Tag: fantasy

The Tattered Cover by Ellery Adams

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In Adams’ new book, The Tattered Cover, the next in her series The Secret, Book and Scone Society, death and murder will find Nora’s Miracle Springs bookshop, Miracle Books. But along with solving a murder, uncovering hidden secrets and placing terrific book recommendations into the story, there will also be a great deal of joy as in this story we also have a wedding and a birth!

It’s Fall and Halloween is literally right around the corner. So, Nora has decided to add book signings to her repertoire of trying to get more customers. The first went very well and now for Halloween she has a medium coming to not only sign her new book, but for some lucky patrons who pay extra, an actual reading!

But unfortunately, a tragedy occurs while medium Lara Luz is giving a reading. During a storm the lights in the shop go out and when they come back on Lara is clutching her chest and dies! Not only that but Nora is knocked down and ends up hospitalized.

Nora’s instinct tells her this was no ordinary heart attack and she, her boyfriend the Sherriff and her Book and Scone Society friends begin to delve into the past life of medium Lara Luz. Along the way, they discover a tattered handwritten ledger with symbols and notes which make absolutely no sense.

The list of suspects includes their own pharmacist whose wife had recently died, and Lara’s assistant Enzo who travels with her as her companion. There just seems to be no link between Miracle Springs and Lara Luz.

At the same time, the women are preparing for not only a special delivery, but also a wedding! Except that one of them is in the wrong place at the wrong time. And by wrong time, time is running out for one of them. They need to solve this murder and fast because they may lose one of their own!

Thank you #NetGalley #KensingtonCozies #ElleryAdams #TheTatteredCover for the advanced copy.

The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling

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The Wedding Witch was the long awaited third book in Sterling’s adorably funny Graves Glen series. It continues the story of the Penhallow men and their witchy loves. This story I believe is the best in the series yet. It has mystery, romance, a creative plot and of course lots of magic! It’s charming!

Bowen Penhallow, the last of the Penhallow brothers still single owns a bar and likes his privacy. He is indeed very grumpy, does not like to talk, let alone socialize with anyone. So, when his best friend, who is sort of a ghost, comes and begs him to attend the wedding of his girlfriend when he was alive, well he certainly can’t say no seeing as Bowen believes he caused his friend to become the ghost he is now.

Although when he gets there, he is shocked to find Tamsyn Bligh, a human who he secretly has a bit of a crush on and uses to find missing items he wishes to recover. Tamsyn is a free spirit who has Raiders of the Lost Ark vibes. She’s not afraid of anyone or anything, except when she thinks about her client Bowen, (and she does that a great deal)!

Tamsyn has decided to do a search for another client for a mysterious artifact and not tell Bowen who she is supposed to be working for exclusively. So Bowen is a bit angry to find her here.

But that anger turns to confusion as they are somehow transported back in time to Bowen’s grandparents’ wedding and to add to the chaos, his grandparents have had a fight and have called off the wedding! Which means if Bowen doesn’t fix this he will never be born and never have met Tasmyn!

They somehow must figure out how to fix whatever the problem is between his relatives and then assess how on earth they get out of this place and back to the future all while hoping they haven’t changed history.

As they begin to search for clues as to what has happened and how to get home. their relationship begins to change. They might actually like each other…a lot! Even more reason to try and get home. To add to their anxiety, they have been told they only have a certain amount of time to fix the problem, or they will no longer exist, like ever!

The Wedding Witch is a fun read with visits of course from our favorite characters from the previous two stories with a wonderful mysterious lovable ending which will hopefully continue this delightful series.

Thank you #NetGalley #AvonPress #ErinSterling #TheWeddingWitch for the advanced copy.

Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer

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In Magical Meet Cute, Jean Meltzer, author of the hysterical The Matzah Ball, proves she can tell a story a bit out of her rom-com comfort zone by creating an amazing, haunting, funny romance/thriller which will tug at your heart but also emphasize what is happening in today’s world.

Faye Kaplan has a broken heart. Once engaged but that went south, she decides to leave her law practice and create a new life in Woodstock, New York doing something she always loved as a child. Create art through pottery.

Faye’s childhood was perfectly imperfect with a horrible mother and what she ended up getting out of that life was she always needed to be perfect in everything she does, which includes if there is one mistake while creating her art, means it gets dumped.

