A Truth For A Truth by Emilie Richards

A Truth For a Truth is our fifth trip to Emerald Springs, Ohio. It's the home of Aggie Sloan-Wilcox whose husband Ed is the minster in the Consolidated Community Church in town. Aggie has a talent for getting involved in murder investigations. You'd think a small town wouldn't provide that many interesting cases, but once again, Aggie manages to find a whopper.

Godwin "Win" Dorchester is a former minister of Consolidated Community Church. 15 years after he left for another congregation. Win has now retired and wants to move back to relax. He and his wife Hildy have barely unpacked when Win collapses and dies from an apparent heart attack. Since he had a heart condition, it's quickly ruled natural causes.

But in the middle of the memorial service, Aggie gets a call that the police think it is murder. When that suspicion is confirmed, the police quickly narrow in on Hildy. Now Hildy may be overbearing and driving Aggie crazy, but there is no way that woman killed her husband, so Aggie sets out to prove Hildy is innocent. As Aggie begins to investigate, she begins to find that Win wasn't the saint people remember his as. Where in the past is the motive?

Really nice story, the characters are likeable and the story moves along. The book is more entertaining than it is suspenseful -a fun read.  It's the 2nd book I've read in this series and would love to read any more that come my way.

The Diva Cooks a Goose by Krista Davis

It promises to be a jolly holiday for Sophie until a Scrooge steals the Christmas gifts from her family and neighbors. The evil elf even pinches their Christmas dinners! Sophie quickly ends the neighbors’ finger-pointing by organizing a toy swap for the kids, restoring the spirit of Christmas. But not for long...

When her sister-in-law’s father shows up to the Christmas celebration with a diva girlfriend just a month after his separation, someone carries out everyone's thoughts of murder. With relatives and friends under suspicion for the deadly deed, and Sophie’s detective boyfriend Wolf out of town, it’s up to Sophie to chase this goose and cook it. Nobody ruins her Christmas!

A typical cozy mystery.  A bit over the top, lots of improbable coincidences and a few too many characters to keep straight.

Overall a bit of light fluff that kept me amused.

Dork Whore by Iris Bahr

20-year old Iris Bahr (fresh out of the Israeli Army) makes her way through Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, etc. Only unlike the average traveler, she has more in mind than just seeing the sights: she is on a desperate mission to lose her virginity...

Funny at times. Confirmed my thoughts on backpacking and I'm glad I didn't experience that. Her desperation to give away her virginity was sad.

It Takes One to Know One. by Isla Dewar

Charlie Gavin was abducted as a baby. He didn’t know who he was or where he came from. His mission was to find himself. And when he did, he decided to spend his life finding other lost souls by opening the Be Kindly Missing Persons Bureau.

Martha Walters, his assistant, has had her fifteen minutes of almost fame and failed. Now, dealing with her guilt and pain, she lives with her mum and dotes on her young daughter. Charlie appears to be a man who is a loser and dreamer, but, hey, his office is near her house, she can lie in of a morning, take her kid to school and the work isn’t too heart-breaking.

A pleasant enough read with eccentric, likeable characters.  Not really a romance, not really a mystery.  

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Imagine you're the only boy in a town of men. And you can hear everything they think. And they can hear everything you think. Imagine you don't fit in with their plans... Todd Hewitt is just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man. But his town has been keeping secrets from him. Secrets that are going to force him to run...

 It's a very unusual and interesting premise. However, after a while, it gets a little repetitive: bad guys show up, narrow escape, bad guys show up again, narrow escape again... Each time there's a little variation, but it does get repetitive.

I liked the talking dog.  Didn't like how violent it got at the end and that it is left on a cliffhanger.

A Very Country Christmas

5 Australian Christmas romance stories.

Under Christmas Stars – Alissa Callen

Small–town teacher Freya George is determined to make up for last year's disastrous Christmas. This year she will stop at nothing to ensure that she and the Woodlea community have the best holiday season ever. But from the moment Freya meets cattleman Drew Macgregor, her plans unravel faster than red Christmas ribbon…

Home For Christmas – Fiona Greene 

When Sergeant Tate McAuliffe, stationed in Afghanistan, opens his Christmas care package from Australia, he is stunned by both its contents and the sender, Layla Preston. Little could Layla know that this impersonal–but–cheerful holiday gift is set to be the start of something big…

The Kissing Season – Rachael Johns 

A wild past, a secret pregnancy and a disastrous marriage: every family has a black sheep…and Hannah Elliot is it. But when she returns to her home town of Wildwood Point, she is determined to stay on the straight and narrow. Then gorgeous Italian Matteo Della Bosca walks into her life and Hannah's resolve starts to slip…

12 Daves Of Christmas – Juliet Madison

Can love transcend time and space? An uplifting story of a lonely writer, her grandmother's ghost and a Christmas road trip to visit 12 different Daves.

