A Wytch's Book Review Blog

Paint the Town Dead (Silver Six Crafting Mystery #2) by Nancy Haddock

Leslee Stanton Nix—aka “Nixy”—thought moving to small-town Lilyvale, Arkansas, would be about as thrilling as watching paint dry. But keeping up with her retired Aunt Sherry and her troublemaking housemates—collectively known as the Silver Six—has proven to be as exciting as it is exasperating.
 
To kick off the grand opening of their craft shop, the Handcraft Emporium, Nixy and the Silver Six invite Doralee Gordon to teach a gourd painting class. Doralee’s spirit gets squashed when her ex-husband crashes the class with his new fiancée, but things really get messy when the bride-to-be later turns up dead. Now it’s up to Nixy and the Silver Six to use their melons to find the killer—before someone else gets painted out of the picture...

The renovations are done and the Handcraft Emporium is about to have its staggered opening (they are having a few days of classes and each teacher will donate a craft to the Grand Opening's Draw), the first class is on Gourd decoration and Doralee (along with her partner/helper Zach) are ready to go when her ex-husband turns up and causes a scene, he (along with his new fiancée and his sister) ends up staying for the demonstration (luckily he keeps quiet!), everything seems to be settling down, until Doralee and Nixy stumble across the fiancée's dead body!

Now Nixy needs to prove that Doralee had nothing to do with the death, she needs to keep the Silver Six out of trouble (easier said than done!) oh and learn how to be a pet owner (two delightful strays have turned up and adopted Nixy, a German Pinscher dog and a tabby cat), at some point in time she may even manage another date with Detective Shoar!

Lilyvale seems like a wonderful place to stay, Nancy Haddock paints it and the characters so well, I hope this is a series that keeps going!

Organized for Scheduled Sabotage (Organized #3) by Ritter Ames

Organization expert Kate McKenzie is intrigued when a publisher hires her company, Stacked in Your Favor, to help the author of a bestselling calendar line get organized for a photo shoot to illustrate the next year’s editions. Even better, she and Meg Berman learn the proceeds of the calendar business fund an animal rescue program in their state of Vermont. But once sabotage turns to murder and the police start looking for suspects, Kate and Meg find their lives suddenly upended by chaos and their own reputations are at risk. Now, it’s not enough to fulfill the terms of their contract, they must also find a way to save their client and her rescue program, too. All while making sure their next work outfits aren’t matching orange jumpsuits.

Ms Ames has hit the Bullseye again with the third in a fantastic series (please keep them coming!)

Kate and Meg have been hired to organise the photo shoot for an Organising Calendar writer, the premise itself was enough to pull them in, as surely someone that designs Organisation tools should be organised? Yes? It appears that yes she is BUT because she is also running a rescue centre for animals she just has way too much on her plate and needs another set of eyes to help sort things out, which is where Stacked in Your Favor has come in.  Everything is going smoothly when a woman turns up yelling and demanding a cut of the money that Liz (the Calendar writer) has earned, they eventually get her to leave, only for Kate and Meg to run across her again at the grocery store in the local town (Bren, the demander, hasn't seen them luckily!), what they see is Bren getting fired from her job for arguing with customers, it appears she has a VERY short fuse.

Later that evening Kate and Meg realise that in all the stress and hassle caused by Bren they had left their notes behind, so they drive back to get them, only to discover a corpse, it seems they are going to end up with more than one Police Officer on speed dial at this rate!

Peanuts All-Stars by Charles M. Schulz

IT’S GAME TIME, CHARLIE BROWN!
From basketball and football to hockey and tennis—a brand-new collection of sports strips featuring the whole Peanuts team!

It’s all-star tryouts for Charlie Brown and all his friends. So the Peanuts are suiting up—ready to play ball and have a ball! They’ve been practicing their dribbles, slap shots, and passes. Sure, Snoopy may not serve aces, Woodstock is smaller than his hockey stick, Linus refuses to give up his blanket in the outfield, and Charlie Brown always fumbles the pigskin, but the these all-stars are great sports when it comes to playing fair and working together. In a comic strip sports extravaganza, the Peanuts show off their athletic expertise—and prove that it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game!

