Christmas at Tiffany's

Author:  Karen Swan
Genre:  Romance

Five Stars

 

What do you do when the man you pledged your life to breaks your heart and shatters your dreams? You pack your bags and travel the big, wide world to find your destiny—and your true love . . .

 

Ten years ago, a young and naïve Cassie married her first serious boyfriend, believing he would be with her forever. Now her marriage is in tatters and Cassie has no career or home of her own. Though she feels betrayed and confused, Cassie isn't giving up. She's going to take control of her life. But first she has to find out where she belongs . . . and who she wants to be.

Over the course of one year, Cassie leaves her sheltered life in rural Scotland to stay with her best friends living in the most glamorous cities in the world: New York, Paris, and London. Exchanging comfort food and mousy hair for a low-carb diet and a gorgeous new look, Cassie tries each city on for size as she searches for the life she's meant to have . . . and the man she's meant to love.

********

 

Cassie is married to Gil, a barrister.   He divides his time between the week in Edinburgh and the weekend with her at their massive home in rural Scotland. They are having a party to celebrate their ten-year anniversary together.  During the course of the party, she overhears a conversation between her husband and his girlfriend that sends her life spiraling into a tailspin.  Stunned, hurt, disjointed, she is immediately packed up and hustled out of the house by her three best friends:  Kelly, a high-powered fashion promoter who lives in New York; Anouk, a jewelry designer to the rich and famous who lives in Paris; and Suzy, a wedding planner who lives in London.  It is decided among the three that Cassie will have one year to decide where she wants to live (all hopeful that she will choose near them), and will spend four months with each of them trying out her "new life."

 

While it is apparent early on how the novel will end, watching it all unfold is pleasurable.  Because this is not just Cassie's story, but also the story of her three friends.  The beginning of her journey is her new life with Kelly in New York.  Her chance meeting in Central Park with Henry, the brother of her friend Suzy, begins her on her search to find what she wants in life, with his help along the way.  A fledgling in the ways of the world, she is brought into the fashion industry and finds new friends and a new love.  A terrible misstep shows her life unraveling again, and it is through Kelly's loyalty and that of her new friends that she manages to hold on.  Although they implore her to stay, at the end of her four months she find herself in...

 

...Paris, with Anouk, who has gotten her a job at Dior.  Cassie finds that at this point she is honing her skills in the fashion industry, more sure of herself than she has ever been.  Making even more friends and believing she has at last found what she wants, she discovers something devastating that has been secret for a long time, which sends her running to...London and Suzy, where she will finally find who she is and what she truly wants out of life.

 

This is a wonderful book; about so much more than the title suggests.  Christmas at Tiffany's isn't about Christmas as it is so much about the beginning of a journey which causes changes in the lives of four women, and on the strength of themselves and their relationships to each other.  Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-at-Tiffanys-Karen-Swan/dp/0062364103/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1091654819
 

 





Of Merlot and Murder

Author:  Joni Folger
Genre:  Mystery

Five Stars

When the Beckett family decides to make River Bend Winery one of the sponsors at the Lost Pines Food and Wine Festival, Elise Beckett dives into helping out with their booth. Once the festival setup starts, the Beckett family cheer is soured by Divia Larson, a rival vintner and nemesis of Elise's grandmother, Abigail.

But then Grandma Abigail finds Divia dead in her hotel room, and the police discover that all clues lead back to Abigail.  When her grandmother becomes the prime suspect, Elise and her deputy boyfriend Jackson have to work together to clear Abigail.  Will Elise be able to untangle the mess of murder and mystery before it's too late?

********

While preparing for the Lost Pines Food and Wine Festival, Elise's family realize that their rival vintner Divia has request the booth catty-corner from them, it brings Divia closer so that she can maker her snide remarks and backhanded compliments to everyone.  She also dislikes Abigail because Abby once dated Divia's husband Garrett back in high school.

After a particularly distasteful scene at the festival between Divia and another vintner, Monique, Abby steps in to try and diffuse the situation, and gets right in the middle of it.  So when Divia is found dead later than night, and Abby calls Jackson for help while at the hotel, suspicions naturally fall on her.

