Books Reviewed by T @ Traveling With T

#FuturisticFriday Review: Crepe Factor by Laura Childs

crepe-factor

Photo Credit: Berkley

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Crepe Factor

Summary: The Winter Market in the French Quarter is in full swing, but murder isn’t taking a holiday in the latest from the New York Times bestselling author of Parchment and Old Lace…
 
The holidays are a busy time for scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand—but not so hectic that she doesn’t have time to enjoy browsing the booths at the Winter Market with her best friend Ava. The last thing the ladies expect to see is a thrashing man stabbed by a serving fork, dying in front of them.

The victim is loathed restaurant critic Martin Lash, who posted his scathing reviews on the Glutton for Punishment website. And the prime suspect is New Orleans restauranteur Quigg Brevard—who was seen giving the critic a tongue-lashing minutes before someone stuck a fork in him. An old flame of Carmela, Quigg asks for her help, which does not please her current beau, Detective Edgar Babcock, to say the least.

Before her relationship is the next victim, Carmela needs to find a murderer who had no reservations about punishing the culinary curmudgeon… Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday: When All The Girls Have Gone by Jayne Ann Krentz

when-all-the-girls-have-gone

Photo Credit: Berkley, 11/29

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

When All The Girls Have Gone

Summary: Jayne Ann Krentz, the New York Times bestselling author of Secret Sisters, delivers a thrilling novel of the deceptions we hide behind, the passions we surrender to, and the lengths we’ll go to for the truth…

When Charlotte Sawyer is unable to contact her step-sister, Jocelyn, to tell her that one her closest friends was found dead, she discovers that Jocelyn has vanished.

Beautiful, brilliant—and reckless—Jocelyn has gone off the grid before, but never like this. In a desperate effort to find her, Charlotte joins forces with Max Cutler, a struggling PI who recently moved to Seattle after his previous career as a criminal profiler went down in flames—literally. Burned out, divorced and almost broke, Max needs the job.

After surviving a near-fatal attack, Charlotte and Max turn to Jocelyn’s closest friends, women in a Seattle-based online investment club, for answers. But what they find is chilling…

When her uneasy alliance with Max turns into a full-blown affair, Charlotte has no choice but to trust him with her life. For the shadows of Jocelyn’s past are threatening to consume her—and anyone else who gets in their way… Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday review: Miracle on 5th Avenue by Sarah Morgan

miracle-on-5th-avenue

Photo Credit: Harlequin, 11/29

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Miracle on 5th Avenue

Summary: It will take a Christmas miracle for two very different souls to find each other in this perfectly festive fairy tale of New York!

Hopeless romantic Eva Jordan loves everything about Christmas. She might be spending the holidays alone this year, but when she’s given an opportunity to house-sit a spectacular penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she leaps at the chance. What better place to celebrate than in snow-kissed Manhattan? What she didn’t expect was to find the penthouse still occupied by its gorgeous—and mysterious—owner.

Bestselling crime writer Lucas Blade is having the nightmare before Christmas. With a deadline and the anniversary of his wife’s death looming, he’s isolated himself in his penthouse with only his grief for company. He wants no interruptions, no decorations and he certainly doesn’t appreciate being distracted by his beautiful, bubbly new housekeeper. But when the blizzard of the century leaves Eva snowbound in his apartment, Lucas starts to open up to the magic she brings…This Christmas, is Lucas finally ready to trust that happily-ever-afters do exist? Continue reading →

A Wedding for Christmas by Lori Wilde

a-wedding-for-christmas

Photo Credit: Avon

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

A Wedding for Christmas

Summary: The whole town is ready for the holidays: The Cookie Club is baking, Main Street glitters with lights, the carolers sing . . .There’s even a Christmas wedding.

When bodyguard Ryder Southerland sees his best friend’s sister Katie at an L.A. Christmas party, he mistakes the slinky blonde for a celebrity stalker and tackles her. Then they tackle each other . . . at his place. The next morning, Katie’s gone, and Ryder tells himself it’s for the best. It isn’t. Now, one Christmas later, Ryder’s falling for the woman he’s been missing in the town he hasn’t missed at all . . .

Katie Cheek’s outgrown the romantic fantasies she had about Ryder when she was fifteen. Katie’s packed their hot night away in a box labeled “fling”—or tried to. But Twilight’s bad boy is the best man in her brother’s wedding. And up-close and personal, Ryder’s impossible to ignore. So Katie can either go into hiding—or surrender to Christmas magic. Continue reading →

Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan

say-no-more

Photo Credit: Forge Books

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Say No More

Summary: When Boston reporter Jane Ryland reports a hit and run, she soon learns she saw more than a car crash—she witnessed the collapse of an alibi. Working on an expose of sexual assaults on college campuses for the station’s new documentary unit, Jane’s just convinced a date rape victim to reveal her heartbreaking experience on camera. However, a disturbing anonymous message—SAY NO MORE—has Jane really and truly scared.

Homicide detective Jake Brogan is on the hunt for the murderer of Avery Morgan, a hot-shot Hollywood screenwriter. Her year as a college guest lecturer just ended at the bottom of her swimming pool in the tight-knit and tight-lipped Boston community called The Reserve. As Jake chips his way through a code of silence as shatterproof as any street gang, he’ll learn that one newcomer to the neighborhood may have a secret of her own.

