Source: purchased from Amazon

#BookReview: Love in Other Worlds edited by Tracy Cooper Posey

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Love in Other Worlds edited by Tracy Cooper PoseyLove In Other Worlds (Christmas Romance Digest Book 2) by Tracy Cooper-Posey, Taylen Carver, Meg Napier, Michelle Moras, Erin M. Hartshorn, Chelsea Mueller, M L Buchman
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy romance, Hanukkah romance, holiday romance, romantasy, short stories
Series: Christmas Romance Digest #2
Pages: 274
Published by Stories Rule Press on November 7, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A Magic-filled collection of Christmas-themed portal fantasy romance novelettes

Slipping through a portal to another strange world, filled with magical beings and fantasy creatures, and finding true love is challenge enough for any self-respecting hero or heroine. How much more magic and mischief can Christmas deliver to transworld-travellers and their loved ones?

Here are seven delightful Christmas romances featuring fantasy worlds reached from ours via portals of all varieties, where our heroes and heroines struggle to find true love at this most magical time of the year.

"Veilbound" by Taylen Carver
"Winter Fruit" by Chelsea Mueller
"Second Christmas Solstice" by Meg Napier
"The Hanukkah Pretzel Prophecy" by M.L. Buchman
"Crowning the Snow Queen" by Michelle Moras
"Ornaments of Ice" by Erin M. Hartshorn
"Blackmont Bitters" by Tracy Cooper-Posey

The courage to step into another world brings risks…and sweet rewards, made sweeter by the joys of Christmas.

My Review:

I’m always on the lookout for Hanukkah romances this time of year, as there aren’t many. If you’re looking for the same, or at least curious, I highly recommend Love You a Latke and Eight Nights to Win Her Heart. I’ve also heard very good things about Magical Meet Cute and I’m thinking about squeezing that in this Hanukkah season – which lasts until January 2, 2025 this year.

The above is NOT a non sequitur, as I picked this collection up for just one story, “The Hanukkah Pretzel Prophecy” by M.L. Buchman. He’s one of my favorite authors – as evidenced by my review of his latest thriller, Wedgetail, earlier this week. But I also love ‘portal fantasies’, as this collection most definitely is, so the idea of a whole book filled with stories of people who get a peek into worlds that aren’t QUITE our own, (think Narnia but for grown-ups), mixed with stories of holidays set on or around the winter solstice (December 21 this year) also sounded like a lovely thing to read this holiday season.

And so, we have seven solstice stories. One is that Hanukkah story. Some of the others are Christmas, at least sorta/kinda, and some are explicitly the solstice. I enjoyed the mix of perspectives and wish that the blurb did a better job of reflecting it. (Again, I’m not in full agreement with the blurb of a book I just read. It’s been that kind of month.)

Most of the stories are fantasy, which makes sense now that I think about it. Two of the stories are by the same author, as Taylen Carver is a pen name for Tracy Cooper-Posey, the author of the final story in the collection as well as its editor.

Because there are only seven stories here, and because I was having a good time reading them even if the individual stories didn’t always work as well as I’d hoped, I’ve given a mini-review and rating for each story individually.

For the collection as a whole, after some extremely fudgy math, I would rate the collection as a whole as Escape Rating B.

“Veilbound” by Taylen Carver (aka Tracy Cooper-Posey)
Two grumpy, anti-social guardians of portals guard openings to the veil that keep the world in balance. Guardians bound to SEPARATE and DISTANT portals, thankyouverymuch. Vera Thorn and Kellan Delacroix clearly don’t like each other much – although it seems they have history as well as a shared responsibility to keep their world in balance with the one on the other side of the veil. A balance that has been violently thrown out of whack in a way that will destroy everything if they don’t put aside whatever it is between them long enough to cross the veil and FIX IT. The fantasy parts reminded me a LOT of Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest, so the fantasy worldbuilding of this worked well for me even if the analogy didn’t completely hold true. The romance worked less well, because we just didn’t get enough of it to make this really feel like a romance. But it also felt like it got as close to a romance as these particular characters were able to get – which was not very but possibly much, much, later. Escape Rating B+

“Winter Fruit” by Chelsea Mueller
This is a much, much, MUCH more romantic version of the Greek myth about Hades and Persephone. Also a whole lot sexier and all of it blissfully consensual as well as sensual, which the original myth definitely is NOT. This story is a bit of the opposite of the first, as the worldbuilding is minimal and the romance is EVERYTHING, but then we already know this story so it doesn’t need much to get going. So to speak. Ahem. Escape Rating A-

“Second Christmas Solstice” by Meg Napier
This story is SF, and I think it needed something it just didn’t have. The SFnal aspects were VERY much handwavium, and the romance felt nebulous. Danica was a miracle to the parents who adopted her, but she’s also a refugee from an alternate, adjacent-ish world. Someone comes to retrieve her on Christmas, and she’s just not nearly skeptical enough. For SF, it’s way too much woo-woo magic and feelings and fate. TL;DR this just didn’t work for me. Escape Rating C

“The Hanukkah Pretzel Prophecy” by M.L. Buchman
This is the story I picked up this collection FOR, and it did not disappoint. It also confirms my reflections from both of the Hanukkah romances I read this season, that the eight nights of Hanukkah create the perfect length of time for a quick but not too quick romance to feel just right. This particular romance is the story of a holiday miracle of a romantic match that also makes a terrific recipe – and is one as well. Aaron has inherited his grandfather’s bakery and his grandfather’s recipe for root beer pretzels – but the recipe card is faded and the handwriting is indecipherable. Unbeknownst to Aaron as the holiday begins, one of the key ingredients for those pretzels was the small-batch root beer that Elizabeth’s Great Uncle Sam used to make – and she’s just inherited his small bottling operation. With the help of an adorable little tenth-ranked angel, and a bit of magical peering into the past through the Hanukkah lights reflected in their menorahs, Aaron and Elizabeth manage to find each other, the secret ingredients to each other’s recipes, and the keys to each other’s hearts. Escape Rating A

