Today’s KDDs: A Classic, a Historical Mystery, & More
The Romance Recipe RECOMMENDED: The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett is $2.99! Tara reviewed this one can gave it a B+: This story will especially work for people who like romances with restaurant settings, complicated characters, messy family dynamics, and relationships that start from a place of antagonism (I wouldn’t call it enemies-to-lovers). If you’re looking for a reality show romance, especially a cooking show, though? This won’t be the book for you. A fiery restaurant owner falls for her enigmatic head chef in this charming, emotional romance Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak. Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are b
The Romance Recipe
RECOMMENDED: The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett is $2.99! Tara reviewed this one can gave it a B+:
This story will especially work for people who like romances with restaurant settings, complicated characters, messy family dynamics, and relationships that start from a place of antagonism (I wouldn’t call it enemies-to-lovers). If you’re looking for a reality show romance, especially a cooking show, though? This won’t be the book for you.
A fiery restaurant owner falls for her enigmatic head chef in this charming, emotional romance
Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak.
Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane…
Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.
Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn’t want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn’t want to deal with Amy’s take-charge personality and she doesn’t want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean…
Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there’s more than just the restaurant at stake.
Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.
The Socialite’s Guide to Murder
The Socialite’s Guide to Murder by S.K. Golden is $1.99! This is book one in the Pinnacle Hotel Mystery. Emily C. recommended this one in the comments of Get Rec’d:
If you’re in the mood for a new cozy mystery with a different historical setting, I can recommend The Socialite’s Guide to Murder by S.K. Golden. The heroine is a hotel heiress in the 1950’s who has agoraphobia and hasn’t left her father’s hotel. She’s adored by most of the staff and is great at finding things as she knows the hotel so well. When an artist with a swanky exhibition is murdered she sets out to solve it.
The mid-century New York setting was fun and different, and I liked Evelyn in spite of myself (I’m not usually a fan of preening heiresses but she’s more than she seems). The mystery was fairly anticlimactic but it was a quick read and I enjoyed the setting and characters a great deal. This is first in a series by a debut author and I’ll be watching for the next one.
The hotel was her refuge, but scandal is afoot—and a killer stalks the halls in this charming series debut perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Ashley Weaver.
It’s 1958 and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy has not left the Pinnacle Hotel in fourteen months. She suffers from agoraphobia, and what’s more, it’s her father’s hotel, and everything she needs is there. Evelyn’s always been good at finding things, she discovered her mother dead in a Manhattan alleyway fifteen years earlier. Now she’s finding trouble inside her sanctuary. At a party for artist Billie Bell, his newest work is stolen, and Evelyn’s fake boyfriend (and real best friend), movie star Henry Fox, is accused of the theft. But just as Evelyn sets out to prove Henry’s innocence, she finds Billie Bell dead.
The murder weapon links the crime to the hotel’s chief of security. But why would he use a knife with his initials on the handle? With her beloved home in disarray, Evelyn joins up with hotel employee (and her secret crush) Mac Cooper to get to the bottom of the case.
As Mac picks locks and Evelyn snoops around the hotel, they discover the walls around them contain more secrets than they previously knew. Now, Evelyn must force herself to leave the hotel to follow the clues—but when she and Mac set off to chase a lead, their car crashes and they barely escape with their lives. Someone snipped Evelyn’s brake lines, and now the stakes have become dangerously high.
Evelyn’s knack for sleuthing—and her playful imagination—are always hard at work, and she throws an elaborate party at the hotel where every guest is a suspect. But will the killer emerge from the glamorous lineup? If not, Evelyn just might find herself…next in line for murder.
The Admiral’s Penniless Bride
The Admiral’s Penniless Bride by Carla Kelly is $1.99! Some readers on GR really liked the older hero/younger heroine pairing, and the consideration of the hero in particular.
Sarah: Kelly’s books are a unique kind of historical, and they’re wonderfully immersive. SLURP into the book you go.
Sally Paul is down to her last penny. As she spends it on a cup of tea—to stave off being at the mercy of the workhouse—the last thing she expects is an offer of marriage…from a complete stranger!
Admiral Sir Charles Bright’s seafaring days are over—and according to society, that must mean he’s in need of a wife! Discovering Sally’s in need of a home, he offers a solution…. They marry in haste—but will they enjoy their wedding night at leisure?
The Phantom Tollbooth
RECOMMENDED: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is $1.99! This is one of my favorite middle grade books and I was even lucky enough to have Juster sign my copy when he visited the Boston Public Library years ago. Great if you want to revisit or maybe download it pass it along to a younger reader.
With almost 4 million copies sold over 50 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic that Philip Pullman says “comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever.
For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason. Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams!
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