charlie Donlea's writing style and since then I have looked forward to each of his releases! 

Avery Mason, our protagonist is whip-smart and has a real can-do spirit.  I like how we get to see her vulnerabilities and the way she deals with her insecurities. Twenty Years Later incorporates September 11, 2001, in a unique and surprising way.  As is the case with any thriller, I am hesitant to be anything but vague about the plot as there are clues everywhere! 

In this book, as I was reading I developed a crazy theory, and then shortly after I developed my crazy theory, Avery had a crazy theory.  Yes, indeed, Avery and I were on the same page.  I find in Charlie Donlea's writings he often writes so that the reader can be one step ahead of the protagonist and the action unfolds. I love it!  I feel like I am part of the action and that is a big part of why I enjoy his books each and every time.

4 Stars to Twenty Years Later! 

Need A Distraction From the News of The Day? This Series Delivers!

 Blue aliens, women kidnapped in their sleep, and a frozen planet.  If you read romance, you probably already know what I'm talking about. 

Ice Planet Barbarians is the sort of reading you can devour.  It starts like this:

"You'd think being abducted by aliens would be the worst thing that could happen to me. And you'd be wrong. Because now, the aliens are having ship trouble, and they've left their cargo of human women - including me - on an ice planet."

With those opening lines, and because the series is free when you have Kindle Unlimited, I decided to give this series a try, even though blue aliens seemed pretty bonkers. I was wrong.  So far I have read the first two books in the series and found both to be good reads.  Ruby Dixon's ability to write steamy sex scenes is only surpassed by her talent at creating this world and the unique rules that apply to this strange land. 

I don't see a point in going into much detail on this series, I don't want to spoil your fun as you dive into this alien world. I do like to read wintery stories in the winter, so my opinion is that this time of year is perfect for ice planet stories.  As someone who usually reads contemporary romance and contemporary fantasy, this series, I suppose, isn't too much of a leap. Ruby Dixon's characters are engaging, the classic romance tropes are there in this strange new land. 

I highly recommend this series if you enjoy fated mate tropes and lots of babies happening. 

4.5 stars to the first two books in this series!  I'm quite confident you'll enjoy it! 

#TheSundayPost Another Christmas Is In The Books-One We Won't Forget!

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

How was your Christmas? One of the things I enjoyed this holiday season was the podcast Christmas Countdown Show.  The show is a fun escape for people like me who really enjoy Christmas Time. Eric and Danny the hosts talked about their favorite Christmas movies, music, TV shows, foods, and more.   

Our Christmas took a turn when youngest child tested positive for Covid. Early in the week one of her best friends tested positive, and so our daughter tested negative for a few days, but then on Christmas Eve, she got a bad present--a positive Covid test.  Because we knew she had been exposed, she'd been quarantining since Tuesday night in her room. She had a cough but we had all been hoping it was a cold. Thank goodness we were able to quarantine her before she had that positive test.  If we hadn't we might all have Covid now-- and could have exposed other people

And so we facedtime her in the morning for the present opening. We have the windows cracked and she has a designated bathroom and paper plates and plastic wear and lot of water and other fluids. The bummer of it all is that she got her booster shot last Friday and within a couple days she was exposed via someone who caught Covid from someone else who wasn't vaccinated--the booster didn't have time to boost!  The rest of us got our booster shot in November--she didn't because they weren't available to 16-17 year olds.

So far everyone else is Covid free and hopefully the isolation and the booster works and on New Years Eve we can celebrate the end of her isolation together. 

How was your Christmas? I hope you had a nice one!  

 Bowie with his Christmas Even Present! 

Overdue Review of the November Cozy Mystery Club Review and My Oldest Elf!

 This review is overdue, I like to post about each month's book the day before the live stream. This time it's oh about a month late. 