“Crowning the Snow Queen” by Michelle Moras
This story reads as if Cinderella and The Bachelor had a book baby – or at least a short story baby, even though the main character is named after one of the roles in The Nutcracker ballet. This story also feels like the fantasy version of that SF story in this collection, “Second Christmas Solstice”, in the way that Freya is rather abruptly presented with the fact that, just like Danni in “Solstice”, she has family on the other side of a mysterious – and in Freya’s case outright magical – barrier that give her entree into an entirely ‘other’ world. In this case the world of the fey. This one works a bit better, at least for this reader, than “Solstice”, in that the worldbuilding is able to borrow a bit more from fairy tales and stories we already know to fill in its corners. The romance also has a bit more time to work with, so it’s a bit insta but in a way that can be at least partially chalked up to the magic of the fairy kingdom. Escape Rating B

“Ornaments of Ice” by Erin M. Hartshorn
This one is my second favorite after “The Hanukkah Pretzel Prophecy”. It’s short and sweet and self-contained. It’s also simply lovely, and a true portal fantasy as Bran literally steps through a portal imbued in a Christmas Tree ornament, finds a rather different and considerably less royal fairyland than the one in “Crowning the Snow Queen”, takes a magical walk through that fairyland with a fairy who doesn’t quite feel like she belongs, just as he feels like he doesn’t completely belong among his people. As they journey together, they discover that they have bigger magic together than they do separately, and that they can find a place where they both belong by realizing that where they belong is together, on both sides of the portal. Escape Rating A-

“Blackmont Bitters” by Tracy Cooper-Posey
I ended with mixed feelings about this one, mostly because even as I read it it felt like it was a piece of something much, much bigger, as if a serious chunk of the worldbuilding had been or would be done elsewhere and that the reader was just supposed to ‘roll with it’ in this short story. I didn’t discover until afterwards that my feeling was correct, as this story is set in the world the author created in The Branded Rose Prophecy. So this story read as if an attempt was being made to make this shorter work stand alone that doesn’t quite, well, work. It’s a bit of a tease in its way, as the world sounds fascinating, dangerous and more than a bit down the other leg of the trousers of time from our own, a world in which the Norse gods came back, or were found again, or a bit of both, and the Earth that results from their return seems fascinating and very techno-magic oriented but I needed more of the setup to make this story work as the tension and tragedy in the romance was all based in the worldbuilding I didn’t have nearly enough of. Escape Rating C+

#AudioBookReview: Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | audio reviews> audiobooks> B Reviews> book reviews
#AudioBookReview: Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria BellefleurMerriment and Mayhem (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #4) by Alexandria Bellefleur
Narrator: Amelie Griffin
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audio
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #4
Pages: 58
Length: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

This Christmas, a hot fireman makes a holiday rescue and sparks fly in this funny, sexy holiday short story by bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur.
When Everleigh Dangerfield’s baking disaster necessitates a call to 911, firefighter Griffin Brantley douses the flames in the kitchen, but the ones he stokes in Everleigh are an entirely different story. Unfortunately, Everleigh’s only visiting and doesn’t do casual hookups, no matter how smoldering the temptation. But Everleigh’s holiday mishaps have just begun. And Griffin is seemingly always on call. If Everleigh is game for a change of plans, he can give her the merriest Christmas of her life.
Alexandria Bellefleur’s Merriment and Mayhem is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

In this last week before both Christmas AND Hanukkah, I found myself looking for something a bit lighter than the books I had originally planned. Which is when I remembered that I still had two short little holiday pick-me-ups left in the Under the Mistletoe collection, and thereby hangs a tale. Or at least an Xmas stocking.

And this story certainly is a pick-me-up – or perhaps I should say it’s a pick-her-up. Because that’s exactly what firefighter Griffin Brantley does to, with, and for Everleigh Dangerfield the very first time they meet.

As she’s falling off her kitchen counter after setting her kitchen on fire and failing to turn off the wailing smoke alarm now that its warning has been heeded and the damage from the fire as well as from Everleigh’s successful attempt to put it out have succeeded.

Everleigh is past the point of needing the fire department, when they arrive. But that doesn’t mean that she’s past needing a hot firefighter in her life. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. The very friendly and endlessly flirty Griffin is EXACTLY what Everleigh needs this particular holiday season.

And not just because she keeps living up to her name. She really does bring a “danger field” wherever she goes. Which is only fair, as Griffin has absolutely endangered her heart. It’s a good – and delightfully naughty – thing that she’s done the same to his.

Escape Rating B: First, foremost, and most importantly, this was the right book – in this case audiobook – at the right time. While I was enjoying both the book I was reading (Miss Amelia’s List) and the book I was listening to (Blood Jade), neither of them is exactly light in their respective ways. And the third book I was planning on this week (Echo) is set in the depths of a Chicago winter, which brings its own heaviness to the story even before the murders begin.

In other words, I was looking for something light and fluffy, and this collection has consistently delivered.

Having now read/listened to four of the five, including Cruel Winter with You, All By My Elf and Only Santas in the Building, with Merry Ever After yet to go, I have to say that all of the stories have been a lot of fun, just right for a quick listen or a very quick read in a few spare minutes in the holiday rush.

This particular entry in the series is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from Cruel Winter, and not just because that’s the longest and this is one of the shortest. The stories take place, almost in each of their entireties, over the Xmas holidays. There’s not a lot of time for the romances to develop, and they absolutely do give off insta-love vibes but it does work.

The holiday season, after all, is supposed to be just a bit magical. Just like falling in love.

Cruel Winter is the one that is far from instant, as the protagonists have known each other ALL their lives. It’s just never been the right time for them until it finally is on this particular night. In some ways, it feels the closest to realistic among these very quick holiday rom-coms.

