An Ale of Two Cities - A Review

Review

AN ALE OF TWO CITIES by Sarah Fox

The Second Literary Pub Mystery

Getting her literary themed pub into the holiday spirit, Sadie Coleman is arranging for a trivia night and sponsoring the pub's hockey team while enjoying Shady Creek's Winter Carnival. The mood is decidedly less merry when former resident, now a hot shot Boston chef, Freddy Mancini arrives to compete in the ice sculpting contest. The arrogant chef wastes no time putting down the town and its residents, including his former girlfriend, mentor, and brother. Before the contest even finishes, Freddy is dead. While there are plenty of suspects, Mel makes the top of the list. Believing her employee to be innocent, and giving in to her natural curiosity, Sadie decides to search for the killer herself. Will she be able to figure out which of the many suspects actually did it, or will the killer find her first?

As December creeps forward I enjoy reading a wintry story and AN ALE OF TWO CITIES fits the bill perfectly. Not overtly Christmassy, this second Literary Pub Mystery has a nice snowy flair, from the landscape to the Winter Carnival. I appreciate how Sadie is taking everything in for her first Christmas in Shady Creek, even though I got somewhat annoyed at her complaints about the cold and feeling sorry for herself having to spend Christmas alone. Apart from that I like Sadie and love how she's creating a home away from home for locals and tourists alike with her pub. I adore the names of the food and drinks and wish I could nosh and imbibe myself; an order of Lord of the Fries and an Evil Stepmother Cocktail, please!

I relish when the horrible person in the story gets his just desserts and winds up the murder victim and Freddy, or Federico as he now prefers to be called, plays the part perfectly. He's not alive for long, but what a horrible impression he makes. The bonus here is that his nastiness creates a lot of good plausible suspects. I love when a mystery keeps me guessing and this second Literary Pub Mystery did just that. There are plenty of red herrings and I thought for sure I knew who the murderer was, until I was proven wrong. 

AN ALE OF TWO CITIES is a well crafted winter tale. A picturesque setting, interesting characters, and evolving relationships infuse this mystery with warmth while proving that going outside your comfort zone and creating a new life and family for yourself can make your Christmas bright.

Currently Reading...

I just finished reading Beware the East Wind by Barbara Barrett. This book is the fourth in the Mah Jongg Mystery series.

 

Attending a benefit is par for the course for Syd and her friends, even when the String Quartet is replaced by a hypnotist. Everyone is shocked when, a few days later the hypnotist is found dead. While they don’t know the woman, a classmate of Marianne does. Guy’s sister was the murdered woman’s business partner. Having heard of Marianne and her friend’s success at solving murders, Guy entreats her to help prove his sister’s innocence, or at least find some other suspects. Although their last case nearly proved too dangerous, the excitement of being involved in another investigation proves too heady for the four to dismiss.

A Bad Hair Day Cookbook - A Review

Review

A BAD HAIR DAY COOKBOOK

By Nancy J. Cohen

Marla Vail, the savvy hairdresser and sleuth of the Bad Hair Day Mystery series by Nancy J. Cohen, is back. Instead of solving a new mystery, however, Marla is sharing lots of easy to prepare recipes in a cookbook.

A BAD HAIR DAY COOKBOOK is a great little book. There are a lot of recipes, over 160, well organized into types, for example appetizers, beverages, and desserts. I especially like how the entrees are divided into types as well, lamb, chicken, vegetarian and more! The recipes themselves are quite simple, for the most part. A good number also involve time saving measuring such as pre-packaged food and the use of a microwave.

Each section of the book includes a nice graphic, the story line of one of the Bad Hair Day Mysteries, the names of recipes included in that book, or food talked about if the book didn't include recipes, and an excerpt. In addition each recipe has a little introduction by Marla, sometimes including tips. Suggestions for themed and holiday dinners are also included as well as a special article written by author Nancy Cohen's mother entitled A Sabbath Dinner.

I was pleased to see a great variety of foods and flavors included and I was absolutely thrilled to see several recipes featuring lychees! I adore lychees, but aside from one recipe by Ming Tsai, I have never cooked with them. Lychee Blueberry Muffins and Lychee Curry Chicken will hopefully find their way to my plate soon!

