Joanna Campbell SlanRezensionen

I really enjoy this series and this latest installment did not disappoint at ALL. I love Kiki, Detweiler, Clancy, Anya, and the rest of the cast. In this book, we get introduced to Wendy and to Nona and the other Miss Fits. The characters in this series are all very well-rounded and in-depth characters. I love reading a series because you get to know more and more about the characters with every book.

The plot line was great. While we knew who the villain was, the climax of the book was still surprising and exciting! I actually loved that this book was more than just a murder to be solved. It was a refreshing change from your basic murder-based cozy!

All in all, I really enjoyed this latest installment of Kiki and the rest of the gang. I highly recommend all the books in this series. Each can be read as a stand-alone, but of course it's fun to read them in order too! The first book is Paper, Scissors, Dead. Either way you choose - run out and grab this series!!!

I really enjoy this series and this latest installment did not disappoint at ALL. I love Kiki, Detweiler, Clancy, Anya, and the rest of the cast. In this book, we get introduced to Wendy and to Nona and the other Miss Fits. The characters in this series are all very well-rounded and in-depth characters. I love reading a series because you get to know more and more about the characters with every book.

The plot line was great. While we knew who the villain was, the climax of the book was still surprising and exciting! I actually loved that this book was more than just a murder to be solved. It was a refreshing change from your basic murder-based cozy!

All in all, I really enjoyed this latest installment of Kiki and the rest of the gang. I highly recommend all the books in this series. Each can be read as a stand-alone, but of course it's fun to read them in order too! The first book is Paper, Scissors, Dead. Either way you choose - run out and grab this series!!!

Step back in time to 1986 when newspapers were still the major source for retail ads. Here you will meet Cragan Collins who has a mountain of debts from her divorce and only wants to support herself and grandmother.

Taking a sales position at The Gazette, Decatur's local newspaper, she is befriended and mentored by reporter Robert Smithson. Cragan spends her days visiting local retailers trying to entice them to advertise, creating ads, and delivering and picking up ad copy. All the while being undermined by her ex-husband badmouthing her and a sales director who keeps reassigning her accounts to his buxom favorite on the staff!

And then Robert is murdered! When his death is dismissed as "gay on gay crime", Cragan turns to her Friday night mystery book club to help her find the truth behind Robert's death ...

An enjoyable mystery with believable though 'different' characters, an easy flow, and a plot that makes for fun a fun story to read.

Fun summer read

Sorry for being unable to write a review quickly, but at least I am doing it now. Even though I mainly read YA and Fantasy novels, I occasionally read Cozy Mystery books because they are usually lighthearted and quick reads.

For better or worse, Kicked to the Curb is not exactly a quick read. Plot wise I enjoyed the murder mystery with the little twists and turns along with the discovery (which I suspected pretty early on but the destination was fun nonetheless) of who did it and why. I also enjoyed it happening in a sunny beach destination in Florida. The cover is really luring.

Unfortunately, even though I can't be fully critical in the sense I have not read the first book of the series so the cast is unfamiliar, I can for another different reason. If this book has been fully self-published by a new author without a lot of resources, I would have easily given it a solid 3 stars. But I always hold previously trad published bestsellers to a higher standard simply because they both have the network of assistants, editors and a strong following of beta readers and since they achieved bestseller status, they can afford 1000 usd to fully polish the book.

I did spot a typo or two in this book, but my main gripe is that is suffers from too many darlings that were not killed on time. The book wanders around and around and around with ridiculously repetitive sentences about how Cara's new store recycles stuff. The context of the store becomes very apparent quickly within the novel so no need to repeat it 80 times. Many chapters don't advance the plot or character development at all either, most of them centering on Lou, but you will probably cringe after Jack the Chihuahua's potty emergency #50,461 erupts.

Info dumps of the Sun Train system? You got it! Info dumping is a common rookie author mistake, and usually first drafts have em to help guide the author that are usually ripped away with revisions. The concept of the ticket system could have just been explained with context and maybe a glossary added to the end of the book to explain the info dump for any international reader. Again, these sorts of book issues that slow things down should have been nipped by editing.

When does this book take place? In the 1950's?

