Book Review and Giveaway - The Friar’s Last Curse: A Wren Meadows Mystery by Kathleen Bailey

My Review

Wren Meadows lives in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  She works as an animal communicator and ghostwriter.  While trying to help someone who is in a desperate situation, she becomes inadvertently linked to a murder investigation ... and another mystery, about buried treasure, also becomes part of the case.  

I wanted to read The Friar's Last Curse because I am a cozy mystery reader and love Kathleen Bailey's Olivia Penn mystery series.   

This is a wonderful start to a new series!  There are so many elements I love.  I knew very little about animal communicator work or ghostwriting and found details about both fascinating.  I also loved the small town Southern setting, Olivia's community and found family, and of course her German Shepherd dog Scout.

The author does a good job at setting the scene and introducing the characters, and then the mystery develops in layers.  By the time I got to the buried treasure storyline, I was thoroughly hooked!

I look forward to the next book in this series!  I enthusiastically recommend The Friar's Last Curse for other cozy mystery fans - and especially for readers who love small towns, Southern/Blue Ridge settings, and animals.

Book Synopsis

A buried treasure. A murder rooted in local legend. Small towns hide the best secrets.

Wren Meadows is an animal communicator and ghostwriter living in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain town of Covington Crossroads, Virginia. Between helping lost pets reunite with their families and meeting deadlines for her latest client, life in her charming small town is just the way she likes it—until a frightened woman appears at her door with a desperate plea for help.

When Wren receives a cryptic message that triggers a memory from eleven years ago, she gets pulled into a murder investigation that quickly lands her on the police radar. Clues link the crime to a local legend of a buried treasure rumored to be cursed. Everyone connected to the victim seems to be hiding something, including the one person Wren needs to trust most.

As old secrets surface, Wren must form an unlikely alliance with a suspicious filmmaker to protect those she cares about. When a treasure hunt leads to a shocking discovery, the proof Wren needs fits into the palm of her hand. To bring the killer to justice, she must rely on her instincts, her German shepherd Scout, and her ability to see what others don’t before another life is lost.

Someone in Covington Crossroads knows the truth. And they’ll do anything to keep it buried.

The Friar’s Last Curse is perfect for readers who love atmospheric cozy mysteries, found family, small-town charm, hidden secrets, loyal animal companions, and page-turning suspense.

The Wren Meadows Mystery Series blends folklore, Southern atmosphere, heart, and humor in emotionally immersive cozy mysteries featuring a strong female amateur sleuth you’ll want as a friend.

Author Bio

Kathleen Bailey is the award-winning author of The Olivia Penn Mystery Series and The Wren Meadows Mystery Series. She writes atmospheric mysteries with heart and humor that keep to the traditional and cozy sides of crime. For over twenty years, she worked as a pediatric physical therapist with children who have special needs, drawing on degrees in English, psychology, and physical therapy. She now writes in Virginia with her feline assistant, who insists on supervising every draft. When she’s not writing, Kathleen can usually be found covered in cat hair, surrounded by far too many sticky notes, and plotting new twists to keep readers guessing. She is a member of Sisters in Crime. Visit her online at kathleenbaileyauthor.com. Follow on Instagram @cozycrimewriter.

Author Links

Website: https://kathleenbaileyauthor.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cozycrimewriter/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kathleen-bailey

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/kathleenbailey

Purchase Links:
Amazon     Direct from Kathleen     Barnes & Noble     All Retailers

Giveaway

Book Review - Falling Into Us by Denise Hunter

 

My Review

After Gabby Donaldson's mother passes, Gabby travels to North Carolina to fulfill her mother Alice's last wish:  to take a letter to Alice's estranged mother.  Gabby meets a local journalist, Mason Morrison, and he agrees to help her find her grandmother - and also chronicle the story in a series of human interest articles.  Gabby is dealing with grief and being alone, but she feels included by Mason, a widower with a young daughter, and his family.  She begins to feel at home in this small North Carolina town - but her trust issues are an obstacle.