Merriment and Mayhem is the opposite. It’s VERY instant, to the point where the story feels a bit like a fantasy holiday rom-com. I don’t mean fantasy in the foolish wand-waving sense. I mean fantasy in the sense that the daydream of being swept off one’s feet by a hot firefighter is not exactly uncommon. We ALL already know how we want this one to go. And, for that matter, come. (Ahem!).

It’s just that Everleigh Dangerfield gets to live that particular fantasy over this particular Christmas. Everleigh’s ‘real-life’ version of this particular romantic daydream is so damn hot that it’s a good thing that it’s set in a place that doesn’t get much in the way of snow – because they’d certainly melt any accumulated snowfall for MILES around.

This romance is probably the steamiest of the whole collection. To the point of actual steam rising off the pages and possibly even embarrassment if you listen to the story out loud instead of with headphones. It’s absolutely right for this couple, but not all readers want everyone around them to know exactly what they are reading based on the heat of their blushes.

I listened to Merriment and Mayhem (with headphones) and the story absolutely flew by. The reader, Amelie Griffin, did an excellent job BEING Everleigh, and read the scenes with just the right amounts of chagrin and breathlessness as the story required.

I still have time to finish up the Under the Mistletoe collection before my holidays are over, as Hanukkah doesn’t end until sunset on January 2, 2025 this year. Plenty of time for Merry Ever After and one last sweet and romantic holiday reading treat!

A- #AudioBookReview: Dead as a Dodo by Hailey Edwards

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
A- #AudioBookReview: Dead as a Dodo by Hailey EdwardsDead as a Dodo (Yard Birds, #2) by Hailey Edwards
Narrator: Stephanie Richardson
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, urban fantasy, witches
Series: Yard Birds #2
Pages: 97
Length: 2 hours and 50 minutes
Published by Black Dog Books, Tantor Audio on February 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Ellie has done her best to keep the spark alive in her marriage to Wally, but she has limited options with her husband cursed into the body of a vintage novelty toy. She thought everything was going okay, aside from the fact he’s battery-operated and bursts into song whenever his motion sensor is triggered, but he’s done being a collector’s item.
When the Middles turn up with a half-dead coworker on her doorstep, Ellie jumps at the chance to help her nephews find who’s responsible to avoid the problems at home. As the attacks grow deadlier, and the rift between her and Wally grows wider, Ellie has to focus on saving herself if she ever hopes to save her marriage.

My Review:

Someone is targeting the shifters of the Sweetwater Pack as this second entry in the Yard Birds series. Ellie and her coven may not be part of the pack, but they are allies and two of her nephews absolutely are members. It’s not a surprise that those same nephews bring the hacked up victim right to Ellie’s door because he’s sure the coven can heal the victim – if she can be healed at all.

But that drags Ellie out of the funk she’s in and straight into a case that probably isn’t any of her business. Not that THAT’S ever stopped her. She wants to investigate and not just because she’s constitutionally incapable of keeping her nose out of other people’s business. Ellie’s having a personal crisis of her very own and she’d much rather handle someone else’s troubles than deal with it. Thankyouverymuch.

At least for a while. As a distraction. Until she can get down off her high horse and work on the mess that a curse has made of her marriage. Before it’s too late. Even if it already should have been – and if Ellie wasn’t a witch, would have been.

The case that Ellie, with able assistance and enablement from her nephew Zander, is a relatively simple one. Bloody, deadly and messy, but ultimately a bit stupid and easy to resolve.

Fixing her relationship with her husband is going to be a whole lot more complicated – and potentially heartbreaking. But a witch’s gotta do what a witch’s gotta do – no matter how much it’s going to hurt them both.

Escape Rating A-: This whole series, at least so far, is all about female power in its various forms. The members of the Witchlight coven may be entering their ‘crone era’, even if Flo is holding the signs of that back through sheer force of will and gallons of botox, but it’s not just them. In this second entry in the series (after Crazy as a Loon), it’s obvious that most of the paranormal and supernatural groups in Samford are run by women, including the Sweetwater Pack of shifters. A mixed pack whose alpha may be five foot nothing in human form but shifts to a whole lotta BEAR when her pack is threatened.

As it definitely is in this story.

The males in this story serve as helpers, assistants, annoyances and even outright ornaments, as exemplified by Ellie’ s beloved husband Wally, who is literally hanging on the wall as a battery-operated singing fish novelty toy.

Poor Wally has been cursed into the body of a plastic ‘Walleye’, literally, figuratively and frustratingly for both Ellie and Wally. (I really want the story of how that happened, and more about how Witchlight hubs operate when they’re not theoretically retired AND stories about the hijinks and adventures that Ellie and her coven got up to back in the day. If those stories already exist I’d appreciate it if someone would tell me!)

But all that female empowerment means that there were bound to be some males in town, whether human or shifter, who can’t hear the word “NO!” when it’s shouted in their faces – or beaks, or muzzles – and who can’t stand being beaten by a woman. Of course they’re just dead certain they’re entitled to be in charge because they have pricks. Or are pricks. Or both.

I did figure out the pattern to the attacks on Sweetwater long before Ellie and Zander did. Then again, she’s used to her and her coven and the other females in town being in charge of things. Out here in the real world, it just isn’t so and women get attacked just for being women all the damn time.

I’m going to try to climb down off my soapbox now but it’s not easy.

So the case Ellie has to solve was relatively simple, which makes it the perfect foil for Ellie’s personal issues – which are not going to be easy to resolve at all. Although, come to think of it, those issues are also about power, specifically the imbalance of power that has swum into Ellie’s marriage.

This story, the whole series in fact, is told from Ellie’s first person perspective, so we’re inside her head as she wrestles with her NEED to keep what she has of Wally SAFE. His form is fragile and easily broken or even stolen. But his heart and mind are EXACTLY what they were before the curse, meaning that inside that fish is a grown-ass adult who needs what we all need, purpose and independence. He’s starting to see Ellie as his jailor more than his wife and their marriage won’t survive that. And Ellie knows it even if she’s having a damn hard time figuring out what to DO about it.

