{I've Been Reading} You Feta Watch Out

 You Feta Watch Out by Linda Reilly 

The latest grilled cheese mystery has a recipe for grilled cheese fruitcake and I'm almost tempted to try it if some fruitcake finds its way to our house this holiday season. At a dress rehearsal of A Christmas Carol, one of the actors is found dead with Marley's heavy chains wrapped around his throat. The evidence points to Carly's best friend, but plenty of people could have wanted the unpleasant man dead. This is always a fun series, with lots of tasy sounding food and an entertaining group of characters. 

Silent Came the Monster by Amy Hill Hearth 

This fictionalized version of the shark attacks that inspired Jaws intrigued me. I'd half-watched some of the Shark Week documentaries years ago so I knew a little bit about the history, but was curious to read more. The descriptions of the attacks and the attempts to save the victims were gripping. The main characters musings about a current polio outbreak and the American public's repsonse to it and to the warnings about the shark dragged on and on and on and had me wishing I'd read a non-fiction account written several years earlier.  

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

{I've Been Reading} A Corpse Among the Carolers

 A Corpose Among the Carolers by Debra Sennefelder 

The annual Jingle Bell Stroll is a popular event, but this year it ended with the fatal stabbing of Santa Claus. Hope has blog posts to write and baking to do, but she plunges herself into the investigation, juggling it with the busy holiday season. I've been reading the Food Blogger mysteries since the beginning of the series and this book further develops the relationships between the characters. Pick this one up if you're looking for some holiday cheer and mystery. 

A Perilous Premiere by Gail Meath 

Set in 1930s Hollywood, this mystery feels like reading an old black and white movie. It's fast paced and fun and requires some suspension of disbelief, especially in the early chapters.  I don't know enough about Carole Lombard to tell you if her character is a convincing portrayal or not -- a fictional actress could have probably served the same purpose. 

Her Housekeeper by Samantha Hayes

I felt like the plot of this one kept meandering around in circles without actually getting anywhere until close to the end. After a fire destroys their home, Gina and her family accept an offer to stay in her vacationing friend's empty house. They don't realize that there's a housekeeper until the woman shows up and lets herself in one morning, but Annie assures them that Mary is trustworthy and when Mary suddenly needs a place to live she makes herself right at home. Of course she's not who she claims to be -- the author makes that immediately clear. Flashbacks and alternating points of view slowly reveal that it all goes back to their group of high school friends and something that happened after a party decades earlier. Some scenes near the end had me holding my breath, but it took a long time to get there. 

I'll be Waiting by Kelley Armstrong 

This one is a creepy, extrememly enjoyable ghost story with a likeable protagonist. Nicola has arranged a seance, trying to contact her dead husband. His last words at the site of the deadly car crash were that he would be waiting for her. She's already lived far longer than expected and the story of a terminally ill woman holding her dying husband immediately went viral, especially after onlookers claimed that it was his ghost who spoke the words. Nicole has a history with seances and knows exactly how to make it look like supernatural things are happening, but she also knows that real spirits exist. This isn't a particularly scary book, but it has all of the trappings of a good ghost story. 

Seances and spiritualist 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

{I've Been Reading} The Woman in the Cabin

 The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day 

Her name is Mary. She lives a simple life in an isolated cabin, spending each day tending  the garden, repairing leaks in the roof, making sure that dinner is hot on the table when her husband walks through the door. It's been ten years since she was anywhere else and her memories of life outside the cabin have faded. The world is dangerous and has nothing to offer her. Then she finds a bundle of letters tucked under a floorboard and realizes that she's not the first woman to have lived here with him. The writing kept me glued to the page even before the real plot twists started.  

Lonely Places by Kate Anderson 

After travelling the country for years in a converted school bus, a homeschooling family takes up residence at a fire lookout in Utah. The youngest daughter no longer speaks, traumatized by what happened in the woods That Night. After reading this book, I could go the rest of my life without hearing that phrase. which is repeated over and over in a slightly different font from the book's main text. There's also that thing that happened at the lookout that no one wants to talk about. The aspen grove is filled with creepy bones which the youngest daughter keeps picking up and bringing home. It's a young adult novel, so Chase, the older daughter, is extremely critical of her parents and looking forward to getting away from her family at the first possible opportunity. There's an intriguing story here and some really creepy imagery, but it takes a while to get there. 

Death at the Dinner Party by Ellie Alexander

The fund raising dinner at the historic farmhouse has barely started when one of the guests collapses. Curtis isn't one of the actors hired for that night's murder mystery, he's actually dead, and quite a few of his fellow attendees have reason to want him gone. I'm practically giddy about this new-to-me mystery series (I jumped in with the third book, which I don't recommend since I'm obviously missing some important back story -- I'll catch up on the first two titles as soon as I can.) It's atmospheric, the event is one that the characters are actually invested in, the protagonist is a trained crimonologist who knows what she's doing... and parts of it read like my favorite bits of the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books I loved as a kid. It's fun and fast paced and I read the whole thing in one delighted sitting. 

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

This book sat in my to-be-read pile for way too long and I don't know why. Pregnancy related horror and thrillers are right up my alley and reviews compared this one to Rosemary's Baby, a novel that I absolutely loved. Actress Anna Alcott is desperate to have a baby and realizes that time is running out, that she and her husband might have waited too long. When their latest round of IVF results in a pregnancy, she and her husband are thrilled. When she has a miscarriage, they're devastated. There was no heartbeat on the ultrasound. There was so much blood in the hospital room. But she can still feel her unborn child moving inside of her. Pregnancy leaves woman vulnerable and the author absolutely captures that. Anna has been missing appointments and making mistakes with her medication. She's being stalked and receiving warnings about a cult of baby stealing Satanists. And, despite what the medical professionals say, she's still pregnant. I loved this one. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. 

{I've Been Reading} Sleep in Heavenly Pizza

 

Sleep in Heavenly Pizza by Mindy Quigly

If you're looking for a holiday mystery, this one fits the bill perfectly. Delilah and her friends are always fun to spend time with and the book opens with her staff catering a Chrismukkah house party that ends with a death (but at least they're not snowed in with a killer the way they were in the previous book!) It's an enjoyable read with an ending that I never would have expected. Be sure not to skip the recipes at the end -- they're written by the characters and full of personality! 

Shear Terror by Dorothy Howell 

Her custom embroidered tote bag business isn't the success she'd hoped for, so Abbey is working part time at the Hideaway Cover visitor's center. That's where she discovers a body in the huge boxes of stuff they've collected for the annual lost and found sale. What she doesn't immediately notice is that the silver object embedded in the dead woman's chest is a pair of engraved sewing shears with Abbey's name on them. Her favorite pair of jeans has become too difficult to button, which led to the travel cup of tomato juice, which could help confirm her story...if she hadn't pitched it into the dumpster. This mystery is fast paced and fun with lots of small town gossip and Abbey continually getting in her own way as she tries to solve the murder and clear her own name. I'm going to keep wondering how someone with so few sewing skills decided to open a sewing studio and I'm going to keep happily reading this series. 

The Other Couple by Triona Walsh 

The first chapter was full of promise. A couple is set to spend a romantic weekend in a converted lighthouse. The setting, the relationship the author quickly establishes between the characters...it's all perfect. Then another couple shows up claiming to have reserved the property for the same night and it goes downhill from there. Every person in that lighthouse is hiding secrets and/or plotting against someone else. The book drags from that point on and the characters are hard to emphathize with. Why would a woman who is unwillingly sharing a rental with complete strangers leave her purse unattended in the kitchen -- and then be shocked when things turn up missing? 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy.