THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE by Marie Benedict is a historical fiction book based around the famous author’s eleven day disappearance in December of 1926. I have loved Agatha Christie mysteries since I was first introduced to and read about the brilliant Hercule Poirot when I was just thirteen years old. There was not a doubt after reading and watching anything related to Agatha Christie that I would be reading this book and I can say I was not disappointed.
The puzzle of Mrs. Christie’s missing eleven days has persisted to this day. Mrs. Christie herself even skips that period in her life in her autobiography. Ms. Benedict has taken on the task of imagining what happened to Agatha at this time in her life and failing marriage. The story is written intertwining two timelines; one immediately following Agatha’s disappearance and the investigation that follows told by Archie Christie and the other starting as the young Agatha falls in love with the dashing Colonel Archibald Christie before WWI and takes the couple up to the disappearance told by Agatha Christie.
I enjoyed this story immensely! I have never personally believed in the amnesia story or the story that the disappearance was for publicity for her new book. Mrs. Christie was a woman with a brilliant mind and Ms. Benedict’s historical fiction rendition makes so much more sense to me. In the 1920’s, women had so little power and I love to think of Agatha getting her due before her divorce. (PLEASE NOTE: if you have not read “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” this book does give away the ending.)
I highly recommend this compelling historical fiction featuring Agatha Christie!
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a commercial litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms. While practicing as a NYC lawyer, Marie dreamed of a fantastical job unearthing the hidden historical stories of women — and finally found it when she tried her hand at writing. She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical fiction excavating the stories of important, complex and fascinating women from the past with THE OTHER EINSTEIN, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein’s first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. She then released CARNEGIE’S MAID, the story of a brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie toward philanthropy, followed by the NYTimes bestseller THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, the tale of the Golden Age of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr who made a world-changing invention, and LADY CLEMENTINE about Winston Churchill’s wife. Her latest book — THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE — focuses on the real-life disappearance of Agatha Christie and the role it played in shaping her into the world’s most successful novelist
Today is my turn on this Partners In Crime Book Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for A MURDER IS FOREVER by Rob Bates.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
Max Rosen always said the diamond business isn’t about sorting the gems, it’s about sorting the people. His daughter Mimi is about to learn that some people, like some diamonds, can be seriously flawed.
After Mimi’s diamond-dealer cousin Yosef is murdered–seemingly for his $4 million pink diamond–Mimi finds herself in the middle of a massive conspiracy, where she doesn’t know who to trust, or what to believe. Now she must find out the truth about both the diamond and her cousin, before whoever killed Yosef, gets her.
Genre: Mystery Published by: Camel Press Publication Date: October 13th 2020 Number of Pages: 281 ISBN: 1603812229 (ISBN13: 9781603812221) Series: The Diamond District Mystery Series
A MURDER IS FOREVER (The Diamond District Mystery Series Book #1) by Rob Bates is the first book in a new amateur sleuth cozy mystery series set in New York City’s Diamond District.
Mimi Rosen is an unemployed journalist with no prospects and out of money. She reluctantly goes to work doing the books for her father’s gem company in the Diamond District of NYC.
Diamond dealing can be a dangerous profession and when Mimi’s cousin, Yosef is murdered it is assumed to be a gang related robbery, but the last 24 hours of Yosef’s life, lead Mimi to believe there is something more going on that all revolves around a large pink diamond her cousin was trying to sell.
As Mimi learns more about the diamond industry, she believes her cousin was involved in a scandal that involves bribery and murder all related to the pink diamond. Another death considered a suicide and a personal attack on Mimi’s life make Mimi more determined than ever to solve Josef’s murder no matter the consequences.
This mystery was well paced with enough twists and red herrings to keep me turning the pages and an interesting setting in NYC’s Diamond District. This book immerses the reader in the close familial diamond business and the orthodox Jewish culture in the area without slowing the pace in the mystery itself. Mimi is an interesting main character that I had mixed feeling about. On the surface, you feel sympathy for her situation, but as you read on you realize that she brought many of her personal problems on herself. As she deals with the murder, she once again is jumping into a situation she is not prepared to handle. All the secondary characters were interesting, but some seemed more caricature than realistic.
Overall, an entertaining and interesting mystery.
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Excerpt
A MURDER IS FOREVER
By Rob Bates
CHAPTER ONE
As Mimi Rosen exited the subway and looked out on the Diamond District, she remembered the words of her therapist: “This won’t last forever.”
She sure hoped so. She had been working on Forty-Seventh Street for two months and was already pretty tired of it.
To outsiders, “The Diamond District” sounded glamorous, like a street awash in glitter. To Mimi, who had spent her life around New York, Forty-Seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was a crowded, dirty eyesore of a block. The sidewalk was covered not with glitz, but with newspaper boxes, cigarettes, stacks of garbage bags, and, of course, lots of people.
