Monday, September 30, 2013

One Day till these books are released--Are you ready?

I can't Believe this is the Last Day of September! Tomorrow is first Tuesday of the month and check out these book releases:


Chili con Carnage by Kylie Logan (First in a New Series)
Poisoned Prose by Ellery Adams
Buried in Bargains by Josie Belle
Drizzled with Death by Jessica Crocket(First in a New Series)
The Chocolate Book Bandit by Joanna Carl
Murder and Marinara by Rosie Genova(First in a New Series)
Final Cat Call by Sophie Kelly
Gilt Trip by Laura Childs
A Finders Fee by Jim and Joyce Lavene
Afoot on St. Croix by Rebecca M. Hale
Death, Taxes and Green Tea Ice Cream by Diane Kelley

This looks like a great month of reading! Which ones will you be buying?Do you have a favorite?

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Author Spotlight-- Dawn Eastman


Happy Hump Day everyone! Our Author Spotlight is the Fabulous Dawn Eastman!!!!!!! Her new book Pall in the Family is out and it is a Great read! Have you read it?Tell us what you think of it!

Overview

The aptly named Crystal Haven is the destination for tourists seeking psychics, séances, and the promise of contacting the spirit world. In this small western Michigan town, everyone knows the Fortune family. Rose is gifted with tarot card readings. Her sister, Vi, is a self-proclaimed pet psychic. And Rose’s daughter Clyde is…

A cop. A cop on leave from Ann Arbor, more specifically, who’s come home to kooky Crystal Haven to reevaluate her life. Mom and Aunt Vi can’t wait for Clyde to finally embrace her own psychic gifts and join the family business. Clyde would prefer the low-stress lifestyle of a dog walker and the low-key company of her nephew, Seth.
But when a local psychic is killed, leaving behind a traumatized Shih Tzu, it seems to be in the cards for Clyde to get involved. With her old flame Mac leading the investigation, that may prove awkward. Whether she uses her skills as a cop or her long-denied psychic abilities, it’s up to Clyde to divine a killer’s identity before someone else suffers more misfortune.


Thank you Dawn for this wonderful book! I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the next one!

Friday, September 20, 2013

Allison's Young Adult Pick



Happy Friday everyone! I am starting a new feature here called Young Adult Friday! My first feature is The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B.Cooney

Overview

No one ever really paid close attention to the faces of the missing children on the milk cartons. But as Janie Johnson glanced at the face of the ordinary little girl with her hair in tight pigtails, wearing a dress with a narrow white collar--a three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve years before from a shopping mall in New Jersey--she felt overcome with shock. She recognized that little girl--it was she. How could it possibly be true?

Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, but as she begins to piece things together, nothing makes sense. Something is terribly wrong. Are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson really Janie's parents? And if not, who is Janie Johnson, and what really happened?
A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity.


Check it out today and leave a comment if you have read it!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Thursday First-- Meg London's Murder Unmentionable


Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you are having a fantastic week so far!! Our First in a new series mention today is Murder Unmentionable by Meg London!
Murder Unmentionable is the first in the Sweet Nothings series and if you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? It is a great start to a wonderful series! The sleuth , Emma Taylor is Sensational and her Aunt is a Hoot! You will love this series, this town and the wonderful people who reside there!

Overview

Sweet Nothings has it all: silk ribbon, Venetian lace, the best bra fitter in town…and two unsolved murders. Emma Taylor thought she knew what to expect when she abandoned life as a big-city fashionista to help her aunt, Arabella, breathe new style into Sweet Nothings, her waning lingerie boutique. As Emma settles back in to Paris, Tennessee—a world where pie is served with a parable and a pitcher of sweet tea is the cure for most of life’s ills—her escape seems smooth as silk. But when the town acquires a touch of unneeded je ne sais quoi with the arrival of Emma’s philandering ex, an unseemly murder turns her world inside out. As the police’s top suspect, Emma is going to need more than fishnets to snare the real killer. And when she and Arabella refuse to let death threats wrapped in knifed nighties stall Sweet Nothings’ vintage lingerie fashion show, it becomes increasingly clear that any garter may hide a gun and that bullet bras might have to live up to their name…

Thank you so much for many enjoyable hours of visiting and meeting new friends!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Author Spotlight --Susan Mallery



Today we are spotlighting the Sensational Susan Mallery. Susuan is the author of the Fool's Gold series and many others.