Strangely enough, Cara owns an Iphone. I guess despite not being super rich or very technology astute she can easily afford a cheap cellphone plan with an older model. The strange thing is that a rough estimate on even the oldest Iphone models means Cara is around 37 years old. I can understand not everyone around my age can set up a fancy website, but the way she speaks makes you think for a huge portion of the novel that Cara is in her mid-50's. For example, she encounters someone who has buck teeth and explains to the cop that this person looks like... a puppet character from a 1950's children's show. Her parents were in their late 50's, so even her parents would have barely been infants when that show finished. Any Xennial would have instantly associated a perky person with buckteeth to the Mad Magazine mascot guy. Proof this book didn't pass through the hands of any beta readers under 45 years old.

Furthermore, the book happens in the last 5 years but everyone acts like a lesbian couple is so edgy and taboo. I can understand the conservative mother of the couple to be a bit close minded and maybe Cara because it looks like she grew up in a conservative rural area, but Lou the cop? A guy who isn't even 30 years old that lives in a semi urban middle class area? Unless the person grew up in a super super super rural area of the Bible Belt, they wouldn't have batted much of an eye.

Is Cara's son entitled? We never meet her 18 year old son who we only know because he is flunking out of his 1st semester of college from too much partying and somehow she wants her very nasty ex to foot the bill. Apparently the book explains he filled a legal contract her grampa has hidden in his messy house where he promised to pay for the kid's college education (may I add the kid grew up in Missouri and is likely paying a bloated out of state tuition in Miami U?). Since I never read book #1, I can't be sure when did the kid move to Miami or the reasoning why he specifically chose that school, but I have a bit of a hard time sympathizing with him for not getting a part time job to pay for the bills. Since these scenes happen in Cara's tormented POV where her doormat behaviors are a result of past trauma, it is hard to know more about the son. Still, I think junior needs to take a sabbatical, get a job, or go to a cheaper school without expecting his dad will pay his way.

Too many employees in the air. Cara doesn't have a stable income but she is paying for 5 people, two of them fresh new staff (very productive staff BTW but she never even hired them, a coworker hired them without asking for her permission). Skylar and the other woman are so faint in personality that I could never tell them apart. The book could have fused them into one person without affecting the plot at all.

If anything, while I liked the cat that join's Cara's flock, the best part of the book is the snarky Honora and her daughter Evelyn. I believe I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if Honora had been the MC. She knows everyone in town, walks the talk, has a good eye for people and is very likeable even in her sometimes forced interactions with her daughter. She deserves her own sleuth series.

What could be better than a Cozy Mystery? How about 13 of them. Happy Homicides 2 is a lively, funny, and endearing, just a touch of dark side, set of short stories with a Valentine twist. They will delight the Cozy reader. Many stories offer new episodes for existing series characters and as I don’t have much time to read just for fun, I love these fleeting glimpses into what and who I should make more time to read. This is great window into the various writing styles of the individual authors and none of these short stories and novellas leave the reader wanting as all are filled with diverse and complex characters, intriguing story-lines and the occasional bit of dark humor.

Of particular note is Camille Minichino’s Sodium Arrow, as I don’t think I have ever read a story about a freelance embalmer before. Also of interest in the ‘occupation’ category is Joanna Campell Slan’s, Stupid Cupid. It was pleasure reading about Cara Mia Delgado’s shop and how she finds items to re-purpose. I enjoyed the inclusion of the male authors and sleuths. Too often Cozy is considered the domain of women and a little diversity is a great thing. The anthology includes a bonus story and a free gift of recipes and craft ideas that compliment the stories. It offers something for everyone, romance, murder and mystery. It is a great way to spend a few afternoons.

5 stars

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Kiki Lowenstein is married to a very successful businessman, mother of an eleven-year-old girl named Anya, and an enthusiastic scrapbooking hobbyist. She's good enough that Dodie, the owner of her favorite scrapbooking shop has tried a couple of times to recruit her to teach classes.

Then her husband, George, is found dead in a hotel room, apparently of a heart attack. And yet, the circumstances are strange. He'd just had a full medical exam that found him completely healthy, including no signs of heart trouble. The housekeeper who found him seems to have left the area. He was seen earlier in the day in a high-end restaurant, with two young women.

It gets worse. George has apparently "borrowed" a half million dollars from the real estate development company he was a partner in. His life insurance goes not to Kiki, but to his mother, Sheila, who loves Anya, but intensely dislikes Kiki. Kiki has to sell their house just to pay back the money George owed to the firm, and be able to move to much more modest, even slightly edgy, neighborhood. (Somewhere during this process she impulsively adopts a rescue Great Dane puppy, whom she names Gracie.) And there's still the question of how George really died, and who the two young women were.

