Posted in 5 paws, Cozy, Giveaway, mystery, Review, Texas on July 30, 2021

 

 

 70% DARK INTENTIONS

 

Bean to Bar Mysteries

Book 2

 

 by

 

AMBER ROYER

 

 

Categories: Cozy Mystery / Woman Sleuth / Romance

Publisher: Golden Tip Press

Date of Publication: July 20, 2021

Number of Pages: 260 pages

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An Idyllic Chocolate Shop. An island with endangered species. And a murder.

Felicity Koerber’s bean to bar chocolate shop on Galveston’s historic Strand is bringing in plenty of customers – in part due to the notoriety of the recent murder of one of her assistants, which she managed to solve. Things seem to be taking a turn for the better. Her new assistant, Mateo, even gets along with Carmen, the shop’s barista turned pastry chef. Felicity thinks she’s learning to cope with change – right up until one of her friends gets engaged. Everyone’s expecting her to ask Logan, her former bodyguard, to be her plus one. But even the thought of asking out someone else still makes her feel disloyal to her late husband’s memory — so maybe she hasn’t moved on from her husband’s death as much as she thought.

Felicity isn’t planning to contact Logan any time soon. Only, Felicity finds ANOTHER body right outside her shop – making it two murders at Greetings and Felicitations in as many months. That night, Mateo disappears, leaving Felicity to take care of his pet octopus. The police believe that Mateo committed the murder, but Felicity is convinced that, despite the mounting evidence, something more is going on, and Mateo may actually be in trouble.

When Logan assumes that he’s going to help Felicity investigate, she realizes she’s going to have to spend time with him – whether she’s ready to really talk to him or not. Can Felicity find out what happened to Mateo, unmask a killer, and throw an engagement party all at the same time?

 

Praise

 

“Royer has concocted a sweetly dark confection with 70% DARK INTENTIONS, the second serving in her Bean to Bar Mysteries series…You’ll read this yummy treat late into the night.” –Amy Shojai, author of September Day & Shadow pet-centric thrillers.

 

 

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Calling all chocolate lovers! This cozy series will keep you entertained and salivating over truffles, chocolate bars, and many other treats that are whipped up in the Greetings and Felicitations shop in Galveston. Too bad it isn’t a real shop that I could go visit in the future!

This is the second book in this series and it does help to read the first book to get a feel for all of the characters and their back story. Felicity is running a shop that was supposed to be with her husband before he died unexpectedly. She still has many fond memories of her husband and their plans, but she moves forward without him but not without some sad moments. Logan is the potential new guy in her life that we met in the first book. They both have reservations and there are some good conversations between them and what they might be able to have going forward. Of course, there are some misunderstandings and dates with others before they get to that point. Felicity is set up with her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend’s brother, Wallace. Wallace is a bit of an odd duck and really doesn’t knock Felicity’s socks off. It is an awkward situation for sure considering all involved parties.

I really enjoyed the variety of characters and their quirkiness. The author does a great job of bringing in multiple cultures, beliefs, interests, and personality types. It is hard to know which character to like or dislike and are they involved in the murder of Fabian found outside the front door of Felicity’s shop? It takes a fair amount of digging by Felicity and Logan to get to the bottom of the murder. I had to crack up at one of the characters that Felicity called “Fake Leslie.” This woman knew what she was doing and what she wanted to discover and wasn’t afraid to use anyone else to get the information she needed.

There is a surprising animal that could have stolen the book, Clive the octopus that is Mateo’s pet. I learned a bit about this breed and how you could have an octopus as a pet. Not that I want one, but fascinating information. The author also sheds life on sea turtles and how some are on the road to becoming extinct which is a shame.

The mystery is not an easy one to solve but I have to say that I did suspect the right character, I just didn’t know why or at least not all of the potential details. I don’t want to spoil anything so it is hard to share too many details about why I suspected this character. The character’s behavior near the end, when discovered, was a bit strange, but made sense all things considered.

There is so much to like about this series and I look forward to future installments and learning more about hand-crafted chocolate. We give this book 5 paws up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amber Royer writes the CHOCOVERSE comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series, and the BEAN TO BAR MYSTERIES. She is also the author of STORY LIKE A JOURNALIST: A WORKBOOK FOR NOVELISTS, which boils down her writing knowledge into an actionable plan involving over 100 worksheets to build a comprehensive story plan for your novel. She blogs about creative writing techniques and all things chocolate at . She also teaches creative writing for both UT Arlington Continuing Education and Writing Workshops Dallas. If you are very nice to her, she might make you cupcakes.

 

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Posted in 4 paws, fiction, romance on July 29, 2021

 

 

Synopsis

 

After a spate of terrible boyfriends, Jess is sure she’s found her perfect man in dependable – but occasionally dull – Tim. But when her grandmother, tasks her with retrieving a family heirloom from a local auction she finds herself face to face with a charming stranger, Guy.

Guy has already bought her grandmother’s precious necklace and whilst Jess desperately tries to buy it back from him, he somehow convinces her to go out on a date instead.