New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery has entertained millions of readers with her witty and emotional stories about women. Publishers Weekly calls Susan’s prose “luscious and provocative,” and Booklist says “Novels don’t get much better than Mallery’s expert blend of emotional nuance, humor and superb storytelling.” Susan lives in Seattle with her husband and her tiny but intrepid toy poodle. Visit her at www.SusanMallery.com.


Have you read her  books? Leave us a comment and tell us what you loved about them.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Go on a Treasure Hunt with James Patterson's newest book


 

 

James Patterson newest book for children was released on Sept 16th and it is sure to get your kids jumping right in for a fun fill treasure hunt!

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life and I Funny comes a brilliantly original new adventure series, jam-packed with action, humor, and heart!
The Kidd siblings have grown up diving down to shipwrecks and traveling the world, helping their famous parents recover everything from swords to gold doubloons from the bottom of the ocean. But after their parents disappear n the job, the kids are suddenly thrust into the biggest treasure hunt of their lives. They'll have to work together to defeat dangerous pirates and dodge the hot pursuit of an evil treasure hunting rival, all while following cryptic clues to unravel the mystery of what really happened to their parents—and find out if they're still alive.
This Exclusive Collector's Edition includes a custom reversible book jacket, containing an official Treasure Hunters treasure map on the inside. This map (official property of Kidd Family Treasure Hunters Inc.) includes key locations from the book, full color images of the Kidd characters, and much more!

This sounds like a great book! What a way to get your children reading!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Thursday First --by Ada Madison



It's Thursday and that means I am featuring a First in a new series!!!! Isn't the cover great! This is A Square Root Of Murder by Ada Madison!


Overview of this Fantastic read:

Dr. Sophie Knowles teaches math at Henley College in Massachusetts, but when a colleague turns up dead, it's up to her to find the killer before someone else gets subtracted.


If you have read this book let us know what you think of it!

Thank you Ada for a fun read and mind blowing puzzles

Wednesday, September 11, 2013


Happy Wednesday. Today our spotlight goes out to the Lovely Kate Carlisle! Kate's newest book is called The Cookbook Conspiracy released on June 4th 2013.




A native Californian, New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle worked in television for many years before turning to writing. A lifelong fascination with the art and craft of bookbinding led her to write the Bibliophile Mysteries featuring Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery, and murder. 


This is a Fantastic series and will give you Hours of wonderful reading!!! Thank you Kate!

Friday, September 6, 2013

Cate Price is here today-- Going Through the Notions



Happy Friday Everyone! Cate Price is here today and she brought Daisy Buchanan with her.  Going Through the Notions is Cate's New Book just released on Tuesday Sept 3rd! The book is a Fantastic read!

So Cate,

Tell us about yourself.
I’ve had a variety of careers, from real estate agent to voice over artist to bartender to casting director. Now I’m safely ensconced in the corporate world as an executive assistant to a CEO. Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have to work full-time so that I could stay home and write, but I relish the raw material that crops up from being around other people all day. Especially the quirky, outspoken ones! In my free time, I love to go on long hikes with my two dogs, garden, and of course, read a good book.
 
How did Going through the Notions come about? Is sewing a passion of yours?
An editor at Berkley Prime Crime came up with the idea for a series based on a sewing notions store and my agent recommended me for the job. I have to admit, I’m not a very good seamstress, but antiquing is a true passion of mine. My main character finds merchandise for her store by going to flea markets, yard sales and auctions, so I felt right at home with that aspect. And I’ve developed a thing for old buttons while writing this series. Some of them are so beautiful and unusual. My editor collects vintage books and hand-sewn tea towels, so I’m always on the lookout for little treasures for her.
 
What can you tell us about Daisy? How was she inspired as the Heroine of this story?
Daisy Buchanan took early retirement from teaching in New York and moved with her husband, Joe, to what was their vacation home for many years, a Greek Revival in the little village of Millbury, PA. She went to the local auction one Saturday night and bid on a steamer trunk that turned out to be packed to the brim with all kinds of notions and fabrics. It was the inspiration to open her store, Sometimes a Great Notion.
 
As a former history teacher, she loves the idea of preserving the treasures of the past and passing them along to another good home. She never gives up on anything, the same way she never gave up on any of her students. She’s a tenacious crossword puzzler and has excellent hearing, which aids in her sleuthing. Unfortunately, one of the desirable qualities in a teacher that Daisy lacks is an adequate supply of patience, and that can sometimes get her into trouble.
 
What are you working on next?
I’ve turned in the second book in the series, A Dollhouse to Die For, which features a dollhouse that Daisy buys at the auction. Now I’m working on the third, which will center around antique needlework samplers, so I’m having fun doing research.
 