You cannot go wrong with a selection of Peanuts cartoons, and this is one based around the various sports that they all play, so we have Football (will Charlie Brown EVER get to kick the ball Lucy is holding?), Basketball (can "Rerun" shoot a hoop?), hockey (if the Birdbath is frozen) and tennis (Snoopy and the Garage in mixed doubles anyone!)

A brilliant, relaxing, smile bringing book that is well recommended.

The Gold Pawn by L. A. Chandlar

 

Bringing Hidden History to Light

By L.A. Chandlar

 

I love bringing readers little pieces of history that aren’t in the history books. Finding those important bits that give you the feel of an era, and showing all that was going on at the same time. We tend to learn history in pockets. My favorite part of hidden history in THE GOLD PAWN, is the ride on the Hindenberg. I found a journalist’s eye-witness account of the ride he took in 1936 with all the details I mention. We tend to only learn about the big crash in May of 1937, as if it only had one ride. But before then, the Hindenberg was tooling back and forth across the Atlantic quite frequently and was a regular sight in the New York City skies.

One of the ways I add in real history is by meeting with people who were around in that era. One of the most delightful tidbits is the little girl who wins an award from Fiorello La Guardia for her article on fire prevention. She really did! Ann Therese Higgins is the late mother of a dear friend of mind. I’d heard about her award and gave her a call to hear more. I was going to just mention the award as another way to show how Fio really invested in the people of his city, especially the underdogs. But Ann was so wonderful and funny on our interview, I decided I had to have little Ann meet Lane and have pretty much the exact talk that I had with her on the phone. She was a hoot! Sadly, Ann passed away this summer. She really touched my heart, and I am so honored to be able to share a little part of her plucky character.

The hidden part of Detroit in THE GOLD PAWN, is the zesty spunk of the town back then. I love to have my mysteries take place mainly in New York, but add fun side trips that are a crucial part of the mystery. In book 3, THE PEARL DAGGER, coming out in 2019, I take the crew to London. For this book, they get to go to Detroit. One of the hidden aspects is the vitality of Detroit in the Thirties. The manufacturing abilities of that city were skyrocketing and people flooded in for those jobs. If you had any new innovation, Detroit was where you went to build it. It was a vibrant city of dreams.

My favorite part of this hidden idea, is introducing Matilda Wilson, the Dodge heir. I love her! I always adored Meadowbrook Hall, a piece of European style and grace right in our little part of the world. But I also have a tender spot for Matilda herself. She was a strong, smart woman in an era that was all about the men. She managed a bank, decided not to sell her inheritance of Dodge at the untimely death of her husband, but waited and nearly tripled her take when she did sell the company.

And oh, Meadowbrook Hall! We still go there frequently for dinners the golf club and tours of the gorgeous hall. All of the tidbits of art and details of the grand estate home are as exact as I could be. Christmastime there is absolutely magical.

These are just a few of the amazing pieces of history that are an absolute joy to write about. I hope they bring you great delight.

 

(Possible pics: Hindenberg over NYC, Fiorello on radio)

 

Kensington and L A Chandlar have special thank you gift to anyone who pre-orders THE GOLD PAWN and registers here>>>http://sites.kensingtonbooks.com/lachandlar/

A Gentleman's Murder by Christopher Huang

The year is 1924, and Lieutenant Eric Peterkin, formerly of the Royal Fusiliers, is a new member of the Britannia―London’s most prestigious club. It's a family tradition, but an honor he's not sure he quite deserves. So, when a gentleman's wager ends with one man dead in the vault under the club, Eric is only too ready to tackle the mystery head on.

Eric’s quest to resolve the murder quickly becomes an investigation of a mysterious wartime disappearance. It draws him far from the marbled halls of the Brittania, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital to the heroin dens of Limehouse. Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard.

Threatened with expulsion and dogged by the racist shadows of the Great War, Eric presses on nonetheless. But can he snare the killer before his own membership becomes a thing of yesterday?

