Month: November 2024

Book Tour, Books About Books, Mystery, Partners In Crime

The Tell-Tale Homicide by Daphne Silver

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

THE RARE BOOKS COZY MYSTERIES
by Daphne Silver
November 25, 2024 – January 3, 2025 Virtual Book Tour

Rare books librarian Juniper Blume lands her dream job: creating a new museum in her Chesapeake Bay town of Rose Mallow, Maryland. But on her very first day, she makes a shocking discovery – a dead man clutching a book by Edgar Allan Poe, stolen from the collections!

As Juniper gets closer to cracking the coded message hidden inside the book, she realizes someone is desperate to keep its literary secrets buried… even if that means burying her too.

Dressed in her signature vintage style with rescue pup Clover by her side, the fearless bookworm must hunt down the culprit before becoming the next victim. But can she solve the case without jeopardizing a budding romance with her boss, the dashing Leo Calverton? And can she help her sister Azalea perfect their grandmother’s legendary blintz recipe before the Rose Mallow Festival?

A delightfully deadly page-turner, The Tell-Tale Homicide continues the charming Rare Books Cozy Mystery series by Agatha award-winning author Daphne Silver. Fans of Kate Carlisle and Jenn McKinlay will love tagging along with the whip-smart, book-loving Juniper on her adventures.

My Thoughts

The second entry in this series is just as charming as the first. Juniper Blume is back along with her sister Azalea, the hunky Leo Calverton (who is NOT her boyfriend!) and a few other colorful characters populating the quaint town of Rose Mallow.

The murder mystery involves priceless books by Edgar Allan Poe but also plenty of red herrings driven by the chaotic nature of past loves & betrayals and new relationships. Juniper is positioned here to be the bridge between the wealthy Calvertons and the business owners and residents of Rose Mallow, which I think will make for some entertaining future books. The resolution of this mystery was a surprise and went in a completely unexpected direction. I enjoy the author’s style and storytelling quite a bit and will be recommending this series.

Series Details:

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Series:The Rare Books Cozy Mysteries
Series Links: Amazon | Level Best Books

Shortlinks:

Author’s Website    https://pictbooks.tours/D0sXv    
Goodreads    https://pictbooks.tours/X7LIz    
BookBub    https://pictbooks.tours/sDzca    @daphnesilverbooks
Instagram    https://pictbooks.tours/C5VYw    @daphnesilverbooks
Facebook    https://pictbooks.tours/TRRI7    @daphnesilverbooks
        
Amazon –     https://pictbooks.tours/KIcgR    
BN –     https://pictbooks.tours/KrTks    
Goodreads –     https://pictbooks.tours/F52VK    
BookShop.org –     https://pictbooks.tours/JgLP3    
Publisher –     https://pictbooks.tours/We0tK    
        
Amazon –     https://pictbooks.tours/WL0jt    
Goodreads –     https://pictbooks.tours/waf7E    
        
SERIES – AMAZON    https://pictbooks.tours/s7CRf   

Author Bio

Daphne Silver is the Agatha Award winning author of the Rare Books Cozy Mystery Series. Her first novel, Crime and Parchment (Level Best Books, 2023), won the Agatha for Best First Mystery Novel. Her latest book, The Tell-Tale Homicide, comes out November 2024 from Level Best Books. She’s worked more than twenty years in museums and symphonies and has the great fortune of being married to a librarian. When she’s not writing, she’s drawing and painting. She lives in Maryland with her family. Although she’s not much of a baker, she won’t ever turn down a sweet lokshen kugel.

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Book Tour, Books About Books, Cozy, Mystery, Partners In Crime

Crime & Parchment by Daphne Silver

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

THE RARE BOOKS COZY MYSTERIES
by Daphne Silver
November 25, 2024 – January 3, 2025 Virtual Book Tour

Description

Rare books librarian Juniper Blume knows this much… an ancient Celtic manuscript shouldn’t be in a Maryland cemetery. But that’s exactly what her brother-in-law claims.

Last year, Juniper saw the 1,200-year-old Book of Kells in Ireland. She learned how their bejeweled covers were stolen centuries ago, never to be seen again. So how could they have ended up in Rose Mallow, a small Chesapeake Bay town? Being Jewish, the Book of Kells might not be her sacred text, but as a rare books librarian, the ancient book is still sacred to her, making it important to Juniper to find out the truth.

Rose Mallow is the same place where Juniper used to summer with her sister Azalea and their grandmother Zinnia, known as Nana Z. Ever since Nana Z passed away, Juniper’s avoided returning, but her curiosity is greater than her grief, so she heads down in her vintage convertible with her rescue dog Clover.