I wanted to read Falling Into Us because I love Denise Hunter's books.  They are so cozy and comforting, and always full of characters that I really care about.

This novel was no exception!  Gabby and Mason are both vulnerable and dealing with grief - Gabby from her mother's passing, and Mason from the tragic death of his wife.  Their connection is nearly immediate and real.  Add in Mason's sweet 12 year old daughter and his warm, lively family ... and eventually Gabby's grandmother too.

Falling Into Us is a wonderful autumnal read, set in a small town in Fall, with scenes at the Morrison family farm, including hayride tours of the farm and their harvest festival.  The story takes place between October and Thanksgiving.  This is a perfect read to curl up with on a cool weekend.  It's sweet, heartwarming, and just meant to be a Hallmark movie!

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and Netgalley for an advance reading copy of this book.  

Book Review - Resonance by Michael S. Tobin and Daniel S. Chertoff

My Review

Resonance is a historical novel told in two timelines.  In 1971, Sophie Haddad, an American, is living and working at Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.  When she is asked to go through old documents in the basement, she discovers several diaries that become her obsession.  In 1922, Anna Grinberg arrives in Paris where she hones her craft as a sculptor.  Her diaries go through 1940, with the Nazi threat ever-present in Paris.

I wanted to read Resonance because I love historical fiction.  I enjoy books set in Paris, and the Shakespeare and Company setting was appealing.

This is an interesting book.  It starts as Sophie's story, as she seeks healing from her sad early years, and a sense of direction.  Then there is a long section told in diary format, chronicling Anna's life over the span of 1922 - 1940. The book concludes with Sophie making sense of what to do next with the discovery of the diaries.

It took me a little bit to immerse myself in the world of this book.  The storytelling is formal and stylized.  Sophie and Anna's smallest encounters have very high dramatic stakes, so we don't see a lot of quiet, everyday life.  For instance, Sophie meets different people in a park and has very deep conversations with them right away. 

That said, I found both their lives interesting and especially found the impact of Anna's story on Sophie to be compelling.  I found the epigraph for Part I of Sophie's story to be absolutely perfect:  "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (William Faulkner). 

Anna's story is a winding one - including encounters with Ernest Hemingway, and living in the orbit of Gertrude Stein.  That glimpse of 1920's Paris was fascinating.

I also liked Anna's insights on her journaling process:

"Here is a truth:  I write after thirty-one days of silence to force myself to understand why I do not want to write.  That is a lie.  I know why.  If I write, it is real.  If I do not, memories fade like mist, and pain dulls" (p. 126).

Resonance is a sensitively told novel that meanders through history and through big thoughts and themes (love, art, personal vision) in a serious way.  It is both historical fiction and a distinctly voiced literary novel.

Book Synopsis

PARIS, 1971

In the basement of Shakespeare and Company, Sophie Hadad—a restless Wellesley student from Charleston, West Virginia, motherless and adrift—uncovers a forgotten valise. Inside lies the diary of Anna Grinberg, a Jewish sculptor born in Warsaw in 1900, orphaned when her father is murdered in a pogrom and her mother is claimed by the Spanish flu.

PARIS, 1922

Anna arrives in the city with nothing but her will to create. Her diary is fierce, intimate, and unsparing—alive with the pulse of Les Années Folles, when Montparnasse cafés throb with painters, sculptors, and expatriate writers reinventing art and language. She fights to carve a place among Pascin, Bourdelle, and Frenkel; finds allies in Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier; and collides—dangerously—with Ernest Hemingway. Even in those incandescent years, she senses the gathering shadow over Europe and writes as if time itself were fragile.

Half a century later, Sophie bends over Anna’s words and feels them press against her own life. The diary refuses to remain merely historical. It exposes her evasions, unsettles her defiance, and forces a reckoning with identity, inheritance, and the past she has tried to escape.

