The Book Witch (The Chancellor Fairy Tales, #5) by Melanie Karsak – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, cats, fairy tales, magic, Melanie Karsak, romance, series

Review of The Book Witch

There is nothing I can add to the book blurb to tell you about the story.  So I will go straight to the I loved it!  Paige and Stone are at odds in the business world.  But in the attraction world, they are very compatible.  Will they overcome their differences?  Duh!  This is a Happily Ever After story.  The fun is in figuring out how they can come together. 

Yes, seeing the cover, you might think it is a Christmas story.  It does take place during the Christmas season, but is not specifically about the holiday.  It is about the people.

This short novel (166 pages) is a standalone in Melanie Karsak’s Chancellor Fairy Tales about a magical small town.  The Book Witch is full of enchantment and romance – plus a cat and one very sweet kid!  For a couple hours of distraction, what more do you need?

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About The Book Witch by Melanie Karsak

They say opposites attract, but there have never been two more opposite people than Stone Schneider and me. Stone, the brawny owner of the Chancellor Brewery and Biergarten, is my definition of nemesis. His noisy pub is a constant source of irritation. Where my bookshop brings beauty and stories to the world, Stone brings a Friday-night cover band. 

Even though Stone has the most adorable, bookish child on the planet, that handsome tapster and I cannot find a way to get along. If Stone could stop being annoying for five seconds, I might ask him out. But when Stone breaks yet another business agreement between us—just in time for the holiday season—all bets are off. 

Despite my coven’s warnings, it seems like just a little book magic would do the trick to bend things my way. But in Chancellor, magic has a mind of its own, and Lady Winter will have her way this Christmas season. 

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Catagenesis (Cat Ship, #3) by Jody Wallace – Review

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5 stars, Book Review, cats, humor, Jody Wallace, pets, romance, scifi romance, series, talking cats

Review of Catagenesis

First – I love this series!  Cats that can teleport and sometimes read minds.  To be honest, I am not so sure that part is science fiction.  In the Catship series, cats have also evolved to be able to talk.  To humans.  Using human words.  So, cool!

Humans also play a large role.  In Catagenesis, we have Han-Ja Gee.  Drug / information dealer, in debt to a mobster.  “Smarmy” to quote Farah Shine Collins.  (Han-Ja was also in Catapult (book 2) in a very memorable scene involving mind altering drugs (mota), and a talking feline masquerading as a robotic cat.)

Farah is newly awakened after sleeping on a generation ship for 3,000 years.  A former law enforcement liaison, she is not nearly naïve as Han-Ja believes or as she is first presented.  Her mom is Dear Barbara (the cat’s name for her). 

After a murder on the gen ship, Farah and Han-Ja team up to figure out what the heck happened.  Dear Barbara is the prime suspect since she is the one who found the body.  Otherwise, clues are nearly non-existent.  What is not non-existent is a lack of suspects.  The non-cat loving crew members blame the cats.  There is of course, much disagreement on that, especially from the cats. 

More murders, riots and pandemonium ensue.  The author continues to throw in little mayhems to complicate the story and provide plenty of humor.  For cat lovers, you will get plenty of tail swishing, face washing, brushing against legs and sudden bolting from the room.  Plus, a gigantic superior attitude.  Yep, cats.

Romance is there too.  Farah and Han-Ja do not hit it off at first.  But as these things go, each begins to see the appeal of the other.  Kissing and heroics ensue.

This book is for anyone who enjoys sci-fi romance, cats, mystery and hilarity.  It stands alone, but the first two books are just as good and several characters cross over.  So read the entire series I say!

I received a copy of this book from the author. My review is my honest opinion.

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About Catagenesis by Jody Wallace

Han-Ja Gee has made a fine living on Trash Planet trading information and secrets with those who are willing to pay, either in money or in more secrets. He thought he knew everything…until a talking cat interrupted a business meeting. But cats can’t talk. Cats are so rare that only very wealthy people own them. If he can discover the truth about the cats, he can pay off the life-debt he owes and leave Trash Planet forever.

Farah Shine Collins is a passenger on an ancient generation ship who wakes up two thousand years late in a galaxy that barely survived a catastrophic war…and the cats on her ship have become sentient. Her struggle to adjust becomes infinitely worse when she’s asked to partner with an information broker named Han-Ja, who is clearly trouble, to solve a murder on board the ship.

A murder for which the primary suspect is Farah’s mother. A murder that not even mind-reading cats seem to know anything about. A murder that is only the first in a string of deadly attacks that threatens to tear the whole ship apart.

Han-Ja just wanted to escape a brutal racketeer. Farah just wanted a place that she and her mother could call home. Neither expected to fall in love while locked on a murder ship with three thousand terrified colonists and almost as many angry cats. But if they cannot stop the killer, the collateral damage will be a lot more than their hopes and dreams. It will be their lives.

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Dead and Gondola (Christie Bookshop, #1) by Ann Claire – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, bookshop, cats, cozy mystery, mystery, series

Review of Dead and Gondola

Sometimes, you just need to escape to a cozy mystery.  If the setting is a book shop and there is a cat and the shop owners like to think they are descendants of Agathe Christie, well, what more do you need? 

When a mystery man shows up at the bookshop during the book club meeting, and then later drops dead, the Christie family starts sleuthing. There is a local police force too, and they are no slouches, but no one gets into solving mysteries like avid mystery readers.  Agathe Christie fans will be tickled by all the references to her books.  Mystery fans will enjoy watching Ellie and Meg track down all the clues.  And for those that prefer not to know the ending at the beginning – there will be lots of surprises in store. 

Dead and Gondola delighted me.  Cozy mystery fans – read this one!

Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book. My review is my honest opinion.

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About Dead and Gondola by Ann Claire

Ellie Christie is thrilled to begin a new chapter. She’s recently returned to her tiny Colorado hometown to run her family’s historic bookshop with her elder sister, Meg, and their beloved cat, Agatha. Perched in a Swiss-style hamlet accessible by ski gondola and a twisty mountain road, the Book Chalet is a famed bibliophile destination known for its maze of shelves and relaxing reading lounge. At least, until trouble blows in with a wintry whiteout. A man is found dead on the gondola, and a rockslide throws the town into lockdown—no one in, no one out.

The victim was a mysterious stranger who’d visited the bookshop. At the time, his only blunders had been disrupting a book club and leaving behind a first-edition Agatha Christie novel, written under a pseudonym. However, once revealed, the man’s identity shocks the town. Motives and secrets swirl like the snow, but when the police narrow in on the sisters’ close friends, the Christies have to act.

Although the only Agatha in their family tree is their cat, Ellie and Meg know a lot about mysteries and realize they must summon their inner Miss Marple to trek through a blizzard of clues before the killer turns the page to their final chapter.

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