Wednesday, July 31, 2019

The Coffee Club Mysteries by Darlene Franklin, Cynthia Hickey, Elizabeth Ludwig, Dana Mentink, Candice Prentice & Janice Thompson, 765 pages

Six Mysteries Are Brewing in Small-Town Kansas
The coffee shop on the corner of First and Main in Oak Grove, Kansas, seems to attract a series of mysterious events. Or perhaps it is the six women who frequent the shop for book club who are the magnets for trouble. . . .
 
Morgan Butler, owner of the Coffee Perk, finds a project worker hanged at her shop.
 
Evelyn Kliff discovers a church meal organizer dead.
 
Harper Daggett is being stalked for an antique jade owl she bought.
 
Baker Jeanine Gransbury’s charity event money goes missing.
 
Jo Anderson shares hazelnut coffee creamer, sending a man into anaphylaxis shock.
 
Penny Parson finds a gun in one of her beehives.
 
Join them as they unravel six unexplained events that have the potential to ruin business and spoil friendships if not handled with care.


Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Blood Orange Brewing by Laura Childs, 292 pages

Social darling Delaine Dish is throwing a lavish Candlelight Concert to raise funds to restore a run-down Victorian home-and Theodosia Browning is more than happy to help out with tea and tasty treats from the Indigo Tea Shop.

Unfortunately, the unveiling of Theo's opulent spread proves to be far from grand after retired CEO and beloved politico Duke Wilkes falls to the floor with a jagged piece of metal protruding from his neck. When the Widow Wilkes begs Theo to apply her sleuthing skills, she can't refuse. But her investigation opens up a simmering pot of shady politics and personal payback, and Theo soon finds herself in a situation stickier than any jam she's ever served.


Sunday, July 28, 2019

The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning, 450 pages

In 2016, fleeing London with a broken heart, Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm, when her grandfather is dying. With only weeks left together, her grandparents begin to reveal the family mysteries they have kept secret for more than half a century.

In 1939, two young girls meet in Shanghai, the 'Paris of the East': beautiful local Li and Viennese refugee Romy form a fierce friendship. But the deepening shadows of World War Two fall over the women as Li and Romy slip between the city's glamorous French Concession and the desperate Shanghai Ghetto. Eventually, they are forced separate ways as Romy doubts Li's loyalties.

After Wilhelm dies, Alexandra flies to Shanghai, determined to trace her grandparents' past. As she peels back the layers of their hidden lives, she begins to question everything she knows about her family - and herself.

A compelling and gorgeously told tale of female friendship, the price of love, and the power of hardship and courage to shape us all.


Miss Clare Remembers by Miss Read, 275 pages

For her new book, "Miss Read" has returned to Fairacre. In it she tells the story of Miss Clare's long life, most of it spent in teaching at the Fairacre school. Miss Clare looks back across six reigns and two world wars, in one of which she lost her lover. She surveys a quiet life which, for all its outward serenity, has much personal drama. Her rural lifetime spanned a social revolution in the countryside.

We meet some old Fairacre friends as well as Dolly Clare's family -- Francis, her sturdy father , Mary, her valiant mother, and Ada, the flighty sister who everyone predicted would come to no good -- as well as the variety of original personalities to be found in a village like Beech Green.


Thursday, July 25, 2019

Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802 by James Woodforde, 622 pages

The world in which Parson Woodforde lived was tumultuous to say the least. Yet while the French Revolution and the American War of Independence shook and changed the world, this kindly country prieSt fills the pages. of his diary with the ordinariness of his life, firstly in a Somerset parish and then in rural Norfolk. He accords no more importance to the Fall of the .Bastille than to the extra large crab he buys from a local fisherman or the cost of ribbons for his niece's hats. Particularly vivid are the descriptions of the gargantuan meals he enjoys with friends and neighbours, his remedies for ailments, his descriptions of East Anglian winters, his modest but unfailing generosity to the poor and his enthusiasm for local gossip. Parson Woodforde's diary provides an extraordinary portrait of life in Georgian England, but it is the diarist's humour and unpretentiousness which ensure its place among the classics of English literature.


Sunday, July 21, 2019

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss, 414 pages

Here is the remarkable true story of the real Count of Monte Cristo – a stunning feat of historical sleuthing that brings to life the forgotten hero who inspired such classics as  The Count of Monte Cristo  and  The Three Musketeers.

The real-life protagonist of The Black Count, General Alex Dumas, is a man almost unknown today yet with a story that is strikingly familiar, because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used it to create some of the best loved heroes of literature.

Yet, hidden behind these swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: the real hero was the son of a black slave -- who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time.  Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. Enlisting as a private, he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution in an audacious campaign across Europe and the Middle East – until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.

The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world’s first multi-racial society. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.  