Dozens of jewelry stores lined the street, all vying for attention, with red neon signs proclaiming “we buy gold” or “50 percent off.” Their windows boasted the requisite rows of glittery rings, and Mimi would sometimes see tourists ogling them, their eyes wide. She hated how the stores crammed so many gems in each display, until they all ran together like a mess of kids’ toys. For all its feints toward elegance, Forty-Seventh Street came off as the world’s sparkliest flea market.
Mimi knew the real action in the Diamond District was hidden from pedestrians, because it took place upstairs. There, in the nondescript grey and brown buildings that stood over the stores, billions in gems were bought, sold, traded, stored, cut, appraised, lost, found, and argued over. The upstairs wholesalers comprised the heart of the U.S. gem business; if someone bought a diamond anywhere in America, it had likely passed through Forty-Seventh Street.
Mimi’s father Max had spent his entire life as part of the small tight-knit diamond dealer community. It was a business based on who you knew—and even more, who you trusted. “This business isn’t about sorting the diamonds,” Max always said. “It’s about sorting the people.” Mimi would marvel how traders would seal million-dollar deals on handshakes, without a contract or lawyer in sight.
It helped that Forty-Seventh Street was comprised mostly of family businesses, owned by people from a narrow range of ethnic groups. Most—like Mimi’s father—were Orthodox, or religious, Jews. (“We’re the only people crazy enough to be in this industry,” as Max put it.) The Street was also home to a considerable contingent of Hasidic Jews, who were even more religious and identifiable by their black top hats and long flowing overcoats. Mimi once joked that Forty-Seventh Street was so diverse, it ran the gamut from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox.
Now Mimi, while decidedly secular, was part of it all. Working for her father’s diamond company was not something she wanted to do, not something she ever dreamed she would do. Yet, here she was.
She had little choice. She had not worked full-time since being laid off from her editing job a year ago. She was already in debt from her divorce, which had cost more than her wedding, and netted little alimony. “That’s what happens when you divorce a lawyer,” said her shrink.
Six months after she lost her job, Mimi first asked her father for money. He happily leant it to her, though he added he wasn’t exactly Rockefeller. It was after her third request—accompanied, like the others, by heartfelt vows to pay him back—that he asked her to be the bookkeeper at his company. “I know you hate borrowing from me,” he told her. “This way, it isn’t charity. Besides, it’ll be nice having you around.”
Mimi protested she could barely keep track of her own finances. Her father reminded her that she got an A in accounting in high school. Which apparently qualified her to do the books at Max Rosen Diamond Company.
“We have new software, it makes it easy,” Max said. “Your mother, may she rest in peace, did it for years.”
Mimi put him off. She had a profession, and it wasn’t her mother’s.
Mimi was a journalist. She had worked at a newspaper for nine years, and a website for five. She was addicted to the thrill of the chase, the pump of adrenaline when she uncovered a hot story or piece of previously hidden info. There is no better sound to a reporter’s ears than someone sputtering, “How did you find that out?”
“It’s the perfect job for you,” her father once said. “You’re a professional nosy person.”
She loved journalism for a deeper reason, which she rarely admitted to her cynical reporter friends: She wanted to make a difference. As a girl, she was haunted by the stories they told in religious school, how Jews were killed in concentration camps while the world turned its head. Growing up, she devoured All the President’s Men and idolized pioneering female muckrakers like Nellie Bly.
Being a journalist was the only thing Mimi ever wanted to do, the only thing she knew how to do. She longed to do it again.
Which is why, she told her therapist, she would tell her father no.
Dr. Asner said she understood, in that soft melancholy coo common to all therapists. Then she crept forward on her chair.
“Maybe you should take your father up on this. He’s really throwing you a lifeline. You keep telling me how bad the editorial job market is.” She squinted and her glasses inched up her nose. “Sometimes people adjust their dreams. Put them on hold.”
Mimi felt the blood drain from her face. In her darker moments—and she had quite a few after her layoff—she had considered leaving journalism and doing something else, though she had no idea what that would be. Mimi always believed that giving up her lifelong passion would be tantamount to surrender.
Dr. Asner must have sensed her reaction, because she quickly backtracked.
“You can continue to look for a journalism job,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe working in the Diamond District will give you something to write about. Besides,”— here, her voice gained an edge—“you need the money.” That was driven home at the end of the forty-five minutes, when Dr. Asner announced that she couldn’t see Mimi for any more sessions, since Mimi hadn’t paid her for the last three.
By that point, Mimi didn’t know whether to argue, burst into tears, or wave a white flag and admit the world had won.
