Books on Review by E. B. Davis

The Skeleton Paints A Picture by Toni L. Kelner writing as Leigh Perry

Toni L. Kelner, writing as Leigh Perry, created the Family Skeleton series. There is a lot of action, but

it is a cozy series. Main character Dr. Georgia Thackery is an adjunct English professor in search of an academic home. Her best friend is a skeleton, Sid, who can think, walk, talk, and do everything a human can do. But, of course, no one but her family knows about Sid, and that’s the way she wants to keep it. Sid has feelings, though. Being locked away without much of a life depresses him until Georgia runs into murder. The two form a crime-fighting duo.

The books are a lot of fun and, I might add, addicting. So much so, I asked Toni for an interview, which will appear here on WWK on October, 23 focusing on her newest release The Skeleton Stuffs a Stocking.

The Spia Family Presses On by Mary Leo

The Spia Family Presses On is the first of three books so far in a madcap series featuring the Spia family, composed of ex-mobsters who are trying to go straight. They own an olive farm where they turn their crops into vintage olive oils. The farm is located in Northern CA wine country. Their operation is similar to a winery—giving tastings, selling olive related merchandise, and baking olive/olive oil treats.

The problem is that members of the family are still connected to the mob. Main character Mia—yep, Mia Spia, along with her best friend Lisa Lin, best-selling author of nonfiction how-to books for women, try to keep the family on the straight and narrow. Mia also has to follow a narrow path because she is an alcoholic who cooks whenever she is desperate for a drink—the recipes are included in the book.

When a relative’s body goes missing on the farm, Mia and Lisa try to solve the murder before the police just in case the perp happens to be a family member. Not an illogical or hysterical possibility in this family. Mia doesn’t want to protect the murderer. What she wants is to protect the family and keep their secrets hidden.

The third book in the series, The Spia Family Avoids the Pits, will be released on November, 16. I may have to ask Mary Leo for an interview.  

Cajun Fried Felony Jana Deleon

Jana Deleon has many mystery series, some of which are supernatural, but all of them contain laugh-out-loud humor. I love her books.

Cajun Fried Felony is the fifteenth book in the Miss Fortune series. The series starts out when Miss Fortune, known as just Fortune, is placed in Sinful, LA under an assumed identity by the CIA to hide from an assassin. But the reason she’s hiding out is because she is a CIA assassin who missed her mark and now that mark is tracking and hunting her down. As an asset of the CIA, they don’t want to lose her, but Fortune also wants to finish the job.

The problem is that Sinful is…well, it’s sinful. When she meets up with two retired Special-Forces seniors, Ida Belle, a deadly shot and expert driver, and Girt, a demolition expert (or at least she was forty years ago), Fortune finds a life and friends that she has never known before. Of course, there are bodies, and if one or two go missing in the bayou as an alligator appetizer, no one really minds because that’s Sinful.