A BAD HAIR DAY COOKBOOK is an easy to read cookbook chock full of recipes and anecdotes from the Bad Hair Day Mystery series. This book is enjoyable to read even if you're unfamiliar with the mysteries and even if you don't cook!

Fate - A Guest Post Spell & Giveaway

Gratitude is very important to me, as is magick, so I'm so happy that Kirsten Weiss is visiting Cozy Up With Kathy and sharing a spell from The Witches of Doyle today. Kirsten writes the Witches of Doyle Mystery series. FATE is the sixth book in the series and was released last week.

Gratitude Magick

Text from Doyle witch Jayce Bonheim to her sister Lenore Bonheim:

Jayce: Hey, Witch!                                                                          

Lenore: ?

Jayce: OMG, I’ve been feeling in such a funk, and I know it’s been messing with my magic. Then I realized the problem – gratitude! I just haven’t been feeling it.

Lenore: Hm. You came up with gratitude during the Thanksgiving season? Wild.

Jayce: I know, right? Anyway… spell time!

Lenore: Is this your own?

Jayce: For sure. And it totally works!

Jayce: I lit frankincense incense and set a dozen pennies on my altar. Then I thought of everything I’m grateful for and FELT it in my 💗and pinched my 4th finger and thumb together.

Lenore: Frankincense is great for clearing. I also like the “gift” associations with it.

Jayce: Exactamundo! I sent that feeling of gratitude from my 💗to the pennies and pinched my 4^th finger and thumb again. Here’s my chant:

Jayce: Good luck to all who find these

Jayce: May their prosperity

Jayce: Be as abundant as the bees.

Lenore: Your rhyming needs work. But bees are symbols of abundance.

Jayce: Hey, it rhymes, and it gets the point across. Then I left the pennies around Doyle for people to find.

Lenore: Sound magical principles. Give abundance to get abundance. Give good luck to get good luck.

Jayce: + it just felt good. Try it! It’s super fun.

You can read more about Jayce and her coffeeshop in the cozy witch mystery, FATE!

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Fate: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle) by Kirsten Weiss 

About Fate

Fate: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle)  

Cozy Mystery 6th in Series 

misterio press (November 15, 2019) 

Number of Pages - 250 

Something wicked this way comes…

Witch Jayce Bonheim has spent the last four months waiting for a horde of dark magicians to come to town.

Now, they’ve arrived.

And they’re bigger and badder than this ex-party girl could have imagined, wreaking havoc wherever they go.

When a murder rocks her small town, Jayce must stop the chaos. Battling her way through dark spells and past regrets, this Doyle witch struggles to divine her true friends…

…and her shadowy enemies.

But can she stop a murderer and prevent the opening of a portal that will transform their world forever?

Start reading Fate, book 6 in The Witches of Doyle cozy mystery novels.

This novel is a full-length, witch cozy mystery featuring true-to-life spells in the back of the book, a trio of witchy sisters, and a dash of romance. Though Fate can be read as a standalone, it's best read in series order. It's rated PG-13 due to mild language and some romance.

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About Kirsten Weiss

 

Kirsten Weiss has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway.

Now based in Colorado Springs, CO, she writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.

If you like funny cozy mysteries, check out her Pie Town, Tea and Tarot, Paranormal Museum and Wits’ End books. If you’re looking for some magic with your mystery, give the Witches of Doyle, Riga Hayworth, and Rocky Bridges books a try. And if you like steampunk, the Sensibility Grey series might be for you.

Kirsten sends out original short stories of mystery and magic to her mailing list. If you’d like to get them delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to sign up for her newsletter at kirstenweiss.com

Author Links:
Twitter: @KirstenWeiss  
Facebook: www.facebook.com/kirsten.weiss/  
Instagram: @KirstenWeissAuthor  
Bookbub: www.bookbub.com/authors/kirsten-weiss  

Book Series: Sensibility Grey Steampunk Suspense, Tea and Tarot cozy mysteries, the Pie Town cozy mysteries, the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum cozy mysteries, the Doyle Witch and Doyle Cozy mystery novels, the Riga Hayworth paranormal mysteries.  

Purchase Links - Amazon - B&N - Kobo 

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Coming Up Murder - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Lenny to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find Lenny on the pages of the Professor Prather Mystery series written by Mary Angela. Coming Up Murder is the fourth book in the series and was released last week.

