"Francesca's Kitchen" by Peter Pezzelli

“Francesca's Kitchen” by Peter Pezzelli
2006, Kensington Publishing
ISBN: 0-7582-1327-1

“Francesca's Kitchen” by Peter Pezzelli. I started it this morning. I finished it this evening. This story is an enchanting book about family, home, comfort and love. It was like food for me. The story of a lady, probably not that much older than I am, who came to feel loneliness bear down upon her. Her husband had passed on, her children were busy with their own families and most had moved away. She needed something. She craved something. She found what was missing in her life when she answered an ad for a single mother who needed a nanny.

Francesca helped to heal that family just by being concerned and loving and found the love rebound into her own life. This book is about everyday magic.

This is just a terrific book with an added plus of recipes at the end!

“The River Knows” by Amanda Quick

“The River Knows” by Amanda Quick
2007, GP Putnam’s Sons
ISBN: 978-0-399-15417-1

Nothing pleases me more than to have an Amanda Quick to read. What really rocks my boat is to find one I hadn’t read before. “The River Knows” by Amanda Quick is a delightful Victorian Who-Done-It. The quirky heroine Louisa has changed her name and carved out a new life for herself as a journalist disguised as a lady’s companion. The quest for truth is what brings her into contact with Anthony Stalbridge who is in the middle of a mystery himself. What compounds the association is that it turns out they are questing after the same bad guy. What is delightful is that they fall in love.

With all the twists and turns that a good murder mystery takes this book will keep you glued and at the edge of your seat until the end.

Her heroines are delightful and the men they love endearing, obstinate, but endearing. You won’t take long to finish this book; it’s that good.

"The Reeve's Tale" by Margaret Frazer

"The Reeve's Tale" by Margaret Frazer
1999, Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN: 0-425-17232-5

In “The Reeve's Tale” by Margaret Frazer you are doubly gifted in the sense that you get to puzzle out a murder mystery along with the folks in the tale and you get to experience a sense of what life must have been like during medieval times. Deep thought and a sense of historical correctness accompany you while you read so that if you had never given it a second thought you now know a whole lot more about times medieval than you did before.

This is the third book I’ve read where we get to accompany Sister Frevisse as she is pulled away from her cloistered life as a nun to be involved in things worldly wicked. Dame Frevisse is sort of like a clerical Peter Falk; she observes, asks questions and when she has all her ducks in order is able to piece together a murder that has had the entire village baffled.

I’ve met characters in "The Reeve's Tale" that appear in the other books I’ve read by Margaret Frazer and even though I’ve been reading them out of sequence it does not affect the story in any way. Reading these books is relaxing for me. I am able to step out of myself for a time and just be with other folk. I recommend this book.

“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich

“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich
2003 St Martin's Press
ISBN 0-312-26586-7

“To the Nines” by Janet Evanovich. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th book I’ve read by Janet Evanovich and I can’t seem to get enough of Stephanie Plum’s exploits. Stephanie, the heroine in all of these stories, is a bounty hunter. My husband and I got hooked watching, “Dog – The Bounty Hunter” and more recently a couple of spin off shows, “Wife, Mom and Bounty Hunter” and now, “Bounty Girls – Miami”. But, all of those shows pale in comparison to what Stephanie Plum gets to do in the pages of her books.

In this story, “The Game” is deadly, dangerous and scary. Stephanie (a little like Lucille Ball at times) is like a trouble magnet. The bad guys sort of zero in on her and she becomes the prize in the Game. Catching the guy who is at the bottom of all the dead bodies that begin to litter the pages of this book is what captivates you and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Also, there is the sex angle. Always nice to have a hot love interest and Joe Morelli, policeman and boyfriend of many years and Ranger, fellow mysterious bounty hunter, provide both. Hey, give a girl some choices and life suddenly gets really interesting.

The other characters in this book are the same folks in the other books and you come to know them and expect they will be there and they all sing together making another really terrific read. You’ve got Lula, a former ho turned file clerk and wanna be bounty hunter who accompanies Stephanie and helps out with accidentally breaking windows all over the place with her purse so they can get in and search places for fugitives. There is Connie, office manager of the bounty hunter business. Vincent, a slime ball guy if ever there was one, but he’s Stephanie’s cousin and he owns the bounty hunter business. He gave Stephanie the job when she got laid off.

Stephanie’s immediate family is the hoots too, her mother who’s constantly appalled at the gossip that circulates about her daughter in the New Jersey town they live in. There’s Grandma Mazer who lives with the family and reminds me of Ethel on hormones. And, Stephanie’s father, retired from the post office but occasionally drives a taxi part-time and tries his hardest to stay out of the way of the rest of his family.

It’s like a sit-com in a book. I was thinking the other day about how I’ve been reading lots of these books and have plans to read all the rest of them. I thought about how some day I’m going to run out and then what will I do? That’s when one of the guides said, “Just start reading them over again.” Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.

“I Thee Wed” by Amanda Quick

“I Thee Wed” by Amanda Quick
1999 Bantam
ISBN: 0-553-57410-8

“I Thee Wed” by Amanda Quick will captivate you from the first page. I can’t say that I’ve ever read a book by Amanda Quick that failed to do that.

This is an historical romance and plucky heroine Emma Greyson finds herself drawn to Edison Stokes to solve a mystery. It is these tried and true techniques that are used in many of the books Amanda Quick writes and in each and every one of them they are fresh and wonderful and I cannot put her books down once I’ve started reading one.

The secret gardens of Vanza figure into this story and Edison Stokes, the hero, is well matched by Emma Greyson, the heroine, who has her share of intuition. It is interesting to see just how very usual the unusual can become to folks who are accustomed to such things. It reminds me of my own channeling. After awhile it’s just who you are and what you do.

I love how Amanda Quick takes folks from the 19th century and shows how they really aren’t all that different from how we are in the 21st century. Have plans this weekend? Sorry, you'll need to cancel them. You won’t be able to put this book down once you’ve started it.

A note to this review. It is September, 2009 and I have read, "I Thee Wed" again. Just as good this time as it was before. One of the advantages of getting old is in being able to enjoy a book many times over. If you have a copy of this keep it. There may come a day when you want to read it again. It's like having cravings....if it is not exactly chocolate then nothing else will do and for me an Amanda Quick book was on my menu.