patti, Author at Nightstand Book Reviews

“Poisons Can Be Deadly” Book List

4 Comments / Award Winner, Bestselling Author, Book List, Cozy, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Nominated for Award, Suspense

On occasion www.kerriansnotebook.com crosses into the Nightstand Book Reviews realm. Many of you have shown a great interest in the various poisons used as a method of dispatching the victim(s) on the Kerrian’s Notebook site, so I thought you might like to have a list of 30 books with poison as the primary cause of death here on NBR. The authors and their fans provided the titles. The books were written/published after 2015, so there are no classics in the list, just relatively new ones to add to your TBR pile. Any post-2015 titles missing? Let us know in the comments below.

Listed in alphabetical order by author, the list also includes links to the book 'buy' pages. Click on the titles to find out more.

Mary Angela “An Act of Murder”

Juliet Blackwell “Toxic Trousseau”

Laura Bradford “The Silence of the Flans”

Becky Clark “Fiction can be Murder”

Brenda Donelan “Murder to Go”

Jan Edwards “In Her Defense”

Amanda Flower "Toxic Coffee"

Maggie Foster “The Arms of Death”

Daryl Wood Gerber “Wreath Between the Lines”

Debra H. Goldstein “One Taste Too Many”

John Hazen “Zyklon”

Katherine Bolger Hyde “Arsenic with Austen” and “Cyanide with Christie”

Maureen Klovers “The Secret Poison Garden”

Jim & Joyce Lavene “Killing Weeds”

Meg London “Laced with Poison”

Edith Maxwell “Mulch Ado About Murder,” “Murder Most Fowl,” and “Farmed and Dangerous.”

Donna Blanchard McNicol “Barely a Spark”

Britni Patterson “A Thousand Deadly Kisses”

Alec Peche “Murder at The Podium,” and “Crescent City Murder”

Karen Pullen “Cold Feet”

Nancy Cole Silverman “Shadow of Doubt”

Fran Stewart “Pink as a Peony”

Joyce Tremel “Tangled Up in Brew”

Kathleen Valenti "As Directed"

Nancy G. West "River City Dead," and "The Plunge."

Have fun choosing several books from this wickedly entertaining list! 🙂

“Poisons Can Be Deadly” Book List Read More »

“Steamed Open” by Barbara Ross

4 Comments / Cozy, Fiction, Mystery

Julia Snowden is back in “Steamed Open,” the seventh book in Barbara Ross’ Agatha nominated Maine Clambake mystery series. Julia has worked hard to bring the family Clambake business back from the brink of financial disaster, but a new threat challenges her problem-solving ability – the clams she needs for the Clambakes may no longer be readily available. This isn’t a matter of refinancing or getting a backer to underwrite a cash-strapped, seasonal business. The very character of the business itself is vulnerable to the baffling decision of one man.

The problem? Public entry to a prime clamming beach and the parking lot near it have been fenced off after local philanthropist, Lou (Heloise) Herrickson, passes away. Her heir, Bartholomew Frick, a very unpleasant distant relative of Lou’s, is not at all interested in the impact that decision has on the community – both tourists and business owners alike. He is only interested in selling the beachfront house and all its contents as quickly as possible. The professional clammers can’t dig up the clams and the dwindling supply is threatening to remove clam dishes from all the area seafood restaurants.

Frick winds up dead, killed with a clam rake, and Julia was the last person to see him alive – except for the killer. Who did it? Was it a frustrated local resident, a disgruntled neighbor, or an annoyed vacationer? Who will inherit the estate now since Frick died before a will could be written? Ross provides us with plenty of motives as well as a few feisty suspects and a complex side-plot that moves front and center as the story evolves.

Julia bends the rules a bit while looking for someone who would inherit the estate and return the beach access to what had gone before. She has a personal stake in the outcome, since every day without access to the beach creates difficulties for the business and her entire family. “Steamed Open” revisits the point that summer tourist businesses have a limited four- month window in which to earn the money to live on for the year. Not an easy place to exist, let alone thrive.

I spent many summers at beach towns on the USA East Coast and as Ross discusses in her book, public beach access is flatly denied in some oceanside communities and in some places, day passes can only be purchased at the police station. Regulations vary from town to town where the debate rages with loud, angry exchanges at the public and private meetings. It’s a choice between a source of revenue for the town and owners that don’t want their expensive beach fronts crowded with strangers that litter the sand and destroy the dunes. Compromises between the groups are hard to achieve in real life.

