Book Review: Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18) by Lee Hollis

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Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18)  by Lee Hollis  opens with Tom Farley and his neighbors in a snit because he's the last holdout to sell his house to a property developer who wants to build a resort. When Tom is shot at a pre-Thanksgiving community gathering and hospitalized, Hayley Powell puts her amateur sleuthing skills to good use. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishers for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this cozy mystery. I received a copy of this book for free in exchange of my honest opinion and review of the story. I loved the fact that this latest installment of the Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery  series had a theme around the Thanksgiving holiday and included live turkeys in the plot. It was good to visit some familiar characters. Since this is the eighteenth installment in the series, Lee Hollis didn't go into much detail of the background of those reoccurring characters; however, she...
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Book Review: Choosing Sides (Sweet Valley Twins, #4) created by Francine Pascal

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sweet valley twins # 4 created by francine pascal
The Unicorns have decided to start a cheerleading squad at Sweet Valley Middle School and call it the boosters. The caveat put forth by teachers are they must have open tryouts. Amy Sutton decides she wants to try out for the boosters. While that is happening, the basketball team is holding open tryouts as well, and the shortest boy in school, Ken Matthews, decides to try out.

Choosing Sides (Sweet Valley Twins, #4) deals with bullying yet again. Do you see a theme in this series? Bullying seems to be most prominent in the middle school years, so it isn't surprising that the Sweet Valley Twins books deal with this subject a lot. The underlying themes are friendship and standing up for yourself in this edition.

The Unicorns try to bully Amy because they don't want an unpopular, tomboy on the cheerleading squad. On top of that, Elizabeth is worried that if Amy makes the boosters, she won't have any more time to spend with her. Bruce Patman bullies Ken Matthews just because he is the shortest boy in school and is not the best player. Elizabeth helps out Ken with some suggestions and by having her older brother, who is a basketball player on one of the high school teams, give him some pointers as well. I love the fact that despite being bullied, both Amy and Ken stand up for themselves because they know their self worth, and they do it without getting into a physical fight. Kids need to know how to do this better.

All in all, I enjoyed Choosing Sides, and it had a much better ending than the previous installment of the Sweet Valley Twins. I gave it five out five stars. Don't miss out on our other reviews in this series:  Best Friends (Sweet Valley Twins, #1), Teacher's Pet (Sweet Valley Twins, #2), and The Haunted House (Sweet Valley Twins, #3).

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