Monday Mini-reviews

I immersed myself in books while I was on hiatus.
These are a few of the cozies I enjoyed most.


The Christie Curse (Book Collector Mystery #1) by Victoria Abbott (Berkley Prime Crime mass market, 5 March 2013).

Forced to move back to her hometown, because of student loans and an embezzling ex, Jordan Bingham is desperate for a job.  And a place to live that isn't with her elderly uncles.
There aren't many possibilities for a person with a Master's in English, but then she spots the newspaper ad for a "researcher".
She's soon hired by the last scion of the town's founding family to search for a previously unknown play by Agatha Christie.  She's even more thrilled that the position comes with room and board -- but is someone sneaking into her room when she's out?

I LOVED this book.  Victoria Abbott is the nom-de-plume of collaborators Mary Jane Maffini and her daughter Victoria, and the sequel, The Sayers Swindle, is due in the fall of this year.


A Fête Worse Than Death (Hemlock Falls Mystery #18) by Claudia Bishop (Berkley Prime Crime mass market, 5 March 2013).

Sarah "Quill" Quilliam has to learn how to say "no".    Now that she's a married working mother, she's got plenty to keep her busy, even though her husband is off somewhere he can't disclose.
When the chair of the Finger Lakes Autumn Fête quits abruptly, the mayor hires a professional event planner.  But when her body is found in the trunk of a car, Sarah finds herself not only being asked to take over the Fête, but to investigate a murder.  

 Claudia Bishop (Mary Stanton) sent a message to the members of her mailing list a few days ago, apologizing for the length of time between installments of her series (Hemlock Falls, Beaufort & Company, and The Unicorns of Balinor), but she's alternating between those and a "bigger" book with the working title of Finnegan.


The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy (Wishcraft Mystery #3) by Heather Blake (Obsidian mass market, 2 April 2013).

Darcy Merriweather loves living in the magical Enchanted Village, and her recently discovered powers as a Wishcrafter.  And running the personal concierge service As You Wish with her Aunt Ve is great, although some customers can be SO demanding.
Harriette Harkette, who is throwing herself an eightieth bithday gala is one of those, so when the birthday cake doesn't show up on time, Darcy goes to the bakery to check on it.  When she finds the delivery van behind the building, with the driver's corpse nearby she seriously wishes she'd stop finding dead bodies.
Unfortunately, she can't grant her own wishes, but she can figure out what happened.

Heather Blake (a pseudonym for Heather Webber) has created a charming world with some delightfully eccentric characters.  She also has another paranormal mystery series, The Magic Potion Mysteries, being released in November 2013.




FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for sending me review copies of these books.

Engagement Ring

Blood Bath and Beyond (Immortality Bites #1) by Michelle Rowen (Obsidian mass market, 7 August 2012).

Sarah Dearly has only been a vampire for a few months, but she's engaged to a six-hundred-year-old vampire named Thierry de Bennicour.  She's madly in love with him, but even though he's not very open about his feelings (or anything else), she's pretty sure he feels the same way. 

After saying goodbye to her best friend (still human) who's moving from Toronto to Vancouver, she returns to the condo she shares with Thierry to find a large suitcase just inside the door.  Apparently, Thierry has received an "offer he can't refuse" from the vampire council known as The Ring.  Thierry was actually instrumental in organizing The Ring centuries earlier, but hadn't been involved with it for a long time. 

Although he refuses to tell her what hold they have over him, he does finally agree to her going along  with him on his first assignment.  Their destination is Las Vegas, where human corpses have been found for several days in a row, drained of blood and with fang marks on their necks. 

Sarah, however, is a trouble magnet.  Everything that can go wrong, does, including Thierry being falsely accused of murder and put on house (luxury suite) arrest.  He does manage to get the council to agree to let Sarah return home, but she can't just sit around and wait.  To her, the only option is to clear Theirry's name.

There are many, many paranormal novels being released lately, and this is one of the better ones.  With Sarah Dearly, Michelle Rowen has created an appealing protagonist, who, despite attracting trouble at every turn, somehow manages to keep going.  Rowen's writing is polished, and the story is lightly, wryly humorous.

At the end of the book is an excerpt from the second book in the series, Bled and Breakfast, though no publication date is provided.