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: The Initiation (The Secret Circle, #1) by L.J. Smith

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The Initiation (The Secret Circle, #1) by L.J. Smith tells the story of Cassie Blake on vacation in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and becomes friends with Portia Bainbridge. When Cassie's mother receives a phone call that her mother is in poor health, she makes the decision that Cassie and she will move to New Salem, Massachusetts to take care of her mother. Intimidated by a new school, Cassie is in awe of a group of teenagers who rule the school where even the adults are afraid of this group.

The Secret Circle trilogy was my introduction to the author L.J. Smith. I immediately fell in love with The Initiation and couldn't wait to read the other two books in the series. Since it was originally published in 1992, it was turned into a television show, and I was ecstatic about the news. However, when the first trailer came out, I was disappointed because many of the characters were nixed, and they changed some huge parts of the series that vastly changed the story, including adding a character that never existed and killing off a character off that never died in the books. With all of that being said, I never ended up watching the television series. What is interesting is that the t.v. series ended up spawning additional books in the series that were written by a ghost writer under L.J. Smith's name, and these books apparently go hand in hand with the t.v. show.

Things I love about this book is that it deals with the trial and tribulations of making new friends and starting a new school (on the other side of a continent). It also deals with being different from other students and how others react to you because of those differences. Another thing I loved about The Initiation (The Secret Circle, #1) is that Greek mythology is mentioned. It always makes me want to reread The Odyssey by Homer, which I first read in the eighth grade. I finally did buy a copy of it; I just have to make time to read it!

With as many characters as there were and being a young adult book, I felt like the characters were well developed. They all have good and bad traits. And, the way they were described, I could get a clear picture of what they looked like in my mind. Not all authors can convey this well, but L.J. Smith has a knack for it. I gave The Initiation (The Secret Circle, #1) five out of five stars.

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