Now, lonely and feeling like she will never find someone, she goes to a mixer and discovers someone is putting anti-semantic flyers everywhere. This on top of her loneliness (and perhaps because she was a bit drunk, she decides to create a “golem” a being from Jewish folklore which is made from bits and pieces of whatever you have around, like clay for example, and once buried you make a wish. She buries it in the backyard. She hopes it will protect her.

But unfortunately, the very next day while riding her bike she accidently knocks down a very handsome man who is rushed to the hospital. He can’t remember anything about himself. Faye, who feels terrible and because no one has claimed him decides he needs to come home with her and recuperate, much against the advice of all her friends who think she will now be murdered!

They come to the decision together that his name should be Greg. Unfortunately for Greg, he remembers nothing not even how to do the simplest things. So, he begins reading books on just about everything. He does become a pretty good cook, and a great listener for Faye. As they begin to spend more and more time together, they both feel the start of something, but for Faye, she starts to believe he is the golem in human form she buried in the backyard and is now waiting for the right moment to make her life miserable.

And then it does. As the antisemitism begins to increase, a brick is thrown through the window of her pottery shop. The community doesn’t understand why this is happening, or maybe they do. Faye decides to take a stand and puts a pro-Jewish display in her window trying to lure whoever the beasts are who hate them so much.

As for Greg, she believes he is a bad golem and tries to do everything in her power to get rid of him. But he won’t go! She is so scared to fall in love, she’s willing to believe the worst of man she thinks she conjured.

But terrible things are brewing in this small town and trying to discover who and what are causing the violence will take the whole community banning together. As for Greg? Well, you’ll just have to read the book…

Magical Meet Cute is a fun book with very serious issues, which is trademark Meltzer, which melds romance with ripped from the headline problems, with a touch of mystery and of course, magic!

Thank you #NetGalley #MiraBooks #MagicalMeetCute #JeanMeltzer for the advanced copy.

https://www.amazon.com/Magical-Meet-Cute-Jean-Meltzer/dp/0778334414/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32BUFEDQ97GW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vihd-XX5iQk2OSqsXNFIKGg3ycn8T9zmWq6JQ_pryFgbOJ9xDc5oZ41oLU0Tm9uGi1L_0-wbEL6P4lkfIZQ65bgiGbPh9TEih17cR9TuuQw.R5Klhs5_AKtTmE014g7At1tPph7aM2JbLukt3LW9-38&dib_tag=se&keywords=magical+meet+cute+jean+meltzer&qid=1736523504&sprefix=%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-1

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

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The Lost Story is a beautiful fairy tale for most ages which will not only tug at your heart and bring tears to your eyes, but also will have you falling in love with the most wonderful, strong, funny characters as they attempt to go to battle for each other against some very unlikeable enemies.

Where to begin…Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell disappeared in a West Virginia forest as teenagers. After many massive searches and attempts to find the lost boys, hope was lost. No clues were ever discovered. As mysteriously as they disappeared, six months later Jeremy and Rafe walk back out of the woods to the shock of the not only their parents, but the whole town. Rafe does not remember anything about his time in the forest, and Jeremy chooses to keep it that way.

Now, years later, the boys are men and have gone their separate ways. Rafe lives alone in a cabin and loves art, still with no memory of what occurred all those years ago. Jeremy is now a missing person’s advocate who seems to have a gift for finding lost or missing people.

One day, a girl named Emilie Wendell walks up to Jeremy and begins pleading with him to find her sister Shannon, a sister up until recently she didn’t know she had, who seems to have disappeared into the same forest as Jeremy and Rafe. A teenager, she for all accounts was a budding writer. She had been abducted. Her abductor had been found dead, but Shannon was gone.

Jeremy and a reluctant Rafe agree to take Emilie’s case and thus begins a magical, fantastical journey as the three begin their quest to find Emilie’s sister in the forest in which they too had disappeared. What happens to them all is for the most part, pure joy, and love and excitement. Yes, there are those who hate them and want them dead, but there are also those who want to make amends and protect them.

I will not say much about their journey, as I don’t want to spoil the wonderous discoveries, funny situations and of course the danger they are in. What I will tell you is at the end of the story; I had tears in my eyes.

The Lost Story is a lovely, wonderous, imaginative tale with extremely lovable, quirky characters but is also filled with heart and soul. I am truly glad I was able to find this lost story! And hopefully it will go on for a long time!

Thank you #NetGalley #BallentineBooks #MegShaffer #TheLostStory for the advanced copy.