Krystle Able, William Joseph, Melinda Terranova, Bigitte Ann Thomas,
H.N. Donnelly, Casia Courtier, Jennie L. Morris, C.J. Warrant, Pasithea Chan, K. Moore
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Dark Hollow Lake isn’t your ordinary resort town. Beneath the murky waters
and hidden within the mountainous forests, there are more secrets
buried in Dark Hollow Lake than anyone has ever cared to uncover.
Until Now….
.
Join Cruel Ink Publishing on a vacation to Dark Hollow Lake, Tennessee.
.
10 Authors. 10 thrilling novellas.
All taking place in our not-so-quaint resort town.
Come for the ski slopes and beautiful lakeside cabins.
A little haunting sounds like innocent fun until a ghost plunders your stockroom.
Kristie is convinced ghosts don’t exist until food starts disappearing without a trace from the Youth Center storage. There are zero clues as to who’s been inside the building. The security guard hasn’t seen a thing, and the security tapes are mysteriously blank. When the ghost widens his hocus-pocus to include Kristie’s office, the gals of Callie’s Cakes jump in to find the culprit before Kristie can get in a whole mess of spooky trouble.
Will the gals of Callie’s Cakes expose the ghost before Kristie’s facility is destroyed?
Cupcakes not included, although recipes for all the delicious cupcakes Anna bakes are.
About D.E. Haggerty
D.E. Haggerty is actually just plain old Dena, but she thinks using initials makes her sound sophisticated and maybe even grown up. She was born and raised in the U.S. but considers herself a Dutchie and not only because it sounds way cooler. After a stint in the U.S. Army, she escaped the US to join her husband in Holland. She fled Holland over ten years ago when she couldn’t stand the idea of being a lawyer for one single second more. Turns out Bed & Breakfast owner in Germany didn’t do it for her either. When the hubby got a job in Istanbul, she jumped ship and decided to give this whole writer thing a go. She’s now back in Holland, which she considers home. Sorry, Mom.
Welcome to My Monday Minis where I share short reviews about books I’ve read.
I love this series and these characters.
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The Search
Eve Duncan #3
by Iris Johansen
Genre: Mystery
My Review
I’ve been reading and loving Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series for years. I was excited for Sarah to have her own story, since I met her in a previous book and loved the bond between her and her dog, Monty.
This book is all about bonds. The tight bond between Sarah and Monty, her K-9 Search and Rescue dog. They seem to be able to read each other’s minds. It’s fun how the author conveys their thoughts.
The bond between Sarah and Logan. It starts as enemies. Then turns to friends. And then maybe to lovers. I hoped so. They are so much alike.
The bond between Monty and a wolf called Maggie. Sarah and Monty rescue a wolf caught in a trap. Monty quickly falls for the female. It could be tough as wolves mate for life and she’ll heal and go back to the wilderness. Monty thinks she’s beautiful. Maggie says she’ll eat you up. Another fun thought portrayal from Johansen.
There’s also a bond between Maggie and Logan’s go to guy, Galen. I could see it. Both are wild, unpredictable with a softness hidden behind that gruff exterior.
And the bond between Logan and Rudzak, the man hell bent on making all of them disappear from the planet. It goes back many years. Rudzak’s revenge is maniacal and he’ll keep setting his deadly traps until the bond is finally severed forever.
This isn’t my first time reading this book and won’t be my last. It’s so good and I love these characters.
5 STARS
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Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – He strikes without warning. He kills without mercy. He’s only just begun.
As part of an elite K-9 search and rescue team, Sarah Patrick and her golden retriever, Monty, have a gift for finding what no one else can. But their latest assignment is not like the others. This time Sarah is being forced to take part in a deadly mission . . . by a man who knows enough about her past to ensure her cooperation.
Billionaire John Logan’s top-secret venture has been sabotaged, its facilities destroyed, and its handpicked staff massacred. The sole survivor is being held for ransom. Logan knows that the only way to save the man–and the secrets he holds–is to find him as soon as possible.
Sarah is furious when she is strong-armed into joining Logan on his search. And once she takes the perilous assignment, not even Logan’s promises that she and Monty will be safe may be enough to protect them. Because a killer is devising a sadistic vengeance . . . and he may soon find use for Sarah.
TROPICAL DOUBTS
David Myles Robinson
Legal Thriller
Synopsis
When Honolulu’s flamboyant and quirky attorney, Pancho McMartin, agrees to step out of his normal role as a criminal defense lawyer, he thinks it will be a challenging but welcome change from his daily dose of criminal clients. His old friend and father-figure, Manny Delacruz, has beseeched Pancho to handle a medical malpractice claim against the physicians who botched what should have been a routine surgery, but which resulted in Manny’s beloved wife being in a permanent vegetative state. The case looks good, the damages enormous, but when Manny is arrested for the murder of one of the doctors, Pancho finds himself back in his old role. If Manny is convicted, it means he won’t be able to be at his wife’s bedside to hold her hand, caress her face, and read his poems to her. He will have lost his reason to live. The pressure on Pancho is enormous. While he and his team try to make sense out of one of the most sinister and complicated murder schemes he’s ever seen, the medical malpractice case chugs forward, in jeopardy of being worthless should Manny be convicted.