Which is where the heartbreak and angst come into the story by the bucketful, and which the reader experiences even more fully and practically personally if they’re listening to Stephanie Richardson’s narration because she’s channeling Ellie’s internal voice perfectly. We hear Ellie, we feel for Ellie, and DAMN it’s hard to be there with her. (It’s what the story needs, but it’s still hard.)

The investigation may be over, but it feels like Ellie’s worries and woes have just dug in a little deeper as this story ends. I can’t wait to find out how, and for that matter if, everything works out in the third book in the series, Free as a Bird, which I know I’ll be listening to SOON even though I really, really don’t want this series to be over.

#AudioBookReview: Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | audio reviews> audiobooks> B Reviews> book reviews
#AudioBookReview: Cruel Winter with You by Ali HazelwoodCruel Winter with You (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #1) by Ali Hazelwood
Narrator: Vivienne LaRue
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audio
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #1
Pages: 73
Length: 2 hours
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

For two former childhood friends, a blustery winter storm stirs some frosty—and scorching—memories in a delightful short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.
Ali Hazelwood’s Cruel Winter with You is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

I was stuck in traffic at the end of Only Santas in the Building and found myself listening to the teasers for ALL the rest of the stories in the Under the Mistletoe collection and, well, I got hooked. So here we are back with another not too big, not too small, just right little holiday romance to sweeten – and heat up – the season.

This one is the longest entry in the collection, so it has just a bit more time and scope to get into the setup of the story and the backstory of the characters – and do they EVER have backstory. So this one gets just a bit deeper than the others – and it makes for a nice change of pace from the rest.

Jamie and Marc were not childhood sweethearts. Nor did they have a high school romance. Not that Marc didn’t want either of those things to happen. He was just very, very good at not letting Jamie know it.

Which was probably a good thing, as Jamie and his older sister Tabitha were childhood and high school besties. And even when this story takes place – ten whole years after Jamie and Tabitha’s high school graduation – Tabitha still hasn’t gotten past her childhood resentment of her parents’ bringing home their ‘Oops Baby’ just after her third birthday.

But Marc seems to have recognized that Jamie was his person the very first time she held him in her arms, when he was a newborn and she was all of two-and-a-half. In spite of decades of teasing and name-calling and everything that children can do to each other short of outright warfare, Jamie is still his person – a fact that Marc has built his entire life around even as he’s held it so close to his heart that Jamie doesn’t have a clue.

But on this one blustery cold winter night, stuck together at his parents’ otherwise empty house because her self-absorbed father thought nothing of sending her two miles down the road, on foot, in an impending northern Illinois blizzard, to retrieve a copper baking pan from his parents’ kitchen – all the secrets are laid bare.

And finally, at last, so are they.

Escape Rating B: In a collection of mostly fluff, this story gets surprisingly deep. And sad. And just a bit heartbreaking. It’s told in a series of flashbacks, sandwiched between the events of the now, and those flashbacks are what give the story its depth. But not in the way one expects.

It’s never been quite the right time for Jamie and Marc. She’s not quite three years older – something that mattered a lot when they were children but doesn’t matter in their late 20s at all. When things have gotten hard between them – not like that – it’s been because Marc’s been keeping the secret of his true feelings for Jamie pretty much all of his life – and occasionally those feelings get impatient.

He’s always been ready, but Jamie hasn’t. Because she’s afraid, not of Marc, not of having Marc, but of losing him. And it’s in the past that we see why. And that’s where the heartbreaking bits come in, because it’s not about him. It’s about her dad. Not in any terrible way, but certainly in a terribly human way.

I have to admit that Marc’s behavior occasionally tip-toed up to the line into the song “Every Breath You Take” in that it seems like he’s always been watching Jamie, always looking at her and after her even if she doesn’t know it, always waiting for the right moment to tell her that he loves her, planning his whole, entire life around making that happen. It seems romantic – but it’s also just a bit squicky and could have easily gone VERY wrong.

If it had it wouldn’t have fit in this collection at all. But since it didn’t, it did. And it does, in the end, work out. They are both finally in the right place at the right time with all their cards on the table.

I’m still enjoying this collection, the audios have ALL been lovely including this story’s voicing by Vivienne LaRue, and it’s all still feeling “just right” for the season. I may finish them ALL before this holiday is done. After all, Hanukkah doesn’t end until January 2, 2025, so I have plenty of time to indulge my holiday spirit!

#BookReview: Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Bayou Book Thief by Ellen ByronBayou Book Thief (Vintage Cookbook Mystery, #1) by Ellen Byron
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, culinary mystery, mystery
Series: Vintage Cookbook Mystery #1
Pages: 304
Published by Berkley on June 7, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron.
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki's teen mother disappeared from the hospital.
Ricki's dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve "Vee" Charbonnet, the city's legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation - collecting vintage cookbooks - into a vocation by launching the museum's gift shop, Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.
The skills Ricky has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki's past as curator of a billionaire's first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
Will Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success ... or a recipe for disaster?

My Review:

There is just something about New Orleans, and there probably always has been. There certainly always has been for me, as I’ve been drawn to reading books set in that city ever since my very first visit decades ago. So, when a friend picked up this book and said it looked like fun, I was more than willing to come along for the virtual trip.

Ricki James isn’t so much visiting as returning home to New Orleans after a long absence when this story begins. Her move may be a return to her roots after years in Los Angeles, but it also represents a fresh start – or at least Ricki certainly hopes so. She has come home in an attempt to dodge not one but two scandals she hopes she left behind in LA.

Just as no good deed goes unpunished, no really big scandal ever truly gets left behind – particularly not when there’s still some juice left in it. A situation with which Ricki becomes all too aware when a new and equally juicy scandal arrives at her door.

