Brunch at the Bittersweet Café–a Cozy Romance

Posted on by December 21, 2018
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To purchase, click on the picture or the links. If you make a purchase by clicking one of my links, I may earn a small share of the revenue.

Deb’s Dozen: Romance, pastries, and pies cannot surmount what Melody Johansson believes are lies.

Brunch at the Bittersweet Café reintroduces us to baker par excellence, Melody Johansson. Melody embodies a delightful character from the first book of the Supper Club series, The Saturday Night Supper Club. She has been biding her time working in a bakery while she ponders what she wants to do with her life. Working as the pastry chef with Rachel Bishop at Paisley, Melody had felt duty bound to quit when the owners fired Rachel for a bad review. But now Rachel had a nice condo conversion. Their other best friend, Ana, worked as a big-time publicist. And Melody just slung dough at a small-time bakery.

Justin Keller, knew he shouldn’t have driven his 1967 Mustang GT to the airport in the winter. Now Denver is in the midst of a blizzard, and his car is stuck in a snow drift. He knocks on the door of a nearby bakery to use their phone (wouldn’t you know his died and he’d forgotten his charger in the last hotel). Melody lets him in, and sparks begin to fly. She ends up driving him home and wondering if he will turn out to be like all the other male romance disasters she’d been involved with in the last few years.

Melody inherits a nice sum of change from her grandmother along with her house. An investor is backing Rachel, so the two of them decide to open a breakfast and lunch café. The story rolls along describing the ins and outs of that decision, lots of baking, and some bits of romance. You’ll love getting to know Melody, Rachel, and Ana further. And Justin, well, let’s say he’s a major piece of the action. You’ll enjoy reading Brunch at the Bittersweet Café—a sweet romance. Four stars.

BrunchCarla Laureano, a RITA award-winning author with three series—the Supper Club series, Discovered by Love, and the MacDonald Family Trilogy, writes inspirational romance and young adult books. Prior to turning to writing as a career, she worked as a sales and marketing executive. She and her husband live in Denver—she writes during the day and cooks things at night.

Tyndale House Publishers gave me a Net Galley Advance Reader Copy of Brunch at the Bittersweet Café, but I was in no way obligated to write a review.

Game-playing Turns Deadly in Stratagem

Posted on by December 2, 2018
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To purchase, click on the picture or the links. If you make a purchase by clicking one of my links, I may earn a small share of the revenue.

Deb’s Dozen: Game-playing leads to the murder of the creator’s ex-wife—he killed her?

Stratagem by Robin Caroll intrigued me from the start. First, the book takes place in New Orleans—one of my fave locations. Second, the main character, Grayson Thibodeaux, a game-playing expert, not only has a wonderful name but has engaging charm. His ex-wife, who left him to move up her corporate ladder, takes delightfully nastiness to another level.

Grayson’s company creates elaborate games that help corporations vet their employees for promotions and important positions. Grayson’s experience as a psychologist and former consultant for the police department makes him not only a good game creator, but the prime suspect when the game he created for his ex-wife’s company apparently leads to her murder.

One of the detectives on the case is a good buddy—the other is sure he’s the perp, and she’s the lead detective. Although Grayson is not guilty, he was out of town playing golf, he has great difficulty proving his innocence. And off we go to find out what actually happened during the game. Caroll deftly manipulates our minds as we hear from witness after witness. We never quite know who is telling the truth and who is lying. As a result, she keeps us from guessing the identity of the murder until the end of the book, something I greatly appreciate. Four stars!

StratagemRobin Caroll is a bestselling author of what she calls Southern-style romantic mystery/suspense. Perhaps her writing can best be summed up by this statement she made about herself: “I love boxing, I love Hallmark movies, I love fishing, I love scrapbooking. Nope, I’ve never fit into the boxes people want to put me in.” I’ve not read her books previously, but you can be sure I’ll go hunting for them now!

Barbour Publishing gave me a complimentary copy of Stratagem, but I was in no way obligated to write a review.

Special Ops After Goliath’s Sword

Posted on by December 2, 2018
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To purchase, click on the picture or the links. If you make a purchase by clicking one of my links, I may earn a small share of the revenue.

Deb’s Dozen: Special Ops must stop the AFO’s quest to acquire Goliath’s blood-thirsty sword.

Thirst of Steel is the third book in The Tox Files series. Ronie Kendig has elected to combine speculative fiction (things that are imaginary) with her special ops heroes’/heroines’ stories. Not only are there objects from the past that show up today with special powers, but there are characters who move through time and space.

Kendig asks us to suspend logic as we follow Tox and his friends through deep-cover spying, an organization so powerful it can topple governments, and a special ops team able to successfully take down the AFO with just a few people. Also involved are Israelis Ram and Tzivia. The AFO has Tzivia’s father held hostage to force her to do their bidding—which is to recover, on her own, the three pieces of the sword. Of course, she throws in some damage to US citizens to get our government to back Tox and crew.

I’ve enjoyed the development of the special ops characters through the series. Tox, Ram, Tzivia, and Haven have become three-dimensional people over the series. However, I’ve not enjoyed the ever far out situations they find themselves in. I’ve loved Kendig’s series about the military and military dogs, but The Tox Files, with its mythical aspects ranks as my least favorite. Three stars.

Thirst of SteelRonie Kendig is the prolific, bestselling author of over twenty books. She grew up in the military, which allowed her the experience to write her military series. She and husband, Brian, have adopted a military dog, Vvolt N629, and live in the northeast where Ronie continues to stretch her style by writing pure speculative fiction as well.