Things I liked about this book:

1. Good food talk with recipes throughout the book.

2. Sleuther actively sleuthing.

3. The protagonist was a single mom with two kids.

4. Some diversity 

What was not so much for me:

1. Our sleuth was just this side of 'too dumb to live'

2. The male love interests were terrible.  Bad choices!

3. During the whole book, Hayley, the main character, keeps correcting the Sheriff who speaks English as a second language it's a very cringey ongoing 'joke'.  It would be so much better in my opinion if it turned out that the Sheriff was in on the joke and was making the errors on purpose to get his sister-in-law riled up, but that's not how it's played.

Overall I give this book 3 stars, I don't know if I will continue this series--there are just so many books on my list already!

And to finish today's post here is a picture of my eldest as an elf for work at our local Park department!

#

A Spin-Off from the Rylie Cooper Mystery Series! Mistletoe Malarkey, A Shayla Murphy Mystery

 I very much enjoyed this new book starring Rylie Cooper's best friend Shayla Murphy.  This book takes place in Ireland at Christmastime. Shayla is meeting her boyfriend Seamus's family for the first time. There are a couple of surprises for Shayla before we even get to the murder. In fact, I was far enough in that I was beginning to wonder if there was going to be a murder at all--seeing as there was already a few potential non-murder mysteries happening.  But Stella Bixby was just building up the tension and soon enough a body had dropped, literally.

I believe this book is the start of a new series and I will be waiting for book two with much anticipation!  In Mistletoe Malarkey we are introduced to a small Irish town and Seamus's quirky family, it was fun to spend time with them and I look forward to future adventures.  I like that in this series there can be a nice partnership of sorts with Shayla and Molly the constable.

5 Stars!  If you have Kindle Unlimited make sure to add this to your Kindle!

Cozy Novella Great For Christmas Week Enjoyment! From #NetGalley #TheStarlightMintSurpriseMurder

 

This book zips along and has all the elements that I love in Christmas-themed cozy mysteries.  You have a Christmas Festival that has a cookie contest, you have cocoa and coffee, a B&B a cozy little town--this one is in the mountains, there is snow and there is of course a murder.

I read the book in two sittings, I enjoyed that in this story the protagonist Mel is a retired police officer, this makes her sleuthing and her investigating seem second nature.  She has a new business and she needs it to be successful--a common theme in both Hallmark Christmas movies and Cozy Mysteries.

A big mystery for me was the cookies.  I have never heard of Starlight Mint Suprise cookies, not knowing if Marla White made them up whole cloth or if they were a thing, I did my googles and found that they are a thing.

So Retro!  Check out the recipe- Starlight Mint Suprise Cookies from the blog A License to Quill

Overall 4 stars, I liked Mel alright, the Christmas theme was on point, and some nice red herrings were all part of this fast-paced- mystery!

#TheSundayPost Holy Cow It's Less Than A Week Til Chirstmas! Where Have I Been?

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

Hi! How are you?  

Everything is good by me, the family is healthy and boosted. I'm healthy and boosted.  I've had a really busy last six weeks with Tastefully Simple work. I sold a lot of bread, cakes, and spices. Which is great! And has been super helpful for paying the oldest child's college tuition. With all that, my reading and my blogging went to the wayside. Hopefully I can get it back on track now, I have a few books read so I can fill this week with posts, and then this week I should be able to read some more for the next week and so on. You know how it goes.

So how have you been? Are you ready for the Christmas holiday?  I suppose I am as ready as I will be this year! I've got about 30 more cards to mail out tomorrow and I think that will put me at about 75ish cards mailed, based on how many stamps I have used.  My goal was to mail 100 cards, but I just ran out of people's addresses.  Or should I say I couldn't find enough people willing to give me their addresses! 

I have also given away all the cookies I made--but I think I'm going to make a batch of my favorite cookies, Spritz Cookies, today or this coming week. 

Books I'll be talking about this week:

This is a novella, really inexpensive,  I'll tell you more about it tomorrow! 

#TheStarlightMintSurpriseMurder #NetGalley

Ohoooo I think this one is going to be the first book in a new series--a spin-off with two characters from the Shayla Murphy Mystery series in Ireland! 