Juniper discovers that her sister Azalea has transformed their grandmother’s Queen Anne style mansion into the Wildflower Inn, backing up to the Chesapeake Bay. Although Juniper isn’t much of a cook, Azalea has kept their grandmother’s legacy alive, filling the house with the smells of East European Jewish treats, like sweet kugels and tzimmes cake. Will coming back here feel like returning home or fill Juniper with a deeper sorrow? Can she apologize to her sister for not being there when she was needed most?

My Thoughts

The first in what appears to be series featuring Juniper Blume, Crime & Parchment is a well-written, clever mystery that will appeal to fans of cozies as well librarians (and there’s a big overlap there!).

Silver does a good job of fleshing out the characters which will certainly have a place in future books. Juniper is portrayed as both self-assured and full of doubt, never quite certain of her place in Rose Mallow. Her sister Azalea rounds out the family connection and the relationship between the sisters is one of the tension points in the story. Then there’s the potential love interest for Juniper, Leo Calverton, and the complicated relationship between Azalea and her ex-husband Rory.

Beyond the relationships is the crux of the mystery – could the long-lost, priceless covers of the the Book of Kells really be in Rose Mallow, Maryland? Sounds preposterous, right? The author makes an interesting case and seamlessly incorporates lots of Maryland history into the story.

This is a series to watch and will be one I recommend. Watch for Silver’s next entry in the series, The Tell-Tale Homicide, coming this fall and reviewed here on November 30.

Series Details:

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Series:The Rare Books Cozy Mysteries
Series Links: Amazon | Level Best Books

Shortlinks:

Author’s Website    https://pictbooks.tours/D0sXv    
Goodreads    https://pictbooks.tours/X7LIz    
BookBub    https://pictbooks.tours/sDzca    @daphnesilverbooks
Instagram    https://pictbooks.tours/C5VYw    @daphnesilverbooks
Facebook    https://pictbooks.tours/TRRI7    @daphnesilverbooks
        
Amazon –     https://pictbooks.tours/KIcgR    
BN –     https://pictbooks.tours/KrTks    
Goodreads –     https://pictbooks.tours/F52VK    
BookShop.org –     https://pictbooks.tours/JgLP3    
Publisher –     https://pictbooks.tours/We0tK    
        
Amazon –     https://pictbooks.tours/WL0jt    
Goodreads –     https://pictbooks.tours/waf7E    
        
SERIES – AMAZON    https://pictbooks.tours/s7CRf 

Author Bio:

Daphne Silver is the Agatha Award winning author of the Rare Books Cozy Mystery Series. Her first novel, Crime and Parchment (Level Best Books, 2023), won the Agatha for Best First Mystery Novel. Her latest book, The Tell-Tale Homicide, comes out November 2024 from Level Best Books. She’s worked more than twenty years in museums and symphonies and has the great fortune of being married to a librarian. When she’s not writing, she’s drawing and painting. She lives in Maryland with her family. Although she’s not much of a baker, she won’t ever turn down a sweet lokshen kugel.

Catch Up With Daphne Silver:
www.DaphneSilver.com
Goodreads
BookBub – @daphnesilverbooks
Instagram – @daphnesilverbooks
Facebook – @daphnesilverbooks

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Children's, Family, Magical Realism, Middle Grade

Sylvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood by Robert Beatty

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Embark on an unforgettable mystery-adventure starring a girl determined to save her friends and find a home, written by the best-selling author of the Serafina and Willa of the Wood series!

Robert Beatty, a master at telling atmospheric tales of mystery and suspense set in the natural world, has crafted another ingenious, unputdownable story.

Thirteen-year-old Sylvia Doe has lived at the Highground Home for Children nearly all her life. Whenever the administrators try to place her with a foster family, she runs away–back to Mason, Highground’s caretaker and her best friend. The only place she feels like she belongs is with him and the horses he has taught her to love.

When a powerful storm causes the remote mountain valley where she lives to flood, Sylvia begins to encounter strange and wondrous things floating down the river. Glittering gemstones and wild animals that don’t belong–everything’s out of place. Then she spots an unconscious boy floating in the water.

As she drags him onto the shore and their adventure together begins, Sylvia wonders who he is and where he came from. And why does she feel such a strong connection to this mysterious boy?

My Thoughts

Robert Beatty never fails to deliver a suspenseful, well-written story where the pages fly by because it’s so good you can’t stop reading. Here we have a new hero, Sylvia, a foster child with apparently no family and no recollection of what happened to her before age 4. All she knows is that she belongs at Highgrounds, the children’s home that is the only true home she’s ever known. She’s most comfortable with the horses and the nature surrounding the site.

This eerily prophetic story of a flood of epic proportions in the mountains of North Carolina is truly one of the best I’ve read in ages. From the very beginning when Sylvia is making her way back to Highgrounds, to the heartstopping ending, the story of Sylvia Doe and the mysterious boy she rescues from a raging river will keep readers entertained and get them hooked on Beatty’s writing. He joins Kate DiCamillo in my list of the best authors of children’s fiction writing today.

Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Published By: Disney Publishing Worldwide: Hyperion
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

British, Cozy, Mystery

Madrigals and Mayhem by Elizabeth Penney

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

In Madrigals and Mayhem, the fourth in Elizabeth Penney’s charming Cambridge Bookshop series, Molly Kimball finds that even the holidays can come with a healthy dose of mystery.

Molly is eager to experience her first English Christmas with family and friends now that she’s adjusted to her move to Cambridge and her restoration of her family’s ancestral bookshop, Thomas Marlowe—Manuscripts and Folios. When local toyshop Pemberly’s Emporium reopens, Molly is excited to meet the new owner, Charlotte Pemberly, who is determined to make the toy store a success after unexpectedly becoming her grandfather Arthur’s sole heir.

Arthur’s new wife Althea Winters and her unpleasant family loathe Charlotte for inheriting what they believe was theirs and have set their sights on a valuable Madame Alexander doll that’s gone missing. When Althea’s grandson is poisoned by cakes from Tea & Crumpets, Charlotte becomes the top suspect. Molly believes Charlotte was the intended victim and investigates the Pemberly’s home, only to discover that Arthur had been murdered.

To get closer to this treacherous family, Molly and her boyfriend Kieran go undercover by volunteering to act and sing for a madrigal dinner directed by Althea and her daughter at St. Hildegard’s College. Molly must help her new friend clear her name while searching for the missing doll and wrangling her own family during the chaotic holiday festivities at the bookshop.

My Thoughts

Fans of cozy mysteries will thoroughly enjoy this delightful series set in a 700-year-old bookshop in Cambridge. Similar in some ways to Paige Shelton’s Scottish Bookshop mysteries (attractive, young American woman transplanted into a UK bookshop gets involved in solving mysteries) but different enough that readers will be captivated by the warm relationships that form the bones of this series.

The story in this fourth entry features a serial poisoner and a lost Madame Alexander doll worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is set in the toy shop of everyone’s dreams at the most magical time of the year (Christmas), and moves at a quick pace but keeps the readers interest easily. The murderer was fairly easy to guess, but the story threads were clever enough to keep me engrossed in the story.

While this is the fourth in a series, it can be read as a stand-alone, although I have recommended the first three in the past. They are quick, enjoyable reads for wintry afternoons.

Publication Date: November 26, 2024
Published By: St. Martin’s Press: Minotaur Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy

Family, Food & Drink, Magical, New Releases, World Literature

Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

From the Olympic swimmer who misses his estranged father’s bento lunchbox to the one-hit-wonder pop star who remembers the tempura she ate to celebrate her only successful record, each customer leaves the diner forever changed—though not always in the ways they expect . . .

The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals—it’s a door to the past through the miracle of delicious food. A beloved bestseller in Japan, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes is a tender and healing novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

My Thoughts

What an absolute gem of a book! The concept is fascinating – a restaurant and chef that recreate recipes from your past. We all have some dish that evokes special and strong memories – maybe a memorable meal you had with a loved one, or, like the first dish in this story, a simple (or not-so-simple) lunch made for you by your parent every day for years.

The power of food and taste is explored in delicate and colorful prose, offering up poignant and heart-warming vignettes for the people who are lucky enough to find the Kamagawa Diner. This would make a wonderful TV series. I hope Netflix picks it up.

What is YOUR “lost recipe?”

Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Published By: Penguin Group Putnam
Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy

Book Tour, Mystery, Partners In Crime

Death in the Ozarks by Erik S. Meyers

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

November 11 – December 20, 2024
Virtual Book Tour

Description

A cross between Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and a Cheers bartender, Sally Witherspoon, a 50-something accountant turned biker-bar owner, loves solving puzzles. Up to now, she has focused on helping neighbors and friends find lost jewelry, lost pets, and lost loves.

But when she finds her best friend and business partner, Bill Arnold, dead in a dumpster behind her bar on a Saturday night, she needs all her wits and grit to find out who did it.

And she won’t stop until she does.

My Thoughts

Sally Witherspoon is very different from the typical amateur detective you find in most cozy mysteries. She’s older, a bit rough around the edges, worldly, and living life on her own terms. This is a welcome change from the spunky, quirky young women found in many modern mysteries – in one of those, Sally would be the odd auntie driving around town in a vintage car getting into mischief.

Here, Sally shines. She’s gruff and no-nonsense, but loves her people and her place in the world. The mystery is more “Law & Order” style than “Hallmark Channel” and the murder is a bit gritty. The relationships that are key to Sally’s life shine here, and there is plenty of emotion and humor as well as mystery.

