Death and Disappearance by Susan Russo Anderson - #review #giveaway

While Denny battles demons of his own and Cookie and Clancy disappear, a pregnant Fina Fitzgibbons investigates the death of her friend’s husband and in doing so lands in the middle of a group of art and drug traffickers.

Die, Die Birdie by J. R. Ripley - #review #giveaway

For Amy Simms, hatching a birding shop in her hometown of Ruby Lake, North Carolina, hasn’t exactly been a breeze. But could a deadly discovery clip her wings for good?

It’s just days before Amy plans to open Birds & Bees on the first floor of her creaky Victorian house, but delayed seed shipments have prevented the fledging owner from stocking her shelves. And it doesn’t help that Amy’s best friend and business partner is out of town indefinitely. With locals skeptical about the niche shop taking flight, the last thing Amy needs now is a dead man in her storeroom-or for a crotchety tenant to catch her holding a bloody birdfeeder hook over his body . . .

Pigeonholed as a leading murder suspect by police and lacking a solid alibi, Amy’s delving into the victim’s ugly past and buzzing around Ruby Lake for clues on his killer . . . before she ends up like so many of her beloved feathery friends-trapped behind bars!

A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice by Christine Hale - #review

Christine Hale grew up amid abuse, depression, dysfunction, alienation and isolation—her mother’s, but also, because her view was the lens that controlled the family—her own, her father’s and her two sisters’. She became a writer, a prodigal daughter, a single parent, a Buddhist disciple, and, late in midlife, a newlywed. In this non-linear memoir, she meditates upon the broken path she’s traveled: two divorces, an abandoned career, too much solitude, an unconventional and transformative relationship with a female spiritual teacher, and two children lost to young adulthood but recovered, in part, through an odd ritual of repeated tattooing.

Friday Bookish Post - 13 August 2016

    

Thanks to Freda from "Freda's Voice" and Gilion at "Rose City Reader" for hosting these bookish link-ups!  Click one of the buttons to go to the link-up page.

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY

Summary

In this layered collage of memory within memory, Hale recreates for readers her kaleidoscopic experience of a decades-long journey to acceptance and insight. Writer, prodigal daughter, single parent, Buddhist disciple, and, late in midlife, a newlywed, she is transformed through an unconventional relationship with a female spiritual teacher and an odd ritual of repeated tattooing with her two young adult children.

Book Beginnings

The couch, upholstered in textured velour, muted greens and gold, clashes with the view through the storefront window behind us:  the buckling asphalt parking lot of a seedy Tampa strip mall with the words PIERCINGS * TATTOOS blazing on the glass in biker orange and gunmetal gray.

(Review to follow on Monday, August 15th).

~~~oOo~~~

THE FRIDAY 56

Synopsis

For Amy Simms, hatching a birding shop in her hometown of Ruby Lake, North Carolina, hasn’t exactly been a breeze. But could a deadly discovery clip her wings for good?

It’s just days before Amy plans to open Birds & Bees on the first floor of her creaky Victorian house, but delayed seed shipments have prevented the fledging owner from stocking her shelves. And it doesn’t help that Amy’s best friend and business partner is out of town indefinitely. With locals skeptical about the niche shop taking flight, the last thing Amy needs now is a dead man in her storeroom-or for a crotchety tenant to catch her holding a bloody birdfeeder hook over his body . . .

Pigeonholed as a leading murder suspect by police and lacking a solid alibi, Amy’s delving into the victim’s ugly past and buzzing around Ruby Lake for clues on his killer . . . before she ends up like so many of her beloved feathery friends-trapped behind bars!

Friday 56

A rumpled red sleeping bag lay in the corner.  There were a couple of empty takeout containers, a half-consumed bottle of water, a bottle of Kentucky bourbon that had also been nearly depleted, and wads of stained paper napkins.  And that's just the hightlights.  The corner was a veritable nest.  But who or what had been nesting there?
In my house.  Right above me.  I shivered at the thought.

(Review to follow next Monday, August 15th.)

~~~oOo~~~

   

Thanks to Billy B at the "Coffee Addicted Writer" for hosting this link-up!  Click on the buttons above to go to his blog.