It was a cold February morning as Mimi walked down Forty-Seventh Street to her father’s office, following an hour-plus commute from New Jersey that included a car, a bus, and a subway. With her piercing hazel eyes, glossy brown hair, and closely set features, Mimi was frequently told she was pretty, though she never quite believed it. She had just gotten her hair cut short to commemorate her thirty-eighth birthday, hoping for a more “mature” look. She had always been self-conscious about her height; she was five foot four and tried to walk taller. She was wearing a navy dress that she’d snagged for a good price on eBay; it was professional enough to please her father, who wanted everyone to look nice in the office, without being so nice that she was wasting one of her few good outfits. She was bundled up with multiple layers and a heavy coat—to protect against the winter chill, as well as the madness around her.
Even though it was before 9 AM, Forty-Seventh Street was, as usual, packed, and Mimi gritted her teeth as she bobbed and weaved through the endless crowd. She sidestepped the store workers grabbing a smoke, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t get cancer. She swerved around the stern-looking guard unloading the armored car, with the gun conspicuously dangling from his belt. And she dodged the “hawker” trying to lure her into a jewelry store, who every day asked if she had gold to sell, even though every day she told him no.
Finally, Mimi reached her father’s building, 460 Fifth, the most popular address on “The Street.” After a few minutes standing and tapping her foot on the security line, she handed her driver’s license to the security guard and called out, “Rosen Diamonds.”
“Miss,” growled the guard with the oversized forehead who’d seen her three days a week for the past two months, “you should get a building ID. It’ll save you time in the morning.”
“It’s okay. I won’t be working here for long,” she chirped, though she wasn’t quite sure of that.
Next stop, the elevator bank. Mimi had an irrational fear of elevators; she was always worried she would die in one. She particularly hated these elevators, which were extremely narrow and perpetually packed. She envied those for whom a subway was their sole exposure to a cramped unpleasant space.
As the car rose, one occupant asked a Hasidic dealer how he was finding things.
“All you can do is put on your shoes. The rest is up to the man upstairs.”
Only in the diamond business. Mimi’s last job was thirty blocks away, yet in a different universe.
At each floor, dealers pushed and rushed like they were escaping a fire. When the elevator reached her floor, Mimi too elbowed her way to freedom.
As she walked to her father’s office, she marveled how the building, so fancy and impressive when she was a kid, had sunk into disrepair. The carpets were frayed, the paint was peeling, and the bathroom rarely contained more than one functioning toilet. If management properly maintained the building, they’d charge Midtown Manhattan rents, which small dealers like her father couldn’t afford. The neglect suited everyone.
She spied a new handwritten sign, “No large minyans, by order of the fire department.” Mimi produced a deep sigh. She had long ago left her religious background behind. Somehow, she was now working in a building where they warn against praying in the halls. She was going backward.
Perhaps the dealer in the elevator was right. You could only put on your shoes and do your best. She grabbed her pocketbook strap, threw her head back, and was just about at her father’s office when she heard the yelling.
“I’m so tired of waiting, Yosef! It’s not fair!”
Max’s receptionist, Channah, was arguing with her boyfriend, Yosef, a small-time, perpetually unsuccessfully diamond dealer. Making it more awkward: Yosef was Mimi’s cousin.
Channah and Yosef had dated for nearly eighteen months without getting married—an eternity in Channah’s community. Still, whenever Channah complained, Mimi remembered how her ex-husband only popped the question after three years and two ultimatums.
“Give me more time,” Yosef stuttered, as he tended to do when nervous. “I want to be successful in the business.”
“When’s that going to happen? The year three thousand?”
The argument shifted to Yiddish, which Mimi didn’t understand, though they were yelling so fiercely she didn’t need to. Finally, tall, skinny Yosef stormed out of the office, his black hat and suit set off by his red face. He was walking so fast he didn’t notice his cousin Mimi standing against the wall. Given the circumstances, she didn’t stop him to say hello. She watched his back grow smaller as he stomped and grunted down the hall.
Mimi gave Channah time to cool down. After a minute checking in vain for responses to her latest freelance pitch—editors weren’t even bothering to reject her anymore—she rang the doorbell. She flashed a half-smile at the security camera stationed over the door, and Channah buzzed her in. Mimi hopped into the “man trap,” the small square space between security doors that was a standard feature of diamond offices. She let the first door slam behind her, heard the second buzz, pulled the metal handle on the inner door, and said hello to Channah, perched at her standard spot at the reception desk.
Channah had long dark curly hair, which she constantly twirled; a round, expressive face, dotted with black freckles; and a voluptuous figure that even her modest religious clothing couldn’t hide.
“Did you hear us argue?” she asked Mimi.
“No,” she sputtered. “I mean—”
Channah smiled and pointed to the video monitor on her desk. “I could see you on the camera.” Her shoulders slouched. “It was the same stupid argument we always have. Even I’m bored by it.”