David Myles Robinson was a trial attorney in Honolulu, HI for 38 years before retiring to the mountains of New Mexico, where he lives with his wife, a former Honolulu trial judge. In the days of yore, before becoming a lawyer, he was a freelance journalist and a staff reporter for a minority newspaper in Pasadena, CA. He is an award-winning author of six novels, three of which are Pancho McMartin legal thrillers set in Honolulu.
Having traveled to all seven continents, he has also published a travel memoir entitled CONGA LINE ON THE AMAZON, which includes two Solas Traveler’s Tales award winners.
He says he includes his middle name, Myles, in his authorial appellation because there are far too many other David Robinson’s running around.
I want to thank everyone for their kind support about the loss of my sweet boy, Quigley. I sure do miss that rascal. I swore that once he was gone I wouldn’t get another dog. I’ve had several dogs in my life over the past 40 some years and felt it was time to be without the responsibility. Then, my son’s therapist told me it would be very helpful for him to have a service dog. The sooner the better. I discussed it with my son and we are on board for the idea. Just not yet. It’s still too soon. When it’s time, we will work with my veterinarian to find the right dog.
It’s going to be crazy next week and you can tell it by all the people flocking into the store for supplies. We have two tropical storms brewing and their projected paths bring them into the Gulf of Mexico next week. On the same day! But in two different strike zones. One is headed more towards Texas and the other one has us right in the middle of the cone. It’s still early as the storms aren’t expected to hit until around late Tuesday or early Wednesday. I’m waiting to see how things develop before I do anything like batten down the hatches. LOL Got my fingers, toes and eyes crossed that it won’t come here.
UPDATE
I went and checked for new updates and it looks like Tropical Storm Laura, yes, it’s named after me LOL, has shifted more to the west and that takes it to New Orleans. I’m sorry for them but feeling better about it not coming right at us. We are on the east side of the storm though and that’s usually where things are at their strongest. I’m going to keep a close eye on this storm as it can change quickly the closer it gets.
Stay safe and take care!
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Here are some FREEBIES for ya.
Click on the covers to get your copies. Remember to make sure they’re still free before you hit that buy button.
The Key Lime Crime: A Key West Food Critic Mystery Cozy Mystery 10th in Series Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (August 11, 2020) Hardcover: 320 pages ISBN-10: 1643853082 ISBN-13: 978-1643853086 ASIN: B07Z2TR2Z2
National bestselling author Lucy Burdette’s tenth Key West Food Critic mystery is piping hot with pie-enthusiasts and murder suspects.
When a fierce rivalry between key lime pie bakers leads to a pastry chef’s murder, food critic Hayley Snow is fit to be pied.
During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the year-round population of Key West, Florida, faces a tsunami of tourists and snowbirds. It doesn’t help that outrageously wealthy key lime pie aficionado David Sloan has persuaded the city to host his pie-baking contest. Every pie purveyor on the island is out to win the coveted Key Lime Key to the City and Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow is on the scene to report it.
Meanwhile, Hayley’s home life is turning more tart than sweet. Hayley’s new hubby, police detective Nathan Bransford, announces that her intimidating mother-in-law is bearing down on the island for a surprise visit. Hayley offers to escort Nathan’s crusty mom on the iconic Conch Train Tour of the island’s holiday lights, but it becomes a recipe for disaster when they find a corpse among the glittering palm trees and fantastic flamingos. The victim–Au Citron Vert’s controversial new pastry chef–was a frontrunner in Sloan’s contest.
It’s bad enough that Hayley’s too-curious mother-in-law is cooking up trouble. Now, the murderer is out to take a slice out of Hayley. Can she handle the heat of a killer’s kitchen?
About Lucy Burdette
Courtesy Carol Tedesco
Clinical psychologist Lucy Burdette (aka Roberta Isleib) has published 16 mysteries, including the latest in the Key West food critic series, DEATH ON THE MENU (Crooked Lane Books, August 2018.) Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime. She blogs at Jungle Red Writersand shares her love for food with the culinary writers at Mystery Lovers Kitchen She lives in Madison CT and Key West FL. Read more at www.lucyburdette.com.
The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader and find a sentence or a few (no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.
Then go over to Freda’s Voice and leave your link so we can visit your 56!
My 56 for this week is from:
The Deep
by Rivers Solomon
Genre: Fantasy / Science Fiction
From page 56 in the paperback.