I absolutely loved this book.  While it isn't technically a cozy - there is some swearing, though not offensive - it is still a great mystery.  The characters had a lot of depth and it was easy to get into the story and be carried right along with it as the action progressed.  There was a romance going on between Jackson and Elise, but not so much that it overwhelmed the plot; but enough that you knew these two were in a new relationship and trying to find their way around each other.

Yet Elise being who she is: trying to protect her grandmother, even with Jackson's warnings to stay out of it, she manages not only to drag herself into the investigation, but those of her family members and best friend as well.  Which doesn't bode well for them or for her when Jackson and her grandmother find out what she's doing (which doesn't stop her in the least).

The ending took me completely by surprise; I was as stumped as Elise and when I found out who the killer is, it all came together in a nice little package that made complete sense.  I fully intend to read the first book in this series, Grapes of Death, and I suggest you do the same.  Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Merlot-Murder-Tangled-Vines-Mystery/dp/0738740764/

Catwalk: An Animals in Focus Mystery #3

Author:  Sheila Webster Boneham
Genre:  Mystery

Three Stars

When animal photographer Janet MacPhail gets gets a frantic call from champion dog owner Alberta Shofelter about a "cat-napping," she and her Australian Shepherd Jay jump in to assist. Fur flies when the search turns into a nasty run-in with local big shot Charles Rasmussen, a bully who enjoys throwing his weight around.

As Rasmussen makes good on his promise to cause trouble, Janet tries to keep up with her mom's romantic travails,  figure out her own relationship with Tom, and train her animals for the upcoming agility trials. But when a body is discovered at the Dog Dayz event, it stops the participants dead in their tracks-and sets Janet on the track of a killer.

********

Let me tell you first that if you don't like animals, you won't like this book.  But, if you do like animals, as I myself do, you will.  That being said: Janet MacPhail has her dog Jay and her cat Leo, whom she has trained herself, to do animal trials.  This is where (for those who may not know) the animals go through a timed series of obstacles.  Her boyfriend Tom also takes his dog, Drake, through these trials.

When one of her friends, Alberta, makes a frantic call for help because her cat is missing, both Janet and Tom offer to help her look.  They find the missing cat and her newborn kittens at Charles Rasmussen's home, in his wife's painting studio.  Mr. Rasmussen threatens to kill the cats and Janet calls for help, which comes in the form of Officer Hutchinson, who is another animal lover and takes Janet's side, which only infuriates Rasmussen more.  Even Rasmussen's wife Louise takes the womens' side.  So a very angry Rasmussen threatens them all even as they are removing the mama and her newborn kittens.  Then there is Janet's mother who is suffering from Alzheimer's, and has gotten involved with someone at the nursing home, who turns out to be Charles Rasmussen's father-in-law, and Mr. Rasmussen is none too happy about that.

Soon enough, the women (and Hutchinson) are served with legal papers from Rasmussen, and shortly after that, he is killed.  Now the race is on to find out who killed the man, since it appears he had no dearth of enemies.

This is where the book lost me a little.  The murder seemed to have taken second place to the animal trials and the plight of feral cats.  I will tell you that I realize this is serious, and I have adopted a few feral cats myself that wandered into my back yard.   So yes, I do know this is a problem.  But the book goes on and on about the trials, about the feral cats, about ways to help them.  By the time they get back to the murder - which is intermittently throughout the book - you start to wonder who-is-who and have to backtrack as to who was at the dogs' trials the night the guy was killed.  Please don't get me wrong; the writing is very good, but the book was more about the animals and not enough about the murder investigation.  I will say that justice was done, however.

http://www.amazon.com/Catwalk-Animals-Mystery-Webster-Boneham/dp/0738734888/

Black Thursday

Author:  Linda Joffe Hull
Genre:  Mystery

Five Stars

When Maddie Michaels is invited by a local news channel to shop on camera for Black Friday, she leaps at the opportunity to share shopping deals with fans of her website MrsFrugalicious.com. Even though a negative comment pops up from Contrary Claire, a naysaying blog follower, Maddie won't let it spoil her first TV appearance.

But as the deals get underway, Black Friday eve turns even blacker when a shopper is crushed beneath a pallet of toasters.  After learning that the victim is Contrary Claire, Maddie becomes caught up in a murder investigation.  Will she catch the killer before someone else is slashed like a sales price?

********

Maddie Michaels has problems.  She lives in her now-for-sale house with her soon-to-be ex-husband and two sons.  It's Thanksgiving, and his entire family has decided to spend the holidays with them.  She's being stalked on her website, Mrs. Frugalicious - which she started because her cheating husband blew all their savings.  Frank, her husband, has been fired from his television job because, as he is known as Frank Finance Michaels, he made bad investments, to be nice about it.  He also had an affair, which didn't help the situation, and they're trying to sell their house to keep their heads above water.

With a house full of people trying to put her marriage back together, she jumps at the chance offered by a local television station to broadcast live from Bargain Barn; she'll be offering tips for saving through the holiday season.  Frank's family has decided to tag along, hoping they can score some deals themselves.  But while filming the show, a pallet of toasters falls on one unlucky shopper and kills her.  Stunned by the accident, the owner of Bargain Barn leaves the scene to comfort the husband of the victim and Frank somehow pulls everyone together and the show, and shopping, continue on.

Maddie discovers that the victim was none other than CC, her online stalker, and begins to wonder if this 'accident' was more than meets the eye.  She begins to question it, and while she's discovering clues which may point in another direction entirely, she has to deal with the fact of Frank's family deciding to stay on and "help out" and still keep her "Frugarmy" happy through the holidays.

I really liked this book, even if I didn't agree with some of the things going on.  For one thing, I personally don't believe "every man cheats."  I also didn't care for the fact that Frank's family were 'subtlely pushing' Maddie to stay with him.  What kind of family wants someone to stay with a cheating spouse?  I felt that she really couldn't make the decision to stay or go on her own with their interference, and that she might come to regret whatever decision she made once she had time of her own to think about it.  Let's face it, the end of a marriage is a traumatic thing, not to be taken lightly; and if you discovered that that people were trying to coerce you into making a decision instead of coming to it on your own, you might regret it.  (I'm not saying what decision she ultimately makes, just offering my own opinion).

Be that as it may, the mystery was excellent.  I obviously wrestled with the marriage decision along with Maddie (and you'll have to read the book to find out what happens), and as she was discovering more about her stalker and even herself, the murder was still out there forefront, and everything seemed to fall together nicely.  Being the person she is, she put her own troubles aside and tried to help the owner of Bargain Barn keep his business afloat, while still filming more episodes of her frugal shopper program.

Interspersed with the book were many shopping tips for those who like to save money (I'm a coupon clipper myself), so even if you know most of these tricks, there'll probably be a few you haven't heard of.

When we finally know the identity of the killer, the reason it happened made perfect sense to me, and was probably how it would have happened in real life.  I can't give you more than that or it will give too much away and ruin the book.  I think this will be a good read, and especially for the holidays, when you're looking for something that's "seasonal."  Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Thursday-Frugalicious-Shopping-Mystery/dp/073873490X/

Country Heaven Cookbook: Family Recipes and Remembrances

Author:  Ava Miles
Genre:  Cookbook

Four Stars

 

Ava's cookbook serves up a feast of scrumptious, soul-satisfying, cowboy-approved comfort food for the whole family. Included here are recipes for her famous spongy cornbread, decadent gingerbread waffles, and her family's chocolate chip pie. It's a fun hodgepodge of Southern cuisine and family farm recipes.

Readers have enjoyed the scrumptious recipes Ava wrote for COUNTRY HEAVEN so much that she wanted to share them all together in a cookbook with some extra family recipes NOT included in the book. The cookbook entries describe her heroine's reflections about her grandmother, who taught her to cook, and Ava's reflections about her grandma as well, who made food come alive for her.

This companion to COUNTRY HEAVEN, the first book in her new Dare River series set in the South, is connected to her bestselling small town Dare Valley series that started with the#1 National Bestseller, NORA ROBERTS LAND. If you haven't read COUNTRY HEAVEN yet, this is a great chance to see how beautifully food is woven into the story between her sassy heroine, Tory Simmons, and her steamy country singer, Rye Crenshaw. Ava has included an extended excerpt of COUNTRY HEAVEN at the end for your enjoyment.

 ********

 

This cookbook isn't very large - only about 67 pages, so there aren't tons of recipes for anyone who is looking for a good-sized cookbook or a lot of lunch/supper menus.  However, the recipes are pure country all the way, and appear easy enough for anyone to make.  Still, they're pretty good and a nice addition to your collection if you are interested in Southern comfort food.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Country-Heaven-Cookbook-Recipes-Remembrances/dp/1499246773/

 

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1087595929





 



It's the Pictures That Got Small: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age

Author:  Anthony Slide
Genre:  Epistolary/Film/Culture

Four Stars

 

Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Charles Brackett was an extremely observant and perceptive chronicler of the entertainment industry during its most exciting years. He is best remembered as the writing partner of director Billy Wilder, who once referred to the pair as "the happiest couple in Hollywood," collaborating on such classics as The Lost Weekend (1945) and Sunset Blvd (1950).

 

In this annotated collection of writings taken from dozens of Brackett's unpublished diaries, leading film historian Anthony Slide clarifies Brackett's critical contribution to Wilder's films and Hollywood history while enriching our knowledge of Wilder's achievements in writing, direction, and style. Brackett's diaries re-create the initial meetings of the talent responsible for Ninotchka (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), Ball of Fire (1941), The Major and the Minor (1942), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend, and Sunset Blvd, recounting the breakthrough and breakdowns that ultimately forced these collaborators to part ways. Brackett was also a producer, served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Writers Guild, was a drama critic for the New Yorker, and became a member of the exclusive literary club, the Algonquin Round Table. Slide gives readers a rare, front row seat to the Golden Age dealings of Paramount, Universal, MGM, and RKO and the innovations of legendary theater and literary figures, such as Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy Parker. Through Brackett's witty, keen perspective, the political and creative intrigue at the heart of Hollywood's most significant films come alive, and readers will recognize their reach in the Hollywood industry today.

********

 

Loving the Golden Age of Hollywood as I do, this book was a must-read for me.  However, I don't believe it will be so for everyone.  Told in a series of diary entries by Charles Brackett, it can, at times, become tedious and uninteresting.  Thus the four stars instead of five.  What Mr. Brackett does reveal says a lot about himself.  He is putting his thoughts down on paper - thoughts about others in the entertainment history, more often than not unflattering to that person.  He doesn't come off as liking many people at all, and certainly not caring for many of the actors.  As an example, he thought Mrs. Miniver was fine, but didn't like the performances by Greer Garson nor Walter Pigeon.  You know, the performance that garnered her an Oscar? 

 

There are many things I could say about this book, but I am afraid that those many things would be my own opinion of movies and actors against his.  Although I will have to give Mr. Brackett the upper hand, his having known everyone personally; even though I believe that some of his original choices for films (who didn't get the part) would have, in my opinion, been completely wrong for the role.

 

But it was his stormy relationship with Billy Wilder that gives us an insight into his patience and enduring talent.  Having worked so closely with an "artistic temperament" of Mr. Wilder's persona, Mr. Brackett was still able to turn out some of the best known screenplays ever filmed, the greatest of these being Sunset Boulevard.   I did find it interesting that regarding the two men, Billy Wilder was much a family man, and fights with his wife disturbed him; while Charles Brackett lived much of the time away from his wife and children (one gets the impression that she lived on the East Coast and he on the West, and there were visits from time to time.)