Ridiculous. But Guy has the necklace and Jess’s grandmother’s health is declining rapidly. Jess has no choice but to indulge Guy and go on a date with – if only to get the necklace back.

But when she and Guy hit it off on their date Jess’s dependable happily-ever-after is thrown off track…

 

 

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Review

 

The message in this book is to stay true to yourself. At least that is what I took away from this story.

The book follows Jess and her quest for a necklace that her dying grandmother has asked her to find. It was made by her grandmother and they believe it is the necklace of true love, that whoever wears it will find their soulmate. Jess is lucky and finds it at an auction but loses out to another bidder. The story takes an interesting twist and Jess does her best to convince the winner to sell it to her without much luck. However, as she delves deeper into the history of the necklace, it sends her on another journey to uncover her family’s past and she learns much about her ancestors and herself in the process.

This was a fun book to read and watching Jess evolve from an injured woman to one that embraces life once again. It takes about 1/3 of the book to find out why she had to walk with a cane and once you do, there is another look into Jess’ life and who she might really be and not who is portrayed initially. Is her relationship with Tim really the one she is meant to be in or is there someone better out there waiting for her? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Overall, we give it 4 paws up.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Louisa Leaman is a writer. She was born, raised, and lives in Epping Forest near London. She writes contemporary romantic fiction. Her debut, The Perfect Dress, published by Transworld Books is available as an ebook now and will be out in paperback in February 2020. Rights have been sold to the US, Germany, Italy, and Spain. She is currently working on her second book, Meant To Be, which will be published in October 2020. Louisa also researches and writes for the Victoria and Albert Museum, the world’s leading museum of art and design. She studied Art History at Leeds University, became a teacher working with children with special needs, then turned to writing after winning the Times Education Supplement’s new writer’s award. She has written a number of teaching guides and children’s books for Hachette. When she isn’t busy writing or rearing three lively children, she paints portraits, goes running, and spends far too long browsing in vintage clothing shops.

 

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Posted in 5 paws, Review, Time Travel on July 28, 2021

 

 

Synopsis

 

Months after stealing two time machines from a madman who wants them back, the Lanes, a family of seven, seek peace and safety in 1927, the latest stop on a journey through time. For a while, each succeeds.

Parents Mark and Mary find housing in affluent East Hampton, New York, where a gracious elderly couple offers use of their mansion. Son Jordan and his new wife, Jessie, plan a family. Siblings Laura, Jeremy, and Ashley pursue fun and adventure. All form strong friendships with the Prices, a mysterious mirror-image family that lives next door.

Billionaire Robert Devereaux could not care less. Reeling from the theft of his million-dollar devices, he sends a hit man to the past to retrieve his property and rid the world of his former business partner and his troublesome clan.

Randy Taylor, who programs the machines, is determined to stop him. He tries to undermine his boss and save the Lanes, even as he tries to help his mother beat a deadly illness. He pines for the day he can join his fugitive friends and rekindle a promising relationship with Laura Lane.

Filled with romance, humor, and heartbreak, SEA SPRAY follows a modern family on the adventure of a lifetime as they navigate their way through the exciting and often dangerous world of Lindbergh, Gershwin, and Fitzgerald.

 

 

Amazon

 

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Review

 

If you enjoy time travel novels, this is a series you will want to pick up. The books follow the Lane family who jumps back in time to escape a crazy business owner that has other ideas for these time boxes that may not be altruistic. The Lane family has become fugitives to this man and has narrowly escaped an assassin that has jumped back in time. Luckily they have inside help!

This book focuses on their jump to the roaring ’20s. This is a time that they feel comfortable until they are discovered. But their adventures along the way make for some great memories. Who wouldn’t be interested in going into the past with the knowledge we have today? While I wouldn’t personally want to change my past, there are a few things that I wouldn’t mind doing a little differently. But to meet some famous people from the past, visit a speakeasy, and so much more.

Each of the characters endures some trials and tribulations in this book. From forming new friendships to finding new love.

I always find myself engrossed in this series and can’t wait for the next book that finds them in Hawaii in 1941 right before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

We give this book 5 paws up and highly recommend this time travel series.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Heldt-Bio-Mug-3John A. Heldt is a reference librarian and the author of the critically acclaimed Northwest Passage time-travel series. The former award-winning sportswriter and newspaper editor has loved getting subjects and verbs to agree since writing book reports on baseball heroes in grade school. A graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Iowa, he is an avid fisherman, sports fan, home brewer, and reader of thrillers and historical fiction. When not sending contemporary characters to the not-so-distant past, he weighs in on literature and life on his blog.

 

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Posted in Giveaway, Literary, Texas on July 27, 2021

 

 

MAKING IT HOME

 

By Teddy Jones

 

 

Publisher: MidTown Publishing

Pub Date: July 26, 2021

 

Series: Jackson’s Pond, Texas Series

 

Stand Alone: YES

Pages: 275 pages

Categories: Family Fiction / Racism / Ku Klux Klan / Texas Women’s Fiction / Rural Fiction

 

 

 

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In this third novel in the Jackson’s Pond, Texas series, fifty-five-year-old Melanie Jackson Banks encounters racism, intolerance, and violence both in her family’s distant past and in current day Jackson’s Pond. She leads family and community efforts to create reconciliation for past wrongs and also to demonstrate strength and defiance in the face of vandalism, cross-burning, domestic violence, threats to Jackson Ranch’s operation, and kidnapping. In the midst of this stormy period, she finds allies in her mother’s long-time companion, Robert Stanley; her mother, Willa Jackson; her daughter Claire Havlicek; and many others.

 

Praise for Making It Home. . .

 

“Making It Home could not be a more timely book… We live in an imperfect world, but it is still possible to think, imagine and make things better. The cast of characters in this strong family affirms this through their hope, decency, and tenacity!”  Eleanor Morse, author of Margreete’s Harbor

 

“Jones’ talent for creating indelible characters endures, as does her way with a compelling plot. … This is a timely page-turner.”  Robin Lippincott, author of Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell

 

 

 

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Teddy Jones is the author of three published novels, HalfwideJackson’s Pond, Texas, and Well Tended, as well as a collection of short stories, Nowhere Near. Her short fiction received the Gold Medal First Prize in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in 2015. Jackson’s Pond, Texas was a finalist for the 2014 Willa Award in contemporary fiction from Women Writing the West. Her as yet unpublished novel, Making It Home, was a finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in 2017 and A Good Family was named finalist in that contest in 2018.

Although her fiction tends to be set in West Texas, her characters’ lives embody issues not bounded by geography of any particular region. Families and loners; communities in flux; people struggling, others successful; some folks satisfied in solitude and others yearning for connection populate her work. And they all have in common that they are more human than otherwise.

Jones grew up in a small Texas town, Iowa Park. Earlier she worked as a nurse, a nurse educator, a nursing college administrator, and as a nurse practitioner in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico. For the past twenty years, she and her husband have lived in the rural West Texas Panhandle where he farms and she writes.

 

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7/27/21 Notable Quotable StoreyBook Reviews
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Posted in 4 paws, Book Release, Fantasy, mystery, Mystical, Review on July 26, 2021

 

 

Synopsis

 

How do you win a game that’s trying to kill you?

A twenty-nine year-old clerk at a games store in the Appalachian hamlet of Jett Creek, Tennessee, Callie Myles lives for the weekly RPG sessions run by her beloved brother and gamesmaster, LB. Under his watchful eye, she and her friends wage war, harness magic, and battle evil. When the dice are rolling, they are heroes, and all of Callie’s anxieties slip away. The fun stops the night LB burns to death in a bizarre fire.

Asked by her friends to keep the weekly game alive, Callie does her best to set her grief aside. She puts on the monocle LB wore during sessions and finds herself sucked into a life-sized recreation of her brother’s game. Inhabiting the body of her beloved character, the legendary Arabeth, she thinks she has found the ultimate escape. Her paradise is spoiled when she discovers that something inside the game killed LB—and one of her fellow players was in on it.

To save herself, to avenge her brother, Callie Myles must pull on her armor and beat LB’s game from the inside out. If she gets killed along the way, well, at least she’s having a great time.

A fast-paced hybrid of mystery and adventure, CRITICAL HIT captures the breakneck joy of tabletop gaming, where life and death depend on the whims of a plastic die.

 

 

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Read for free via Kindle Unlimited – Releases August 2nd, 2021

 

 

Review

 

I always enjoy a book that teaches me something new or opens me up to a world that I might have heard of but know very little about. In this case, it is the world of RPG – Role Playing Games. You might be familiar with the term Dungeons and Dragons. My only experience with this game is on an episode of The IT Crowd. It is a short clip but gives you some basics.

Callie is a young woman that is very involved with this world thanks to her brother. He has drawn her into this game since she was young and it is only fitting that she works at a game store where they use the back room to hold their game sessions. Her brother, LB, is the game master and runs the game for this diverse group of characters. The story starts out as they are playing a game and things aren’t going well and then all of a sudden, Callie pulls out some tricks with her character, and perhaps not all is lost. It is just a game after all….or is it? After the session that evening, LB ends up dead from an explosion and Callie goes down a rabbit hole to figure out what happened to him. What she doesn’t expect is to be pulled in and tries to solve LB’s murder. This is where the story takes a crazy twist and everything you might have believed is now flipped upside down.

The author really knows how to engage the reader. I was invested from the first page trying to figure out who killed LB, and then when Callie goes deep into the RPG world. I don’t want to give anything away but I found it very informative and fascinating how the RGP world might look or be played. There is a cast of supporting characters that help to mold Callie and her adventures. When the killer is revealed at the end it was a surprise but at the same time, it wasn’t. There aren’t any obvious clues that pointed to this character, there was just something in the back of mind that wondered if this character was more involved than they portrayed.

The book is filled with action, adventure, mystery, and humor. It is a well written novel and one that anyone could enjoy whether they are familiar with this world or not.

We give this book 4 paws up.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

W.M. Akers is a novelist, playwright, and game designer. He is the author of the mystery novels WESTSIDE and WESTSIDE SAINTS; the creator of the bestselling games DEADBALL: BASEBALL WITH DICE and COMRADES: A REVOLUTIONARY RPG; and the curator of the history newsletter STRANGE TIMES. He lives in Philadelphia but hasn’t traded in his Mets cap yet.

Akers believes tabletop gaming is the greatest hobby in the universe. CRITICAL HIT is a tribute to every brave soul who has ever played a game.

 

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Posted in excerpt, Medical Thriller, mystery, Texas, Thriller on July 25, 2021

 

 

Synopsis

 

Something unusual is going on with the dementia patients at Pleasant View Nursing Home.

Dr. Jim Bob Brady, Houston orthopedic surgeon, and amateur sleuth, finds himself in the midst of a different type of medical mystery. His friend and colleague, Dr. James Morgenstern, refers him a series of dementia patients with orthopedic problems from Pleasant View Nursing Home. Each patient dies, irrespective of the treatment, a situation that Doc Brady is unaccustomed to.

Each death prompts an autopsy, performed by another Brady colleague, Dr. Jeff Clarke, who discovers unusual brain pathology in each patient. Some of the tissue samples show nerve regeneration, a finding unheard of in dementia patients.

Doc Brady, enraged by the loss of his patients and obsessively curious about the pathologic findings, begins to investigate the nursing home, as well as its owner and CEO, Dr. Theodore Frazier. This leads Brady and Clarke on an adventure to discover the happenings at Pleasant View—an adventure that sees them running for their lives.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

Chapter One

 

BEATRICE ADAMS

Monday, May 15, 2000

 

“Morning, Mrs. Adams. I’m Dr. Brady.”

There was no response from the patient in Room 823 of University Hospital. She was crouched on the bed, in position to leap toward the end of the bed in the direction of yours truly. I could not determine her age, but she definitely appeared to be a wild woman. Her hair was a combination of gray and silver, long and uncombed and in total disarray. She had a deeply lined face, leathery, with no makeup. Her brown eyes were frantic, and her head moved constantly to the right and left. She was clad only in an untied hospital gown which dwarfed her small frame. My guess? She wasn’t over five feet tall.

“Ms. Adams? Dr. Morgenstern asked me to stop by and see about your knee?”

She did not move or speak; she just continued squatting there in the hospital bed, bouncing slightly on her haunches, and staring at me while her head moved slowly to and fro.

I looked around the drab private room with thin out-of-date drapes and faded green-tinted walls. There were no flowers. I judged the patient to most likely be a nursing-home transfer.

I made the safe move by backing out of the patient’s room, and I walked the twenty yards to the nurses’ station. The white-tiled floors were freshly waxed, but the medicinal smell was distinctly different from the surgical wing. There was an unpleasant pine scent in the air that could not hide the odor of decaying human beings and leaking body fluids. It was the smell of chronic illness and disease.

“Cynthia?” I asked the head nurse on the medical ward, or so announced her name tag. She was sitting at the far side of the long nursing station desk performing the primary duty of a nursing supervisor: paperwork. She was an attractive Black woman in her mid-forties, I estimated.

“Yes, sir?”

“Dr. Morgenstern asked me to see Mrs. Adams in consultation. Room 823? What’s the matter with her? She won’t answer me. She just stares, sitting up in the bed on her haunches, bouncing.”

She smiled and shook her head. “You must be a surgeon.”

“Yes, ma’am. Orthopedic. Dr. Jim Brady.”

“Cynthia Dumond. Mrs. Adams has Alzheimer’s. Sometimes she gets confused. Want me to come in the room with you? Maybe protect you?” she said with a smile.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind the company,” I said, a little sheepishly. “Not that I was afraid or anything.”

“She’s harmless, Doctor. She’s just old and confused.”

We walked back to the hospital room together. The patient seemed to relax the moment she saw the head nurse, a familiar face. “Hello, Ms. Adams,”

Cynthia said. “This is Dr. Brady. He needs to examine your . . .” She gazed at me, smiling again. “Your what?” “Her knee.”

“Dr. Brady needs to look at your knee. Okay?”

The patient had ceased shaking and bouncing, leaned back, slowly extended her legs, laid down, and became somewhat still.

“Very good, Ms. Adams. Very good,” Cynthia said, grasping the elderly woman’s hand and holding it while she looked at me. “Go ahead, Doctor.”

The woman’s right knee was quite swollen, with redness extending up and down her leg for about six inches in each direction. When I applied anything but gentle skin pressure, her leg seemed to spasm involuntarily. How in the world she had managed to crouch on the bed with her knee bent to that degree was mystifying.

“Sorry, Ms. Adams,” I said, but continued my exam. The knee looked and felt infected, but those signs could also have represented a fracture or an acute arthritic inflammation such as gout, pseudo-gout, or rheumatoid arthritis, not to mention an array of exotic diseases. I tried to flex and extend the knee, but she resisted, either due to pain—although I wasn’t certain she had a normal discomfort threshold—or from a mechanical block due to swelling or some type of joint pathology.

“What’s she in the hospital for?” I asked Nurse Cynthia.

“Dehydration, malnutrition, and failure to thrive, the usual diagnoses for folks we get from the nursing home. The doctor who runs her particular facility sent her in.”

“Who is it?”

“Dr. Frazier. Know him?”

“Nope. Should I?”

“No. It’s just that he sends his patients here in the end stages. Most of the folks that get admitted from his nursing home die soon after they arrive.”

“Most of them are old and sick, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

I looked at her expression while she continued to hold Mrs. Adams’s hand.

“Were you trying to make a point?”

“Not really.” She glanced at her watch. “Are you about through, Doctor Brady? I have quite a bit of work to do.”

“Follow that paper trail, huh?”

“Yes. That’s about all I have time for these days. Seems to get worse every month. Some new form to fill out, some new administrative directive to analyze. Whatever.”

“I know the feeling. There isn’t much time to see the patients and take care of whatever ails them these days. If my secretary can’t justify to an insurance clerk why a patient needs an operation, then I have to waste my time on the phone explaining a revision hip replacement to someone without adequate training or experience. One of my partners told me yesterday about an insurance clerk that was giving him a bunch of—well, giving him a hard time—about performing a bunionectomy. He found out during the course of a fifteen-minute conversation that the woman didn’t know a bunion was on the foot. Her insurance code indicated it was a cyst on the back and she couldn’t find the criteria for removal in the hospital. She was insisting it had to be an office procedure, and only under a local anesthetic. Crazy, huh?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a brave new world.”

“Sounds like a good book title, Nurse Cynthia.”

“I think it’s been done, Doctor.”

“Well, thanks for your help. I do appreciate it. Not every day the head nurse on a medical floor accompanies me on a consultation.” “My pleasure. You seem to be a concerned physician, an advocate for the patient, at least. As I remember, that’s why we all went into the healing arts.”

She turned to Mrs. Adams. “I’ll see you later, dear,” she said, patting the elderly woman’s forehead. Still holding the nurse’s other hand with her own wrinkled hand, Mrs. Adams kissed Cynthia’s fingers lightly, probably holding on for her life.

I poured a cup of hospital-fresh coffee, also known as crankcase oil, and reviewed Beatrice Adams’s chart. I sat in a doctor’s dictation area behind the nursing station and looked at the face sheet first, being a curious sort. Her residence was listed as Pleasant View Nursing Home, Conroe, Texas. Conroe is a community of fifty thousand or so, about an hour north of Houston. I noticed that a Kenneth Adams was listed as next of kin and was to be notified in case of emergency. His phone number was prefixed by a “409” exchange, and I therefore assumed that he was a son or a brother and lived in Conroe as well.

Mrs. Adams was fifty-seven years old, which was young to have a flagrant case of Alzheimer’s disease, a commonly-diagnosed malady that was due to atrophy of the brain’s cortical matter. That’s the tissue that allows one to recognize friends and relatives, to know the difference between going to the bathroom in the toilet versus in your underwear, and to know when it’s appropriate to wear clothes and when it isn’t. Alzheimer’s causes a patient to gradually become a mental vegetable but doesn’t affect the vital organs until the very end stages of the disease. In other words, the disease doesn’t kill you quickly, but it makes you worse than a small child—unfortunately, a very large and unruly child.

It can, and often does, destroy the family unit, sons and daughters especially, who are caught between their own children and whichever parent is affected with the disease, which makes it in some ways worse than death. You can get over death, through grief, prayer, catharsis, and tincture of time. Taking care of an Alzheimer’s-affected parent can be a living hell, until they are bad enough that the patient must go to a nursing home. Then the abandonment guilt is hell, or so my friends and patients tell me.

Mrs. Adams had been admitted to University Hospital one week before by my friend and personal physician, Dr. James Morgenstern. I guessed that either he had taken care of the patient or a family member in the past, or that Dr. Frazier, physician-owner or medical director of Pleasant View Nursing Home, had a referral relationship with Jimmy.

Mrs. Adams’s initial blood work revealed hyponatremia (low sodium), hyperkalemia (high potassium), and a low hematocrit (anemia). Clinically, hypotension (low blood pressure), decreased skin turgor, and oliguria (reduced urine output) suggested a dehydration-like syndrome. For a nursing-home patient, that could either mean poor custodial care or failure of the patient to cooperate— refusing to drink, refusing to eat—or some combination of the two. Neither scenario was atypical of the plight of the elderly with a dementia-like illness.

According to Dr. Morgenstern’s history, the patient had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years before, at age fifty-one, which by most standards was very young for brain deterioration without a tumor.

“Dr. Brady?” head nurse Cynthia asked, appearing beside my less-than-comfortable dictating chair.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but might I have one of your business cards?”

“Sure,” I said, handing her one from the top left pocket of my white clinical jacket. “Don’t ever apologize for bothering me if you’re trying to send me a patient.”

She laughed. “It’s for my mother. She has terrible arthritis.” She paused and read the card. “You’re with the University Orthopedic Group?”

“Yes. Twenty-two years.”

“If I might ask, where did you do your training?”

“I went to med school at Baylor, then did general and orthopedic surgery training here at the University Hospital. I then traveled to New York and spent a year studying hip and knee replacement surgery, then came back to Houston to the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“Is your practice limited to a certain area? I mean, do you just see patients with hip and knee arthritis?”

“Yes. Unless, of course, it’s an emergency situation, like one of those rare weekends when I can’t find a young, hungry surgeon with six kids to cover emergency room call for me.”

“Well, thanks,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be seeing you. I’ll bring my mother in.”

“Thank YOU, Cynthia. By the way, I’m curious. Why me? I would think you see quite a few docs up here, and I would imagine that your mother has had arthritis for years. Why now?”

Cynthia was an attractive, full-figured woman with close-cropped jet-black hair, a woman who made the required pantsuit nursing uniform look like a fashion statement. She looked me up and down as I sat there with Mrs. Adams’s chart in my lap, my legs crossed, holding the strong black cooling coffee.

“You’re wearing cowboy boots. I figure that all you need is a white hat,” she said, turning and walking away.

Not my sharp wit, nor my kind demeanor with her patient, nor my vast training and experience.

My boots.

 

Excerpted from Act of Negligence. Copyright © 2021 by John Bishop. All rights reserved. Published by Mantid Press.

 

 

About the Author

 

John Bishop MD is the author of Act of Negligence: A Medical Thriller (A Doc Brady Mystery). Dr. Bishop has led a triple life. This orthopedic surgeon and keyboard musician has combined two of his talents into a third, as the author of the beloved Doc Brady mystery series. Beyond applying his medical expertise at a relatable and comprehensible level, Dr. Bishop, through his fictional counterpart Doc Brady, also infuses his books with his love of not only Houston and Galveston, Texas, but especially with his love for his adored wife. Bishop’s talented Doc Brady is confident yet humble; brilliant, yet a genuinely nice and funny guy who happens to have a knack for solving medical mysteries. Above all, he is the doctor who will cure you of your blues and boredom. Step into his world with the first four books of the series, and you’ll be clamoring for more.

 

Website

 

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Posted in Crime, excerpt, Giveaway, Thriller on July 24, 2021

 

 

DEADLY BUSINESS

 

by Anita Dickason

 

 

Pages: 324 pages

Publication Date: July 4, 2021

Genre: Suspense / Thriller / Crime Thriller

 

Scroll for Giveaway!

 

 

 

 

A Texas Multi-Billion Dollar Lure!

 

Following a tactical raid at an Oklahoma farm, a phone call sends U.S. Deputy Marshal Piper McKay rushing back to the East Texas cattle ranch where she grew up.

 

Her grandmother, Jennie Layton, is near death from a crushed skull. When local authorities claim the cause of the injury was an accident, Piper isn’t convinced.

 

Who wants Jennie dead and why? Is the reason connected to a dubious contract Piper finds in Jennie’s desk?

 

Piper realizes her grandmother isn’t the only one in danger when she barely escapes a deadly attack. Thrust into the middle of a high-stakes, high-risk shell game, Piper’s become the target.

 

The case takes a bizarre turn when Piper unknowingly crosses paths with a Special Ranger. If he can’t derail her investigation, it could cost him his life.

 

With millions of dollars on the line, nothing will stop a ring of cold-blooded killers, including the murders of a U.S. Marshal and a Special Ranger.

 

 

Amazon * Barnes and NobleKobo

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Deadly Trap, Part One

From Deadly Business

By Anita Dickason

 

 

 

 

Click to watch Part Two, starting 7/25, on All the Ups and Downs
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Award-winning Author Anita Dickason is a twenty-two veteran of the Dallas Police Department. She served as a patrol officer, undercover narcotics detective, advanced accident investigator, tactical officer, and first female sniper on the Dallas SWAT team.

Anita writes about what she knows, cops and crime. Her police background provides an unending source of inspiration for her plots and characters. Many incidents and characters portrayed in her books are based on personal experience. For her, the characters are the fun part of writing as she never knows where they will take her. There is always something out of the ordinary in her stories.

In Anita’s debut novel, Sentinels of the Night, she created an elite FBI Unit, the Trackers. Since then, she has added three more Tracker crime thrillers, Going Gone!, A u 7 9, and Operation Navajo. The novels are not a series and can be read in any order.

As a Texas author, many of Anita’s books are based in Texas, or there is a link to Texas. When she stepped outside of the Tracker novels and wrote, Not Dead, she selected Meridian, a small community in central Texas for the location.

