Category Archives: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

This is the start of a series by the wife and husband writing duo known as J.C. Eaton. The series is about Sophie (aka Phee) Kimball, an accountant/bookkeeper who lives in colder climes and who works at a police station.

Phee’s mother, Harriet, lives in Sun City West, Arizona, which is close to Phoenix. Harriet calls Phee to come and investigate a book curse which is claiming the lives of her book club, Booked 4 Murder. The book is the book they are all reading that month and Harriet is hysterical that she will also end up dead.

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This is a thriller murder mystery told from two points of view. Caroline Stark and her one-time fling, Aiden, are the voices in this story.

Caroline is getting back into interior design. She has created a lavish show piece of a beach home. She is just getting ready to have the home officially opened and has a party set for the movers and shakers and magazines to come to.

Her husband isn’t quite as thrilled with what is going on. They have a very public disagreement and he starts pulling away from her and towards another woman. Caroline’s distraught and when she finds the money in their accounts is missing, she comes apart.

She turns to Aiden, a young bartender in the seaside town where she has built her new home. She has a revenge fling with Aiden and that’s where the strange twists of this story appear.

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I recently started reading the Amish Candy Shop mystery series. It has quickly become one of my favorite cozy mystery novels. I never knew that reading a book about the Amish countryside and small town could be so funny.

Bailey King is the granddaughter of an Amish family. Her grandmother is now alone in trying to run the family candy shop so Bailey, who is a world-class chocolatier has given up the big city to help her grandmother.

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This is the fifth book in this series which I have read. It is the story of Megan, a lawyer turned organic farmer who moved from the big city to a quieter life and who also owns a grocery/cafe in her small town.

This particular tale is a little darker and has a less humor than other books in the series. It involves a sadder tale and humor is not really easy to insert, though there are sparks of it here and there.

Megan’s boyfriend, veterinary Denver, has college friends visiting who are part of a group which is mentoring children with issues. When one of his friends turns up dead and a young man who is associated with Denver becomes the suspect, Megan becomes involved in solving the crime.

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The Kate Burkholder mysteries are one of my long-term favorites. Kate is the Chief of Police in Painters Mill. A murder occurs, per usual, and Kate is drawn into an investigation involving the Amish community.

Kate is former Amish and left the community and while not exactly shunned, she is not generally welcomed either. This causes issues when she is investigating and she has to work her way around more problems than the police ordinarily have (which is still a lot as the Amish do not like to involve the police in their community affairs.)

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I will say right off, if you are interested in this as part of a new series, you should start with the first one, which is called “Caged”. There are many clues and downright spoilers included in “Buried” that going back later and reading the first book would be anti-climatic.

Having said that, this is a book which can be read stand-alone easily. I haven’t read the first book but am trying to convince myself to go back anyway as I really enjoyed this book.

FBI agent Sayer Altair is just coming back from an injury from the previous book. She is not top-notch yet physically but is itching to get back to work. She is pulled into action a tad earlier when another FBI stumbles upon human bones while he is out at a national park walking with his cadaver dog.

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I’ve read most of the novels written by Elizabeth Peters. Ms. Peters wrote her fiction under several pseudonyms, of which, Elizabeth Peters is arguably the most well-known.

While the Amelia Peabody books are the series that many people have read, one of my favorite series by this author is the Vicky Bliss mysteries. There are many less books in the series but I recommend that you start reading with this, the first one.

In this book, Vicky Bliss is introduced. Vicky is an art historian and, when confronted with the chance to solve a art mystery, she jumps in with both feet.

She is also in competition with her sometimes boyfriend as well as others. She heads off to the small town and castle Rothenburg in Germany. There, the competition heats up and then whodunnits are added into the fray.

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This is the second book in the Sugar and Spice Mystery series. I started reading this book first, got a couple of pages in, then went and bought the first book because I could tell just that quickly that I was going to enjoy this series. This book can be read stand-alone, but I recommend reading the series in order so you can understand how the characters developed and where it all began.

Sugar Calloway and Dixie Spicer have a fairly new business which publishes community cookbooks for special groups. They are always hustling for the next job with Sugar the business end and Dixie the blue ribbon cook.

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This is such a fun mystery series. Bailey King is the granddaughter of an Amish family. Her father left the faith but Bailey has come back to Harvest, Ohio, to help her Amish grandmother run the family sweets shop.

Bailey is a chocolatier of the first notch but is glad to have left the fast city life of New York City behind her for most of the year.

This is the fourth full length book in the series (there is also a 3.5 short length novel as well.) I started by reading a few pages in this book and enjoyed it so well, I went looking for the earlier books in the series before reading any further.

I’ve now read the prior books in order and recommend doing that as the characters and their relationships build slowly over the course of the books. It can be read stand-alone, however, I think you would find the most enjoyment out of getting to really know Bailey and crew.

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