The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, 308 pages

In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a powerful message about how the written word affects people--a story of hope and heartbreak, raw courage and strength splintered with poverty and oppression, and one woman's chances beyond the darkly hollows. Inspired by the true and historical blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek showcases a bold and unique tale of the Pack horse Librarians in literary novels — a story of fierce strength and one woman's belief that books can carry us anywhere — even back home. 


M*A*S*H Goes to London by Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth, 207 pages

M*A*S*H does it again. Only this time in Merry Old England-and the cast of characters include an opera singer, an orphaned Duke, a castlekeeper, and oil baron, and the entire Bayou Perdu Council, Knights of Columbus-to name a few!
Those loveable, zany members of the medical profession-Hawkeye, Trapper John, Hot Lips, and the rest-will keep you in stitches with their wacky operations- and the Queen's England will never be the same!

This is best described as the fast food of literature.


Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Aunt Dimity and the Heart of Gold by Nancy Atherton, 240 pages

It's almost Christmas in the small English village of Finch--and everyone is sick. Though many of the villagers regretfully decline their invitations to Emma Harris's annual Christmas bash, Lori Shepherd has no intention of missing it. When the winter weather takes a turn for the worse, it's agreed that none of the guests will leave until morning. There's general merriment as the Christmas party becomes a pajama party--until a car appears in the winding driveway and promptly slides off the slick pavement and into a ditch.

Matilda "Tilly" Trout--a lost and scatterbrained, middle-aged woman--is mercifully unhurt and invited to stay the night. While she catches her breath, Emma asks her other guests if they would like a tour of the Manor--including an odd room that puzzles her. Several guests put forth guesses as to its purpose, but it's Tilly who correctly identifies the room as a chapel. Placing a palm on one of the ornately-carved panels, Tilly finds a hidden compartment concealing a pile of glittering treasure--including an exquisitely decorated heart made of solid gold. Where did it come from, and why does it look so different from everything else in the chapel? Why didn't Emma even know about this hidden compartment in her own home until now--and how did Tilly?

With Aunt Dimity's otherworldly help and Tilly's bewildering store of knowledge, Lori and friends set out to unravel the mystery behind the heart of gold. And, against all odds--and Christmas finally comes to Finch!

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Death in the Floating City by Tasha 309 pages,

Years ago, Emily's childhood nemesis, Emma Callum, scandalized polite society when she eloped to Venice with an Italian count. But now her father-in-law lies murdered, and her husband has vanished. There's no one Emma can turn to for help but Emily, who leaves at once with her husband, the dashing Colin Hargreaves, for Venice. There, her investigations take her from opulent palazzi to slums, libraries, and bordellos. Emily soon realizes that to solve the present day crime, she must first unravel a centuries old puzzle. But the past does not give up its secrets easily, especially when these revelations might threaten the interests of some very powerful people.


Monday, July 15, 2019

Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer, 251 pages

Dominic Alistair, Marquis of Vidal and fiery son of the notorious Duke of Avon, has established a rakish reputation that rivals his father's, living a life of excess and indulgence. He is a bad lot a rake and seducer, reckless, heedless, and possessed of a murderous temper. He is known by friend and foe alike as the "Devil's Cub." Yet as the handsome and wealthy heir to a Dukedom, he is considered a good prospect on the marriage market. Vidal currently has his eye on the young, lovely, and unintelligent Sophia Challoner, and Sophia's greedy mother is more than happy to encourage his dubious attentions. Banished to the Continent after wounding his opponent in a duel, Vidal decides to abduct the silly aristocrat bent on seducing him into marriage and make her his mistress instead. In his rush, however, he seems to have taken the wrong woman?

Intelligent, practical Mary Challoner knew wicked Vidal, wouldn't marry her sister, despite her mother's matchmaking schemes. So Mary coolly prepared to protect her naive sister by deceiving Vidal. Substituting herself for her young sister, she certainly hadn't expected the nobleman to kidnap and take her to France. She had little notion he would grimly hold her to her part of the bargain. Now he had left her, and she was alone, a stranger in a strange land, prey to the intrigues of glittering, heartless, 18th century Paris. Only one person could rescue her--the Marquis himself. But how could she ever trust this man? How could she even hope to overcome the contempt in which he held her? And how could even the sudden flowering of her love ever bridge the terrible gap between them?


Sunday, July 14, 2019

The Monsters in Your Neighborhood by Jesse Petersen, 170 pages

As one of Frankenstein’s Creatures, Natalie Gray knows that unique parts sometimes make up a great whole. Still, leading a diverse support group for monsters—now including Cthulhu!—isn’t an easy task. Especially not since the internet arrived.

New York City embraces the different and the bizarre. Still, even for such a fun-loving city, the supernatural and monstrous might be a bit too much. It’s been six months since the members of “Club Monstrosity” overcame the most recent spate of anti-monster violence and they’ve reestablished their routine of meeting in a church basement once a week to (ugh!) talk about their feelings. Still, they also know a war against them is brewing.

