Korte aanstekelijke geschreven stukjes over denkfouten die vrijwel iedereen weleens maakt.

In a bout to attract tourists to the town of North Powell that appreciate the quaintness of the town rather than its natural resources, the town brings in a marketing team. Laura Delany is to liaise with the team. She soon finds herself attracted to one team member and then another. She starts to date one (David) while she works together weekly with the other (Spence). He even helps her with renovation work on an old Victorian.

After many hot and sexy scenes, things come to blows and Laura realises she must really pick one of them. The author does a good job of making both men sympathetic so neither is too obvious as the final choice. Although I think Laura should have taken into consideration that she did home renovation with Spence. If you can do that for six months and not going after each other with hammers, you have the kind of relationship that can weather any storm.

Some minor gripes: the sex scenes where long drawn out and male centric. Laura gave one of them permission to do what every he liked with her body and when she realised he used that permission to do things to please her she made him stop. O.o Also, I would have liked the occasional mention of safe sex. The sex scenes were long enough to incorporate in some rolling off of condom.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I had a hard time staying interested in this story. Too many genre tropes I don't care for (biased police, sleuth breaking in (or rather trespassing in this case), confronting the prime suspect). So you just know it's also going to follow the trope of "it's always the one they least expect".

I don't know why, but this story was trying my nerves more than usually.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

This is one of my favourite series and this installment did not disappoint.

At the fall Bridal Expo event's organizer Roxanna Quarry falls out of a prop cake. It soon becomes clear her death was not an accident. But who? Usually there is a plethora of suspects, but now there is just the one: her business partner Vergie Hamilton. Even though town gossip Mason Denman claims he can easily name six people that hated her, everyone else seems to have loved Roxanna. Even her ex still loves her.

Nina sets out to investigate. She accidentally took something from Roxanna's house and now someone seems to be after her too.

Love how the relationship between Nina and Harry is developing too.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I didn’t enjoy this story. I might have, had I been in a different mindset. But this story reminded me of a Sophie Kinsella story and I read some reviews of that to remind me, and this story has some of the same flaws: bashing ambition in women.

Milly Finch is totally focused on her career. So focused she doesn’t see the bus coming and ends up in hospital, where she is kept in an artificial coma for a week. When she wakes up from her coma her brother immediately starts arguing with her that she’s always got her nose to the screen of phone and has put her career before friends, family and her own well-being. Which is a pretty shitty thing to do - the brother’s remarks, I mean - Milly just woke up from a coma. You’re not put in an artificial coma to help mend a broken arm; Milly probably had swelling to the brain, she may have brain damage and at the very least have a concussion. In Milly’s case however, a coma seems to be a nice rather long sleep as she is capable of arguing back at her brother.

The message of the book is set: career bad, family and friends good. At least the family and friends come to your hospital bed and the people you knew through work did not. It turns out no one told the work people that she was in hospital, so it’s not like they actually got a chance. And the friend and family only seem to be there to tell her what a bad person Milly’s been.

But, no more of that. After two weeks in hospital, Milly has missed all her deadlines and all her clients have let her know they never want to work with her again because she is unreliable. From a freelancer with a great network, she has gone to unemployed with nothing. She even has to move in with her ex-boyfriend because not paying rent is about all she can afford.

From then on Milly as a different person. She makes a few halfhearted attempts at still wanting to be independent and pulling her own weight (or putting casseroles in the oven), but other than that she’s looking up to appreciate the beauty around her, like making small talk with strangers.

A lifestyle most of us can’t afford because we do have to work before we can eat.

Not even the main hero can hold my attention, because he suffers from a flaw all Maxine Morrey’s heroes seem to have: they are too darn perfect. They are absolutely nice and understanding, make a lot of money and all ways have time for their tonnes of friends. They don’t even leave their shoes in the hallway in a way you can trip over them.

Time to just skip to the epilogue.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

After the unexpected death of her husband, Celestine doesn’t feel like to compete in the Virginia Commonwealth Bake-off, although she could sure use the prize money. Tish offers to compete in her place. The competition organizer is okay with this, so with just with a week to prepare (think of recipes and tweak them to perfection) Tish enters the bake-off with hopes of winning.

Everyone at the bake-off pales when she mentions that for her final bake she will bake a cherry pie. As it turns out: in the past two years the contestants who intended to bake a cherry pie died before the final day of the competition. Tish doesn’t believe in any such curse, but when she receives a threatening note and someone tampers with her mixers, Tish wants to know what the connection was between the two women, ‘cause that may be the thing that got them killed.

Very likeable read. During the day Tish collects clues by talking to fellow contestants and overhearing things, in the evening she bounces off ideas on her friends and a local policeman, who doesn’t seem out of place at all for helping out or sharing information. The information comes it good doses and there are plenty of twists and turns.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Jude has been a care giver for her grandmother since she was seventeen. Now twelve years later, Jude has just graduated a BA in English Literature, her grandmother wants to move to a retirement facility, her parents have sold their bakery and her secret boy-friend turns out to have a few more secret girl-friends and Jude needs a new purpose in life.

But first, a holiday to Clove Lore to run a bookshop for two weeks. She has her heart set on solitude, as the holiday was originally planned with her now ex-boy-friend, and for obvious reasons, she's not taking him. Alas, solitude is not to be, because unknown to Jude, the ex has okayed that a perfect stranger would take his place.

A perfect stranger that is secretive, but ever so attractive.

Jude is likeable, although a bit prone to being overdramatic. The move from attraction to first kiss was a bit quick, given how long it took Jude to stop thinking of the man as an interloper.
Nice colour local though.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

This book is off to a slow start. Which is all right for me. It’s the first in the series for me, so the slow start gives me a chance to be introduced to the characters. It’s making me curious about the previous stories.

Then a body is found in Mia’s backyard. In most cozies this is where the pace picks up as the sleuth gets herself involved in the mystery. Not so much here. The slow pace continues. Even though there are plenty of mysteries around: there’s the unknown dead man; someone told Mia she’s better of leaving or even selling her building; and one of her house guests is a novice witch that may have or may not have cast a spell or two for her own benefit. It’s not until after Mia has finished work for the day that she starts a little investigation.

The story continues in this vain. It isn’t until the last quarter of the book that Mia puts in some actual effort in getting to know who the victim was and who might have known him.

I’m not sure what to think of this story. There is plenty of mystery in this story, but it mainly has to do with Mia’s house. For the most part, it’s a lot of mundane stuff about work and locking doors that would have happened too if there had not been a dead man in Mia’s backyard. Mia certainly didn’t act like there was any urgency to solving that murder.

Still, it was an okay read, it just lacked a good hook to pull me in.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.