Julia’s relationship with her boyfriend, Chris, gets complicated in “Steamed Open.” He has his own secrets and while they have given each other plenty of space before, she now feels that if the two are going to continue to complement each other in business and as a couple, there has to be more openness. What Chris reveals will break your heart.

“Steamed Open” is a study in the necessity to get answers quickly before time runs out and everybody loses. A murder and a search for an heir that affects the entire community? High stakes investigations indeed and a great read, with Ross delivering a clever multi-layered plot, well-crafted continuing (and a few new) characters, and as always, wonderful recipes and that fabulous coastal Maine setting.

Click here to read Ross’ Author Profile.

Please visit http://www.maineclambakemysteries.com/ for more information about Ross, her appearances, and her other work.

“Steamed Open” by Barbara Ross Read More »

“Mardi Gras Murder” by Ellen Byron

4 Comments / Cozy, Fiction, Holidays, Mystery, Nominated for Award

“Mardi Gras Murder,” the fourth entry in the Cajun Country Mystery Series, stars independent Magnolia Marie (Maggie) Crozat, an artist/B&B owner whose family has lived in Pelican, Louisiana for generations. In the weeks before Mardi Gras, a torrential rain hits St. Pierre Parish, flooding all the towns and bayous in it, submerging houses and pushing everyone’s junk along as the water rises to find release at the Gulf of Mexico. The rainwater finally settles and wreckage is left behind, but so is the body of a stranger, found at the back of the Crozat property.

“Mardi Gras Murder” is enriched by its inclusion of how natural disasters bring neighbors together, whether to haul away debris or provide temporary housing to the newly displaced. This is no ordinary town, but a tight-knit community steeped in tradition that shouts to the world: “Mardi Gras will go on. Peli-CAN!” despite the flooding, the damage, and the dead body.

Maggie’s Gran comes down with pneumonia, so to carry on family tradition, Maggie is pushed to judge the beauty pageant in her stead. For a sick senior citizen, Gran wields an awful lot of power from that sickbed, a delightful plot nod that embraces older kinfolks as respected contributors to society. Maggie conforms to some of the Pageant rules to keep the peace, but shows us a different approach to showcasing young women, not with their lineage, but by demonstrating talent, brains, and showing them encouragement when needed.

Many interesting characters inhabit the pages of “Mardi Gras Murder,” and Bo Durand, a Pelican police detective and Maggie’s hunky boyfriend, fits nicely into Maggie’s circle. In a real-world subplot, the tension and misunderstandings between them deliver a nuanced look at how couples and blended families cope with difficult issues.

In this entertaining Cajun mystery, gumbo pots are sacred and locked in safes along with secret recipes. Maggie suspects she was second place to her dad’s black pot during each year’s preamble to Mardi Gras. Even the winner of the Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen Pageant wears a crown that includes a rhinestone gumbo pot in its design.

Happily, because of the internal Crozat family competition for the top gumbo prize, there are several cooking scenes. I could taste the fabulous seafood gumbo while it simmered on the stove, although I was pleased to see that Bo planned to enter his chicken and sausage version into the competition. There are as many kinds of gumbo as there are cooks to debate their choices, and Byron cleverly included that banter in the book.

Complete with yummy sounding recipes, there is lots happening in “Mardi Gras Murder.” It engages and informs us with local history and dialect while supplying us with more than one mystery to solve, more than one body, and more than one plausible suspect to investigate. Great fun!

“Mardi Gras Murder” has recently been nominated for this year’s Left Coast Crime Award (the Lefty) and the Agatha Award. 🙂 This just in: "Mardi Gras Murder" won the Agatha last night for Best Contemporary Novel. Bravo! 🙂

Please visit www.ellenbyron.com for information about her other books in the award-winning series.

“Mardi Gras Murder” by Ellen Byron Read More »

Author Profile: Fiona Quinn

2 Comments / Adventure, Author Profile, Bestselling Author, Fiction, Military, Paranormal, Romance, Suspense

Fiona Quinn and I met several years ago at a Writers’ Police Academy weekend held in North Carolina. We learned a ton, laughed a lot, and with a shared sense of the strength and power of independent women, hit it off. I knew that weekend, when she was demonstrating her high kick past an ATF agent’s ear, that she would bring an unusual range of experience to the written page. Her savvy heroines can do those high kicks and more to quell their opponents, while maintaining a softer side for the guys when called for.

