Review: The French Paradox by: Ellen Crosby

Title: The French Paradox

Author: Ellen Crosby

Publisher: Severn House Publishers

Format: Hardcover ( 256 p.) Personal Purchase

Description:

Lucie Montgomery's discovery of her grandfather's Parisian romance unlocks a series of shocking secrets in the gripping new Wine Country mystery.

In 1949, during her junior year abroad in Paris, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis bought several inexpensive paintings of Marie-Antoinette by a little-known 18th century female artist. She also had a romantic relationship with Virginia vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery's French grandfather - until recently, a well-kept secret.

Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie's neighbor and Jackie's schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC museum. And Lucie's grandfather is flying to Virginia for Cricket's 90th birthday party, hosted by her daughter Harriet. A washed-up journalist, Harriet is rewriting a manuscript Jackie left behind about Marie-Antoinette and her portraitist. She's also adding tell-all details about Jackie, sure to make the book a bestseller.

Then on the eve of the party a world-famous landscape designer who also knew Jackie is found dead in Lucie's vineyard. Did someone make good on the death threats he'd received because of his controversial book on climate change? Or was his murder tied to Jackie, the paintings, and Lucie's beloved grandfather?

My Thoughts:

Lucy Montgomery is eagerly awaiting her grandfather Luc coming home to visit.  Lucie's sister is also back working on a big painting for Cricket's upcoming birthday. Harry Cricket's daughter is working on a showing of Jackie's paintings and a journal Jackie left behind when she visited before she died. Lucie is worried about her grandfather being hurt as he spent time with Jackie while she was in Paris.  

When a local writer Parker Lord is having issues with some of his articles he's written and winds up dead in Lucie's vineyard and her sister Mia becomes the prime suspect.  Lucie has her hands full trying to figure out who killed Parker and is Luc's secret going on come out or will Cricket change her mind!

This was great story with so much history of Luc and Jackie.  We also learn about Cricket and Harry and their relationship!  It's definitely worth reading but I would still read it in order to get a sense of various characters!

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Review: Thread and Buried by: Lea Wait

Title: Thread and Buried

Author: Lea Wait

Publisher: Kensington 

Series: Mainely Needlepoint #9

Format; Paperback ( 272 p.) Personal Purchase

Description:

Haven Harbor is an authentic coastal Maine town--which makes it the perfect location for a new film production. But now it's become the scene of a crime . . .

Needlepointers Angie and Sarah are helping with set design for the movie being shot in their little New England hometown--but as the lighthouse and the wharves bustle with activity, a real-life drama is about to unfold. The producer, Hank Stoddard, has been harassing the pretty young female lead, and the two exchanged heated words at a lobster bake. Now someone's lowered the boom on him . . .

After a wayward piece of sound equipment sends him to his death, theories fly about who went off-script. Meanwhile, a local woman's tragic story about a true love lost at sea, which originally inspired the film, may lead to murderous revelations from long ago. Angie's got to unravel these mysteries, and may need to give more than one killer the hook . . . 

My Thoughts:

This book was difficult to read not to say the story isn't great but it's the last book the writer work before dying.  She was a phenomenal writer!

Angie and Sarah are helping out with a filming of a movie based on a book written by a needle pointer.  Unfortunately the director keeps changing things about the story which takes away from the published book!  When the director winds up dead it's up to Angie and the cops to figure out what happened and who set the director for death.

This book was a fun read as we sift through many possible suspects.  Everyone for actors to sound people to wives it could be anyone who was annoyed with him.  Who harbored the most anger at the director to do the deed?

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Review: Little Black Book by: Kate Carlisle

Title: Little Black Book
Author: Kate Carlisle

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Series: Biblophile Mystery #15

Format: e-book ARC ( 384 p.) 

Source: NetGalley

Description:

San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright is on the case when a rare edition of Rebecca leads to murder in this latest installment of the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series.

Brooklyn and her hunky husband, security expert Derek Stone, have just returned from a delightful trip to Dharma, where the construction of their new home away from home is well underway, when a little black book arrives in the mail from Scotland. The book is a rare British first edition of Rebecca, and there’s no return address on the package. The day after the book arrives, Claire Quinn shows up at Brooklyn and Derek’s home. Brooklyn met Claire when the two women worked as expert appraisers on the television show This Old Attic. Brooklyn appraised books on the show and Claire’s expertise was in antique British weaponry, but they bonded over their shared love of gothic novels.

 

Claire reveals that during a recent trip to Scotland she discovered her beloved aunt was missing and her home had been ransacked. Among her aunt’s belongings, Claire found the receipt for the package that wound up with Brooklyn and Derek. Claire believes both her own life and her aunt’s are in danger and worries that her past may be coming back to haunt her.

 

But just as Brooklyn and Derek begin to investigate, a man who Claire thinks was following her is found murdered, stabbed with a priceless jeweled dagger. With a death on their doorstep, Brooklyn and Derek page through the little black book, where they discover clues that will take them to the shadows of a medieval Scottish castle on the shores of Loch Ness. Under the watchful gaze of a mysterious laird and the irascible villagers who are suspicious of the strangers in their midst, Brooklyn and Derek must decode the secrets in Rebecca to keep their friend’s past from destroying their future....

My Thoughts: 

Derek and Brooklyn are back in San Francisco after their trip to Dharma.  They have barely unpacked when Derek receives a package from Scotland.  Why would someone send Derek a 1st edition book?  Who does Derek know in Scotland?  