I was reminded more than once of Joan Hess’ Maggody mystery series, and in a good way. I’ll be recommending this series for sure.

Book Details:

Genre: Traditional Mystery, Cozy Mystery 
Published by: Level Best Books
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

Shortlinks:

Author’s Website    https://pictbooks.tours/m8dAs
Medium    https://pictbooks.tours/hWPUw    @erikmey 
Goodreads    https://pictbooks.tours/avqr3    @erikmey
Instagram    https://pictbooks.tours/z4cIB    @erikmeyauthor
Facebook    https://pictbooks.tours/xOSVz    @ErikSMeyersAuthor
       
Sally Witherspoon Mystery Series 
Amazon    https://pictbooks.tours/3whSd    
Publisher —     https://pictbooks.tours/FhR3R    

Death in the Ozarks        
Amazon —     https://pictbooks.tours/JylxH    
BN —     https://pictbooks.tours/voGLD    
Goodreads —     https://pictbooks.tours/40M4s    
BookShop.org —     https://pictbooks.tours/Zrq2I 

Author Bio:

Erik S. Meyers

Currently in Austria, Erik S. Meyers is an American abroad for years and years who has lived or worked in six countries on three continents, spending the longest time in Germany. He is an award-winning author and communications professional with over twenty-five years of expertise in a variety of corporate roles. Reading and writing are his passions, when he is not hiking one of the amazing trails in Austria or elsewhere.

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Mystery, Partners In Crime

A Hush at Midnight by Marlene M. Bell

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

October 7 – November 1, 2024
Virtual Book Tour


From the award-winning author of the ANNALISSE MYSTERY SERIES.

THE VISIT THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Celebrity chef Laura Harris dwells on the horror of finding her mentor’s body in the groundskeeper’s disheveled bed—pillow and bedding half covering her open eyes—purple bruising around her mouth. A grisly snapshot in time revealing the Texas woman’s last moments during her attack. The elderly matriarch from the small town of Stenburg has left the physical world, and Laura is shattered.

She is catapulted headlong into the pursuit of a casual executioner, one bold enough to come and go from the crime scene with ease, dropping bizarre crumb trails designed to mock the deceased. But Laura herself doesn’t go unnoticed. As she digs deeper, she is followed and bombarded by warnings to leave the state.

When the victim’s attorney informs Laura that she’s to inherit the entire Stenburg fortune, the last act of kindness has made Laura the main person of interest in the investigation.

Message by message, Laura is methodically taunted by someone so deranged and driven they’ll do whatever it takes to dislodge Laura from Texas – permanently.

My Thoughts

Bell has delivered a taut, suspense-filled tale full of intrigue, betrayal, and surprises. The characters are both engaging and despicable, the plot well-constructed, and the descriptive narrative of the Texas landscape beautifully done.

Complicated relationships abound, as do strong women characters who drive the action of the story forward to its exciting conclusion. The relationship between Laura and Hattie and the suspicion that falls on Laura after Hattie’s death is the stuff that makes a gripping story and Bell deftly leads the reader through some twists and turns. Fans of harder-edged domestic suspense will thoroughly enjoy this one.

Book Details:

Genre: Amateur Sleuth/Mystery/Cozy Mystery
Published by: Ewephoric Publishing
Publication Date: October 1, 2024
Number of Pages: 368
ISBN: 979-8-9863409-6-8
Book Links: Amazon | Goodreads

Shortlinks:

Author’s Website    https://pictbooks.tours/sywjz    
Goodreads    https://Pict books.tours/BZhYK    
BookBub    https://pictbooks.tours/pRMCn    
Instagram    https://pictbooks.tours/3nZa9    
Twitter    https://pictbooks.tours/9ivZk    
Facebook – Author    https://pictbooks.tours/jFZCa    
Amazon Author Page    https://pictbooks.tours/AVTZV    

Retailers:
Amazon –    https://pictbooks.tours/FFAHA    
Goodreads –    https://pictbooks.tours/Dp80f    

Author Bio:

Marlene M. Bell has never met a sheep she didn’t like. As a personal touch for her readers, they often find these wooly creatures visiting her international romantic mysteries and children’s books as characters or subject matter. Marlene is an accomplished artist and photographer who takes pride in entertaining fans on multiple levels of her creativity.

Marlene’s award-winning Annalisse series boasts Best Mystery honors for all installments including these: IP Best Regional Australia/New Zealand, Global Award Best Mystery, and Chanticleer’s International Mystery and Mayhem shortlist for Copper Waters, the fourth mystery in the series.

She offers her children’s picture book, Mia and Nattie: One Great Team! written primarily for younger kids based on true events from the Bell’s East Texas sheep ranch. The simple text and illustrations are a touching tribute of belonging and unconditional love between a little girl and her lamb.

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