Kiki finally takes that job teaching scrapbooking, and starts learning more about her husband and his activities from the women who were once her neighbors and are now her scrapbooking students and clients. She's also doing some supplementary dog-sitting, for extra income from her former housekeeper's other business. The housekeeper/dogsitter, Mert, has become a good friend, and she's smart and clever, and helps Kiki find more information, too.

It is, of course, sadly predictable that Gracie, being a big dog and a rescue, is perfect, and the little dogs Kiki sits for Mert are, at best, comic relief. The two chihuahuas are described as "useless," and are clearly untrained. The Pomeranian, is treated like a doll by her owner, and by Anya, with an extensive wardrobe of "cute" clothes that a Pomeranian in a Missouri summer has no need of. (Yes, dogs sometimes need clothes, and a little dog like a Pom, even with all that hair, likely needs clothes in a Missouri winter. That's not what's happening here; it's all about using the little dogs and their never-seen owners as comic relief.) (Why, yes, I do have a small dog! She's an eleven-pound Powderpuff Chinese Crested, sitting with me as I type. She's also my service dog, and better behaved than either most of the kids we encounter, or many of the big dogs we meet.)

I do like Kiki, and a number of the other characters, including Mert and Dodie, are likable and interesting. My crankiness about the little dogs being used as comic relief aside, though, there are other problems. Kiki is at one point verbally told by her new landlord that he's evicting her. She never gets a written notice. Is Missouri one of those states where tenants have zero rights? Also, Kiki never gets around to telling anyone until all the other excitement is over. Even given her acknowledged passivity that she struggles against, that's just bizarre. If tenants have no rights, or if Kiki just isn't going to fight it, she has to have a new place to move by the end of the month. She's overly passive at first, but waiting and risking having no place to go when her stuff gets put out on the street, is beyond passive, and not consistent with how Kiki behaves otherwise.

On the plus side, though, Kiki no only gradually gets smarter about what questions she's asking about what's really going on; she also gains confidence in herself through the success of her scrapbooking classes and commissions. This is the first book in the series, and I'm sure the Kiki of subsequent books is stronger and more confident, because that groundwork has been laid.

So I have mixed feelings about this book. I like the characters, and the story overall is good, but there are some irritating aspects. However, all the dogs who appear in the book are alive at the end, so that's a plus!

I bought this book.

Grew up in the area so it was funny to hear them talk about places I know and could picture the roads she was taking throughout the story. The stuff I really want to say I can't because it would surely spoil the fun. Hilarious at times.

Joanna Campbell Slan's first Jane Eyre Chronicles book, Death of a Schoolgirl, was one of my Best Reads of 2012, so I really looked forward to this second in the series, Death of a Dowager. The anticipation was heightened because Jane was destined to deal with those pesky, entitled Ingrams. I definitely wanted to see what Slan had in store for them.

Once again, Slan uses language that is reminiscent of the original Brontë classic, and little, brave, observant Jane Eyre Rochester once again makes the perfect amateur sleuth. There are two main mysteries to solve in Death of a Dowager: one involving the murder of Silvana Ingram, and the other concerning Jane's possession of a love letter written by George IV that could have devastating repercussions on both the Crown and the nation. Of the two, I felt the one involving the royal love letter was the less engaging, although it did show the country could easily have been thrown into chaos by the discovery of such a thing.

And this highlights one of the strengths of these Jane Eyre Chronicles: the period in which they are set. Jane and the rest of the cast are placed firmly in the time in which they lived, and this historical setting adds so much depth to the story. When readers learn that people living and traveling in London came home every day covered in coal dust, or that traveling by public coach often meant another passenger's lice would try their best to hop from their host to you... well, that brings them up close and personal to the time period.

Once again, Joanna Campbell Slan served up an excellent mystery featuring one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. Now it's on to the third and last book, Christmas at Ferndean Manor.½

It had its moments. A perfectly adequate read for Jane Eyre fans who also like mysteries.

No capering involved.

I can't recall why I borrowed this book from the library. I'm not a scrapbook enthusiast, it's not the first in the series, and I can't find a recommendation. However, it was an amusing cozy, with a little too much detail about scrapbooking materials and techniques. It's set in St. Louis, which makes for a nice change. One of the subordinate characters speaks with a terrible imitation of backwoods grammar - very irritating - but the rest is tolerable, and distracting on a cold, gray November day.½

I'd give this book 4 stars. Being a scrapbook fanatic, I would have liked more scrapbooking tips, but being this is the first in a series, maybe there is more to come. I'm from St. Louis, so I enjoyed knowing about the locale. The mystery was well constructed, the characters were interesting, and the pace was good. The "chase scene" near the end seemed too long and decidedly out of place based on the rest of the book. I would pick up the next in the series.

