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Showing posts from July, 2020

Book Review: Murder at the PTA (Maya and Sandra Mystery, #1) by Lee Hollis

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Murder at the PTA (Maya and Sandra Mystery, #1) by Lee Hollis is the first installment in the Maya and Sandra Mystery series, a cozy mystery series centered on private investigators. The story follows Sandra Wallage , the wife of a U.S. senator and the newly elected president of Portland High School’s PTA, who becomes the latest target of a vicious gossip website called Dirty Laundry . After a heated PTA meeting, Sandra crosses paths with Maya Kendrick , a private investigator who has uncovered the identity of the person behind the gossip site. When the two women attempt to confront the culprit, they instead discover a dead body. Was it really a suicide, or did someone have a motive for murder? I’m a longtime fan of books by Lee Hollis , which is actually the pen name for sibling writing duo Rick Copp and Holly Simason . They’ve written several cozy mystery series, and what I appreciate most about their books is that they aren’t overly kitschy, unlike some other cozy mysteries I’ve ...

Book Review: Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum, #15) by Janet Evanovich

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Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum, #15) by Janet Evanovich is the fifteenth installment of her Stephanie Plum book series, if you don't count the four in between the numbers books she's written. In this edition, Lula witnesses celebrity chef Stanley Chipotle, who is in town for a barbecue cookoff, being murdered by two men, and now, the murderers are after her. Now, Chipolte's sponsor is offering a reward to anyone who can provide information to his murder, which leads Lula to pull in Stephanie Plum and Grandma Mazur to help her to capture the killer. What can I say? I just become more and more enamored with the Stephanie Plum book series. It's a perfect book to read on vacation or even to just relax, regardless of the serious topics it deals with like murder and burglary. Even though a lot of the books in this series has a subplot, Finger Lickin' Fifteen seemed to have more of a subplot, which had me wanting to stay up into the wee hours of th...

Book Review: Plum Spooky (Stephanie Plum, #14.5) by Janet Evanovich

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Janet Evanovich writes a few books in the Stephanie Plum book series called "A Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novel". Typically, they're novellas, and I finish them with the thought that they're cute but not very engaging, and they usually don't move the rest of the series forward. And, I don't particularly like the character named Diesel. On top of that, the third "Between-the-Numbers Novel", Plum Lucky (Stephanie Plum, #13.5) couldn't hold my interest, and I gave up after the first chapter.  I do plan on going back and reading it to see if I just wasn't in the right mindset to read it. With that being said, I was pleasantly surprised with Plum Spooky (Stephanie Plum, #14.5) by Janet Evanovich. This time, it is a full size novel, and I have to say, it's the one I absolutely fell in love with and changed my mind about the "Between-the-Numbers" books in the series. Things I enjoyed about Plum Spooky was that i...