When Life Gives You Lemons, Drink Coffee! by Deanna Martinez-Bey - #review #giveaway #trailer

Janine is a smart and sassy southern girl from Triple Creek, North Carolina, who knows what she wants and fearlessly goes after it.  Janine's goal of making a life for herself and marrying the man of her dreams finally became a reality. She was a newlywed, married to a successful business man named Tom Whitfield and owned her own bakery.  Their life seemed perfect and all was well in Janine's world until her faith is rocked through a course of events that would challenge her own beliefs and change her fate forever.

Tom is unexpectedly promoted to a new job that requires change for both he and Janine.  Leaving her life in Triple Creek to support her husband's career took a leap of faith for Janine and was a risk so early in the marriage.  But the bigger threat comes when Janine discovers some of Tom's darkest secrets and learns valuable lessons while she was there.

Janine makes new friends in New York, but she still misses her family and friends in North Carolina. She discovers that love is not always predictable when faced with new challenges.  Can love truly conquer all? Or are some things best left behind?  After seeing things that shock her, Janine feels betrayed by people who she thought she could trust.

This is the second installment written by author, Deanna Martinez-Bey, and focuses on Janine, a character we met in her first book, Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star. Told from the perspective of Janine and her funny southern humor, this story will move you while you share in this journey of discovery, love, betrayal, and the realization that you can make anything you like out of what life gives you.

Paint the Town Dead by Sybil Johnson - #review #giveaway

It’s June in the quiet Los Angeles County city of Vista Beach, the place computer programmer and tole-painting enthusiast Aurora (Rory) Anderson calls home. Decorative painters are flocking to the newly built Akaw hotel to attend the Ocean Painting Society’s inaugural convention.

During the week-long event, Rory plans on shopping the trade show floor, working in her mother’s booth, taking classes and connecting with other decorative painting fans. She doesn’t expect to witness her childhood friend collapse in class and die. When the police find no evidence of foul play, Rory embarks on her own investigation. Can she brush aside the lies to uncover the truth and bring the killer to justice?

Related subjects include: cozy mysteries, women sleuths, murder mystery series, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), amateur sleuth books, book club recommendations, craft and hobby mysteries.

Lone Star by Paullina Simons - #review

Falling in love was the easy part . . .

Chloe and her three best friends are weeks away from finishing high school and beginning their new grown-up lives apart from one another. They have been friends since they were kids, their families and lives intertwined, but this is their last summer together. They plan a magical trip to sun-drenched Barcelona, with its possibility of adventure and passion. But first, Chloe has an old family promise to keep, and the four of them must detour through historic Eastern Europe.

In this fledgling post-Communist world, Chloe meets a mysterious American vagabond named Johnny, who carries a guitar, an easy smile, and a lifetime of secrets. From Treblinka to Trieste, from Carnikava to Krakow, the unlikely band of friends and mismatched lovers traverses the Old World on a train ride that becomes a treacherous journey into Europe’s and Johnny’s dark pasts—a journey that jeopardizes Chloe’s plans and all she ever thought she wanted.

The ties that bind Chloe to her friends and her future are about to be put to the ultimate test. Whether or not they reach Barcelona . . . their lives will never be the same again.

A sweeping, beautiful tale of old friendships and new love that mesmerizes and enchants, Lone Star will linger long in the memory even after the final page has been turned.

Heliotrope by JC Miller - #review

Buckle up your Birkenstocks and travel back to 1975. Discover (or relive) the pre-digital age in Arcata, a remote Bohemian college town on the northern edge of California. Meet Kit, a hard-working, bookish senior, on track for graduation--that is, until she falls for Jonathan, one-time bestselling author, now her stand-in professor. Jonathan, a master in the art of deception, isn't who he appears to be. As their bond grows, Kit's desire blinds her to the truth-- a shocking discovery shatters her faith and ultimately tests her integrity.

From the first blush of fall quarter to the final breath of spring, hard lessons will be learned. To "graduate" into an uncertain future, Jonathan and Kit must first embrace the present--including the injustices, ambiguities and absolute beauty of their lives.

Beneath the ever-changing Humboldt skies they forge ahead; they stumble and sometimes fall.

Heliotrope, a coming-of age story for the ages.

High Strung by Janice Peacock - #review #interview #giveaway

***High Strung, A Glass Bead Mystery ebook will be 99 cents from Dec 5 to Dec 9. A Bead in the Hand, book two in the Glass Bead Mystery Series, is now available.  Both can be found in paperback and ebook editions on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

After inheriting a house in Seattle, Jax O’Connell is living the life of her dreams as a glass beadmaker and jewelry designer. When she gets an offer to display her work during a bead shop’s opening festivities, it’s an opportunity Jax can’t resist—even though Rosie Perez, the store’s owner, is the surliest person Jax has ever met.

The weekend’s events become a tangled mess when a young beadmaker is found dead nearby and several oddball bead enthusiasts are suspects. Jax must string together the clues to clear her friend Tessa’s name—and do it before the killer strikes again.

King Harald Canine Cozies by Richard Audry - #review #giveaway

When springtime arrives in picturesque New Bergen, so do the tourists and antiquers. This year, though, there are some unwelcome visitors. Extortion. Arson. And murder.

After his business tanks and his wife leaves him for a Pilates coach, Andy Skyberg flees the big city for the peace and quiet of his hometown. All he wants is a decent job, a steady girlfriend, a plasma screen TV with a hundred-plus channels, and one loyal dog. But fate has something else in store for Andy, when his big mutt King Harald starts sniffing out crime.

It’s clear that someone has it in for the town’s New Age retailer, Trudi Bock. And it’s also clear that Trudi wants to rekindle the steamy romance she and Andy enjoyed back in college. Andy has to fend her off, while placating his fiery girlfriend, Deputy Sheriff Cass Conlin.

Meanwhile, Harald keeps digging up more mayhem. And it falls to Andy to channel his inner sleuth and make sense of it all.

Throw into this mix one legendary (but lost) ebelskiver recipe…a gimlet-eyed church lady…a van full of federal agents…a crusty socialist…a beloved iguana…and an overabundance of rosemaling…

And you have all the makings for The Karma of King Harald.

Murder Fir Christmas by Joyce and Jim Lavene - #Review #Giveaway

Down the mountain from Sweet Pepper, Tennessee is Christmas Tree Valley, a place filled with hundreds of Christmas tree farms where generations of growers have made people’s lives brighter. Yet even here in this quiet, postcard-perfect corner of the world, darkness and murder can still stalk the night.

Federal Wildlife Agent Bonnie Tuttle has always had a special gift with wild animals. It was one of the reasons she decided to train with the wildlife agency. She’s spent the last ten years in Alabama working, but her mother needs her home and she’s back despite all the bad parts of her life she hoped to leave behind.

Her first day home begins with a fire on the island in Sweet Pepper Lake and the death of Harvey Shelton, the wildlife agent she’s supposed to replace. Bonnie manages to rescue dozens of animals from the fire – including a wolf pup that was shot with the same bullet that killed Harvey.

Now she’s hot on the trail of Harvey’s killer and trying to reintegrate the wolf back into the wild even though he seems to want to stay with her. Yet old memories persist in the small community where she grew up, and the killer now seems to believe that she has what he killed Harvey for. All she has to do is figure out what that is before it’s too late.