A new to me author and series,  Address to Die For, is the first in A Maggie McDonald Mystery Series.  The title character, Maggie, is a professional organizer.  As the series opens she is in the middle of moving with her family to a home her husband inherited from his aunt.  The move goes anything but smoothly and the main upset is a dead body found in her new house.  Maggie steps up the challenge of handling the move, fixing up the dilapidated house, meeting new people in town and figuring out who is trying to drive her family out of their new home with a fist full of lists and a smile on her face.

Maggie is different from the average cozy sleuth in that she is a happily married mother. In most cases, the sleuths are single women, or divorced or widowed. In this, the opening book of the series, her husband was called away for work, but the relationship between them was illustrated through their emails.  I look forward to seeing how it their family life is portrayed in the next book.

Very promising start to a new series!

I had some difficulty sleeping last night and made my way through these three.  I could swear that I have read The Corner Shop before. It seemed really familiar, but I couldn’t find a record of it, so if I did it was before I started keeping track on Goodreads.  Elizabeth Cadell was recommended to me because I like Barbara Pym, I can see some similarity but not an overwhelming amount.  The Corner Shop concerns Mrs. Abbey a young  divorcee, who manages a secretarial agency.  She has traveled out to the country on the eve of her holiday to see to a particularly troublesome client.  Through the client, an impossible dotty professor,  she becomes embroiled in  a mystery surrounding stolen goods, relatives who are up to no good, and strangers that she coincidentally runs into repeatedly.  The story leaves England and travels to France and continues there.  Probably best described as a madcap romantic mystery.  I found it to be a fun, quick read which I quite enjoyed.

Objects of My Affection is about single mom, Lucy, starting an organizing business.  She has sold everything she owned to pay for an expensive stint in rehab for her son.  She lucks into a famous artist for a client and the novel follows the progression of the organizing job, the relationship between Lucy and her client, and her son’s situation in rehab.  This is the chick lit treatment of some serious issues, suicide, addiction, and  hoarding.   Quick, light read, with enjoyable characters and some interesting commentary on parenting and family dynamics at points.

Weeding Out Trouble is book 5 in the Nina Quinn Mystery series.  Nina is a divorced landscaper currently living with her stepson.  She gets involved with a murder when one of her employees disappears under mysterious circumstances.  There is a large cast of characters supporting Nina and she has an interesting personal and career life.  The current murder case is complicated by massive snowstorm dropping feet of snow.  There are lots of possibilities to explore here with illegal drugs, crooked police, and jealous lovers.  Quick cozy read from Heather Webber, who also writes cozies as Heather Blake.

  First in a series and a new to me author, this A Glee Club Mystery seems like a Glee TV show spin-off.  Paige Marshall is an aspiring Opera singer who has landed home between professional gigs and is currently teaching a high school competitive show choir.  The atmosphere is cutthroat among the teaching staff and the students, eventually the pressure blows and someone ends up dead.  Paige discovers the body and puts herself squarely in the sights of a killer.  Fans of the TV show will probably enjoy this musical competition themed cozy.

  This is book 3 in the Portrait of a Crime Mystery Series.  I have really enjoyed the first two books in this series and looked forward to reading this one and it did not disappoint.  Rory and her ghostly sidekick Zeke, solve a modern day murder and one from the past.  Rory goes on a trip out west to hunt for clues into Zeke’s murder and gets involved in a modern day murder…or is it a murder?

The relationship between Zeke and Rory is what makes these books so special.  They have the push-pull power struggle, the conflicts caused by ideas from differing eras, particularly ideas related to male-female roles, and an underlying sense of loyalty and affection.  In this book, we have an addition of an elderly neighbor,who is also  aware of Zeke and stops by irregularly to add in her two cents worth to stir the pot.

A well written series with fully fleshed out protagonists whose relationship is the driving force behind the books.

 I had mixed feelings about reading this as I felt the trope is somewhat overdone, the whole “older damaged woman and younger damaged woman find each other and together they heal” has been seen in many novels and films and I wasn’t sure if I was interested in seeing it again.  I am really interested in books set in Sweden though and it is relatively short so I put aside my misgivings and gave it a try.

Astrid is the older  character here, living alone on her family farm, the villagers basically ignoring her in her old age, other than to refer to her as a witch.  Veronika is the younger woman, returning to Sweden after a life spent traveling abroad first with her father a diplomat and then as a young woman.  The women bond over their isolation and slowly over the course of the book, in alternating chapters they reveal the secrets and tragedies of their lives.

The writing is well done, the women’s stories are interesting and engaging, although I will say I think Astrid’s is much more compelling than Veronika’s.  There are some interesting parallels set up, both are abandoned by their mothers, and some contrasts for instance, one has a good father and one does not.   I just feel that the “sisterhood of damaged women” is an overdone trope and that there could have been a more interesting story here.