The question comes from Elizabeth at Silver's Reviews:

Do any of your book club members have a blog? Do you compare notes if they do?

I don't actually belong to a book club.  There are some online reading challenge groups that do group reads.  Maybe I could start (or join?) a book club at the county library.

~~~oOo~~~

        

Thanks to Ramona at Create With Joy, Janice at Mostly Blogging, and Tina at Mommynificent for these fun link-ups!  Click on the button to visit the sites to join in!  The more the merrier...really! :O)

I guess I'm combining Thursday and Friday linkups, because here's another (and it's one of my faves), hosted by Katherine (who rocks, btw):

- and the wonderful co-hosts:

• Nina at Vintage Mamas Cottage
• Debi at Surroundings by Debi
• Marilyn at Marilyn's Treats
• Olivia at Reinvented Collection
• Angelina at Peonies & Orange Blossoms
• Shellie at The Fab Journey

Grilling the Subject by Daryl Wood Gerber - #review #recipe #giveaways

Things heat up for bookstore owner Jenna Hart in the latest Cookbook Nook mystery from the Agatha Award-winning author of Fudging the Books.

As the Wild West Extravaganza rides into Crystal Cove, California, Cookbook Nook store owner Jenna Hart is ready to indulge her appetite for grilled and barbecued treats and maybe even try the Texas skip. But when the body of one of her father’s neighbors is found the next morning smoldering in a bonfire, the rodeo revelry is extinguished.

Sylvia Gump had acquired plenty of enemies with her practice of illegally encroaching on her neighbors’ properties—including Jenna’s dad, who was off fishing by himself and has no alibi for the murder. Now it’s up to Cary Hart’s dutiful daughter to clear his name before the real killer turns up the heat and rakes someone else over the coals…

Midsummer Night's Mischief by Jennifer David Hesse - #review #giveaway

As the Summer Solstice approaches in idyllic Edindale, Illinois, attorney Keli Milanni isn’t feeling the magic. She’s about to land in a cauldron of hot water at work. Good thing she has her private practice to fall back on–as a Wiccan. She’ll just have to summon her inner Goddess and set the world to rights. . .

Midsummer Eve is meant for gratitude and celebration, but Keli is not in her typically upbeat mood. The family of a recently deceased client is blaming her for the loss of a Shakespearean heirloom worth millions, and Keli’s career may be on the line. With both a Renaissance Faire and a literary convention in town, Edindale is rife with suspicious characters, and the intrepid attorney decides to tap into her unique skills to crack the case. . .

But Keli weaves a tangled web when her investigation brings her up-close and personal with her suspects–including sexy Wes Callahan, her client’s grandson. The tattooed bartender could be the man she’s been looking for in more ways than one. As the sun sets on the mystical holiday, Keli will need just a touch of the divine to ferret out the real villain and return Edindale, and her heart, to a state of perfect harmony. . .

Brimstone by Richard Masefield - #review

Brimstone is a story of temptation, ambition and their consequences. The year is 1793. The Terror is at its height in France, Britain is at war with her old enemy once more, and along the coast of Sussex the smugglers’ trade in spirits and tobacco is flourishing. The novel’s two heroes are brothers bound by love, but separated by opposing characters which come to represent two the two faces of eighteenth century England – its brutality and its enlightenment. For the reckless Aaron Corbyn, there are adventures to be had and profits to be made from contrabanding. While his elder brother Rafe, a sobrely steadfast physician, runs the family estate of Chalkdean, Aaron builds an illegal empire as master smuggler across the Channel, at Fecamp in Normandy. Ellin Rimmer, daughter of a ‘fire and brimstone’ preacher, marries one brother to escape the loneliness of life in a parsonage, only to find herself hopelessly attracted to the other – and to be compelled through him to an impetuous decision that will have drastic consequences for all three. Sweeping from the open downland and flintstone villages of Sussex to the coast of revolutionary France, from Newgate prison and the subhuman conditions of a convict transport ship to the penal colony of New South Wales, Brimstone weighs the destructive aspects of sexual obsession against the healing power of generosity to bring its heroine an unexpected redemption.