Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery

I am a scrapbooker in my heart and have horded thousands of photographs and materials for scrapbooking but I just have not gotten fully into it. So consequently I was drawn to these books out of maybe guilt? This book, Cut, Crop & Die, is the second in a series starting with Paper, Scissors, Death the first. Joanna Campbell-Slan created a really warm cozy about a scrapbooker designer who finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time situations. Kiki is helping out at a special cropping event when one of the attendees has a severe allergic reaction to something she ate. When the women goes to inject herself with her epi pen, she discovers the pen is empty and doesn't make it. All in all a suspicious death but not surprising when Kiki finds out what a menace the victim was. With the tying in of wonderful scrapbooking info and the obsession of her mother in law to get rid of her moles, these are wonderful cozies. And little interesting romances thrown in. These are should reads and I will continue to seek them for inspiration as they come out. Photo, Snap, Shot in the next book which I will be looking forward to. http://www.joannacampbellslan.com/

St Just Mysteries

Sorry I got a little behind on my reviews so I will be playing catchup now. I just got done reading the first two books in the St Just series by G.M. Malliet, Death of a Cozy Writer and Death of a Lit Chick. Our mystery solver in this series is a DCI Arthur St Just, a likable widower who seems like an easy going guy. In Death of a Cozy Writer, Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk is the guy who gets stabbed, preceded by his son who got whacked, and really no one is sorry to see the man dead. He was a vengeful writer of Agatha Christie like mysteries and toyed mercifully with his family for rights to his fortune when he dies. And so he does. There unfortunately are too many suspects available at the time of death, including his new trophy wife. In Death of a Lit Chick, St Just finds himself sent off to attend a writers conference, staying at Edinburgh's Dalmorton Castle, to talk about police procedures. The victim in this one is a chick lit writer newbie who had taken the writing world by storm and left many upset people in her wake. Not a nice person outwardly and again with many suspects around to pick from. St just evens meets a writer who leaves him breathless and we will see where that leads. I thoroughly enjoyed both books and will seek out the next, Death at the Alma Mater. These are should reads and will written. http://gmmalliet.weebly.com/

Friday, November 6, 2009

Caroline Burnes Familiar series

Okay, I have to admit once I found out about these books about a year ago, I absolutely devoured this entertaining series. These books are about a black cat detective named Familiar. Familiar has a girlfriend, Clotilde, and a place to call home with Eleanor but he pretty much does what he wants and goes where he wants to help anybody out. This is one smart cat that has a very interesting way of getting his point across and humans believe it all. It seems in every book and adventure, and he has many, it only takes one or two astonishing acts upon Familiar's part, for humans to be convinced this is one intelligent cat and one to be obeyed. He is a swift, sly, crafty, matchmaking cat, (I could keep going with the adjectives), that always get his man. There are 19 Fear Familiar books written by Caroline Burnes, a pseudonym used by Carolyn Haines. I just completed Familiar Vows, #18, and again I chuckled out loud many times at the dynamics of this cat. In this one, a photographer accidentally takes a picture of a person in witness protection and that picture is unfortunately broadcast on the news from a gallery display. The photographer then becomes the hunted and needs Familiar's help, and the hunky ex Us Marshall named Lucas, to stay alive while trying to help the person in the witness protection program stay alive. http://www.carolynhaines.com/ Unfortunately, there really is not a Familiar website. Library book. You really should read these.