Eric Peterkin is the latest Peterkin to be a member of the Britannia Club, a rather exclusive club for those involved in the forces.  When a new member joins, and is unwisely dragged into a bet with another member (Wolfe), Peterkin agrees to be the referee, the bet is that Wolfe can break into the vault and then Benson's box within the vault and bring an item to show he has done so, with the bet laid Benson shows Peterkin what is in the box so he can clarify as to whether Wolfe has succeeded or not.

It all seems to be great fun until Benson doesn't arrive at the time to bet has to be completed by, and then Cully (one of the staff and known to all as Old Faithful) and Peterkin discover his very dead body in the vault.  With the members of the Britannia closing ranks, the police officer in charge seen by Peterkin to have pocketed evidence and no one being prepared to stand up for Benson, Peterkin takes it upon himself to find out the truth, leading to danger and more death, and possibly either Peterkin being either blackballed from the club, or possibly killed!

A slow and steady read with the occasional frantic interlude, a very good imitation of the authors of the Golden Age of Crime - Huang can set his standard up among them for me!

Fred Basset Yearbook 2019: Witty Comic Strips from the Daily Mail by Alex Graham

The inimitable Fred is back! Join Britain’s best-loved basset hound and his friends once again for more canine capers and good-natured escapades with this whole new collection of witty cartoons from the Daily Mail.

What can I say other than another fun outing with Fred and his friends, a nice little interlude from other books! Roll on the next one!

Remnants of Murder (A Southern Sewing Circle #8) by Elizabeth Lynn Casey

When a cantankerous Sweet Briar resident ends up six feet under, the ladies of the sewing circle have to deal with a town full of suspects . . . With the library's budget dwindling, Tori Sinclair is forced to let go of her predecessor, and fellow sewing circle member, Dixie Dunn. After losing her job a second time, Dixie decides to volunteer for Home Fare, delivering meals to the homebound.

With Tori having to tell Dixie she is no longer needed at the library (which isn't strictly true! Tori would love her to stay but the finances don't allow it - oh and the Library Director left her to do the task of telling Dixie rather than getting their own hands "dirty"), Dixie has decided to join Home Fare, a local set up that delivers meals to those that need them, as she is new to the round she only has a few clients, one of which is an elderly man who is sitting on some Prime Real Estate.  When he dies everyone seems glad (indeed the local business association actually has a party!) but Dixie doesn't believe that he died of natural causes and enlists Tori's help to find out the truth.  This put Tori on a collision course with Leona, Georgina and her fiance Milo!

Now Tori needs to figure out who amongst a large list wanted one man dead, and at the same time why she is dragging her feet about the wedding preparations, after all she loves and wants to marry Milo - so what is stopping her?

A Stewed Observation by Karen C Whalen (Guest Post)

Where do I get the recipes for my books?

As a writer of culinary cozy mysteries, I had to come up with previously unpublished recipes when readers started to ask for the recipes featured in my Dinner Club series. Talk about a mystery. Was I capable of departing from the wonderful recipes in the Cooking Light and Sunset magazines?

I had to remind myself original recipes do not spring forth from the very first step. An original is one most likely derived from experimenting with the basics. You’ve probably done this many times. Necessity will force you to substitute whole wheat flour for white because you don’t have enough white on hand. Or perhaps, you need a gluten-free recipe and are required to exchange the wheat flour for rice or oat. Once the basics are understood, such as which spices are better with chicken and the standard ingredients that go into baking a cake, it isn’t so hard to come up with your own variations.

For the basics, the most trusted authority when I got married was either the Betty Crocker or the Better Homes and Garden cookbooks. Those books were designed to educate beginner cooks, providing elementary instructions, explaining various cuts of meat and the difference between a simmer and a rolling boil. Those heavy tomes from years ago are collector’s items today, and I still look up the simple pie crust recipe on the back cover of Better Homes.

But the internet is the go-to source now. The information explosion has impacted the way we cook and therefore what we eat. I’ve signed up for several food blogs which inspire me to attempt Mexican street tacos or Thai coconut rice, and these kinds of international foods have added much needed variety to my cooking repertoire. Do I take those classic cookbooks off the shelf very often anymore? No. Not really. Not with the internet, where I can search for chicken with capers or salmon with dill sauce and dozens of postings will pop up on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and food blogs. There are many, I’ll even guess hundreds, of food and cooking websites. Will cookbooks go the way of encyclopedias? It’s quite possible.

So, take the fundamental recipes, be inspired by cookbooks and bloggers alike, and run with it. Add to the recipe, improve upon it, add your personality.

What I do is make notes when I try out a recipe I’ve discovered. Often it takes me longer than what it says on the instructions. I make a note of that. If I replace an ingredient, such as balsamic vinegar for apple cider, I jot that down, including how well it turned out. Common ingredient substitutions can be found on the internet, and in Betty and Better Homes, too. I recently stumbled across a blog that contained substitutions for cream soups, such as cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, and cream of celery. I signed up for that blog. How much better it is to take a time-worn recipe, swap some of those prepacked ingredients for natural alternatives, spice it up with fresh herbs, and come up with an original.

When I’ve made enough changes, my recipe is quite different from any other, it has evolved into my original. Sometimes those experiments become favorites that I prepare for my dinner club parties, and they are requested by family and friends. You can do the same thing and create wonderful original recipes that reflect your needs and tastes.

And once you do that, please share them with me! I have a board on Pinterest for dinner club recipes. See https://www.pinterest.com/whalenkarenc/dinner-club-recipes/. You can find the “Recipe Substitution for Canned Condensed Cream Soups” pin on my board. Help me out. Lend me a hand. I’ll try the recipes you post and give you a holler. Your original recipe might make it into the next book in the Dinner Club Mystery Series!

 

Thank you Karen Whalen for posting a guest post on my Blog, good luck with the tour and the book!

In Cold Chocolate (A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery #3) by Dorothy St. James

The vintage seaside town of Camellia Beach, South Carolina seems like the perfect place for romance with its quiet beach and its decadent chocolate shop that serves the world’s richest dark chocolates. The Chocolate Box’s owner, Charity Penn, falls even further under the island’s moonlit spell as she joins Althea Bays and the rest of the turtle watch team to witness a new generation of baby sea turtles hatch and make their way into the wide ocean.

Before the babies arrive, gunshots ring out in the night. Cassidy Jones, the local Casanova, is found dead in the sand with his lover Jody Dalton—the same woman who has vowed to destroy the Chocolate Box—holding the gun. It’s an obvious crime of passion, or so everyone believes. But when Jody’s young son pleads with Penn to bring his mother back to him, she can’t say no. She dives headfirst into a chocolate swirl of truth and lies, and must pick through an assortment of likely (and sometimes unsavory) suspects before it’s too late for Penn and for those she loves in Dorothy St. James’s third rich installment of the Southern Chocolate Shop mysteries, In Cold Chocolate.

This was a fun read and even though it is the third in the series I didn't feel as though I had missed much as the back story was cleverly woven in (mind you I WILL be getting the previous books and reading them!), this has Southern Charm and Midwestern tenacity in abundance and I want more!

Charity Penn is settling in to her life in Camellia Beach, she is slowly learning the art and skill of chocolate making, she also wishes to become involved in the Sea Turtle rescue (her good friend Althea is running the scheme this year), on a night checking the nests a previous volunteer goes crazy shooting out some lights, and then a dead body is discovered (oh and Penn is shot as well - luckily not seriously wounded), the victim seems to have annoyed most people and therefore there are no end of potential suspects, but Jody (the light shooter) is arrested and the police don't really seem to be looking at other prospects, so Penn does.

With a young boy wanting his mother home, another attempt to get the will that left the chocolate shop to Penn overturned, oh and a lady wanting to help train Penn's dog, there is a lot happening in Penn's world and danger doesn't seem to far away.

An Interview with a Character

What is your full name?