It’s hard to say when I fell in love with Em—before or after the king-sized Snickers incident. There she was, sitting in the front row of the faculty meeting, noisily unwrapping the candy bar. She was blissfully unaware that Jim Giles, our English chair, was waiting for her to finish. Eventually he would give up, as a box of Hot Tamales followed the chocolate. She’d skipped lunch that day and stopped by her favorite lunch destination: the downstairs vending machine. I’ve seen a five-dollar bill disappear in there in less than thirty seconds—and her promises to eat healthier, too.

Em would call me the “rabble-rouser” of the department, and yes, she would use that word. She’s fond of antiquated words that don’t exactly roll off the tongue. But her assessment would be dead wrong. Em has caused more rabble than a student protest, mostly with her investigations. She reads a lot of detective fiction and fancies herself an amateur sleuth. She reads a lot of historical romance, too, but I told her that doesn’t make her a duchess. Unfortunately, it does make me a duke—the imaginary sort.

We were at This and That, a thrift shop in Copper Bluff, when she asked me to try on a kilt, a green and blue plaid that had seen better days. I knew she’d been reading that Scottish series again. She said she hadn’t, but I recognize the look of a wanton woman when I see one (plus she gave me an example from one of her books). It wasn’t Macbeth she was envisioning when I tossed on the garment over my shorts.

Which is just as well for me. When it comes to our relationship, she thinks of us as “just friends.” We are friends, but we are also idea junkies, coffee drinkers, sparring partners, pasta lovers, and wine enthusiasts. If we’re not teaching class, we’re together. She thinks this is mere coincidence.

To quote one of her recent novels, “Dear readers, it is not.” I’ve done everything I can think of to win her heart. I’ve crept around theaters, I’ve interrogated faculty members, I’ve skipped classes (okay, that was all me), I’ve gone to bake sales, I’ve even gone to Mass—and I’m Jewish! What will it take for Emmeline Prather to see the light?

It might be the greatest question she’s never asked, and she’s asked plenty. She asked me to a funeral parlor once like we were going on a date. I’m a patient man, but I’m no saint. I need to find a way to make her understand, and I think I know how. Cross your fingers, friends—and if that doesn’t work, rub a rabbit’s foot, throw a horseshoe, pick up a penny. You get the idea. She’s a big believer in signs. Let’s just hope she sees the flashing one in front of her before we’re old and gray. 

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Coming Up Murder (Professor Prather Mystery) by Mary Angela

About Coming Up Murder

Coming Up Murder (Professor Prather Mystery) 

Cozy Mystery 4th in Series 

Camel Press (November 12, 2019)  

Paperback: 258 pages 

Everything’s coming up roses for Professor Emmeline Prather. Her scholarly book is finished, spring term is coming to a close, and her love life is blossoming. Then the festival surrounding the exhibit of Shakespeare’s First Folio opens, bringing with it a tempest more dramatic than the bard’s.

In his panel presentation, actor and grad student Tanner Sparks contends Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare, boasting that he can prove the long-debated theory that an aristocrat actually penned the sonnets and plays. His bombshell sets off an acrid debate among scholars. But were they upset enough to kill him? That’s what Em wonders when Tanner is found dead in Shakespeare’s Garden, his macabre pose inspired by a scene from Hamlet.

At her department head’s urging, Em sets out to find the killer. Suspects abound, and Em finds herself targeted by Shakespeare-themed threats. Undaunted, she persists, determined to solve the case before the end of the semester.

About Mary Angela

Mary Angela is the author of two cozy mystery series that have strong protagonists with soft hearts. Emmeline Prather is the witty young teacher in the Professor Prather series, and Zo Jones is the sassy sleuth and shop owner in the Happy Camper series (coming from Kensington in 2020). When Mary isn’t penning heartwarming whodunits, she’s teaching, reading, traveling, or spending time with her family. She’s the proud mom of two beautiful daughters and the shameless owner of two very spoiled pets. You can find out more about her loves, including her writing, at MaryAngelaBooks.com.

Author Links:
Website: www.maryangelabooks.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/maryangelabooks  
Twitter: @maryangelabooks  
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15342425.Mary_Angela  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryangelabooks/ .  

Purchase Links Amazon Barnes and Noble Indie Bound Kobo

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