 

 Website  ◆  Facebook  ◆  Twitter

 

 Amazon ◆ Goodreads

 

Pinterest ◆  LinkedIn  ◆ Vimeo

 

 

 

 

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!

 

FOUR WINNERS:

1st: Autographed hardcover copy + tote back, mousepad, pen, & bookmark;

2nd: Tote bag, coaster, pen, & bookmark;

3rd & 4th: eBook copy.

 

(US only; ends midnight, CDT, July 30, 2021) 

 

 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

 

 

Visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page 

 

for direct links to each tour stop, updated daily.

Or visit the blogs directly:

 

 

7/20/21 Review Bibliotica
7/20/21 BONUS Promo LSBBT Blog
7/21/21 Notable Quotable Missus Gonzo
7/21/21 BONUS Promo Hall Ways Blog
7/22/21 Review It’s Not All Gravy
7/23/21 Author Interview That’s What She’s Reading
7/24/21 Video Excerpt StoreyBook Reviews
7/25/21 Video Excerpt All the Ups and Downs
7/26/21 Review Reading by Moonlight
7/27/21 Guest Post The Plain-Spoken Pen
7/28/21 Review Chapter Break Book Blog
7/29/21 Review Forgotten Winds
7/29/21 BONUS Review Jennie Reads

 

 

 

 

Blog tour services provided

 

 

Posted in 5 paws, Review, romance on July 23, 2021

 

 

Synopsis

 

Mitchell Sorrow wallows in a major funk after his decades-long crush leaves town for good. Intent on powering through, he throws himself into his work as an EMT at Smithville Regional Hospital. He’ll steer clear of women, especially those who love their careers more than people.

Jackie Myers, chief development officer at a hospital association, is determined to climb the corporate ladder. The best way to do that is to show upper management she’s capable of making tough decisions, such as closing a fledgling rural hospital. When she’s assigned to visit Smithville under the guise of writing an article about small-town life, she’ll easily assess how dire the hospital situation really is.

After suffering an allergic reaction at the fall festival, Jackie blabs the true reason for her visit. Desperate to save the hospital, Mitch agrees to a deal. In exchange for keeping her secret, he gets one week to convince her the hospital is essential. But the more time they spend together, the more complicated things become. Mitch begins to open his heart, and Jackie’s decision becomes nearly impossible. He may never forgive her, and she’ll lose the only guy who can take her breath away – no Epi pen required.

 

 

Amazon * B&N * Google * Kobo * Apple

 

Read for free via Kindle Unlimited

 

 

Review

 

This is a great series and the book is full of quick wit, snarky comments, and studly men.

Jackie wants to be a tough gal and earn a promotion at work (by closing a small town hospital), but underneath she is a big ol’ softy and wants a better life than what she had growing up where families interact and support each other and it isn’t just superficial. Mitch may have had a tough life as a child but he has his brothers supporting him and grounding him. He does like smart women which will work well for Jackie.

I have really enjoyed all of the books in this series so far and am hoping that a character from this book, Penny, has her own book in the future. I can only imagine that story! The town citizens are nosy as you can expect from a small town and the old ladies that run the blog about the town are witty when it comes to talking about Mitch and Jackie and using nut puns due to her allergy and Mitch saving her life when she accidentally ingests his pie which has a nut crust.

There are misunderstandings that add to the tension of the story and I love the outcome of the book regarding the small-town hospital.

This is a wonderful series and I suggest reading all of the books (preferably in order) to learn more about the other couples.

We give this 5 paws up.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

After several decades of writing medical research documents, Cindy decided to switch gears and write stories where the chances of happy endings are 100% and the side effects include satisfied sighs, permanent smiles, and a chuckle or two.  She writes romance novels with a slice of humor that ranges from historical romance to southern fried romantic comedies. Her young adult debut novel, Tuned Into You (BookFish Books) was released in June 2016 and her adult sweet romance, Left Hanging (Red Adept Publishing) was released in March 2017. In A Jam (Red Adept Publishing) was released summer of 2018.

Cindy was born in Texas and raised in Georgia.  She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Kennesaw State University and her Master’s Degree from The University of Georgia.  Cindy enjoys gardening, reading, bodybuilding, and a whole bunch of movies.  She can be overheard quoting lines from her favorite movies… a lot.  But her favorite pastime is spending time with Mark, her bass playing husband, Maddie Rose, the coolest girl on the planet, and fur child Daisy Mae.  She currently resides in Nashville, TN where live music can be heard everywhere, even at the grocery store.

 

Website * Twitter * Facebook

 

Instagram * BookBub * Goodreads

 

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Posted in Cozy, Giveaway, mystery on July 22, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

Murder at the Lakeside Library: A Lakeside Library Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (July 13, 2021)
Hardcover: 336 pages

 

Synopsis

 

In this series debut perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Miranda James, Rain Wilmot must discover the killer, before the book closes on her life.