It’s been almost half a year when we find another of our kind, a seven-year-old feral thing recently taken in by a pod of fin whales. It’s blind and deaf, sensing only by it’s skin, which is heavily scarred and torn off in places. It recognizes, either by smell or feel, that we’re like it, and swims up to us curiously.
~~~~~
Synopsis
The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’ rap group Clipping.
Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.
Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.
Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.
Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.
If you’re like me, you have a pile of books beckoning to you from your lists. Carole hosts this fun feature where you can share some of those older books and perhaps nudge you to finally read them. If you want to join in on the fun, head over to Carole’s Random Life In Books and leave a link to your post.
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Semiosis
Semiosis Duology #1
by Sue Burke
Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis
In this character driven novel of first contact by debut author Sue Burke, human survival hinges on an bizarre alliance.
Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet’s sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools.
Forced to land on a planet they aren’t prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape–trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.
Three Treats Too Many (A Sarah Blair Mystery) Cozy Mystery 3rd in Series Publisher: Kensington (August 25, 2020) Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages ISBN-10: 1496719492 ISBN-13: 978-1496719492 Digital ASIN: B082WRV78G
When a romantic rival opens a competing restaurant in small-town Wheaton, Alabama, Sarah Blair discovers murder is the specialty of the house . . .
For someone whose greatest culinary skill is ordering takeout, Sarah never expected to be co-owner of a restaurant. Even her Siamese cat, RahRah, seems to be looking at her differently. But while Sarah and her twin sister, Chef Emily, are tangled up in red tape waiting for the building inspector to get around to them, an attention-stealing new establishment—run by none other than Sarah’s late ex-husband’s mistress, Jane—is having its grand opening across the street.
Jane’s new sous chef, Riley Miller, is the talk of Wheaton with her delicious vegan specialties. When Riley is found dead outside the restaurant with Sarah’s friend, Jacob, kneeling over her, the former line cook—whose infatuation with Riley was no secret—becomes the prime suspect. Now Sarah must turn up the heat on the real culprit, who has no reservations about committing cold-blooded murder . . .
Includes quick and easy recipes!
About Debra H. Goldstein
Judge Debra H. Goldstein writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series (One Taste Too Many, Two Bites Too Many, Three Treats Too Many). She also wrote Should HavePlayed Poker and IPPY winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha nominated The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place and Derringer Finalist Pig Lickin’ Good, have appeared in numerous publications. Debra serves on the national boards of SinC and MWA and is president of SEMWA.
RV is a good kid, starting his freshman year at the demanding Boston Latin School. Though his genes didn’t give him a lot of good things, they did give him a decent brain. So he’s doing his best to keep up in high school, despite all the additional pressures he’s facing: His immigrant parents, who don’t want him to forget his roots and insist on other rules. Some tough kids at school who bully teachers as well as students. His puny muscles. His mean gym teacher. The Guy Upstairs who doesn’t answer his prayers. And the most confusing fact of all—that he might be gay.Luckily, RV develops a friendship with Mr. Aniso, his Latin teacher, who is gay and always there to talk to. RV thinks his problems are solved when he starts going out with Carole. But things only get more complicated when RV develops a crush on Bobby, the football player in his class. And to RV’s surprise, Bobby admits he may have gay feelings, too.
RV, having successfully completed his freshman year at the demanding Boston Latin School, is hoping for a great summer. He’s now fifteen years old and looking forward to sharing many languid summer days with his friend Bobby, who’s told him he has gay feelings too. But life and family and duties for a son of immigrant parents makes it difficult to steal time away with Bobby.
Bobby, too, has pressures. He spends part of the summer away at football camp, and his father pushes him to work a summer job at a friend’s accounting firm. Bobby takes the job grudgingly, wanting to spend any extra time practicing the necessary skills to make Latin’s varsity football team.
On top of everything, RV’s best friend Carole goes away for the summer, jumping at an opportunity to spend it with her father in Paris. Luckily, there is always Mr. Aniso, RV’s Latin teacher, to talk to whenever RV is lonely. He’s also there for RV when he inadvertently spills one of Bobby’s secrets, and Bobby is so angry RV is afraid he is ready to cut off the friendship.
Andy V. Roamer grew up in the Boston area and moved to New York City after college. He worked in book publishing for many years, starting out in the children’s and YA books division and then wearing many other hats. WHY CAN’T LIFE BE LIKE PIZZA? is the first novel in THE PIZZA CHRONICLES. The books follow the exploits of RV, the teenage son of immigrants from Lithuania in Eastern Europe, as RV tries to negotiate the four years of his demanding high school, his budding sexuality, and new relationships. To relax, Andy loves to ride his bike, read, watch foreign and independent movies, and travel.
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