Claire Quinn is in trouble and needs some help and quick which leads her from Scotland to San Francisco  and straight to  Derek and Brooklyn.  After explaining about her missing Aunt Gwen who send a book to Derek.  Some shady people are looking for Claire but no one knows why?

This book took our threesome from San Francisco to Dharma all the way to Scotland to find out what was going on and whose responsible?  This book had so much adventure and intrigue going on.  You found yourself wondering until you reached the end.  This book series is definitely worth the adventure to see how it all played out.

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Review: Lavender Blue Murder by: Laura Childs

Title: Lavender Blue Murder

Author: Laura Childs

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Series: A Tea Shop Mystery #21

Format: Hardcover ( 320 p.) NetGalley

Description:

Tea Maven Theodosia Browning brews up trouble in the latest Tea Shop Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs, now in paperback

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede.

But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

His wife, Meredith, is beside herself with grief and begs Theodosia and Drayton to stay the night. But Theodosia awakens at 2:00 A.M. to find smoke in her room and the house on fire. As the fire department screams in and the investigating sheriff returns, Meredith again pleads with Theodosia for help.

As Theodosia investigates, fingers are pointed, secrets are uncovered, Reginald's daughter-in-law goes missing presumed drowned, and Meredith is determined to find answers via a seance. All the while Theodosia worries if she's made a mistake in inviting a prime suspect to her upscale Lavender Lady Tea.

INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!

My Thoughts: 

In this book Theo and Drayton find themselves out with people they don't know the best at a bird hunt shooting   When they find their host Reginald Doyle bleeding to death they decide to try to go home but Meredith is so upset she pleads with them to stay unwillingly they stay for the night and find more questions than answers.

As they dig into the murder the pressure is on everyone to figure out who killed Doyle and why?  When Meredith's daughter-i-law goes missing off a boat in the water the pressure is on Meredith's son of having done something to his wife.    What happened to Fawn and why? And who burned down the Doyle house and killed Reginald Dyle?

I love this series it's a fun with tea being served and Theo running around hoping for a Bruce Wills moment that doesn't come.  It's fun being with her and Dayton as they try to solve this murder and find any and all clues!  

If you haven't read the series you are missing something you will definitely fall in love with these characters and have tons of fun on their many adventures!

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Review: A Death Long Overdue by: Eva Gates

Title: A Death Long Overdue

Author: Eva Gates

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Series: Lighthouse Library Mystery #7

Format:  Hardcover ( 372 p.) NetGalley

Description:

When her former director is found dead in the water, librarian Lucy Richardson will have to get to the bottom of the mystery before the killer ends her tale.

It's summertime in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Bertie James's college class is having their 40th anniversary reunion. The opening night reception is held at the Lighthouse Library and Lucy and her colleagues have assembled an exhibit of library artifacts showing how libraries have changed over the years. After the reception, some of the women take a walk down the boardwalk to the pier, using flashlights to illuminate the dark path, but what's scarier than the dark is finding the former director of the Lighthouse Library floating lifeless in the water.

Helena Sanchez, the former director, wasn't much loved and spent the party being rude to almost everyone there. As a result, Lucy finds herself in deep water as she rocks the boat, questioning several suspects. But she'll have to batten down the hatches and fast before she's left high and dry...and right in the killer's crosshairs.

My Thoughts: 

We're back to Outer Banks and Lucy's boss is hosting her reunion from college.  Various people show up and meet up with fellow classmates but soon they decide to go out on the bluff and their a past librarian winds up dead and the pressure is on to figure out who did it.  Unfortunately she upset alot of people before her death.  Who killed her and why?

This book had so much going on Connor is trying to find a way to talk to Lucy about something personal but people keep getting in the way.  Louisa Jane has convinced alot of the people around to try to summon spirits which she seems obsessed with proving she can do.  Then there are all the attendants of the reunion what motive might they have for the killing.

This book was a blast to read with all the various people showing up and Lucy and Connor running in circles with this discussion.  It was worth reading and following to see what happens in the story to see if your murderer is the same as the real one!

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Review: Stayin' Alive by: Julie Mulhern

Title: Stayin' Alive

Author: Julie: Mulhern

Publisher: J&M Press

Series: Country Club Murders #10

Format: e-book ( 250 p.) Personal Purchase

Description:

Springtime. Love is in the air. So is murder.

When Ellison Russell, reluctant finder of bodies, chairs a gala in conjunction with the museum’s Chinese funerary exhibit, she expects disaster. So, she’s not remotely surprised when a body turns up.

Ellison is willing to leave the investigation to the police till an attempt is made on her life.

Now she’s juggling evading a killer, her aunt’s overly-amorous beau, her dog’s new love interest, and Mother’s displeasure.

With bodies piling up, if Ellison’s not careful, staying alive might be impossible.

My Thoughts:

Ellison Russel is back and finding more dead bodies.  She is having her Chinese exhibit when she finds a body and the pressure is on to find out what happened add to the fact her beloved dog has falling in love with a local dog who loves to cause chaos.  Will she figure it out in time?  Or will her mother finally have a heart attack over the dead bodies?

I love this adventure as we see all the things we love seeing in Kansas City.  Ellison is up to her eyes in things going on around her romance seems to be in the air and everywhere you turn.  Then the book turns serious when someone is out to get Ellison anyway they can! Definitely worth reading series and learning about Ellison her family and friends can't wait to see what she is knee deep in next!

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