Quinn is a three-time USA Today bestselling author, a Kindle Scout winner, and has been listed as an Amazon Top 100 author in: Romantic Suspense; Mystery, thriller, and suspense; Mysteries, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

She writes suspense in her Iniquus World of books including: Lynx, Strike Force, Uncommon Enemies, Kate Hamilton Mysteries, and the FBI Joint Task Force Series.

The Lynx books were her first series, featuring under-the-radar, 20 something psychic Lexi Sobado, assisting Iniquus agents.

Read my review of the “Weakest Lynx” here.

and my review of the fourth book in the series, “Cuff Lynx” here.

Quinn’s series, Uncommon Enemies, still has Iniquus crews providing the adventure, but features other members of the Strike Force that Sobado assisted in the Lynx series.

Read my review of “Relic” here.

She writes urban fantasy as Fiona Angelica Quinn for her Elemental Witches Series and just for fun, she writes the Badge Bunny Booze Mystery Collection with her dear friend, Tina Glasneck.

Quinn is rooted in the Old Dominion where she lives with her husband and children. There, she pops chocolates (a LOT of chocolate), devours books, and taps continuously on her laptop with Little Bear (the beloved family dog) sleeping near her feet.

I asked Fiona what part of her day is her chosen time for writing. Her response:

“That’s an interesting question. Writing for me is much more than sitting down and tapping at the keyboard. In my mind, I am constantly writing. Everything I see and do; every person I meet; every conversation I overhear; it’s all fodder that I’m collecting. It’s all possibilities that I churn. My busy brain is constantly telling me stories. I’m involved in the writing process always. As to the tapping? I sit down in the morning, and I’m finished after I’ve composed two-thousand good words. Some days that’s very easy. Some days, I’m sitting there well into the evening working things out. I try to write every day once my research and outlining are done. I don’t like to take a break mid-project.”

Fiona’s favorite place to work is a small office at the back of the house. It’s quiet and private. When she’s editing, she prefers to be on her back porch amongst the trees. That’s when she’s biting her nails, hoping that she’s creating a wonderful reading experience. Nature keeps her company.

How does Quinn come up with her characters? “I usually know someone that reminds me of the basic character and that’s where I start. As I write and learn more about the character, the real person takes a step back. Through the story, I get to know my characters, what motivates them, how they respond to different situations, what makes them tick. I love this part of the writing process. It’s like meeting someone and then getting to know them as we interact.”

I asked Fiona why she decided upon paranormal as a genre in which to work.

“The characters in my suspense thrillers have backgrounds that put them in life-threatening situations. In my time as a counselor working with clients with PTSD, and in my experience with others, I’ve found that people who live lives on the razor’s edge, develop their sixth sense. In many of my novels I like to use this to enhance the storyline, giving me a new place to explore the human experience.”

Fiona Quinn has a number of activities she enjoys when not tapping away on the latest story. Her blog http://thrillwriting.blogspot.com/ has been super popular because of its interviews with experts in various fields of research, and her own personal forays that tie in to the action in many of her books. She chats about her experiences working with:

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) part of FEMA
Medical Reserve Corps for Counseling (part of Virginia Department of Emergency Management)
Search and Rescue also part of VDEM

This involvement out in the field lends authenticity to the drama in all her series. If she lives it, the activity will most likely wind up on the printed page.

I’m delighted to say that Quinn has also guest-posted twice on www.kerriansnotebook.com as Visiting Detective Lexi Sobado.

Quinn’s book, Thorn, takes place in Toulouse and Paris, France, both places she lived during her college days. One of the recipes she found wonderful was TART TANTIN – think of it as a kind of apple pie, but so much more. Here is her quick and easy version.

Fiona Quinn’s TART TARTIN

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

9 gala apples peeled and sliced, sprinkled with lemon juice

1 prepared pie crust.

½ stick of salted butter.

Preparation

STEP ONE – make the caramel

Pour a half cup of sugar into a non-stick pan over a medium heat. You can sprinkle some lemon juice over it if you like. Just let it sit and melt. As the sugar liquifies, watch it carefully as it can scorch quickly. Once it’s golden brown, quickly pour it into a pie pan. Rotate the pie pan to cover it with your caramel. This is a very quick move as the caramel will cool/harden if you delay.

STEP TWO – the apples

Peel and slice about 9 Gala apples and arrange them in the pan on top of the caramel in concentric circles. Cover lightly with aluminum foil and put this in the oven 425 degrees F. for about 25 minutes. The apples should be soft. Remove from oven. Slice the chilled butter and spread it over the apples. Cover with a round of prepared pie crust, return to oven and bake until golden, about 10-15 minutes.