“Hang in there. We’ll talk at lunch.” Mimi and Channah shared a quick hug, and Mimi walked back to the office.
She was greeted by her father’s smile and a peck on the cheek. If anything made this job worthwhile, it was that grin. Plus the money.
“How are things this morning?”
“Baruch Hashem,” Max replied. Max said “thank God” all the time, even during his wife’s sickness, when he really didn’t seem all that thankful.
Sure enough, he added, “We’re having a crisis.”
Mimi almost rolled her eyes. It was always a crisis in the office. When Mimi was young, the family joke was that business was either “terrible” or “worse than terrible.”
Lately, her dad seemed more agitated than normal. As he spoke, he puttered in a circle and his hands clutched a pack of Tums. That usually didn’t come out until noon.
“I can’t find the two-carat pear shape.” He threw his arms up and his forehead exploded into a sea of worry lines. “It’s not here, it’s not there. It’s nowhere.”
Max Rosen was dressed, as usual, in a white button-down shirt and brown wool slacks, with a jeweler’s loupe dangling on a rope from his neck. His glasses sat off-kilter on his nose, and two shocks of white hair jutted from his skull like wings. When he was excited about something, like this missing diamond, the veins in his neck popped and the bobby-pinned yarmulke seemed to flap on his head.
Mimi stifled a laugh. That was the crisis? Diamonds always got lost in the office. As kids, Mimi and her two sisters used to come in on weekends and be paid one dollar for every stone they found on the floor. “They travel,” Max would say.
It was no surprise that things went missing in that vortex of an office. Every desk was submerged under a huge stack of books, magazines, and papers. The most pressing were placed on the seat near her father’s desk, what he called his “in-chair.”
When Mimi’s mother worked there, she kept a lid on the chaos. After her death, Max hired a few bookkeepers, none of whom lasted; two years later, the job had somehow fallen to Mimi.
Eventually, Channah found the two-carat pear shape, snug in its parcel papers, right next to the bathroom keys. The only logical explanation was that Max was examining it while on the toilet.
Max sheepishly returned to his desk. Mimi loved watching her father at work. She was fascinated by how he joked with friends, took grief from clients, and kept track of five things at once. It felt exotic and forbidden, like observing an animal in its natural habitat.
For the most part, they got along, which was no small thing. Over the years, there had been tense moments as he struggled to accept that she was no longer religious. Lately, he rarely brought the topic up, and she didn’t want him to. Her split from her non-Jewish ex probably helped.
On occasion, the old strains resurfaced, in subtle ways. Max’s desk was covered with photos—mostly of Mimi’s mom and her religious sisters and their religious broods. One time when Max was at lunch, Mimi tiptoed over to glance at them, and—not incidentally—check how many were of her. It made her feel silly, yet she couldn’t help herself. She was a professional nosy person.
She got her answer: out of about twenty photos, Mimi was in three, an old family photo and two pics from her sisters’ weddings. That was less than expected. She tried not to take it personally. She had no kids and her marriage was a bust. What was there to show off?
Mimi spent most of the morning deciphering her father’s books—a task made more difficult by his aging computer system, which regularly stalled and crashed. Her father’s “new” software was actually fifteen years old.
Sometimes she wished he gave her more substantial tasks to do. While her father would never say it, he didn’t consider the diamond industry a place for women, as it had always been male-dominated—even though, ironically, it catered mostly to females. That was fine with Mimi. She didn’t want to devote her life to a rock.
At 1 PM, Channah and Mimi headed for Kosher Gourmet, their usual lunch spot. Mimi always joked, “I don’t know if it’s kosher, but it’s not gourmet.”
In the two months Mimi had worked for her father, she and Channah had become fast friends, bonding over their shared love of mystery novels, crossword puzzles, and sarcastic senses of humor.
Channah was not Mimi’s typical friend. She was twenty-three and her parents were strictly religious, even more than Mimi’s. She commuted to Forty-Seventh Street every day on a charter bus from Borough Park, a frum enclave in Brooklyn. The Diamond District was her main exposure to the wider world. She reminded Mimi of her younger, more religious self, under her parents’ thrall yet curious what else was out there.
Mimi was not Channah’s typical friend either. During their lunches, Channah quizzed her on the taste of non-Kosher food (it didn’t taste any different, Mimi told her); sex (“When the time comes,” Mimi said, “you’ll figure it out”); and popular culture (“Can you explain,” Channah once asked, “why Kim Kardashian is famous?” Mimi just said no.) Today, as usual, they talked about Yosef.
“I don’t get it.” Channah wrapped sesame noodles around her white plastic fork. “I love him. He loves me. Why not get married?”
Mimi took a sip from her Styrofoam cup filled with warm tap water. She preferred bottled water but couldn’t afford it. “Have you thought of giving Yosef an ultimatum? Tell him if he doesn’t marry you by a certain date, that’s it.”