If you can have dinner with any character in any book who would it be and why?
The easy answer would be the hot detective, Tony Serrano, but I think I have to say Eleanor Reid. She’s one of Daisy’s best friends and owns a shop across the street called A Stitch Back in Time where she restores antique wedding gowns. Even though she’s in her early sixties, Eleanor rides a red Vespa, drinks ICBM’s (ice-cold Beefeater martinis) and has an unusual way of looking at the world. She’s a bit of a dark horse. She wasn’t originally slated to be a main character, but somehow wangled her way to the front and is now one of my favorites.
 
 
 
Here is an overview of her book:

A retired schoolteacher—and yes, daughter of an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan—Daisy Buchanan has finally found her calling in the quaint village of Millbury, Pennsylvania. While her husband endlessly renovates their old house, Daisy happily presides over Sometimes a Great Notion, a quirky shop that sells sewing bits and bobs, antiques, and jewelry.
Daisy has her eye on an antique dollhouse and a classic Singer Featherweight at the local auction—until her friend and mentor, auctioneer Angus Backstead, is led away in handcuffs. It appears he bashed in the head of a drinking buddy who stole a set of fancy fountain pens. Daisy’s sure the sprightly old-timer couldn’t have done it. But if Daisy can’t stitch together the bidder truth—and soon—Angus will be going once, going twice… gone forever.


Cate Price is a regular sight on the streets of her home town walking her two amazing rescue dogs, and enjoys gardening, antiquing, and cooking with friends. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America.

Writing this debut novel proved to be rather an expensive project, because while researching auction houses, she also became addicted to bidding on box lots.

GOING THROUGH THE NOTIONS will be published by Berkley Prime Crime on September 3, 2013. A DOLLHOUSE TO DIE FOR is slated for release in the summer of 2014 and Cate is hard at work on the third book in the series.

She loves to connect with friends at her website,
 

 
 
Thank you for being with us today Cate. I really loved your book ! Have you all read this one yet. Leave a message for Cate here.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Welcome Jesse Giles Christiansen!



Overview

Some things are better left alone...
After Ethan Hodges discovers an undersea cemetery just off the beach of Pelican Bay, South Carolina, he seeks answers from a grandfatherly fisherman named Captain Shelby. The captain wants the past to remain buried, and he warns Ethan to stay away. But Ethan doesn't listen.
Ethan's best friend and secret love interest, Morgan Olinsworth, joins in the investigation, unearthing intriguing secrets about the mysterious fisherman. When Captain Shelby is suspected of murder and disappears, a manhunt ensues, revealing a truth that unnerves everyone in Pelican Bay





About The AuthorJesse Giles Christiansen is an American author who writes compelling literary fiction that weaves the real with the surreal. He attended Florida State University where he received his B.A. in English literature. His newest novel, “Pelican Bay,” focuses on a very old fisherman, Captain Shelby, and the mysterious happenings linked to him surrounding a nosy, sea-battered beach town (release date: July 20th, 2013, Imajin Books). One of his literary goals is to write at least fifty novels, and he reminds himself always of something that Ray Bradbury once said: “You fail only if you stop writing.”




Purchase Link:
AMAZON

great escape tour banner large PELICAN BAY640



Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Author Spotlight - Denise Swanson

It's a Fabulous Wednesday and our Spotlight goes out to the Lovely Denise Swanson!

Denise is the author of the Scumble River Mysteries and the  Devereaux Dime Store Mystery Series !

Her newest book releaased on Sept 3rd is called Murder of a Stacked Librarian.

overview of the book:

In New York Times bestselling author Denise Swanson’s “slightly zany”* new mystery series, Devereaux Sinclair loves running her old-fashioned store in her small Missouri hometown. If only murder didn’t keep landing on her doorstep…
Dev’s five-and-dime may be doing well, but her love life is in turmoil. She’s torn between Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Del Vecchio, who is on an undercover assignment, and her ex-beau Noah Underwood, the local doctor from a high-society family. So she welcomes the distraction when Elise Whitmore offers her a great deal on antique chocolate molds that would be perfect for her Easter gift baskets. But do the molds actually belong to Elise’s soon-to-be ex-husband? In buying them, has Dev committed a felony?

When Elise is found shot to death, the mystery deepens—and Dev’s good friend Boone, who discovered the body, is taken into custody. With the help of her best buds, Dev must clear Boone’s name and find the real killer. Good thing that when it comes to amateur sleuths, they broke the mold with Dev Sinclair.


Way to go Denise on these wonderful series!!!!!! Thank you for hours of wonderful reading!!!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Author Book Release Day




Happy Release Day to all of these Amazing Authors

The Cakes of Wrath by Jacklyn Brady
Murder of a Stacked Librarian by Denise Swanson
Silent Knife by Shelley Freydont
Bran New Death by Victoria Hamilton
First Degree Fudge by Christine Desmet
Clammed Up by Barbara Ross
A Skeleton in the Family by Toni L.P. Kelner
Going Through the Notions by Cate Price
The Scottish Play Murder by Anne Rutherford
Murder Plain and Simple by Isabella Alan


Don't miss these amazing new books!!!!!!!!!

Monday, September 2, 2013

The Money Bird Tour

The Money Bird by Sheila Webster Boneham


My interview with Sheila:
Tell us about yourself.
I'll assume that you want the abridged edition! In short, writing and animals have been enormously important all my life. I wrote my first book when I was 8, and it was about--surprise!--a dog. I just always thought of myself as a writer, and I read all sorts of books from childhood on. I plowed all the way through Moby Dick in the fourth grade! (And let me tell you, I was really disappointed that it wasn't really about the whale!) Anyway, I showed horses in my teens and twenties. That stopped when I went to graduate school, and I spent five years studying and working overseas, then came back and taught at universities here for a while. In the early 1990s I started writing full time, starting with feature stories in various magazines and moving to books. I've published 17 nonfiction books about dogs, cats, and animal rescue, six of which won major awards from the professional associations for dog and cat writers. I also started showing dogs around the same time, and got very involved with both hobby breeding and rescue. I started a rescue program and co-founded another, and also bred highly competitive Australian Shepherds for a while. I've also always had at least one Lab in the house since 1988, and have fostered and trained a variety of other breeds. And of course we've had cats, cats, cats through the years! At the moment my husband Roger and I live with two beautiful doggy girls--Lily, a 7-year-old Lab we brought home at 7 weeks, and Sunny, a 12-year-old Golden we adopted last November from a rescue group. They help me write!

What was the inspiration for writing this book?
Inspiration comes from many sources, and that's certainly true for The Money Bird. Because this is the second book in the Animals in Focus series, I already had my main characters and a few continuing secondary characters, and I already had the general setting in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and surrounds. I often begin a story with a first line, and that was true for the first book, Drop Dead on Recall, and this book. I could see and hear and smell the whole opening scene, and that translated into the first line and then the first chapter. So I would say that my initial inspiration was visual and based on my own experiences being out training and playing with my dogs over the years.That got me started, but I needed a critical issue to inspire murder, and that came from material I've read and documentaries I've seen about wildlife trafficking, particularly Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird by Tony Juniper. The rest of the story unfolded from there.

What are you working on next?

I always have several projects in the works, and now is no exception. But for the moment I'm focused on the third book in this series, tentatively titled Catwalk. Each of the books in the series features an animal-centered sport or activity, and an issue of some sort. I can't say too much yet about #3, but Leo, my "protagcat," and his friends will have a bigger-than-ever part to play in this one. The dogs will also be there, of course - Leo loves his dogs!

What was the easiest and hardest thing to write about this book?

Wildlife trafficking is a brutal, ugly business, but this series is essentially cozy, so I had to plant some ideas without giving graphic details. I also had to keep my own emotions in check as I did the research, and that wasn't easy. The easiest thing about this whole series is spending time with Janet MacPhail, the 50-something animal-photographer-cum-amateur-sleuth,, her Australian Shepherd Jay (based on my own Aussie Jay), her cat Leo (based on my Leo and Malcolm), and her various friends. I hope my readers enjoy being with them as much as I do!

If you could have a dinner date with any character in any book, who would it be and why?
Oh wow, just one? And I suppose she or he has to be human? Okay, I think it would be Elspeth Huxley as the young girl she was in The Thorn Trees of Thika. I loved that book, and would like to know her better.


My review:

This is my first book I have read by Sheila and I must say that I really liked it! Her characters are vivid and vibrant and enjoyable. Janet is very Likeable and Jay will win your heart! This is such a great read, you won't want to miss it!


Leave a comment here for Sheila , She would love to hear from you!

First in Series- Miss Julia Speaks her Mind by Ann B. Ross

Happy Monday! This week's First in Series is Miss Julia Speaks her Mind by Ann B. Ross Released on August 22, 2000. Seri...