At a crossroads between a cringe-worthy past (Todd the
Toad) and an uncertain future (she's not exactly homeless, but it's close),
Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran's undying love
to count on and Cardinal Woolsey's, Gran's knitting shop, to keep her busy,
Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she's going to do.
Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there's a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door—including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on?
When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there's no body in the grave. Between a hot 600-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan.
Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there's a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door—including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on?
When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there's no body in the grave. Between a hot 600-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan.
The only one who seems to know what's going on is her cat ... or is it ... her familiar?
What is more fitting for Halloween than vampires? This
series is a fun read! And just so you know, you can gorge read all nine books
in the series if you have Kindle Unlimited because they are all free. I admit,
I’m feeling rather stuffed, but the fact is, if the tenth book were available,
I’d wolf it down, too.
Lucy doesn’t know of her heritage—she’s a witch. Brought
up in Boston and around the world by her archeologist parents, Lucy has been
raised on science, not witchcraft, an art her mother eschewed. Young Lucy was
dropped off to her English grandmother during summers. Grandma supplied a
loving home and must have respected her daughter’s wishes because Lucy’s
witchcraft roots were never revealed. She’s a powerful witch, but as a newbie her
spells go awry. She also can’t knit well, a fact she must keep secret from her
knitting shop clientele. In the first book, Grandma has been murdered, but, in
the midst of dying, a vampire friend saves her life by turning Grandma. What no
one knows is that a vampire colony lives underground beneath the knitting
shop—until Grandma shows up undead and her murder must be solved!
Nancy Warren also has a Christmas short featuring Lucy in
a newly released anthology Six Merry Little
Murders also on Kindle Unlimited.
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Out
of work and down on her luck, Lucie Rizzo is forced to do the one thing she’s
long avoided—come home to her nutty, mob-infested family. A move that brings
her back into the tempting arms of Frankie Falcone, the smoldering Italian ex
who’s no stranger to living with the mob.
When Lucie parlays her temporary dog-walking gig into a
legit career, Frankie becomes her number one supporter. Suddenly, shaking her
mob princess reputation doesn’t seem so crazy…until three of her clients are
dogjacked.
Despite help from the on-again, off-again Mr. Fix-It in
her life, Lucie is thrown into a criminal conspiracy straight out of a gangster
movie. One that, if she’s not careful, could leave her sleeping with the
fishes.
One has to feel sorry for Lucie Rizzo.
She’s a law-abiding accountant in a mob family. I downloaded this book because
it was the first in the series and free on Kindle Unlimited, but it proved
itself worthy. Dog Collar Crime is
quick-paced and the characters—both two-footed and four-pawed—are memorable.
The plot is complicated enough that I didn’t anticipate the plot twists and the
ending left enough tension and family complications to hit the download button
for the next book. So far, the series has seven books, which on Kindle range
from 99 cents to $2.99, a reasonable price if considering snarfing the entire
series on a snow-bound weekend.
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For hyper-particular
publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict
morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical,
forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it
takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a
leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his
spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course!
Determined
to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known
only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions
for each day. The more he devotes himself to locating the elusive H., the
deeper Jonathan is drawn into someone else’s rich and generous narrative—and
into an attitude adjustment he desperately needs.
He may
have ended up with a perfect year by accident, but it seems fate has set
Jonathan on a path toward healing, feeling, and maybe even loving again…if only
he can meet the stranger who’s changing his life one day at a time.
Once per month, Amazon Prime
members may download one new book from a selection that Amazon determines.
Often, I don’t bother. Many don’t appeal to me, but this book did. Like
refreshing the palate with sherbet, I sandwich romance, general fiction, and chick
lit between my mystery reading. Your
Perfect Year is not a mystery, more romance or chick lit. The mystery for
me was why I an English author set the book in Hamburg, Germany. Duh! Charlotte
Lucas, of course, is a pseudonym taken from the character of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice of Wiebke Lorenz,
who along with her sister also write under the name Anne Hertz. They evidently
are best-selling authors on the German market, but I couldn’t find any English
translations. I found no other clues within the text that the author was
German. Perhaps it is unremarkable that a German woman has the mindset of any
other contemporary woman of the free world. I felt a kinship without geographic boundaries
to this author.
The book is written in two POVs,
Jonathan Grief and Hannah Marx, two of the most unlikely people to end up in a
romance. Jonathan is a stuff shirt, old-school publisher, spoiled in a tragic
way by a father who now suffers from dementia. Hannah is a free-thinking
entrepreneur and innovator in childcare. Her new facility becomes instantly
popular. And she’s in love with another man. Hannah transforms Jonathan without
having met him, but they finally meet. No spoilers here!
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