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 Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1) by Lisa Jewell

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book review the family upstairs lisa jewell

The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1) by Lisa Jewell is told from different characters with the main storyline being told by the character Libby Jones, who receives a letter on her twenty-fifth birthday, one that she's been waiting for her entire life. This letter reveals the identity of Libby's biological parents and that she has inherited their mansion, but others have been waiting for this day as well.

This novel was exceptionally well written and kept me intrigued from page one until the very end. It had a similar vibe that many of V.C. Andrews' early books have but written for an adult audience, and I loved that about Lisa Jewell's The Family Upstairs.

Another thing I enjoyed about The Family Upstairs is it's told from the point of view of three different characters. At first, I was a bit confused from the different viewpoints, but my confusion didn't last too long. I also relished the fact that it alternated from the present and the past. Not all authors can do this well, but Lisa Jewell knocked it out of the park.

I do have to give you a trigger warning . . . there is one scene that deals with one of the characters being raped. Another scene deals with a cat being killed and mutilated, which upset me terribly being a cat lover. If you find these subject areas difficult to read about, this may not be the book for you.

All in all, I enjoyed The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. This was the first book I read by Lisa Jewell, and it definitely won't be the last. I gave it five out of five stars. If you liked this book, I recommend Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) by V.C. Andrews.


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