Resonance unfolds in two distinct voices: Anna’s impassioned diary, lyrical and immediate, and Sophie’s sharp, searching, contemporary narrative. Together they tell a story of art, exile, and Jewish survival—passed not through monuments or archives, but from one woman’s hand to another—across time.

Author Bios

Michael S. Tobin has spent fifty-one years listening to people’s stories and just as long imagining his own. A clinical psychologist and award-winning author, he began writing at twelve with a three-act play on the Warsaw Ghetto—a child’s attempt to understand courage and loss. His memoir won the Silver Prize in the Nonfiction Book Awards, his novel The Veil earned third place in the BookLife Prize, and his essays have been awarded by The Free Press and Letter Review. He writes, he says, “to create characters who live at the edge of beauty and brokenness.” Michael sits on the Advisory Board of The ProHuman Foundation, founded by Daryl Davis.

Daniel S. Chertoff worked in various aspects of the investment industry but retired early to pursue doctoral studies in English literature. He has published academic articles and is an associate editor for an academic journal. Daniel’s first book, Palestine Posts: An Eyewitness Account of the Birth of Israel (Toby Press, 2019), grew out of a series of extraordinary letters written by his father during Israel’s War of Independence. Perhaps most importantly, in the summer of 1972, Daniel was a “tumbleweed” at Shakespeare and Company in Paris — where RESONANCE begins.

Thanks to Subplot and TLC Book Tours for a review copy of this book.

Book Review and Giveaway - A Classic Case of Murder (A Literary Dining Mystery) by Daryl Wood Gerber

My Review

Allie Catt caters literary theme events in Bramblewood, North Carolina, a small town near Asheville.  She is excited to host A Christmas Carol theme event, featuring a rare edition of the book and a holiday menu.  But when a rare book expert attending the event is discovered dead, Allie sets out to solve the mystery.

I wanted to read A Classic Case of Murder because Daryl Wood Gerber is one of my favorite cozy mystery authors.  I have enjoyed the previous books in this series.

This is my favorite book in the Literary Dining Mystery series.  It has several elements I really enjoy:

• Rare books
• A holiday theme
• A Christmas Carol references throughout

This mystery works so well.  There is a small group of people gathered at the Amber Lantern Inn for the event, so Allie has a ready-made list of suspects.  I enjoyed her sleuthing process, starting with making a simple Word document of suspects.  The mystery is well paced, and it was enjoyable to follow Allie's deductive process.

The holiday food references and rare book details added a lot to this book as well, and I think these elements will appeal to cozy mystery readers.  

I recommend A Classic Case of Murder for cozy mystery fans who enjoy holiday themes, small town settings, foodie books, and literary references.

Book Synopsis

Personal chef and caterer Allie Catt combines her love of fiction with her love of food in the scenic North Carolina mountains—but amid her latest themed event, based on Dickens’s beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, a rare-book expert’s goose is cooked…

In the charming town of Bramblewood, not far from Asheville, Allie’s preparing for a special seasonal soiree: a literary-themed dinner party that’s a tribute to Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. It’ll take place at the Amber Lantern, the quaint inn recently opened by her best friend’s mother, Noeline—and the holiday spirit has even led a Scroogelike local businessman to lend his prized first edition of the nineteenth-century novella for the event.

With the voices of carolers ringing in the air and the community theater staging a special performance, it looks like it will be a happy Christmas—until the priceless book disappears and someone murders the expert who authenticated it. And if the police have their way, Allie’s lawyer friend Freddy will be dragged away in chains like Marley’s ghost…

The crime has also cast a shadow over Noeline’s fledgling business, so Allie feels doubly obliged to find the real killer among the gathered guests and local visitors—and put an end to this nightmare. It’s time to investigate them all, every one . . .