  The Madness of Mercury is the first in the A Zodiac Mystery series by Connie di Marco, who also writes the Soup Lovers Mysteries as Connie Archer.  This series is set in San Francisco, with the protagonist, Julia Bonatti, being an astrologer, who is targeted by a religious cult leader at the same time she is being asked for help by an elderly client in fear of her caretaker.

The plot unfolds as Julia deals with the cult disrupting  her life and business and the businesses of other occult shop owners and  business people in the community.  Julia is also trying to ease the mind of Evandra, who feels she is in danger due to the terms of a trust and will.  Julia uses her star charts and investigative skills to follow up on all the threats and uncover what is really happening.  Who is the charismatic cult leader and what does he really want?  Is Evandra really in danger?  If so, from who?  Should Dorothy let Richard back in her life?

Great start to a cozy series!  I look forward to reading the next one.  Just one note, it would be helpful to have an appendix explaining the horoscope system and terms.

This is another volume from the Penguin Books Great Foods Series.  Samuel Pepys was a noted diarist, an adminstrator for the Royal Navy, and a member of Parliment who lived from 1633 -1703.  This book is a compilation of diary entries primarily focused on food and as such can be rather choppy to read.  It is a celebration of Samuel Pepys’ love of food and indulgence, actually overindulgence and celebration of food to the point of gluttony.  The sheer quantity of food and drink that he regularly cataloged in his diary is overwhelming, often eating to the point of vomiting and illness the next day.  Even horrible historic events don’t seem to put him off his appetites.  In one entry, he mentions going to see a man being drawn and quartered and stopping off at the tavern to have oysters.  Other entries casually mention the plague killing hundreds, midst discussions of his meals.

Some interesting facts that popped up.  He discusses being introduced to a new drink from China, tea in 1660.  I didn’t know that was when tea was brought over from China.  In another entry, he states that he saw his first women acting on a stage in 1661. He was also not shy about discussing his extramarital affairs or the embarrassments of his guests.  He even discusses his home renovation projects.  It is an interesting look into the life of a man, who happened to be a “foodie” before the word was coined.  I do think the book would have benefited from the addition of a time line for those of us who have been out of school for many years and don’t remember all the historically significant events for the years of the diary.

This is a book I received as part of the Penguin Books Great Food Series.  It is a collection of essays on a varied selection of topics ranging from the history of roasting suckling pig to Alcoholism and Gluttony.  I personally enjoyed the lighter topics included in the collection.

One essay was written about The New Year’s Coming of Age told as though each of the special days/holidays was a character, ” …The last of Lent was spunging upon Shrovetide’s pancakes…”  The humor was well done and the references to the nature of the days was still applicable today.  Another of the essays I thought was well done was titled, The Peach.  It was brief tale about resisting temptation and how torturous it can be, particularly in the time this essay was written, circa 1800.  The divide between the haves and have-nots was insurmountable and to be placed in the situation of the narrator, having access to seemingly unlimited wealth, but none of his own was making his life  a misery.

This was not my favorite in the series, but it was still an interesting addition to the Great Food Books.

  A Whisker of Trouble is book 3 in the A Second Chance cat Mystery series, so named because the protagonist, Sarah Grayson is the proprietor of a second-hand shop called Second Chance.  Sarah has a black cat named Elvis who is preternaturally intelligent and helps her in her investigation along with “Charlotte’s Angels”.

Sarah is hired to clean out a home of someone who has recently died and discovers a dead body on the premises.  The family wants her and the PI team of Charlotte’s Angels to help solve the case.  The investigation uncovers a counterfeit wine scam, elder fraud, and other misdoings in the second-hand/trading community.  But is it enough motive to kill for?  Sarah, Elvis, and her team follow-up on the leads, trying both to stop a killer and to save other seniors from being defrauded.

A fast paced cozy with a very current theme and fun, engaging  characters to make an interesting read.

  This is a new author and a new series for me, A Deep Fried Mystery.  Talia Marby has returned home to nurse her broken heart and to look for a new job after leaving one that made her miserable.  In the meantime, she is working at the fish and chip shop she worked at in high school and living in her Nana’s bungalow while trying to sell it.

The fish and chip shop is part of a strip of shops, which like most small independent businesses straddle the line of financial solvency .  The possible opening of new shop in their midst has the shop owners in a tizzy with battle lines drawn resulting in the death of one of them.  Talia finds herself drawn into the investigation in an attempt to clear her friend’s name.

Talia’s back story is well done here and interesting.  The setting of the fish and chip shop is fun and engaging.  The whole cast of background and what I assume will be recurring characters are interesting and colorful adding depth to the story.  The mystery has several suspects and red herrings to keep the reader guessing. Talia as a sleuth is relatable and  intelligent.  Fillet of Murder is a really good first in a cozy mystery series.