“Yosef wouldn’t take that seriously.” Channah turned her eyes to her tray.
“Why not?”
“Cause I’ve done that already. Three times! I backed down every time.” Her fork toyed with her food. “I believe it is beshert that Yosef and I will end up together. I’ve thought so since I first met him at your father’s office, and he smiled at me. What choice do I have?” Her elbow nudged her tray across the table.
“I understand why he’s waiting. He wants to be a steady provider. That’s a good thing, right?”
Actually, Mimi found it sexist. She didn’t say that, because she found many things in Channah’s world sexist.
“He just needs to sell that pink,” Channah said, spearing a dark brown cube of chicken.
Mimi took a quick sip of water. “That pink” was an awkward subject.
One month ago, Yosef had bought a three-point-two carat pink diamond. It was the biggest purchase of his career, the kind of high-risk move that could make or break his business. Max was overjoyed. “Do you know how rare pink diamonds are?” he exclaimed. “And it’s a three-carater! Sounds like a great buy!”
That was, until Yosef proudly presented it to his uncle Max, who inspected it under his favorite lamp, muttered “very nice,” and quickly handed it back.
It was only after Yosef left that Max dismissed his nephew’s score as a strop, a dog of a diamond, the kind of unsellable item that gathered dust in a safe.
“It has so many pepper spots,” Max lamented. “The color’s not strong at all. No one will buy that thing.”
“Maybe he got it for a good price,” Mimi said.
“I’m sure whoever sold it to him said it was the bargain of the century. Anytime someone offers me a metziah, that’s a sign they can’t sell the stone. There’s a saying, ‘your metziah is my strop.’” His face sagged. “I wish he talked to me first. That stone is worthless. I don’t have the heart to tell him.”
When Channah brought up the big pink at lunch, Mimi didn’t want to dwell on the subject. “What’s happening with that?” she asked, as casually as possible.
“Didn’t you hear?” Channah jerked forward. “It got the highest grade possible on its USGR cert.”
“You’ll have to translate.” Mimi tuned out most diamond talk.
“Cert is short for certificate, meaning grading report. The USGR is the U.S. Academy for Gemological Research, the best lab in the industry.”
Mimi just stared.
“That stone’s worth four million dollars.”
That Mimi understood. “Wow.” A lot of money for a dog of a diamond.
“Four point one million, to be exact.” Channah laughed. “Don’t want to leave that point one out!”
“I thought that stone was—”
“Ugly?” Channah chuckled. “Me too! I don’t understand how it got that grade. I guess it doesn’t matter. As your father says, ‘today the paper is worth more than the diamond.’” She slurped some diet soda.
“Is Yosef going to get four million dollars?”
“Who knows? He isn’t exactly an expert in selling such a stone. Your father convinced him to post it on one of the online trading networks. Someone called him about it yesterday.”
“That’s great!”
“Hopefully. If anyone could screw this up, Yosef could.” Channah’s mouth curled downward. “I keep checking my phone to see if there’s any news.” She flipped over her iPhone, saw nothing, and flipped it back. “The way I figure, if he sells that stone, he’ll have to marry me. Unless he comes up with some new excuse. He wouldn’t do that, right? Not after all this time. Would he?”
Mimi struggled to keep herself in check. She was dying to shake Channah and scream that if Yosef wasn’t giving her what she wanted, it was time to move on. She didn’t. Yosef was her cousin. Mimi was in no position to critique someone else’s love life. She always told people hers was “on hold.” It was basically non-existent.
Plus, she remembered how, weeks before her wedding, her friends warned her that her fiancé had a wandering eye. That just strengthened her resolve to marry him, even though in retrospect, they were right. “With situations like that,” her therapist said later, “I always recommend not to say anything. Just be a supportive friend.”
Mimi waited until Channah stopped speaking. She touched her hand. “I’m sure it will work out,” she said.
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Author Bio
Rob Bates has written about the diamond industry for over 25 years. He is currently the news director of JCK, the leading publication in the jewelry industry, which just celebrated its 150th anniversary. He has won 12 editorial awards, and been quoted as an industry authority in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on National Public Radio.
He is also a comedy writer and performer, whose work has appeared on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update segment, comedycentral.com, and McSweeneys He has also written for Time Out New York, New York Newsday, and Fastcompany.com. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and son.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Buoni Amici Press Release Blitz for THE RED DOOR (A Love in Limestone Novella) by Emery Jacobs.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Description
There’s a bar on the outskirts of Limestone, Louisiana that serves an unusual type of whiskey. Some call it magic. Others claim it’s a scam. Yet rumors of its mystical properties keep people coming in from far and wide.
Luck.
Wealth.
Happiness.
Health.
These wonders can be found by those who believe… and take a shot.
Ten o’clock in the morning, New Year’s Day. Two down-on-their-luck strangers enter The Red Door Bar. Both are searching for a miracle. What they find when they reach the bottom of that glass will eventually change their lives forever.
THE RED DOOR (A Love in Limestone Novella) by Emery Jacobs is a perfect little contemporary romance novella that tugged at my heart and left me with a smile on my face.
The Red Door Bar is on the outskirts of Limestone, Louisiana and they serve an unusual whiskey. Some believe it is magical while others believe it is a scam, but people come from far and wide to take a shot.
At ten o’clock in the morning on New Years Day, Evie walks into The Red Door Bar with her last twenty dollars and finds one other patron. Bennett is in the bar to be alone and wants nothing to do with the beautiful chatterbox. Even though both are at a low point in their lives, they agree to meet for a date once again on the next New Years Day.
Fate has the two running into each other over the next year when they need each other the most. Will they ever get the timing just right for both of them?
I read this wonderful romantic novella all in one sitting and was sorry to have it end. Ms. Jacobs manages to fill this short story with a realistic couple who have to get through so much to obtain their HEA. Evie and Bennett have me cheering for them from page one and the writing has me feeling as though they could walk right off the page.
I highly recommend this novella!
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Author Bio
Emery grew up in Southern Arkansas and has lived most of her adult life in Northern Louisiana. She spends her days working as a Nurse Practitioner in rural health and her nights reading, writing, and occasionally sleeping.
She loves real life romance…lots of angst and heartbreak, but always a happy ending.
THE CHRISTMAS BACKUP PLAN (The Twilight, Texas Book #12) by Lori Wilde is an opposites attract Christmas contemporary romance that has the last single Alzate sister on a road trip with the last single Lockhart brother. This is the couple I was waiting for in the series and the book I was looking for to get me in the Christmas romance spirit.
Aria Alzate is a wedding planner who is hired to give her best friend the perfect Winter Wonderland wedding. When Aria gets a concussion in a fall, she is not allowed to drive. Her boss, Vivi sets her up with returned veteran Remington to get her to Twilight. The free-spirited Aria is not happy with the arrangement but can see no other alternative.
Remington “Remy” Lockhart left the elite Army paratroopers after an accident. Twelve years of service and PTSD have Remy always following the rules and having a backup plan for every situation. Remy is not happy about being drawn into this road trip. Aria is everything he is not and this can only lead to disaster.
When the couple is stranded overnight by an ice storm, they cannot fight the chemistry and they come together. Both decide it should be just a one-night stand, but the magic of Twilight, Christmas and the Alzate legend will work to bring these opposites together for more.
I absolutely loved Aria and Remy. This opposites attract Christmas romance may start out as light and just plain fun, but Ms. Wilde delves deeper and you really become invested in why the H/h are the way they are and how much they truly need each other. This book is a crossover between the Cupid and Twilight series by this author and even with the crossover and many secondary characters, I never felt lost and it easily can be read as a standalone. The sex scenes are explicit, but not gratuitous.
I highly recommend this romance for all the holiday enchantment and the HEA between Aria and Remy!
Lori Wilde can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to write. She even went to nursing school so she could have a schedule flexible enough to allow her to write on the side. She nursed for 20 years, working in a variety of settings from the newborn nursery to the recovery room, to dialysis. But she never lost her desire to write.
She sold her first book in 1994 to Silhouette Romance but later discovered she had a flair for comedy and branched out to Harlequin Duets and now, to Blaze.
Lori is an adventuresome soul who loves to travel. She’s taken flying lessons, completed two marathons, rode in a hot-air balloon, performed with a professional jazz band, traveled Europe as a teenager, hiked volcanoes in Hawaii, trod on glaciers in Alaska, shot white-water rapids, water-skied, snow-skied, raced all-terrain vehicles, bodysurfed in the Gulf of Mexico, and photographed grizzly bears in Yellowstone.
She lives in her native Texas, with her own real-life hero, Bill.
Today is my turn on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for this new standalone murder mystery set in 1950s rural Ohio. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for TWO MURDERS TOO MANY by Bluette Matthey.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
Barn burning in a sleepy farming community is a serious enough matter, but a grisly murder or two in a small mid-west town is a showstopper. Throw in a serial blackmailer who has his claws in some of the town’s leading citizens and you have one big recipe for disaster.
Charlie Simmons, newly sworn in as Shannon’s policeman, takes on the challenge of investigating this cauldron of crimes in stride, untangling one thread after another from the fabric of the town of Shannon to find the simple truth.
TWO MURDERS TOO MANY by Bluette Matthey is a new standalone murder mystery set in 1950s rural northwestern Ohio by a new to me author.