Author Bio

Daryl Wood Gerber is the Agatha Award-winning and nationally bestselling author of the Literary Dining Mysteries, Aroma Wellness Mysteries, Fairy Garden Mysteries and Cookbook Nook Mysteries. As Avery Aames, she penned the popular Cheese Shop Mysteries. In addition, Daryl writes suspense novels, including the well-received Accidental Murder, The Son’s Secret, Girl on the Run, and the popular Aspen Adams trilogy. Daryl has published a standalone Christmas romance, Hope for the Holidays, a mystery anthology, and a children’s illustrated rhyming book. Fun Tidbit: as an actress, Daryl appeared in “Murder, She Wrote.” She loves to cook, garden, read, and walk her frisky Goldendoodle. Also she has been known to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. You can learn more on her website: https://darylwoodgerber.com

Author Links

WEBSITE: https://darylwoodgerber.com

FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/darylwoodgerber

BOOKBUB: https://bookbub.com/authors/daryl-wood-gerber

YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/woodgerb1

INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/darylwoodgerber

GOODREADS: https://goodreads.com/darylwoodgerber

TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@daryl_wood_gerber

AMAZON: https://bit.ly/Daryl_Wood_Gerber_page

NEWSLETTER: https://darylwoodgerber.com/contact-media/

Purchase Links 

AMAZON    BARNES AND NOBLE     BOOKSHOP.ORG    KOBO      MYSTERIOUS GALAXY

Giveaway

Book Review and Giveaway - Eggnog & Evidence: A Maine Campground Cozy Mystery by Nikki Weber

My Review

Noelle Cooper is busy hosting a big Christmas in July festival at Babbling Brook Campground in Maine (with the help of her beagle Corny, of course!).  When the festival's event planner, Holly, dies during the tree lighting, Noelle sets out to find out what happened.

I wanted to read Eggnog & Evidence because I have enjoyed previous books in this series.  I like the campground setting, and as a dog lover, of course I love reading about Corny too.

This was a fun addition to the Maine Campground Cozy Mystery series.  The Christmas in July theme was fun, and the festival was an interesting setting for a murder mystery, given all the vendors, personnel, and campers that attended.

I enjoyed following along as Noelle detects, looking carefully at who was there the night of the tree lighting.  I appreciate the maps of the campground and the town at the beginning of the book;  they were fun to see and nice for reading reference.

The mystery aspect was well done.  The killer caught me by surprise!

This is a fast paced, fun read.  I recommend Eggnog & Evidence - and this series - to other cozy mystery readers.

Book Synopsis

Some secrets are like Christmas lights: they get worse the more you try to untangle them.

Noelle Cooper is teaming up with her family to launch a festive new venture: a holiday extravaganza complete with Santa, gallons of eggnog, and a spectacular tree lighting guaranteed to make the season merry and bright.

There’s just one problem: Holly Winterbourne, the abrasive holiday consultant Noelle’s father has hired to help pull it off. Holly insists on holding a practice run at Babbling Brook Campground—in the middle of July—and she rubs everyone the wrong way.

When an incident at the tree lighting turns deadly, the festivities come to a shocking halt. Noelle feels partly responsible for the tragedy, but then the police determine that it was no accident, and Noelle’s guilt turns to suspicion. She sets out to discover who tried to pull the plug on the festival.

Author Bio

Nikki Weber grew up reading in unconventional places: the backseat of a car, the top of the monkey bars on her backyard play set, and the corners of the quietest hallways in her elementary school. She was born and raised in Maine and spent her childhood summers camping with her family and their beagle. She loves dogs, nachos, coffee, and ice cream, and so far, she’s managed to work three of those four things into the books in the Maine Campground Cozy Mystery series. She’s working on her next book right now, so grab a copy of whatever you haven’t read yet and get started!

Author Links

Website: https://nikkiweberbooks.com/

Sign Up for Nikki’s Newsletter:  Join the Cozy Book Club! | Nikki Weber

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/nikkiweber

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/nikkiweberbooks

Purchase Links  – Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org – Kobo –

Giveaway