Natalie and Alec (the werewolf) have begun dating, and the mummies Kai and Rehu are tighter than a bug in a…well, bandage. But when modern means (YouTube, Twitter, bits and bytes) are used to chilp away at the solidarity of these ancient monsters, it’s up to Natalie to save the day. #MonstersInNewYork may be trending on Twitter, but this girl’s trending toward saving the day…somehow.


Club Monstrosity by Jesse Petersen, 224 pages

Natalie’s one of Frankenstein’s creations and works in a New York City morgue. So of course she needs therapy. She and her friends—er, fellow monsters—have formed the world’s most exclusive, most dysfunctional support group. What could go wrong?

Undetected in the modern world and under pressure to stay that way, Natalie Grey, Dracula, Bob the Blob, and others (including the fetching wolfman Alec) meet regularly to talk about the pressures of being infamous in the Big Apple. Topics include how long it’s been since their last sighting, how their “story” creates stereotypes they can’t fulfill, and—gasp—sometimes even their feelings. But when their pervy Invisible Man, Ellis, is killed in a manner reminiscent of the H.G. Wells novel, it’s clear someone’s discovered their existence and is down for some monster busting.

Led by Natalie—and definitely not helped by Hyde’s bloodthirsty tendencies—the members of Monstofelldosis Anonymous band together for security and a little sleuthing. And maybe—maybe—if they don’t end up dead, they’ll end up friends somewhere along the way.



In the Dead by Jesse Petersen, 92 pages

When the Zombie Apocalypse began in Seattle and spread within days to almost the entire western half the country, the survivors had to figure out how to deal with the plague and live one day at a time. These are their stories.
If you liked Jesse Petersen's zombie comedies Married With Zombies, Flip This Zombie and Eat Slay Love, these nine stories are set in the same world, but from the perspective of other survivors.


Thursday, July 11, 2019

White Trash Zombie Apocalypse by Diana Rowland, 311 pages

Our favorite white trash zombie, Angel Crawford, has enough problems of her own, what with dealing with her alcoholic, deadbeat dad, issues with her not-quite boyfriend, the zombie mafia, industrial espionage and evil corporations. Oh, and it’s raining, and won’t let up.

But things get even crazier when a zombie movie starts filming in town, and Angel begins to suspect that it’s not just the plot of the movie that's rotten. Soon she's fighting her way through mud, blood, bullets and intrigue, even as zombies, both real and fake, prowl the streets.

Angel’s been through more than her share of crap, but this time she’s in way over her head. She’ll need plenty of brainpower to fit all the pieces—and body parts—together in order to save herself, her town, and quite possibly the human race.


Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen, 279 pages

Third book in the Living with the Dead series: a heartwarming tale of terror in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse.


Chamomile Mourning by Laura Childs, 306 pages

Charleston, South Carolina, is alive with music, dancing, and the arts as the Spoleto festival gets underway. But Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning feels far from festive when the inaugural Poet’s Tea is forced into one of the Heritage Society’s austere halls by rain. And when it rains, it pours—as proven when a respected auction house owner plummets from the balcony, landing dead on Theodosia’s specially-prepared cake. Worse yet, it looks like someone helped him over the edge. With a full kettle of suspects, Theodosia pursues an investigation into the murky swamps of the Low Country, where she uncovers a thriving criminal enterprise of art forgery, fraud—and murder…


Chronicles of Fairacre: A Miss Read Omnibus including Village School, Village Diary and Storm in the Village by Miss Read, 534 pages

The first three novels in this beloved series introduces the village of Fairacre, with its handful of thatched cottages, the church, the school - and its schoolmistress, Miss Read.In Fairacre, everyone knows everyone else's business and, for the most part, it is a harmonious place - even for the likes of Mrs Pringle, the gloomy, irascible school cleaner. With a wise heart and a discerning eye Miss Read guides us through the seasons and introduces a cast of unforgettable characters, and a world of drama, romance and humour, all within a stone's throw of the school.Charm and wit blend in these three novels, to give a refreshingly acute and astringent view of life in the country. 


Sunday, July 7, 2019

Fray by Rowenna Miller, 483 pages

In this epic sequel to Torn, the magical seamstress Sophie Balstrade navigates a royal court and foreign alliances fraught with danger -- and may well have to risk everything for love and for country.

Open revolt has been thwarted -- for now -- but unrest still simmers in the kingdom of Galitha. Sophie, despite having built a thriving business on her skill at both dressmaking and magic, has not escaped unscathed from her misadventures in the workers' rebellion. Her dangerous foray into curse casting has rendered her powers unpredictable, and her increasingly visible romantic entanglement with the Crown Prince makes her a convenient target for threatened nobles and malcontented commoners alike.
With domestic political reform and international alliances -- and her own life -- at stake, Sophie must discern friend from foe... before her magic grows too dark for her to wield.