Charlie Simmons fills in as the acting police chief of the small town of Shannon, Ohio while the chief is away. Charlie is immediately thrown into the middle of mayhem which includes arsons, blackmail and murder, but Charlie knows all of the players and works methodically to unravel who is responsible for the crimes.
Ms. Matthey’s writing style brings this small town and all its inhabitants to life. The writing juxtaposition of comforting small town mid-west 1950s innocence against brutal criminal scenes kept me turning the pages. Charlie is the perfect protagonist to guide us through this story and all the town’s characters. The time period also plays a part in the story by not only giving the reader a feeling of nostalgia, but also makes solving the crimes more difficult with no modern forensics. The plot is skillfully crafted with interesting twists and memorable characters.
I highly recommend this murder mystery and author!
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Excerpt
Blanche Gruman sprawled on the park bench in front of the Presbyterian Church Monday enjoying the afternoon sun, her long, tanned legs stretched out on the sidewalk in front of the bench. She looked serene, with her face turned sunward, eyes protected by aviator sunglasses. Her blonde hair was almost white, bleached by the sun, and she wore it long and loose.
“Afternoon, Blanche,” Charlie said as he made his way toward town hall.
Blanche turned her head to see who had spoken. “Well, hey, Charlie!” she replied. She quickly sat up, pulling her bare legs primly under the edge of the bench. It was a lady-like move; just what you would expect from Blanche. A broad smile, showing perfect pearl-white teeth lit up her face.
Blanche Gruman owned and operated a successful hair salon in town. For Shannon, it was an exclusive salon. Blanche was an excellent cutter and stylist, and her flamboyant but tasteful sense of style attracted the cream of Shannon’s women to her salon, as well as some of the more prominent men. She had expanded her business over the course of a decade, hiring additional staff, but she was the queen bee, and closely guarded her select clientele.
Blanche had never married, though she’d had a fairly constant parade of suitors. Rumor had it that when someone had once asked her why she had never married she had flippantly replied, “Why marry one man when I can make so many happy?” Whether or not this was true, it was generally agreed that Blanche had a less traditional approach to relationships with men than her female contemporaries, and it was speculated that many of her female devotees who religiously came to Blanche for hair treatment did so as a means of keeping an eye on her latest paramour, primarily to make sure it wasn’t a wayfaring husband.
“You look mighty pleased with yourself,” Charlie said. He stood in front of her, blocking the sun from her eyes. She removed her sunglasses, hooking one of the templates on the V-neck of a snug knit top that accented her generous curves.
“It’s a great day to celebrate life,” she told him, “and that’s just what I’m doing.” Clearly, she was enjoying herself.
Charlie changed the subject. “You hear about what happened to Otto Hilty the other night?”
His question soured Blanche’s mood noticeably. Her voice took on a hard edge when she responded. “That SOB …” she began. “I don’t truck with what happened to Otto,” she said, “but I’ll not shed any tears for him.” She put her sunglasses on and stood, facing Charlie. “Like I said … it’s a great day to celebrate.” She walked off leaving Charlie standing, literally, with his mouth agape.
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Author Bio
Bluette Matthey is a product of the melting pot of America’s settlers, with her ancestry rooted in the Swiss, German, and English cultures. She is a keen reader of mysteries who loves to travel and explore, especially in Europe. Bluette currently lives in Béziers, France, with her husband and band of loving cats. Other books by Bluette Matthey include the Hardy Durkin Travel Mystery series: Corsican Justice, Abruzzo Intrigue, Black Forest Reckoning, Dalmatian Traffick, and Engadine Aerie.
Today is my turn on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for the first book in a new series with a female astrologist as the amateur sleuth by a new to me author. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE MADNESS OF MERCURY (A Zodiac Mystery Book #1) by Connie di Marco.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti’s life is turned upside down when she becomes a target of the Reverend Roy of the Prophet’s Tabernacle. The Reverend, a recently-arrived cult preacher, is determined to drive sin from the city, but his gospel of love and compassion doesn’t extend to those he considers an “abomination unto the Lord.” Julia’s outspoken advice in her newspaper column, AskZodia, has put her at the top of the Reverend’s list. While the powerful Mercury-ruled preacher woos local dignitaries, his Army of the Prophet will stop at nothing to silence not just Julia, but anyone who stands in his way.
Driven out of her apartment in the midst of a disastrous Mercury retrograde period, she takes shelter with a client who’s caring for two elderly aunts. One aunt appears stricken with dementia and the other has fallen under the spell of the Reverend Roy. To add to the confusion, a young man claiming to be a long-lost nephew arrives. The longer he stays, the more dangerous things become. One aunt slides deeper into psychosis while the other disappears. Is this young man truly a member of the family? Can astrology confirm that? Julia’s not sure, but one thing she does know is that Mercury wasn’t merely the messenger of the gods – he was a trickster and a liar as well.