Charity Penn. But PLEASE, just call me Penn.

What is your Profession?

I used to work in advertising. But now I own a chocolate shop on the small town of Camellia Beach. Plus, I get myself involved with all sorts of troubles. Don’t ask me how I manage it, but it feel as if I’ve become quite the professional at it.

What is your current favourite book or movie?

I love reading. Right now I’m reading everything by Elizabeth Peters. I especially love her Vicky Bliss adventures. She’s strong, smart, and brave. My hero—I mean, heroine!

What is your go to comfort book or movie?

If I need a comfort movie, I will curl up with one of the classics like Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. I don’t care how many times I’ve seen it, watching that movie always gets my heart pumping. And let’s admit it. I must like it when my heart is pumping like crazy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get myself wrapped up in so many dangerous mysteries.

If someone was to play you in a movie who would it be? OR what would be the character you would want to be in a book?

Naturally, I’d like to be the heroine of my own book. Have you read the Modesty Blaise books by Peter O’Donnell? Modesty Blaise is this wonder woman superspy that every man who meets her falls head-over-heels in love with her. If a writer could depict me like that, I’d die a happy woman.

What is your ideal evening?

I love to kick off my shoes, put my feet up, sip a little red wine, and nibble on chocolate. Lots of luscious, dark chocolate. The kind of chocolate that when you put it in your mouth, you can taste the sweet rhythms of the rain forest.

 

About Dorothy St. James

A lover of puzzles and perhaps a bit too nosey about other people’s lives, Dorothy St. James is a former Folly Beach beach bum. She now lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina with her husband, precocious daughter, a slightly (OK, terribly) needy dogs, and the friendliest cat you’d ever meet. She has degrees in Wildlife Biology and Public Administration and as an urban planner, worked for many years telling the stories of small southern towns.

Author of a dozen novels, Dorothy enjoys writing both cozy mysteries and romance. Her works have been nominated for many awards including: the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Alliance Southern Book Prize, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, Reviewers International Organization Award, National Reader’s Choice Award, CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award, and The Romance Reviews Today Perfect 10! Award. Reviewers have called her work: “amazing”, “perfect”, “filled with emotion”, and “lined with danger.”

Website: www.dorothystjames.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dorothy.stjames/

Twitter: @dorothymcfalls

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/dorothy-st-james

Stay in the know! Sign up for Dorothy’s e-Newsletter: www.dorothystjames.com/contact.html

 

Read the 3rd book in the Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery series, IN COLD CHOCOLATE (Sept 2018)

Sea turtles, chocolate turtles, and a shot in the dark turn life on the small town of Camellia Beach upside down.

 

FATAL FLIP: A Home Renovator Mystery by M.E. Bakos (Review)

Flipping houses can be fatal! When Katelyn finds a dead body in her first home renovation project, she seriously doubts her decision to “follow her bliss.” After getting fired from her steady job, her plan to flip houses takes a hit when she becomes a suspect. After all, possession is nine points of the law, isn’t it? Especially, when it’s a dead body.
To keep herself in pizza, peanut butter, good coffee, and her stray cat, Boots, in kitty chow she takes survival jobs as a wine sample hostess and market researcher. Meanwhile, Sheriff Don is kind of hunky, and her ex-husband, Eddy (it’s complicated) is back in her life sleeping on her sofa. How’s a girl supposed to solve dead body mysteries, make a living, and find love?

Katelyn has nearly finished the renovation of her first house project when she discovers a dead body in the attic of the house! Now the house is a crime scene, Katelyn is in the cross hairs of the Sheriff as a "Person of Interest" and she is running out of money (which is not good from the point of being able to buy good coffee and cat food!), then another body is found in an empty house and the only thing connecting them appears to be the fact that they were treated at the medical centre where Katelyn used to work, oh and they also appear to have no family and limited money.

A nice start to what looks to be a fun series, a little clunky in places but that is often the case with a first book and it certainly doesn't detract from the story in any way, I hope that there will be more with Katelyn (and her good friends) in the future!