 

Rain Wilmot has just returned to her family’s waterfront log cabin in Lofty Pines, Wisconsin after the untimely death of her husband. The cabin is peaceful compared to Rain’s corporate job and comes with an informal library that Rain’s mother, Willow, used to run. But as Rain prepares for the re-opening of the library, all hopes for a peaceful life are shattered when she discovers the body of Thornton Hughes, a real estate buyer, on the premises.

The community of Lofty Pines starts pointing fingers at Willow, since she has been unusually absent from the library this summer. A fishy rumor surfaces when Rain learns that Willow had been spending a lot of time with Thornton. The town even thought they were having an affair.

While theories swirl about Thornton’s death, Rain takes it upon herself to solve the case to exonerate her mother. As more clues surface, Rain will have to piece together the mystery. But if she isn’t careful, she may be the next to end up dead in the water in Murder at the Lakeside Library, the first in Holly Danvers’ new Lakeside Library mysteries.

 

 

Amazon – B&N – Kobo – IndieBound

 

 

About the Author

 

Holly Danvers grew up devouring every mystery novel on the shelf of her local library. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and 3 chickens, where she’s already plotting her next novel.

 

Website * Goodreads * Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

Giveaway

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Posted in Book Release, Food, memoir, nonfiction, Recipe on July 21, 2021

 

 

I really enjoy being a part of the Abrams Dinner Party and being exposed to cookbooks and other types of books related to food that I might never have picked up while wandering the shelves at the bookstore. This book was written by the owner and chef of Savoy in New York that he owned for 25+ years. It is no longer there and while I never ate at this restaurant (because I live in Texas and don’t visit New York), I had heard of it and only good things.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but Peter showcases various ingredients and calls them “profiles in taste and inquiries into how the plants and animals we cherish eating can deepen our appreciation for the marvel of creation.” Each chapter will broaden your thoughts about the ingredients and how they could impact your life.

There are many chapters interspersed with life growing up for the author and his experiences from life and running Savoy. There are recipes spaced out in the book and several of them sound quite intriguing including a drink called The Red and Black which is a souped-up margarita. It sounds delicious!

This is a book that will be savored over time and imagining life as a restaurateur and shopping the local farmer’s markets for fresh ingredients for that day’s fare. The home chef could do the same if they have a market available to them on a daily basis. Most of the ones I see are weekly or monthly, but there is something about enjoying ingredients that are sourced locally vs another country.

I have to share the drink recipe with you, let me know if you try it out!

 

The Red and Black

 

1 oz Black Pepper Simple Syrup plus a little extra for the rim of the glass

Spice Rim Mix

5 strawberries

2 oz blanco or light resposado tequila

1 oz fresh lime juice

 

Prepare the simple syrup and spice rim mix a day ahead if possible

Dip the rim of a rocks glass in a shallow puddle of simple syrup, shake off excess syrup, and then dip the rim into the spice blend so the spice adheres over the entire rim. Set aside upright while you prepare the drink.

Carefully remove stems from the strawberries, preserving as much of the flesh as possible. Using a spoon or wooden muddler, roughly mash the strawberries in a cocktail shaker. You do not want to make a puree out of the strawberries. pour the tequila, lime juice, and syrup into the shaker. Add ice, shake, and pour into the spice rimmed rocks glass. Enjoy!

 

Black Pepper Simple Syrup

 

2 cups hot water

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup freshly crushed black pepper

 

Combine all of the ingredients and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool and then store in a Mason jar in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Strain through a fine mesh sieve before using. Keeps for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

 

Spice Rim Mix

 

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon freshly crushed black pepper

 

Put all of the ingredients in a small bowl and toss to combine. Keeps well unrefrigerated in a sealed container for at least 2 weeks.

 

 

Synopsis

 

A culinary pioneer blends memoir with a joyful inquiry into the ingredients he uses and their origins

What goes into the making of a chef, a restau­rant, a dish? And if good ingredients make a differ­ence on the plate, what makes them good in the first place? In his highly anticipated first book, influential chef Peter Hoffman offers thoughtful and delectable answers to these questions. “A locavore before the word existed” (New York Times), Hoffman tells the story of his upbringing, professional education, and evolution as a chef and restaurant owner through its components—everything from the importance of your relationship with your refrigerator repairman and an account of how a burger killed his restaurant, to his belief in peppers as a perfect food, one that is adaptable to a wide range of cultural tastes and geographic conditions and reminds us to be glad we are alive.

Along with these personal stories from a life in restaurants, Hoffman braids in passionately curious explorations into the cultural, historical, and botani­cal backstories of the foods we eat. Beginning with a spring maple sap run and ending with the late-season, frost-defying vegetables, he follows the progress of the seasons and their reflections in his greenmarket favorites, moving ingredient to ingredient through the bounty of the natural world. Hoffman meets with farmers and vendors and unravels the magic of what we eat, deepening every cook’s appreciation for what’s on their kitchen counter. What’s Good a layered, insightful, and utterly enjoyable meal.

 

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