THE MADNESS OF MERCURY (A Zodiac Mystery Book #1) by Connie di Marco is the first book in a new series with a female astrologist as the amateur sleuth by a new to me author.
Julia Bonatti is a successful astrologist in San Francisco. She accepts individual clients and answers letters anomalously as Ask Zodia in a San Francisco newspaper column. With an answer to a letter in her column, Julia suddenly becomes the target of a new cult leader Reverend Roy and his followers in the Prophet’s Tabernacle.
With Mercury in retrograde, Julia is chased from her apartment by protestors. The Reverend has the elite and government officials of the city in his thrall and is terrorizing all those who do not agree with his preaching. Julia moves in with a friend and client, Dorothy and her affluent elderly aunts. The gardener dies mysteriously in a fall on the property, one aunt believes Dorothy is trying to kill her and is showing signs of dementia, while the other aunt disappears to join the Reverend Roy’s followers in their secluded compound. Add a controlling ex trying to get Dorothy back and a long-lost relative showing up out of the blue, the charts do not look good for any of them.
Julia knows Mercury was a trickster and a liar. Will she be able to find the truth before anyone else dies?
I enjoyed this new mystery. Julia is a very likable amateur sleuth and the astrology is an interesting twist, even though I enjoy it as an entertainment and not as a way to live my life. I felt some of the astrology terminology was more than the average reader would care to know and it took me out of the story occasionally while reading. The secondary characters were fully-fleshed and I am looking forward to following them in future books in the series. The descriptions of San Francisco made me feel as though I was there. The plot had interesting twists and red-herrings and I was surprised at the ending, which I always consider a plus.
I can recommend this first book in the series and am looking forward to more mysteries with Julia.
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Excerpt
“Thank God you’re there.” Gale sounded very shaky.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m at the Mystic Eye. Something very strange just happened. I heard a knock at the back door. I thought it might be you.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. I closed up and sent Cheryl home. When I opened the door . . . oh God, Julia. Someone left a dead cat on the doorstep.”
I cringed. “I’ll be right there.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t need to come. I wrapped it up and put it in plastic in the dumpster. It looked like its neck had been broken.”
“Don’t argue. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Less than that.”
I drove the length of California Street as fast as I could, slowing at each red light. Once I was sure no other cars were crossing I ran through several intersections. When I reached the Eye the shop was closed but the display lights were on in the front windows. I pulled down the alleyway and parked next to Gale’s car. I tapped on the door. “Gale, it’s me.” She opened the door immediately. The storeroom was dark. A stack of empty boxes and packing materials stood against the wall. Inside, the only light was a small desk lamp in the office.
Gale is tall and self-assured with a regal bearing. Tonight she was completely shaken. She hugged her arms, more from fright than from cold. “I feel bad now that I’ve called you. I was just so freaked out. I recognized the cat, it was the little gray one that hangs out behind the apartment building next door. I think it’s a stray. Everyone around here feeds it, even the restaurant people, and it’s such a friendly little thing. Some sick bastard probably gave it some food and then snapped its neck. God, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Shouldn’t you call the cops?”
“And tell them what? I found a dead cat? Please. Like they’d listen. Even if they thought someone had killed it, what could they do?”
“It shows a pattern of harassment. Might be worth making a report.”
She sighed. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I just wasn’t thinking straight. I was so upset.” She collapsed in the chair behind her desk.
I shrugged out of my coat. “Why are you here so late?”
“We just got a huge shipment of books and supplies in. Cheryl’s been working late every night so I sent her home. I had just finished stacking the boxes in the storeroom.” Gale shivered involuntarily. “Look, let’s get out of here. Have you eaten? Why don’t we go up the block and grab some food? Actually a drink sounds even better.”
“Okay.”
“Get your coat. We can leave the cars here and walk. I’ll just get my purse.”
I headed to the front door and checked that the locks were all in place. The drapes separating the display windows from the shop were drawn for privacy. Gale left the desk lamp on in the office and walked out to the front counter. As she reached under the counter for her purse, we heard glass breaking. Then I saw a flash of flame through the doorway to the back storeroom. I screamed. The empty boxes and packing materials had caught fire in an explosive flash. The smoke alarm started to ring, filling the shop with earsplitting sound. Using my coat like a blanket, I dropped it over the center of the flaming pile. It wasn’t going to be enough, but I had to do something before the entire storeroom went up, if not the building.
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Author Bio
Connie di Marco is the author of the Zodiac Mysteries featuring San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti. The Madness of Mercury, the first book in the series will be re-released in October 2020.
Writing as Connie Archer, she is also the author of the national bestselling Soup Lover’s Mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime. You can find her excerpts and recipes in The Cozy Cookbook and The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook. Connie is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime.
