Book Review: A Poisonous Pour (Cece Barton Mystery, #3) by Maddie Day

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A Poisonous Pour (Cece Barton Mystery, #3)  by Maddie Day  opens with the city of Colinas, California celebrating Memorial Day weekend with various activities including a car show and picnic. While co-sponsoring a booth at the car show with local mechanic Josie Jarvin, Cece witnesses one of the attendees, Regan Greene, getting into multiple arguments with others. Aside from that, everything goes well. That is until the next morning when the town finds out that Regan is dead, and it looks like she was murdered. With multiple people having motives, Cece utilizes her amateur sleuthing skills to find out who actually committed the dirty deed. I was approved for and received a digital copy of an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of A Poisonous Pour by Maddie Day from NetGalley and Kensington Publishing. A huge thank you goes out to both for providing me a copy for free in exchange for my honest opinion. Maddie Day's Cece Barton series has become one of my favorite cozy mystery series, an...
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Book Review: Surprise, Surprise! (Horse Crazy, #4) by Virginia Vail

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book review surprise surprise horse crazy virginia vail

Surprise, Surprise! (Horse Crazy, #4) by Virginia Vail opens with Emily Jordan being excited that her parents and brother are coming to visit her at Webster's Country Horse Camp. Much to Emily's surprise, they brought her best friend Judy with them.

The fourth book in the Horse Crazy book series was written extremely well for the target audience. I remembered loving this series as a child and had to reread it as an adult. It brought back all the feels, and it made me wish I had attended an overnight horse camp when I was a kid. And, I didn't remember anything about this book, so it was like reading it for the first time.

Major themes of the book included jealousy and feeling left out. The way that Virginia Vail dealt with these topics was done perfectly because who hasn't felt like Emily at some point in their life? I loved the fact that the author had Emily and Judy discuss how they were feeling because it teaches kids that communication is key and not to assume things. A minor theme was that people or things aren't always what they seem, which is the case with Caro. I loved that there was some major character development for her, and it made me like Caro a little bit better.

If you have a child that loves to read and loves horses, then I highly recommend Surprise, Surprise (Horse Crazy, #4) by Virginia Vail for those who are between the ages of nine and twelve. In fact, they'd probably love the entire series. I gave this book five out of five stars. If you liked this book, I recommend Welcome to Junior High (Girl Talk, #1) by L.E. Blair.

 

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