A young woman faces a life-changing decision—should she go public about her assault? Jane and Jake—now semi-secretly engaged and beginning to reveal their relationship to the world—are both on a quest for answers as they try to balance the consequences of the truth. Continue reading →

The Life- Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight

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Photo Credit: Little Brown & Co

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck

Summary: THE “GENIUS” (Cosmopolitan) NATIONAL BESTSELLER
ON THE ART OF CARING LESS AND GETTING MORE
Are you stressed out, overbooked, and underwhelmed by life? Fed up with pleasing everyone else before you please yourself? It’s time to stop giving a f*ck.

This brilliant, hilarious, and practical parody of Marie Kondo’s bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up explains how to rid yourself of unwanted obligations, shame, and guilt–and give your f*cks instead to people and things that make you happy.

The easy-to-use, two-step NotSorry Method for mental decluttering will help you unleash the power of not giving a f*ck about:

Family drama
Having a “bikini body”
Iceland
Co-workers’ opinions, pets, and children
And other bullsh*t! And it will free you to spend your time, energy, and money on the things that really matter. So what are you waiting for? Stop giving a f*ck and start living your best life today! Continue reading →

Love Literary Style by Karin Gillespie

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Photo Credit: Henery Press

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Love Literary Style

Summary: Low brow meets high brow in a literary love story. Can an emotionally-stunted literary novelist and a vivacious romance writer find their happily-ever after? Even when she becomes more successful than he? Love Literary Style spoofs romantic comedy tropes, winks at literary pretensions and pokes fun at book publishing. Like Legally Blonde only in the literary world. Inspired by the author’s New York Times article “Masters in Chick Lit.” A sparkling romantic comedy for fans of the Rosie Project. Continue reading →

Christmas Angels by Viola Shipman

christmas-angels-by-viola-shipman

Photo Credit: St. Martin’s Press

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Christmas Angels

Summary: From the beloved author of Indie Next Pick The Charm Bracelet, Christmas Angels is a delightful love story. Kate, a single woman in her 30s, works as a designer/decorator for a large interior landscaping company bedecking and bedazzling St. Louis for the holidays. Her work keeps her from spending the holidays with her family and masks the loneliness and pain after a nasty breakup just before Christmas.

Known as “The Christmas Angel” for providing holiday beauty to the city’s offices, homes, and malls, Kate’s world changes when she decorates the home of a widowed single dad. Both soon realize that life (and love) must go on somehow and that perhaps Christmas (and guardian) angels are all around, if we only choose to see them.

Rich with the spirit of Christmas and all its traditions, Christmas Angels is a love story that will remind readers of the meaning and magic of Christmas.  Continue reading →

Better Get to Livin’ by Sally Kilpatrick

better get to livin

Photo Credit: Kensington

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Better Get To Livin’

Summary: Smart, witty, and delightfully offbeat, this new novel from the author of The Happy Hour Choir and Bittersweet Creek is an uplifting story about following your heart, even when it leads to the last place you’d expect…

Presley Cline has put aside dreams of Hollywood stardom and come back to Ellery, Tennessee, to work in a beauty shop. In truth, the dreams in question were more her mother’s than her own. Presley may have the face and body of a movie icon, but she lacks the stomach for it. Yet a loving relationship and normal home life seem almost as unattainable as an Oscar. Being able to see and speak to dead people certainly isn’t helping.

Presley’s first job, beautifying “clients” at the Anderson Funeral Home, is quite a change from working on a movie set. The place is home to dozens of ghosts all hoping that Presley can help them move on–and also one very-much-alive owner, Declan Anderson. Like Presley, Declan is caught between following family expectations and his own aspirations. But with a little meddling from loved ones and locals–both living and dead–Presley is starting to see that life is too short not to be who you want to be, and the most rewarding journeys involve some unexpected detours… Continue reading →

Body on the Bayou by Ellen Byron

body-on-the-bayou-by-ellen-byron

Photo Credit: Crooked Lane Books

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Body on the Bayou

Summary: The Crozats feared that past murders at Crozat Plantation B&B might spell the death of their beloved estate, but they’ve managed to survive the scandal. Now there’s a très bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Maggie Crozat’s nemesis, Police Chief Rufus Durand, and her co-worker, Vanessa Fleer.

Maggie, inexplicably tasked with being Vanessa’s Maid of Honor, quickly discovers why everyone else refused the assignment when the Bridezilla hands her a long list of duties — the most important of which is entertaining Vanessa’s cousin, Ginger Fleer-Starke, a mysterious woman with dangerous secrets. But just days before the wedding, Ginger’s lifeless body is found on the bayou behind Crozat Plantation and the Pelican PD, as well as the Crozats, have another murder mystery on their hands.

There’s a gumbo-potful of suspects, including an ex-Marine with PTSD, an annoying local newspaper reporter, and Vanessa’s own sparkplug of a mother. But when it looks like the investigation is zeroing in on Vanessa as the prime suspect, Maggie reluctantly adds keeping the bride-to-be out of jail to her list of Maid of Honor responsibilities in Body on the Bayou, the second in Ellen Byron’s charming and witty series. Continue reading →