STEP THREE – finish

Remove from oven. Pan will be very hot. Carefully turn upside down onto a serving dish so the crust is at the bottom, then the apples and the caramel is running over the top (similar to a flan)

Serve with ice cream (praline ice cream is yummy, so is rum raisin, or go with vanilla if you prefer) and enjoy!

I just downloaded “Thorn” and bestselling “Cold Red” and can’t wait to read them!

Please visit Fiona Quinn at www.fionaquinnbooks.com for more information about her series and links to the latest books.

Author Profile: Fiona Quinn Read More »

“A Christmas Peril” by J.A. Hennrikus

Cozy, Fiction, Holidays, Mystery

“A Christmas Peril” introduces us to Sully (Edwina) Sullivan, Theater Cop, a former active duty detective in Massachusetts. Sully is now the managing director of the cash-strapped Cliffside Theater Company whose troupe is about to stage the iconic Christmas play, A Christmas Carol. But first, she has to keep Scrooge from quitting, while holding her ex-husband and an old boyfriend at bay. There’s also the matter of the murders.

In the five years since leaving law enforcement, Sully has not lost her sleuthing skills, so when an old friend becomes a person of interest in his father’s murder and needs Sully’s help, she agrees to look into the circumstances. It turns out that every single member of the family is hiding something. With big money, romantic intrigue, and a large company at stake, there is plenty of motive to go around and no shortage of suspects.

Her ex-husband, Gus, complicates matters just by being around, but he’s a lawyer for the dead man’s family, so he’s hard to avoid. Sully still has a soft spot for him, though, and any guy that can make her toes curl can’t be all bad.

“A Christmas Peril” is an absorbing peek behind the curtain at the world of theater production. Costumes have to last for years, tech rehearsals take longer than I would have thought, and the battle for Arts money is a continuing challenge. One of the characters says while half-kidding, (paraphrased so as not to give anything away) “We can’t kill the star. His name is above the title and we would have to refund the tickets.”

Can Sully’s savvy skills save her former boyfriend and the play from disaster? Will she be able to keep from adding her ex-husband to the rising body count? And, what about the murders?

Hennrikus has penned a complex, multi-layered plot that delivers jaw dropping surprises. I could have sworn one of the ‘obvious’ suspects did at least one of the deeds, but instead turned out to be guilty of something else.

I’m looking forward to a repeat performance from the personable core group of characters – some quirky, some serious, but always entertaining. You can pre-order book #2 in the series, “With a Kiss I Die,” now.

Please visit www.Jhauthors.com for more information about this Agatha nominated author and her other series.

“A Christmas Peril” by J.A. Hennrikus Read More »

Author Profile: Jeri Westerson

Author Profile, Award Winner, Fantasy, Fiction, Nominated for Award, Paranormal, Romance

Jeri Westerson is a born and bred California author who likes to write in her home office, in her back yard, when camping, or in a hotel by the pool. “As long as I can plug in my laptop occasionally, that's where I work.”

She has worked as a freelance reporter and written award-winning short stories. Jeri has also been nominated for 13 national awards (Agatha and Shamus included) and has been warmly applauded by The Historical Novel Society, The Library Journal, and Suspense Magazine (plus others) for her work in the historical, suspense, and crime fiction arenas.

The author of eleven ‘Crispin Guest Medieval Noir’ novels, featuring a disgraced knight turned detective in fourteenth century London, Westerson has recently created another series – ‘The Booke of the Hidden Series.’ The six new books star Kylie Strange (the human heroine and owner of the new tea shop in town), Erasmus Dark (a handsome demon), a motley troop of Wiccans, and a dastardly biker gang. Title #1, “Booke of the Hidden,” is a funny, edgy, paranormal romance – set in the fictional small town Moody Bog, Maine.

Read my review here in the "Try Something New This Summer" post. (audiobook now out as well).

The setup? Kylie has just moved into her house, begins renovation, and accidentally releases a demon, Erasmus Dark, centuries old Guardian of the Booke of the Hidden. Kylie must make sure that no other demons are released, while getting the escaped ones back into the Booke. Of course, if that happened in the first entertaining novel, the series would be over. Westerson promises that although the series may get a bit darker as it progresses, the humor will remain, as will the electric/forbidden romance between the lead characters.

Jeri is writing the series keeping this credo in mind: “In a paranormal romance, it’s imperative that one of the protagonists is the paranormal part of the relationship, though sometimes one or both leads discover some sort of paranormal talent they never knew they had.”