Not, initially, her personal door, but definitely, more importantly and absolutely worse, the door of her new and just barely established antique cookery, bookstore and museum gift shop at the equally newly established Bon Vee Culinary House Museum in the Garden District home of the late and much lamented Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, one of the city’s legendary restaurateurs.

One of the museum’s docents, a man nearly everyone on the staff can barely stand – at best – is caught red-handed with a selection of her shop’s vintage cookbooks concealed under his coat. It’s theft, pure and simple – no matter how much he tries to pin the blame that is so obviously his on practically every other person on the scene. His attempt to shift the blame merely spreads the ill-will he has always engendered – and avails him absolutely not.

But it might be the cause of his murder that night. A murder that casts a shadow over the Museum AND Ricki’s shop, as the theft, the spurious accusations the man threw around, AND the general enmity that nearly everyone seems to have felt for him, points out a possible motive. A motive that, as thin as it might seem, seems to be the only one the police can find.

The question, a question that seems to generally hover around the NOPD according to these local residents, is whether the police are willing and/or able to look all that hard when there’s an easy solution clearly to hand.

And that’s what leads antique cookbook expert Ricki James onto the path that many a worried amateur sleuth has trod before her. She decides to investigate the murder herself. Just to see if she can find a clue – or ten – that the police might have missed. In the hopes of preserving a wonderful place full of terrific people who are doing good work and might just offer her a chance to make a new place for herself into the bargain.

Escape Rating B: Bayou Book Thief was simply a delicious starter for a cozy mystery series. There was plenty of atmosphere – well of course because New Orleans – along with tempting red herrings, a fascinating ‘home base’ filled with interesting and quirky characters AND a whole series of villains that were easy to hate.

Beginning with that first murder victim, as it seems like no one misses the man. He was a nuisance when he was alive – and an even bigger one now that he’s dead. Leaving behind oodles of potential suspects and plenty of motives.

What made the story extra, added fun and filled with even more surprises was that the motive was wrapped around a decades old secret in a way that added to all the charm – and warmed the cockles of this booklover’s heart.

Writing randy romances – actually soft core porn – in the 1950s (around the time that the infamous Peyton Place was first published) was just not the done thing for young blue-blooded women possessing New Orleans’ finest pedigrees. Over half a century later, the now 80something Madame Lucretia Noisette is delighted that her old pseudonym has been rediscovered and she’s more than willing to own it.

The world has changed in the intervening decades, and at her age she’s past caring about any possible remaining potential scandal – even if her son and her grandchildren are not.

Little do they know that it’s not grand-mère’s once upon a time scandal that will cause the most problems. It’s not even Ricki’s much more recent scandals – the ones that she hoped she had left behind in LA. (That she had one serious scandal in her past is not atypical for the amateur detective in a cozy series. Two, however, struck this reader as a bit over-the-top, as both scandals were extremely juicy to the point where having one person be involved in both felt a bit like ‘overegging the pudding’. I’m curious to see the effects they’ll have on Ricki in future books in the series.)

Where back in the day the investigative axiom “cherchez la femme” might have led to the real villain, in this later day “follow the money” is a much better bet. Even if Ricki doesn’t figure out the whole thing at the very last moment.

She’s still ahead of the NOPD, something that is likely to spur her to future investigations. As it already has, considering that there are at least two more books in this charming cozy mystery series, Wined and Died in New Orleans and French Quarter Fright Night. I’m certainly planning on a return visit the next time I feel like ‘laissez les bon temps rouler’ the way to murder.

#AudioBookReview: Only Santas in the Building by Alexis Daria

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | audio reviews> audiobooks> B Reviews> book reviews
#AudioBookReview: Only Santas in the Building by Alexis DariaOnly Santas in the Building (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #5) by Alexis Daria
Narrator: Ruby Corazon
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #5
Pages: 65
Length: 1 hour and 31 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, especially for a comic book illustrator whose late-night fantasies become real in a festive and flirty short story by bestselling author Alexis Daria.
All Evie Cruz wants for Christmas is a nap. And maybe some ornaments for her naked Christmas tree. And while she’s making a list, she wouldn’t mind unwrapping her sexy upstairs neighbor like a present. Luckily, the building’s Santa-themed party and a surprise sprig of mistletoe give her just the opening she needs to make all her wishes come true.
Alexis Daria’s Only Santas in the Building is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

There are going to be more than a few readers/listeners to this one who are disappointed – not by the story itself but rather because the title sets up an expectation that the story will have a bit of a resemblance to the TV series, Only Murders in the Building. It doesn’t.

But I wasn’t looking for that. Instead, I got caught up in Evie’s freelance, gig-economy, deadline-driven life. Let’s just say that her cramming and scrambling to get her work in just minutes before the deadline sounded familiar. I understood the high she got from concentrating SO HARD and squeaking in JUST under the wire a bit too well.

That she was using the concentration and the pressure and the all-consuming nature of it to keep a whole lot of emotional stuff at bay was also something it was easy for this reader to identify with.

And then the story turned utterly delicious when her really sweet and deliciously hot neighbor turned up at her apartment door. It was pretty easy to see exactly why she had a crush on this guy – and to understand why she had no time to figure out whether that crush was returned – or not. Especially with her older sister naysaying in her ear at every turn.

The story, this deliciously sweet little holiday treat, comes to a delightful climax at the building’s annual holiday party, when everyone in the building comes to the penthouse apartment dressed as some variation of Santa – and a couple of meddling neighbors maneuver these two particular Santas under some strategically placed mistletoe to make their Christmas wishes come true.

Escape Rating B: I picked this second title from the Under the Mistletoe collection for the 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon because I wanted something short and sweet – or in this case steamy – for a day when most of us will still be recovering from yesterday’s turkey-induced coma.

And that’s exactly what I found.

Two stories into the collection, though, I’m starting to think that the real theme of the whole thing isn’t so much mistletoe as it is misunderstanding. Or at least mixed signals. Particularly the kind of mixed signals that occur between two people who don’t know each other well enough to know what the person they’ve been dreaming of – or at least daydreaming of – might be thinking about them.

