Tag: Halloween

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First Line Friday

FIRST LINE FRIDAY

First Line Friday is hosted at Reading Is My Super Power.  It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line. Today I’m featuring the first line of A Corpse at the Witching Hour by Debra Sennefelder.

And the first line is………

Hope Early blew out a breath as she started at the plans spread across her kitchen table. She’d been studying them for days. At this point, she wasn’t sure what she was looking for.

credit

Yesterday I featured a Christmas cozy, today a Halloween one. Maybe I should get to the Halloween one before the end of the month, hopefully I can fit it in.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hope Early has to contend with ghosts, a fatal curse, and a decades-old family secret to catch a killer in the new Food Blogger Mystery . . .

When her best friend’s Aunt Issy falls ill, food blogger Hope Early agrees to help him hand out Halloween candy at his aunt’s house, which is rumored to be cursed. A murder-suicide took place there a century ago, and legend has it that a woman has died there every twenty years since—on Halloween. Hope doesn’t really believe in curses or ghosts, but when all the trick-or-treaters are gone and she discovers a woman’s dead body on the front lawn, she wonders if the curse might be real after all.

Then Hope and her friend discover a cache of love letters linking the dead woman to Aunt Issy’s husband years ago, and Hope is certain they’ve uncovered the motive for murder—and the police are certain Aunt Issy is their main suspect. Determined to prove Issy’s innocence and nab the real culprit, Hope starts shaking other branches of the family tree. But she forgets that Halloween isn’t the only day people hide behind masks, and if she’s not careful, Hope will come face-to-face with a ghoulish fiend who’s not afraid to kill again . . .

Includes two tasty recipes!

Grab it here

276 pages October 5,2023 publication date Beyond the Page publisher

Do you like Halloween books? I know some don’t. I have a few Halloween/Fall books I still need to read for this year but seem to keep getting sidetracked by other books I need to read on a deadline. Here’s to reading Halloween books in February 🙂

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Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking by Raquel V. Reyes-Review (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery Book 2)

About The Book

It’s time for a savory soirée—but something sinister is stewing—in Raquel V. Reyes’s second delightful Caribbean Kitchen mystery, perfectly delicious for fans of Mia P. Manansala.

Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school’s Fall Festival the day before.
 
Miriam’s luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women’s Club annual gala. But this year, it’s not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club’s manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to his death at the bottom of the grand staircase.
 
Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia? 
 
Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam’s life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder.

My Thoughts

I haven't read the first book in this series, though I would love to, but I don't feel like I am missing part of the story. This is such a fun, high energy book.
With Fall vibes emanating from each page, we have our main character Miriam Quiñones-Smith a star of the Miami. Cuban American cooking show.
I loved the authentic feel for the area with many passages of the book being in Spanish and descriptions of the food's native to the area.
Being that there is a food anthropologist we get a well-researched history of native foods (especially fruits) and information about different cultures.
Thanks to her mother-in-law, Miriam is busy planning the Country Club’s annual gala, of course her mother-in-law hadn't asked her just volunteered her for it. If this isn't enough to keep this anthropologist busy, she also wakes up to find a body in her yard and is sleuthing to solve another murder.
I loved this Foodie cozy mystery with its vibrant take on Cuban culture and food.

Pub Date: 11 Oct 2022
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

Grab A Copy Here

About The Author

RAQUEL V. REYES writes Latina protagonists. Her Cuban-American heritage, Miami, and Spanglish feature prominently in her work. Mango, Mambo, and Murder, the first in the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, won a LEFTY for Best Humorous Mystery and was nominated for an Agatha. The New York Times Book Review wrote, “it executes its mission—with panache.” Raquel’s short stories appear in various anthologies, including The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Find her across social media platforms as @LatinaSleuths and on her website LatinaSleuths.com

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#Halloween Vibes #Autumn Tricked In October (Pine Ridge #2) By Starla DeKruyf-Review

About The Book

In this best-friends-to-lovers romance, mistaken identity leads to a Halloween hook-up that might not be so mistaken after all.

After losing her husband last winter, the thought of hosting a Halloween couples costume party is the furthest thing from Kelsey O’Henry’s mind. Besides raising three young children, managing O’Henry’s Bar and Grill, and caring for her alcoholic mother, she has more important things to worry about. Like the stack of unpaid business loans that threaten the bar’s existence. As well as her newfound feelings she’s developed for her best guy friend.

Davis Vance is tired of being followed around by cameras. He misses the days before he and his twin brother became “Renovation Dudes”—hosts of an HGTV show. When Davis learns Kelsey could lose the bar at the end of the fall season, he sees it as an opportunity to not only help his friend, but as a way out of renewing his HGTV contract.

There’s just one problem—lately Davis’s feelings for Kelsey have been less friendly and more romantic. And on the night of the bar’s Halloween party, both Kelsey and Davis can no longer ignore their desires. Will their passionate evening be a one-night stand—only a flicker of heat during the crisp autumn, or will she risk her pride and accept his help?

Pumpkin patch in autumn.

My Thoughts

I am a cover lover. I’ll admit to judging a book by it’s cover. There are so many book options out there so an appealing cover makes me much more likely to want to grab a book to read and this one did it for me.
This book is perfect for this time of year. It has such a Fallish/Halloweenish vibe all the way through it and it was great.
Tricked in October has a woman who lost her husband last winter. She has so much going on she’s tripping over her own feet trying to get it all done. She has three young children,an alcoholic mother who also runs a bakeshop that she wants her to help manage, a bar she’s about to lose because of back bills and more. O’Henry’s Bar and Grill was her late husband’s bar and though Kelsey O’Henry runs it because it’s been in her husband’s family a long time she feels she should pass it down to her children but it’s giving her more stress than she can handle.
Throw in her best guy friend Davis Vance, she seems to be falling for him. With her responsibilities she really doesn’t need this complication.
Davis and his twin brother are filming a HGTV show and are recognizable now. One twin enjoys the extra attention from women,one does not.
Davis has been friends with Kelsey for a long time and would love to move this relationship to a more personal level but will the timing be right or will the Halloween chill be in the air between them?
Loved the Fall vibes in this and will be looking forward to read more by this author.

Pub Date 25 Oct 2022
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

Grab A Copy Here

Books In This Series

About The Author

Starla DeKruyf started writing when she still had words left to say and everyone stopped listening. Her love of romance novels began when she borrowed her friend’s copy of Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume and kept it hidden from her mom. When she’s not slinging coffee, volunteering with youth, or taxiing her kids around, you can find her jamming out to her playlists and writing her next swoony romance, usually by hand. She lives in Spring, Texas, with her husband, three children, an English Mastiff, and a rescue pup.

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