It takes about nine months for Jeri to complete a novel. This gives her time to research and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, let it stew, and rewrite it yet again. As a rule, she pens two books a year. She once did four, but doesn’t recommend trying to complete all four in a year if you like to sleep. When working with multiple books in the same series, she likes to get at least 30 pages on paper for each during the developmental stage. This method helps her establish and maintain the tone and the direction of the series, “rather than relying on a paragraph of a synopsis.”

Challenges that faced her while working on the ‘Booke of the Hidden’ series: “It was certainly different getting used to writing in a new genre, a genre that I've enjoyed reading and watching for years. Trying to think like a 26-year-old woman, and not sounding like a 58-year-old one, was terribly fun.”

Most of the authors in the NBR Profiles like to cook, and Jeri is no exception. She makes her own breads and pasta, and also does comfort food like chili. But her favorite recipe is her Oven Fried Chicken.

Jeri Westerson’s Oven Fried Chicken

1) Take any chicken parts (with skin and bones or without) and marinate in soy sauce for several hours.

2) Place the marinated chicken into a bag and shake in a mix of almond meal (or ground up Corn Flakes) with herbs and spices (garlic powder, lemon pepper, Old Bay, onion powder, oregano, pepper, rosemary, dried sage, salt, thyme)

3) Place on baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour and fifteen minutes until done.

Jeri promises that “they are juicy and flavorful and even better cold for a picnic the next day.”

Jeri has appeared on NPR, has served as president of the SoCal Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, as VP for the LA Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and president of the OC Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She revealed that she lives in southern California “with her home-brewing husband, a complacent (licensed) desert tortoise named Harley, and 40,000 bees.”

About those bees… she and her husband built a hive for them after the bees destroyed a birdhouse. The bees hang around and provide the occasional jar of honey. Yum!

Book #2 in the series, DEADLY RISING, released October 23, 2018. Check it out here.

Readers can sign up for Jeri’s quarterly ‘Booke of the Hidden’ newsletter at her website BOOKEoftheHIDDEN.com. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the Mail Chimp logo.

Happy paranormal reading, everyone!

Author Profile: Jeri Westerson Read More »

“43 Missing” by Carmen Amato

4 Comments / Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Nominated for Award, Suspense

In “43 Missing,” Detective Emilia Cruz, the first woman detective in Acapulco, has been called in on a federal level case – a search for the missing bodies of 43 male college students who participated in an annual protest rally. After stealing busses from a local bus company, they were stopped by the police, handed over to a drug gang, and never seen again.

Cruz is part of a task force of five law enforcement officers hand-picked by the Attorney General’s office because of their lack of affiliation with any previous inquiries or associations with the families. Their parameters are clear: ‘Don’t gather new evidence or interview the families, but the government wants to confirm or deny the conclusions of the previous investigations and put the matter to rest.’

"43 Missing" is based on an actual 2014 case in Mexico. It garnered quite a bit of international attention and was thought at the time to be gang/drug related. Nobody, not even the Mexican government, disputed that.

In Amato's fictional account, the families want closure. They know the boys are dead, but they have to find where the bodies were buried. It's been a year and a half and the families feel corruption is getting in the way of the truth. They don't want to point fingers or cast blame because they fear for their lives if they do speak up. In “43 Missing,” several previous investigations conducted by various agencies pointed to inadequate actions by the Mexican government, and nothing was done to either bring anyone to justice or to find the bodies.

Emilia agrees to participate because of the connection to an old, intensely personal case. She may be able to find the person, her own brother, against whom she must exact revenge. So far, she has risked everything – friends, an important relationship, her job; now maybe her life.

What is uncovered in "43 Missing" is astounding. Amato is thoroughly convincing in her version of what might have happened in real life. The two cases of the missing boys and Cruz' search for personal revenge overlap in complex and frightening ways. This is a haunting page-turner.

Amato's books are set in Mexico, with vivid images of the country's landscape and unique architecture, both old and new. She includes descriptions of the meals eaten in street-side cafes and great restaurants, reminding me how much I love Mexican food.

Taut writing ramps up the tension in “43 Missing,” as Amato deals with the issues plaguing any two countries battling the drug trade and human trafficking along their borders. The tragedy of decent members of society caught in the crossfire, stayed with me long after I finished the book.

In real-life, the 43 bodies have yet to be found.

“43 Missing,” nominated for Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion award, is book #6 in the Detective Emilia Cruz series. Please visit http://carmenamato.net/ for more information about Ms. Amato’s distinguished law enforcement background and the other books in the series.

“43 Missing” by Carmen Amato Read More »