Because their own insecurities get in their way. Both of their ways.

As compared to All By My Elf, the disconnect between Evie and Theo doesn’t even come close to a misunderstandammit. They don’t KNOW each other – and if someone doesn’t help them straighten out their crossed wires, they won’t have a chance to.

Hence that well-placed mistletoe.

Only Santas in the Building turned out to be the perfect light and frothy little story to listen to at the end of a long week. I got precisely what I was expecting and even a little bit more as Evie’s work resonated more than this reader expected. Then again, it resonated more with Theo’s work than he expected, too.

If you’re looking for little pick-me-up stories, this collection has been great so far – and I’ve already finished a third. They’re not deep, because there’s no time for that in this short format. But they’ve all been lovely for what they are and a perfect read and/or listen to help fill out my personal 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon readings.

Grade A #BookReview: What Child is This? by Bonnie MacBird

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: What Child is This? by Bonnie MacBirdWhat Child is This? (Sherlock Holmes Adventure #5) by Bonnie MacBird, Frank Cho
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, holiday fiction, holiday mystery
Series: Sherlock Holmes Adventure #5
Pages: 228
Published by Collins Crime Club on October 13, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

It’s the season of peace and goodwill, but a Victorian Christmas is no holiday for the world’s most popular detective in this new book from Bonnie MacBird, author of the bestselling Sherlock Holmes novel Art in the Blood.
It’s Christmastime in London, and Sherlock Holmes takes on two cases. The angelic three-year-old child of a wealthy couple is the target of a vicious kidnapper, and a country aristocrat worries that his handsome, favourite son has mysteriously vanished from his London pied à terre. Holmes and Watson, aided by the colourful Heffie O’Malley, slip slide in the ice to ensure a merry Christmas is had by nearly everybody . . .

My Review:

I wasn’t expecting to find a Sherlock Holmes story to include in my personal Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon. Not that I wasn’t willing to, considering how much I love Sherlock Holmes stories, but rather that Holmes can be a bit of a curmudgeon at the best of times.

He may not be, in any way, a miser like Ebenezer Scrooge but he’s certainly more than capable of bah-ing and humbug-ing with the best of them. Or the worst of them as the case might be.

And then I remembered that the Holmes series I just started earlier this month with Art in the Blood, included a Holmes’ Christmas tale, and to paraphrase the Great Detective himself, the game was afoot.

What Child is This? (yes, the question mark is part of the title and it’s driving me batty) connects two stories with loosely similar themes under the banner of the holiday season and runs away with them. Or sets them on fire. Or a bit of both.

The Marquis of Blandbury, Henry Weathering, comes to Holmes because his adult son Reginald hasn’t written to his mother in weeks, and the woman is beside herself because it’s so very much not like him. Even dear-old-dad, who does not seem the worrying sort, is worried – if only second hand. He’s more concerned about his wife’s peace of mind than his son’s current whereabouts but even the rather blunt instrument that is the Marquis knows that something isn’t right and he expects Holmes to find out precisely what.

The other case, the much more serious case, is one that literally drops into Holmes’ and Watson’s laps. Or at least falls right into their hands. They witness a well-to-do woman and her attendant get attacked by a crazed assailant who knocks them both over as he plucks the woman’s little boy right out of her arms. And attempts to flee with the child through the crowded streets.

With Sherlock Holmes in hot pursuit, Watson attends to the women who have been so grievously assaulted. Holmes doesn’t manage to catch his man – but he does successfully rescue the little boy and restore him to his mother’s waiting arms.

The two cases don’t have anything in common beyond the fact that both originate with potentially missing sons. Of course, Holmes, with Watson’s able assistance, solves both cases.

But neither case goes to any of the places that the reader originally believes they will, and the solutions are far from orthodox. They are both cases where Holmes displays the heart that he would claim that he does not have – with his dear friend Watson there, as always, to record that he does.

Escape Rating A: I loved this – and I think I loved it more because it feels like the characterizations of Holmes and Watson read like they owe a lot more to the screen adaptations of the past OMG 40 years, starting with Jeremy Brett, than they do to the earlier portrayals of Basil Rathbone and even the original Holmes canon itself.

Not that the two cases aren’t every bit as confounding and convoluted as any of the Holmes’ stories penned by Conan Doyle, but rather that the characters of our two protagonists have been made just that bit more human and more sympathetic than the original ‘thinking machine’ and his idiot sidekick.

Instead, this is a portrayal where Holmes is aware that he is just a bit ‘different’ from most people, and where Watson knows and understands that part of his purpose in Holmes’ life and in their long friendship is to allow Holmes to explain his deductions – even as he stinks up their apartment with his experiments.

There is a mutual respect in that friendship – a respect that would have had to have existed for Holmes to have tolerated Watson’s inability to follow his genius and for Watson to have tolerated Holmes’ frequent high-handed treatment of him. There’s also an awareness on Watson’s part that these are NEVER fair play mysteries. Holmes always keeps secrets even when that lack of knowledge might endanger Watson’s life.

The solutions to both of these cases are extremely unorthodox – which made them that much more fascinating. Something that was made even more clear to me as I listened to The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, the canon story with which this adventure was very loosely in dialogue. THAT Holmes would never have come to either of these resolutions, but THIS Holmes is all the better for doing so.

I liked my first taste of this author’s Sherlock Holmes Adventures in Art in the Blood, but I really got into this interpretation with this Christmas story. There are three stories between Art and this one, and the events of those stories was teased just a bit in this one – more than enough to make me eager to read them.

And I’m definitely looking forward to the latest entry in the series, The Serpent Under, coming in January!