And last of all for the week,

Have a wonderful Sunday! Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate you! 

A Cozy Mystery Novella To Kick off Holiday Reading! #HaveaHollyHauntedChristmas #NetGalley

 

This Christmas-themed novella comes after the second book Two Wicked Desserts in Lynn Cahoon's Kitchen Witch series.  

I think you could read this out without having read any of the other books in the series and further, it doesn't spoil Two Wicked Desserts. In this novella Mia our amateur sleuth and caterer is pretty overwhelmed with the holiday season, relatable right? This book is the solving of a cold case, which I thought was fitting for the holiday season, instead of having a serial killer roaming the town, Mia and her crew are trying to solve an old case. 

We see Mia, Christina, and Trent really becoming a crime-solving unit.  Gran is as shady as ever. That lady just keeps too much under wraps, why? Honestly, it would not be shocking if Gran turned out to be a criminal mastermind, she seems to be up to no good far too often!

As far as the food goes, I love to read about holiday food. I will say that the amount of carbs Mia et al eat would put me in a food coma! 

In a nutshell, this is a quick festive cozy read!   4 stars

Thanks again to #NetGalley for the ARC! This book is available NOW so download it today! All opinions are mine! 

********************************************

Speaking of cookies, I'm participating in a Zoom Cookie Workshop on November 28th! If you follow my blog you know I love making cookies and then putting together cookie platters and tins to give friends and family!  (below are 7-Layer Cookies from last year)

Wait, this book was written *before* Dracula?

Before I transition completely to holiday mode, I'm sharing one last spooky season review.  Have you ever heard of this book?  

 Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu was written well before the book everyone knows by Bram Stoker.  This tale, however, isn't about a male vampire.  It's about a young woman who lives on an estate in the country with her father and their servants, she is a little bored and definitely lonely. So when a carriage crashes in front of her and a mother begs them to keep her daughter safe for a few months, she begs her father to let this beautiful young woman stay at their home.

While the local village begins to experience a strange illness, causing the deaths of young women.  The young noblewoman is increasingly drawn to and repelled by her houseguest. She has so much longing for what her guest offers and ultimately falls under her spell. How will the story end?  

Lucky for us readers, this tale can be read in an afternoon or over a weekend, it's one that is very hard to put down.

5 starts to Carmilla 

Get Ready !!The Latest Installment from #ItHappenedOneMidnight #NetGalley

Here is the description from the publisher: 

"Saranna DeWylde brings her trademark mix of quirky charm, sexy comedy, and a touch of magic to the third Fairy Godmothers, Inc. installment, as Ever After, Missouri’s resident fairy godmothers Petunia, Jonquil, and Bluebonnet are doing their best to restore their hometown’s deep well of enchantment by conjuring true love, one happy couple at a time. This time, the godmothers set their sights on their very own goddaughter, a romance novelist whose fib about a fake engagement is about to transform into a friends-to-lovers story worthy of the bestseller lists…"

 Part of what keeps bringing me back to this series is I love the godmothers! I mean sure their charges are great and it's fun to see them fall in love--or admit they are in love. But it is just delightful to get to know Petunia, Jonquil, and Bluebonnet.  I can't wait for Saranna to give us a book where one of the godmothers has a romance! 

In this book, we see the romance of Juniper and Tomas. This one is a friends-to-lovers. Now even though this is the third book in this series, and I should be certain that a HEA is destined to happen at the end, I still was real worried Tomas would blow his chance for a HEA with the love of his life.  That's good writing.

The humor this series is known for continues and we get to spend time with some of our Ever After favorites. If you haven't started this series yet, now is a great time to start as you'll get to read two books, and then this one will be out!  Put this series on your Christmas List! Then we will all have to wait for the next installment and hopefully a Rumplestilskin sighting! 

4 stars for It Happened One Midnight thank you NetGalley!  I loved the opportunity to read this joyful book!