Lee Hollis: Death of a Clam Digger

Hayley Powell #16

Who could have expected to find the next take on Romeo and Juliet to be found in Death of a Clam Digger by Lee Hollis? Two families, the Leightons and the Barns, have been in a business-based war for years. In fact, the book opens with a massive fight between the two matriarchs of each family on the shoreline. Both the Barns and the Leighton families provide seafood staples to local restaurants, including our heroine Hayley Powell’s. Her own establishment is conveniently called Haley’s Kitchen and is a favorite town hangout, beloved by locals and tourists alike. She gets her seafood from her best friend Mona Barns, and her establishment is a favorite of the patriarch of the Leighton family Lonnie Leighton. read more

Ellery Adams: Murder in the Book Lover’s Loft

Book Retreat #9

Murder in the Book Lover’s Loft by Ellery Adams is the dramatic story of Jane Steward on another adventure, and this time it takes her to the North Carolina coast. The trip is to be a romantic and relaxing getaway for her and her fiancé Edwin, as well as give them a chance to visit longtime friend Olivia in her home town. It also will allow Jane to take a break from the secret library that she is in charge of protecting, along with her team at Storyton Hall. However, things don’t exactly go as planned. read more

Vicki Delany: Steeped in Malice

Tea by the Sea #4

Steeped in Malice opens with Lilly Roberts on a mission to get her tea house, Tea by the Sea, some additional tea cups and saucer sets from a local antique sale. A Peter Rabbit themed tea set in a wicker basket causes her to bring home a lot more than she bargained for. Specifically, it causes a very irate and rude woman named Kimberly to come storming into her place of business, demanding to buy the basket and tea set back, and oddly enough she seems primarily interested in the basket. After much harassment, Lilly finally decides that surrendering the basket would be less trouble in the long run. When she does, however, Kimberly doesn’t take it, instead extracting an envelope from its lining and leaving. read more

Naomi Hirahara: Evergreen

Japantown #2

The follow up to Hirahara’s spectacular Clark and Division finds the Ito family, released from detention camp and the follow up resettlement in Chicago, back in 1946 Los Angeles.  After the Japanese were sent to camps, their homes and businesses were taken over, and they’ve returned to try and build up their lives again.  Our heroine, Aki, works as a nurse’s aide and is waiting for her husband Art to return from the war.  She and her parents have found a small home to rent which the two couples will share. read more

Olivie Blacke: A Fatal Groove

Record Shop #2

This kick ass new series delivers on plot, character and setting.  I was a fan of book one (Vinyl Resting Place), and this sophomore effort from Blacke is just as strong.  Set in small town Texas, sisters Junie, Tansy and Maggie run a combo coffee-vinyl record shop, drawing collectors from nearby music capital, Austin.  As this book opens, Sip & Spin is manning a booth at the local bluebonnet festival (google an image, Texas bluebonnets are stunning), selling coffee and DJing in between live music sets. read more

Allison Montclair: The Lady from Burma

Sparks & Bainbridge #5

July has been almost too delicious for words.  First was the long awaited return of Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry series; and then, just as eagerly anticipated (by me) is the new book in Allison Montclair’s Sparks and Bainbridge series. Five books in, fans of the series know that Gwen Bainbridge and Iris Sparks run The Right Sort marriage bureau in postwar London.  Iris did undercover work during the war; Gwen lost her husband, fell apart, and was literally declared a lunatic by her husband’s family, who have custody of her child and have put the portion of the family company she’s inherited from her husband under the control of the lunacy court.  It looks like, in book five, that the form of purdah Gwen finds herself in is about to be lifted. Her lawyer is hopeful and so is Gwen. read more

Leslie Budewitz: Between a Wok and a Dead Place

Spice Shop #7

As I hadn’t read this series before, it took me a minute to navigate both characters and setting, but once I did, I was all in.  Set in Pepper Reece’s spice shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the setting in this book was a character all on its own.  This book focuses on the “CID” (I had to look that up), or Chinatown International District during Lunar New Year celebrations, and Pepper is enjoying them with her buddy Seetha.  She runs into an acquaintance (connected to her present boyfriend in a labyrinthine manner), Roxanne, who is coming out of a building looking completely freaked out.  She’s found a dead body. read more

Alex Hay: The Housekeepers

Alex Hay’s debut novel, The Housekeepers, is a tale of an all female heist in 1905 London. After Mrs. King, respectable housekeeper of a fine house, is let go, she’s all ready for revenge. Suspected of visiting a boyfriend in the middle of the night, but actually searching for secrets above stairs, Mrs. King wastes no time recruiting a team. Soon the plan to rob the house of all its contents, on the night of the Madame’s costume ball, is in motion.

But Mrs. King is hiding things, even from the reader. A con artist hired on at the house mysteriously, she was never what she seemed. Her compatriots aren’t exactly upstanding either – former fellow employee Winnie, her half sister and seamstress Alice, crime lord Mrs. Bone, washed up actress Hepzibah – but they’re all brought in pretty easily. Alongside Mrs. Bone’s most trusted women, and her fleet of men, they’re a force to be reckoned with. read more

Victoria Gilbert: A Cryptic Clue

Hunter & Clewe #1

This novel has a very meta set up.  Jane Hunt, a retired librarian, has found a job cataloguing the library of Cam Clewe, a wealthy young man with a huge collection of books, many of them mystery novels.  Jane is 60, and she’s downsizing because her daughter has left home (and her house was too expensive).  She’s found an apartment, one that sounds like something Kinsey Milhone would feel comfortable living in, a tiny but charming space over the carriage house/garage of a retired reporter. read more

Sujata Massey: The Mistress of Bhatia House

Perveen Mistry #4

The much anticipated return of Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry is well worth the wait.  It opens with this wonderful sentence: “Sisters will fight. It’s true whether they are raised together or meet as sisters-in-law in a joint family household.”  It sets the tone and theme for the novel, which is about the power of female connection.  And murder, of course.

Perveen the only female lawyer in 1920’s Bombay, lives with her family after a disastrous marriage.  As the book opens, she’s attending a fund-raising party for a new women’s hospital at Bhatia House. Her sister-in-law and former best friend, Gulnaz, has just given birth to the family’s first granddaughter, and she cannot attend.  In her stead, Perveen is bringing Gulnaz’s donation. read more