#AudioBookReview: All By My Elf by Olivia Dade

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | audio reviews> audiobooks> B Reviews> book reviews
#AudioBookReview: All By My Elf by Olivia DadeAll by My Elf (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #3) by Olivia Dade
Narrator: Andi Arndt
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance, short stories
Series: Under the Mistletoe #3
Pages: 55
Length: 1 hour and 28 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 12, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

Secret crushes, spicy Christmas treats, heinous holiday traffic, and a fateful snowstorm bring good friends together in a funny, heartfelt short story by bestselling author Olivia Dade.
Nina and William are underpaid adjunct professors at the same university, where winter break is no break at all: ’tis the season to make extra money. When their holiday side hustle has them stranded by a blinding blizzard in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing to do but cuddle up for warmth and play a game of Never Have I Ever to pass the time. But in the game of love, secrets never stay secret for long…
Olivia Dade’s All by My Elf is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.

My Review:

What do you do with a used Weinermobile? Does what happens in the Weinermobile STAY in the Weinermobile? Have you ever wondered? Inquiring minds actually get to find out in All By My Elf.

The answers to those questions coincide with a few considerably less humorous and more down-to-earth questions about the lengths (pun definitely intended) that part-time college professors will go to in order to keep feeding their dreams of the ivory towers of academia while still managing to feed themselves on stipends that barely allow them to make ends wave at each other.

Most of all – and best of all – All By My Elf is a romance that satisfies the craving for a hot, steamy friends into lovers romance that toasts a nearly frozen night in a grey-market Weinermobile into a story that’s way bigger than even a 27 foot long hot dog in a bun – or equally long mincemeat-filled roll of phyllo dough in a Mincemobile – could ever manage to contain.

Escape Rating B: Believe it or not, the puns are part of the story – and they are groaners even when Adjunct Professors Nina Teems and William Dern aren’t moaning together in the back of the weiner.

(Speaking of groaners, if the title of this story is giving you an earworm that refuses to let itself be nailed down, that’s because the earworm is tripping over the slight difference between the book’s title and the song’s title, which is ‘All By Myself’, originally performed by Eric Carmen in 1975 but also covered by Sheryl Crow in 1993 and Céline Dion in 1996.)

So, even though there’s nothing either light or fluffy about a giant hot dog nestled in an even bigger bun – the story itself has plenty of both as well as being the perfect steamy antidote to all of Thanksgiving’s turkey and trimmings – not to mention the rock solid nature of some traditional holiday fruitcakes.

After yesterday’s book, which turned out to be more Xmas and less Halloween than I expected, I found myself looking for a lighter and fluffier story to ease us all into the holiday season and especially the 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon that begins tomorrow. I chose this particular short story in the Under the Mistletoe collection because I loved the author’s Spoiler Alert series and was hoping for some of the same laughs amid the romance.

Which I definitely got even if I’m not all that fond of hot dogs and I’ve never had mincemeat in any form – let alone this particular version – that I can recall. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to even think of it again without giggling at least a bit.

All By My Elf takes a gigantic misunderstandammit and turns up the heat between two friends who have epic crushes on each other and are afraid to act on them. At least until the Mincemobile gets stuck in an epic blizzard and they need each other’s body heat to keep from freezing to death. (That’s not really a spoiler as this is a short story and the inevitable is so obvious it can be seen from outer space.) This scenario is one that gets used in romance and in fanfiction ALL THE TIME, and it’s a classic for a reason. It works. It really, really works – no matter how contrived the machinations for getting the couple into it.

If you’re looking for a quick read that combines warmth and heat and more than a few groaning laughs, All By My Elf is a fun, quick, read or listen to give you an excuse to put your feet up and your mind on coast for a few minutes during the busy holiday season.

 

#AudioBookReview: The President’s Brain is Missing by John Scalzi

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | audio reviews> audiobooks> B Reviews> book reviews> Short Story Review
#AudioBookReview: The President’s Brain is Missing by John ScalziThe President's Brain Is Missing by John Scalzi
Narrator: P.J. Ochlan
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: humorous science fiction, science fiction, short stories
Pages: 29
Length: 47 minutes
Published by Macmillan Audio, Tor Books on July 12, 2010
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Better World Books
Goodreads

The question is, how can you tell the President's brain is missing? And are we sure we need it back?

My Review:

My brain is toast today which is what caused me to pull this book and audio out of the virtually towering TBR pile. I was looking for a bit of a laugh, something lighthearted that wouldn’t tax my own poor missing brain too much – and this certainly delivered!

It starts out with a simple but confounding idea. What if the brain of the President of the United States went missing? I don’t mean surgically removed or shot out or anything even remotely logical. But what if the President woke up one morning, felt a bit lightheaded, and his doctor did all the obvious tests and a few less obvious tests and determined that there was a void in his cranium where his brain matter was supposed to be.

And that he was otherwise healthy and as operational as he ever was.

It’s a crisis – and it’s a conundrum. There are plenty of jokes about whether anyone will notice that this particular president no longer has a brain. Likewise, plenty of people would notice if the president dropped dead because his brain had gone walkabout. Just because he seems to be fine – at the moment – doesn’t mean he will continue to be fine under the circumstances.

The human body is not meant to function without something up there.

So one poor low-level staffer is assigned to figure out what happened before they have to tell the president what happened. Because he’s not going to take it well – AT ALL. Who would?

That assignment that leads from the White House to an old high school buddy to Area 51 to white panel vans to, well, back to the White House. After the dust has settled and the crisis hasn’t so much been resolved as expanded and made totally moot – at the same time.

Escape Rating B: This turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. It was light, short and fun. It also, surprisingly, is NOT a commentary on any of the parties in the recent election – or the one before that or the one before that. The President’s Brain is Missing was originally published in 2010. It took me a while to remember which president this particular lack of braininess would have been lampooning at THAT time – but once I did it worked even better than it had initially.

And it most certainly did work.

It did remind me more than a bit of the author’s When the Moon Hits Your Eye in the sense that the crisis is just so completely off the wall and comes out of absolute nowhere. Although this story about the President’s missing brain did a much better job at, at least, nodding towards causality than Moon did and I liked it more for that.

