Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of my readers who celebrate. I hope you have a joyous day. Eat, drink, read, nap, and be merry! 

Bea Reviews The Pretender by HelenKay Dimon

Series: Games People Play #3
Publisher: Avon
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: December 26th, 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Avon Romance | Book Depository* | Google | iBooks* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

“Sexy, emotional, funny . . . Dimon gives it all to her readers.” —New York Times Bestselling Author Jill Shalvis

They say it takes a thief to catch a thief, and Harrison Tate is proof. Once a professional burglar, he now makes a lawful living tracking down stolen art. No one needs to know about his secret sideline, “liberating” artifacts acquired through underhanded methods. At least until one of those jobs sees him walking in on a murder.

Gabrielle Wright has long been estranged from her wealthy family, but she didn’t kill her sister. Trouble is, the only person who can prove it is the sexy, elusive criminal who shouldn’t have been at the island estate on that terrible night. She’s not expecting honor among thieves—or for their mutual attraction to spark into an intense inferno of desire.

Under the guise of evaluating her family’s art, Harris comes back to the estate hoping to clear Gabby’s name. But returning to the scene of the crime has never been riskier, with their hearts and lives on the line.

Bea Reviews That Olde White Magick by Sharon Pape

Series: An Abracadabra Mystery #2
Publisher: Lyrical Underground 
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: November 7th 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository*  | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

It’s time to work her crime-solving magic again . . .

Kailyn Wilde enjoys running her shop, Abracadabra, in the quaint New York hamlet of New Camel, where she lives with her six cats. Her family’s been here for centuries, and she’d like to keep up the tradition. But the place may never be the same if a big hotel gets built, so she does her civic duty and attends a town meeting along with her aunt Tilly . . . and Merlin. Yes, that Merlin—though he gets introduced to folks as her “distant English cousin.” The wizard is pretty grumpy about being transported here, but there are things about the modern world he doesn’t mind—like pizza.

Kailyn was prepared for a heated debate about the hotel, but she wasn’t expecting murder. When Tilly finds the body of a board member outside the schoolhouse, Kailyn doesn’t want any suspicion cast on the wrong person. She plans to crack this case, even if she has to talk to every living soul in town—plus a few departed ones.

Bea Reviews Dead Man's Chest by Kerry Greenwood

Series: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries #18 
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press 
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review 
Release Date: December 5th, 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Traveling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza with her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly, Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all.

An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably toward a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no one is getting past her.

Steph Reviews Hagar's Mother By Jim Nelson

Publisher: Kindle Press
Series: The Bridge Daughter Cycle #2
Format Read: E-Book
Source: Purchased from Amazon
Release Date: November 15, 2017
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

The anticipated sequel to BRIDGE DAUGHTER—Single mother Hanna Driscoll struggles to raise her “bridge daughters,” twins born pregnant with Hanna’s children. In six weeks the girls will give birth and die, leaving Hanna with two infants to raise.

Then Hanna’s busy life is shaken when an activist threatens to rescue her daughters from their fate and kill the children they bear.

A thriller of twists and turns, Hanna faces challenges from all sides to protect her infants-to-be…only to discover she too questions the mortality of her bridge daughters.

Bea Reviews A Covert Affair and An Uncommon Honeymoon by Susan Mann

Series: Librarian and the Spy Escapade #2
Publisher: Zebra Shout
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: August 29th, 2017
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

910.4 TRAVEL, adventurous
306.7 ROMANCE, secret
341.5 HOSTAGES, saving

A CIA librarian and her handsome spy boyfriend find themselves in the middle of an international incident when the Indian ambassador is kidnapped from a Library of Congress event.
Agent-in-training Quinn Ellington and James Bond Anderson travel to India, where the key to saving the ambassador is tangled up with a long-lost sacred library, a desecrated temple, and some very modern machinations. At least their cover as blissful newlyweds isn t too hard to pull off . . .
1. Spies sexy. 2. India intrigue. 3. Terrorism foiling. 4. Best friends weddings of. 5. Series The Librarian and the Spy.
I. Ellington, Quinn."

Review & Giveaway: A Murder for the Books by Victoria Gilbert

Series: Blue Ridge Library Mysteries #1
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: December 12th 2017
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Books-A-Million  | Indie Bound  | Kobo | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Fleeing a disastrous love affair, university librarian Amy Webber moves in with her aunt in a quiet, historic mountain town in Virginia. She quickly busies herself with managing a charming public library that requires all her attention with its severe lack of funds and overabundance of eccentric patrons. The last thing she needs is a new, available neighbor whose charm lures her into trouble.

Dancer-turned-teacher and choreographer Richard Muir inherited the farmhouse next door from his great-uncle, Paul Dassin. But town folklore claims the house’s original owner was poisoned by his wife, who was an outsider. It quickly became water under the bridge, until she vanished after her sensational 1925 murder trial. Determined to clear the name of the woman his great-uncle loved, Richard implores Amy to help him investigate the case. Amy is skeptical until their research raises questions about the culpability of the town’s leading families... including her own.

When inexplicable murders plunge the quiet town into chaos, Amy and Richard must crack open the books to reveal a cruel conspiracy and lay a turbulent past to rest in A Murder for the Books, the first installment of Victoria Gilbert’s Blue Ridge Library mysteries.

Bea Reviews How the Finch Stole Christmas by Donna Andrews

Series: Meg Lanslow #22
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 24th, 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens' A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager.

The show must go on, even if the famous―though slightly over-the-hill―actor who's come to town to play the starring role of Scrooge has brought a sleigh-load of baggage and enemies with him. And why is Caerphilly suddenly overrun with a surplus of beautiful caged finches?

How the Finch Stole Christmas! is guaranteed to put the "ho ho hos" into the holidays of cozy lovers everywhere with its gut-bustingly funny mystery.