Author – Maggie Sefton
Published – 2005
This may be the only book in this series since the author seems to be focusing on a knitting cozy series. My husband is a real estate broker so I was interested to see how this book would compare to what I see him do on a daily basis.

Kate Doyle is a relatively new real estate agent (they call her a broker but that may be a Colorado term because it doesn’t mean the same thing in Texas) after getting a divorce 3 years prior and needing a new career. One of her friends is getting a divorce (and it doesn’t look like it will be pretty) and she is helping them sell the house. She comes back for some sigatures from the husband and finds him dead in his home office. Not what she was expecting. The most logical suspect is the wife, Amanda, but that is Kate’s friend and she knows that Amanda couldn’t kill her husband. So she sets off to figure out who did it and why.

Let’s just say that I didn’t figure it out until the end when the clues were all put together.

Overall it was a decent book and I could see the interpersonal relationships developing, but I probably wouldn’t look for a 2nd book by this author. But maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Publisher – Oceanview Publishing
ISBN – 9781933515137
Price – $23.95
Publication Date – 5/1/08
Was it The Deal of a lifetime?
Number of stars for amazon.com (4/5)

The author, Adam Gittlin, is a commercial real estate executive in New York City. This is his second book; his first was The Men Downstairs.

Jonah Gray was on the fast track to success from growing up with a family that owned and managed real estate in the Northeast to working for a commercial real estate company owned by a family friend and brokering some of the best deals of his young life. So when the opportunity of a lifetime came along from a family friend that wished to purchase real estate in the Big Apple, who was he to question the request? Sure he only had three weeks to make the deal of a lifetime, but that is what makes the request a challenge. Everything seemed perfectly normal until a series of incidents that lead him to dig deeper than he ever imagined. Was the family friend on the up and up or was there more involved than meets the eye? And would his life ever be the same when it was all said and done?

I am familiar with commercial real estate and that world so was interested to see how the author brought this in as a part of the storyline especially since this is something the author is very familiar with in real life. While there are references to buildings in NYC, it was not heavy on the details which could be good or bad depending on what you were expecting.

There were times when the chapters lagged and I felt like there was too much detail for a scene at a club or restaurant. There was also more foul language than I normally prefer, however I was able to read past that part. Once the main character found a Fabergé Egg in his possession, everything changed and the pace of the story picked up and it kept me engrossed until the very end.

There are many twists and turns that I did not see coming. Who was his father and what had he not told him over the years? And what about his old family friend, Andreu? Was his story about needing to purchase the real estate legitimate? And why the rush? These questions are all answered as Jonah digs deeper and deeper into his family history.

Take a chance on this book, it is a good read and it just might surprise you.

Reviewed for RebeccasReads (5/08)