Christmas At Remarkable Bay – Victoria Purman 

Prickly Mara has hit a crossroads and is hoping a Christmas alone in idyllic Remarkable Bay will help. Police officer George is also alone for Christmas. Drawn together unwillingly, they try to stay out of each other's way. But Remarkable Bay is a small place… 

My favourite was Home For Christmas by Fiona Greene 

The others were ok, and 12 Dave's was just weird.

Broken Homes. by Ben Aaronovitch

A mutilated body in Crawley. A killer on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil, possibly an associate of the twisted wizard known as the Faceless Man. Or maybe just a garden-variety serial killer. 

Before apprentice wizard and Police Constable Peter Grant can even get his head 'round the case, two more are dropped in his lap: a town planner has gone under a tube train, and there's a stolen grimoire for Grant to track down. 

So far, so London. 

But then Peter gets word of something very odd happening on a housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans, and inhabited by the truly desperate. 

Is there a connection?

And if there is, why oh why did it have to be South of the River—in the jurisdiction of some pretty prickly local river spirits?

 An interesting twisty mystery, or set of connected mysteries but it's really the characters and humour that make this series so enjoyable.

There was a twist at the end of this one I didn't like, a goody is apparently working for the evil villain.

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier

Paris, 1490.  A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.

 Five intertwining stories of making tapestries during the 15th century told from the lowest maid to the highest lord. Some interesting detail on how tapestries were woven.

House of Dark Delights by Louisa Burton

Nestled deep in the French countryside, hidden from prying eyes, stands an infamous castle that for centuries has lured guests with its whispered promise to make any erotic dream come true. Inside its walls you'll discover a world of sensuality, magic and mystery, courtesy of the chateau's residents - beautiful and reclusive immortals who strive to fulfill their guests' most secret desires even as they pursue their own insatiable gratification. You'll meet a tall, seductive elf who can morph from male to female, a bewitching goddess from ancient Babylonia, a playfully lusty satyr, a djinni obligated to satisfy the unspoken appetites of any human he touches, and a vampire as sexually rapacious as he is bloodthirsty.

Within these pages are related the House's most scintillating encounters, past and present. A pair of modern lovers find themselves captivated - and transformed - by the carnal demands of their hosts. An adventuress visiting with the notorious Hellfire Club stumbles from a black mass into a dungeon fitted out for restraint and discipline, where a brooding stranger turns her darkest longings into reality. A virginal female scientist is awakened by an invisible lover to the pleasures of the flesh. A young couple, forbidden to wed by an ancient taboo, finds hope in a sensual threesome. 

A fantasy to entice you into the imaginary world of Grotte Cachee in France where its four immortal denizens entertain their visitors with delicious sex. The book is fun, and the well written erotica is interspersed among actual stories which flesh out the characters.
Since the immortals have resided at the castle for hundreds of years, the episodic stories are set in various eras and are written with authenticity to their time periods. 

I am hunting down the next in the series. 

Hearts West by Chris Enss

Complete with actual advertisements from both women seeking husbands and males seeking brides, Hearts West includes twelve stories of courageous mail order brides and their exploits. Some were fortunate enough to marry good men and live happily ever after; still others found themselves in desperate situations that robbed them of their youth and sometimes their lives.

Desperate to strike it rich during the Gold Rush, men sacrificed many creature comforts. Only after they arrived did some of them realize how much they missed female companionship.

One way for men living on the frontier to meet women was through subscriptions to heart-and-hand clubs. The men received newspapers with information, and sometimes photographs, about women, with whom they corresponded. Eventually, a man might convince a woman to join him in the West, and in matrimony. Social status, political connections, money, companionship, or security were often considered more than love in these arrangements. 

I enjoyed reading the personal journal excerpts and the actual ads that prospective brides and grooms placed in the days of the “Wild West”. They were much more candid and revealing than today’s ads on eHarmony and other such websites.

Most of the couples seemed to make lasting marriages in those days. 

Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch

It begins with a dead body at the far end of Baker Street tube station, all that remains of American exchange student James Gallagher—and the victim’s wealthy, politically powerful family is understandably eager to get to the bottom of the gruesome murder. The trouble is, the bottom—if it exists at all—is deeper and more unnatural than anyone suspects . . . except, that is, for London constable and sorcerer’s apprentice Peter Grant. With Inspector Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, tied up in the hunt for the rogue magician known as “the Faceless Man,” it’s up to Peter to plumb the haunted depths of the oldest, largest, and—as of now—deadliest subway system in the world.

 A light-hearted, yet dark, fast-paced paranormal murder mystery.  I am loving this series.  The mysteries are always something different but most of all I love the humour and the interesting bits of London history thrown casually into the storyline.