I recommend this book for anyone who wants a personal insight into Hollywood before, during and after the war years.  But be forewarned:  Again, these are entries of Charles Brackett's personal diaries, and read as such.  This means that you are getting his personal opinions on everything and everyone he comes into contact with.  This also means that at times you will find the information uninteresting, and, unfortunately, uncomfortable to read (there were derogatory remarks about people that some might find offensive.)  Good for the student of film and those interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Pictures-That-Got-Small/dp/0231167083/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1087579642



Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death

Author:  Mark Reutlinger
Genre:  Mystery

Three Stars

 

Everyone knows that Rose Kaplan makes the best matzoh ball soup around—she’s a regular matzoh ball maven—so it’s no surprise at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors when, once again, Mrs. K wins the honor of preparing the beloved dish for the Home’s seder on the first night of Passover.

But when Bertha Finkelstein is discovered facedown in her bowl of soup, her death puts a bit of a pall on the rest of the seder. And things go really meshugge when it comes out that Bertha choked on a diamond earring earlier stolen from resident Daisy Goldfarb. Suddenly Mrs. K is the prime suspect in the police investigation of both theft and murder. Oy vey—it’s a recipe for disaster, unless Rose and her dear friend Ida can summon up the chutzpah to face down the police and solve the mystery themselves.

 

********

 

Rose Kaplan is chosen to make the matzoh soup for the first night of Passover, since she makes better matzoh than most.  Shortly after the soup is served, Bertha Finkelstein dies while eating it, and falls face down in her soup.  When the death is investigated, it is discovered that Bertha choked to death on a diamond earring that was purloined earlier from Daisy Goldfarb.  Since no one was around when Rose made the soup, she becomes the prime suspect, with the police believing that she either put the earring in the matzoh or the soup itself.  So now it is up to Rose and Ida to discover the truth.

I found it odd that Daisy hadn't mentioned at dinner that her earrings were missing - I would think she would have mentioned it to someone, but no one seemed to know about it until after Bertha died and the discovery was made.  Since the earrings were kept in plain sight by the door, she should have noticed immediately; I would have; although it is possible she didn't notice.

I understand that Rose and Ida were meant to be funny, but they just weren't.  They were two older (in their 70's) Jewish women who don't have blue hair or wear outrageous clothing or jewelry, nothing to make them funny characters.  They are, in fact...normal.  Ida, who narrates the story, spouts a lot of Yiddish (with explanations at times), and some of the things she says I am sure are meant to be funny, ("the cast is dyed,") but that's just a malapropism.  The mention over and over of the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors unfortunately downgraded the rating.

There is also a side story of another resident and her daughter, Doreen, and Doreen's maybe-married-or-not rude boyfriend that seems superfluous.  Mrs. K solves this problem also in record time, in what I figure is an attempt to show how smart she is (like Sherlock Holmes, her hero), because it doesn't seem to belong in the story anywhere, and doesn't have any relevance to the death.

When Mrs. K solves the murder and informs the police, it doesn't really make sense.  To see the spoiler, please read my review on Goodreads.  But the two investigating officers (one who looks like Inspector Dalgleish and the other Lieutenant Columbo, according to Ida) don't have a lot to do here, they're just figureheads.  The story is Rose and Ida's, and the action completely centers on them.  In fact, the officers act as if they're doing nothing at all, since the two women aren't involving them in any way - not asking questions or talking to them at all - it is just as if they have made up their mind Rose is guilty and that is that.  But, as I stated before, Sherlock Holmes is her hero, and she goes about investigating in the way she thinks he would, and I believe she is supposed to come off as some elderly female Holmes.  Normally I enjoy elderly female sleuths, so this wasn't an issue.

I honestly can't say what it was about the book that just seemed "off," but perhaps it was all the Yiddish, I had to keep looking up the words.  A good rule of thumb in a book is if the reader has to look up meanings every five minutes, eventually they're going to find it annoying.

The book is definitely Ida and Rose, and everyone else is cardboard and secondary.  But the book is written to sort of make Rose and Ida female Holmes and Watson, of which a certainty they are not.  Mildly entertaining. 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Kaplan-Matzoh-Ball-Death-ebook/dp/B00KK0PJJ2/

 

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1084255575