Part of what made this so much fun is that it took me back both to a more innocent time – as strange as that seems – and it reminded me of a whole lot of wonderfully strange and geeky science fiction into the fun bargain.

There’s the obvious take off on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Spock’s Brain – which was a terrible episode. At least Spock’s missing brain was considerably more apparent, as, after all, Spock USES his.

In addition to the multiple nods to Trek, and the beautifully played reference to the extremely applicable Clarke’s Law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,) I also got some whiffs of nostalgia about the X-Files and even a touch of Stargate. The X-Files were specifically mentioned, but so was Area 51 where Stargate Command had a base that dealt with alien technology.

The President’s brain may, or may not, have been missing – or maybe it’s Schrodinger’s Brain after all – but the author’s deft touch with science fiction humor was certainly present. And this story turned out to be the perfect listen for my own missing brain to wrap up the week.

A- #AudioBookReview: Crazy as a Loon by Hailey Edwards

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
A- #AudioBookReview: Crazy as a Loon by Hailey EdwardsCrazy as a Loon (Yard Birds #1) by Hailey Edwards
Narrator: Stephanie Richardson
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, urban fantasy, witches
Series: Yard Birds #1
Pages: 133
Length: 4 hours
Published by Black Dog Books, Tantor Audio on July 4, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Ellie Gleason has protected the town of Samford, Alabama for decades. It’s not as glamours as her glory days as the WitchLight Hub, but it keeps her active during her golden years.
Life is good.
Well, it’s okay.
Fine.
It could be bloodier with a smidge more gore, but retirement is meant to be low-key. It’s not like her fragile bones could handle the strenuous hunt for monsters anymore, even if her current duties are dull as dishwater.
But when her great-nephew shows up on her doorstep in tears—or is he her great-great nephew?—begging for help, Ellie straps on her beloved shotgun, Bam-Bam, and gets the coven back together.
Sure, Betty just had a hip replacement, and Flo would rather flirt than fight, and Ida is busy with her anniversary plans, and Joan is…Joan. But Ellie is certain she can whip the girls into shape in time to defeat the creature preying on kids at a nearby summer camp. She might even have them home in time for dinner.

My Review:

Ellie Gleason isn’t, really, and neither are the rest of her friends. Well, maybe Joan is just a bit. Crazy as a loon, I mean. None of them are crazy, loony or otherwise, no matter how much Ellie might fake it by running around the tiny town of Samford, Alabama in her housecoat with ‘Bam-Bam’ strapped to her back.

Bam-Bam is her shotgun. And nope, still not crazy.

Because when you’re still patrolling as a working member of Witchlight – even if you are in your second century – it’s better to be armed as well as dangerous. Which Ellie and the rest of her coven certainly are. Even if it takes them a little longer to get to the scene of the crime.

Or, for that matter, to the point of any discussion, because they’ve been together so damn long that there are plenty of times when the pointed barbs and the old grudges take over the planning of any and every op.

It’s mostly small town stuff – because they’re not the top tier of Witchlight operators no matter how much they all still wish they were kicking ass and taking names and riding monsters to the rescue. So when this case literally crawls into their laps, they’re all a bit giddy with the adrenaline of the chase.

Even if the person at the heart of the mess is a child under their protection. Particularly because another member of their family is doing their damndest to keep it from them.

They may not be what they used to be – but when one of their cubs is threatened it brings out the mama bear in every single one of them. Even if not one of them shifts into an actual bear. That’s okay. After all, one of their sons is bear-shifter enough to handle THAT part of the job.

Escape Rating A-: I picked up this book and audiobook, in fact this whole, entire series, on a recommendation from Caffeinated Reviewer. I caught her review of the third book in the series, Free as a Bird, and had to ask myself where had this been all my life and how had I missed it?

Based on this first book, this series is an absolute hoot from beginning to end. It was also the perfect book for this week as it is a hilarious pick-me-up with a heart wrapped around found family and lifelong sisterhood.

The combination of elements got me from the opening paragraphs. Because this takes off from the same premise as one of my favorite urban fantasies, A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark, but goes about it differently.

That book, and I still mourn that it was only ever the one, took off from a question about what happens to all those young, limber, kickass urban fantasy protagonists if they survive to middle age and even older. Marley Jacob got herself a kickass sidekick and went about her own personal kickassery through negotiation and mediation once the years caught up with her.

Ellie and her coven have just kept on kicking – even as they also kick against the inevitable slowing down of age. They use magic to slow down slowing down – and then they do too much and pay the price later. But they all refuse to quit even as they are forced to change gears.

They’re a LOT like the sisterhood of retired spies turned assassins in Killers of a Certain Age – complete with the sharply pointed banter and the lifelong grudges. So if you liked that and want to give urban fantasy a try, you’ll love Ellie and her Yard Birds.

The case here, and there certainly is one, does a great job of introducing Ellie and her sisters and setting up their family situation – which is just a bit complicated – while giving them a case that is close to their hearts even as it shines a light on just what sorts of things can go wrong in a world where the paranormal exists but still has to keep itself under wraps.

And then the case managed to tie itself back into the reason they all got involved in the first place, as both the evil they fight and the reason they’re fighting it come from the same place – a mother’s love.

The story is told from inside Ellie’s snarky head – and I loved every minute of it. The narrator, Stephanie Richardson, captured the essence of Ellie perfectly, so I’m very happy that she is the narrator for the whole series so far.

I only have two quibbles about this whole experience. One is that I wish there were more. Which there is, of course, as the second and third books, Dead as a Dodo and Free as a Bird, are already out and I already have them.

But the second is that I hope those later books resolve a niggle left over from this one. They did solve the case. They absolutely did. But there was a dangling potential co-conspirator left in their midst. I may be wrong about their co-conspirator status, but there was something rotten left in the heart of the family that got a rug pulled over it. I hope that rug gets pulled back in the books ahead.

I’m certainly there for it. I definitely want to hear as much more from Ellie as I can get!