Book Review: Dead Sexy by Tate Hallaway

Title: Dead Sexy

Author: Tate Hallaway

Series: Garnet Lacey #2

Publisher: Berkley Books

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

Garnet Lacey has been on the run for a year. The previous Halloween,  her coven had been attacked by members of the Order of Eustace, a witch hunting order sanctioned by the Vatican. Garnet arrived late to their gathering to find all the other members murdered. Garnet escaped only by calling the Goddess Lilith into her, allowing the Goddess to control her body and take vengeance. With help from her ex boyfriend, the vampire Daniel Parrish bodies were disposed of and Garnet fled Minneapolis for Madison, Wisconsin.

When FBI agent Gabriel Dominguez shows up at the bookstore Garnet works at several days before the anniversary of the murders Garnet panics. She thinks she is being looked for as a suspect for the events that night. resorting to Magic to get Dominguez to listen to her, Lilith adds an oomph to the spell that results in unexpected results. Add in that Garnet's current boyfriend Sebastian, who is also a vampire, is jealous of her continued friendship with Parrish bringing relationship problems to the forefront. On top of everything else, there is a voodoo queen killing students from the University of Wisconsin and turning them into zombies to attend to.

There is so much to do before Halloween. Can Garnet prove her innocence and that she was under the control of Lilith and that her actions of the year before were self defense or will she end up in jail for murder? Can she stop the woman who is turning the student population of U.W. Madison into her zombie slaves? Can she complete the unfinished business between herself and Parrish to get Sebastian back in her life?

I picked this up last fall from a local little free library because of the cover and the back blurb. I was sucked into the book. While it is the second book in the series, it stands on it own well. It was fast paced, and full of magic, romance, and mystery. I'm a sucker for gothy, witchy characters and Garnet Lacey fits those parameters to a T. I thought it the perfect fun slightly fluffy book to read on a summer's day off and finished it in one sitting.  I'm looking forwards to picking up the third book in the series which has just jumped to the top of the TBR pile.

Book Review: Summer at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Title: Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Author: Jenny Colgan
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher
Publication date: March 22, 2016

It has been a year since the massive storm that hit Mount Polbearne and left the town battered and minus one well loved fishing boat captain. In that year a lot has changed for Polly Waterford. She purchased the old lighthouse building and has made it her home with her boyfriend Huckle.  She has taken over running both of the bakeries for her landlady Mrs Manse who has moved in with her sister on the mainland. Neil is still living with her and all in all her life is beautifully happy.

Then Polly gets a phone call from Mrs. Manse's sister saying that she has passed on from a heart attack and suddenly what will become of the bakery is up in the air. The sister decides to put her son Malcolm in charge of the bakeries. Malcolm who has never managed a business, quickly alienates Polly and the townsfolk by banning fresh baked items as too costly and returns to the delivered baked goods from the mainland that his aunt had been using before Polly took over the bakeries. Polly is fired from the bakery by Malcolm and her whole world feels like it has come tumbling down.

Meanwhile, Tarnie's widow Selina has moved to the island to try and find closure. Polly becomes friends with Selina, but feels guilty because of their brief love affair when she first moved to the island. She wants to tell Selina what happened, but doesn't know how to bring it up. So she is stuck alternating between honest friendship and guilt. Huckle's brother has also come to the island to visit. Leaving his long term girlfriend Clementine to manage the farm, but after he and Huckle have an argument he takes off without letting anyone know where he is headed.

After living off of savings for a little while, Polly and Huckle decide that they need a plan of action. Huckle goes back to the states to work for Clementine to get the farm straightened out while his brother is MIA.  The money he earns goes into a joint account for Polly to use to start a new business. Polly purchases a secondhand bakery truck and applies for a permit from the Mount Polbearne council for a vendor's license to sell from her food truck on the mainland side of the causeway in the visitor's car park. Because Polly can't think of a life without baking, or her home on the island she starts this despite the challenges of running a competing business with the island's bakery. She has gone from an established and well known bakery to selling out of a food truck that look like it should be serving fish and chips. All the while Huckle is still overseas and Neil has been returned to the Puffin Sanctuary on the North Coast of Cornwall, leaving her very lonely.

She gets a visit from a food reporter from Plymouth who writes a favorable review of her bakery truck and things start to look up. However her friendship with Selina becomes threatened when she finds out about the affair, and to top it off another huge storm hits the island.

I really enjoyed returning to Mount Polbearne and Polly Waterford's story. I loved that this picked up slightly after the events of the first book and while it included all of the characters I gre to love in the first book, a few new ones were added to round out the cast. Polly and Huckle's struggle with a long distance relationship while they tried to get life back on track really resonated me while reading. I really was drawn into Polly's troubles and her insecurities about herself after Malcolm changes the bakery and then fires her. This was another quick and sweet read from author Jenny Colgan. I see goodreads shows an entry for an upcoming Little Beach Street Bakery book. I can't wait to read it when it is published.

Book Review:Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald

Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date: December 26, 2006

Tamil Soroush is depressed. Living in Iran as a teacher at a girls school, she becomes depressed. The regime ruling the country and it's anti women laws are smothering her dreams. Her parents, who have had their passports confiscated and cannot leave the country manage to get her a passport, and a visitor's visa to go visit her older sister in the United States. The unspoken wish is for her to be able to find a husband who is a citizen so that she does not have to continue to live in her home country.

When she steps off the plane in Tuscon, she is overwhelmed with the differences between the countries. She enrolls in an English language class, and starts to really explore the freedoms that she sees as taken for granted here in America. As she documents her experiences through photographs that explore these "little freedoms" and makes friends she id followed by the threat of "if I don't get married I have to go back home and may never get a chance to come here again."

Her culture is one that follows the custom of arranged marriages. She is resigned to the fact that she will get married and then grow to know her husband. This is challenged when she meets and falls in love with Ike, an American barista at Starbucks who is not Persian, not financially stable, but who loves her for herself. When the man she is arranged to marry presents her with a prenuptial agreement that includes a clause that states that if there is a divorce Iranian laws concerning custody would be followed, Tamil knows she can not get married. The threat of losing her future children and not being allowed contact if divorced is one that she will not have hanging over her marriage.

With the date of her return to Iran as an unmarried woman looms closer, Tamil wonders if her life will include the happiness that she dreams of.

This chick-lit book was one that I absolutely loved. I was drawn into Tamil's conflicts between the way she was raised in Iran and the freedoms she experiences as she starts her travels in the United States. While the book does gloss over the way women are treated in Iran under it's very religious rule, it humanized the struggles experienced there in a very engaging way. This story, like most chick lit books had a happy ending but what amazed me was the fact that it was one that was not just "The main character falls in love and gets married." Instead it focused on Tamil embracing her dreams and learning to live life for herself as well as the man she loves. I loved the fact that while her family expected her to follow tradition and marry a man from her culture in order to stay in America, they stood by her when she falls in love with someone who is not what they expected.

This was a sweet and thought provoking story that I could not put down.(less)