Fun and cute, this cosy mystery holds your interest really well. It's not only the murder what will keep you reading, but the way the characters connect with each other, too.

Well written and very well edited, this book will entertain you and bring a smile to your face.

Kiki Lowenstein has enough problems without an open-ended visit from her hypercritical mother. Her late husband's former partner--and killer--is determined to get her, too. Dodie, the principal owner of the scrapbooking shop where she is a minority owner, is not only acting distant and cool, but has taken on another partner without so much as telling her beforehand, much less consulting her.

And her new boyfriend's ex-wife, who through him out before Kiki and Det started dating, now blames Kiki as the "home-wrecker" who destroyed her happy life.

So she really, really doesn't need together time with her mother right now. It doesn't get better when Edwina Fitzgerald, one of the leading boosters of the private school Kiki's daughter attends, is shot dead at the school's annual May Day celebration. It gets a little worse when Kiki's mother's "dear friend," Claudia Turrow, shows up unannounced and just moves in with Kiki's mother--who is staying, with Kiki and her daughter Anya, at the home of Kiki's mother-in-law, Sheila Lowenstein.

Trying to figure out who killed Edwina, trying to protect herself from both Bill her husband's killer and Brenda, Det's ex-wife, and coping with the stressful situation at work, Kiki is already near the breaking point when she realizes her mother's "friend" isn't just annoying but likely a thief trying to cheat her mother out of what little of value she has. It's the intricate relationships that keep the plot lively and make this book a great read for a winter afternoon.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

I have enjoyed this series so far and got this short story on Kindle. It was great and I will have to get back to the full-length books.

I'm re-reading so I can continue with the series...

Ienjoyed this more the second time!

A fun, scrapbooking themed mystery. Written with some sass and lots of fun!

While learning new techniques, discovering new products, generating new clients, and helping the current clients of Dodie’s store, Time in a bottle, where Kiki works; she is busy snooping to solve a murder.
Light-hearted summer read. I learned a lot about scrapbooking and just a little about how to remove moles from a yard. Enjoyed.

A cozy mystery with down-to-earth characters, with whom I felt comfortable. As every cozy mystery has there are a couple of eccentric characters but no over-the-top caricatures that I disliked. The book has a scrap-booking theme and provided information on the craft. Enjoyable read!

book description:

A Halloween charity crop planned by Kiki Lowenstein is chopped short when her employee is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant. There's blood on someone's hands-but whose? A very pregnant Kiki connects the dots and quickly discovers that she has been clueless far too long. Closely held secrets point to a web of deception, one that has Kiki tied in knots. But the spunky scrapbooker refuses to lie down and die. Bumping her snooping skills up a notch, Kiki whittles down her suspect list. Meanwhile, on the home front, she's stabbed in the back by someone she trusted. Will our intrepid crafter survive the unkindest cut of all?

Cara Mia's plans of visiting her son are derailed when her car breaks down and she must take a detour. She lands in the town of Stuart and must face her grumpy grandfather and a past love she left behind. Along the way, she purchases a business by mistake and gets herself involved in a murder mystery. If you enjoy Joanna's Kiki mysteries, you are going to love her new Cara Mia series.

book description:
Mousy housewife Kiki Lowenstein has two great loves: scrapbooking and her young daughter, Anya. But her happy family album is ruined when her husband, George, is found naked and dead in a hotel room. As Kiki tracks down George's murderer, she discovers his sordid secret life.

Cruel taunts by George's former flame compel Kiki to spout an unwise threat. When the woman is murdered, Kiki's scissor-sharp words make her the prime suspect. She could be creating scrapbook keepsakes for the rest of her life-behind bars. Supported by her loyal friends, along with a little help (and a lot of stomach flutters) from the dashing Detective Detweiler, can Kiki cut the true killer out of the picture and design a new life for herself and Anya?

book description:

All it took was one scone. When the hot-tempered (and widely hated) hobbyist Yvonne Gaynor eats a tainted pastry at Kiki's scrapbooking crop party, it triggers an allergy that leads to Yvonne's death. Even worse, the police suspect foul play when they realize that someone tampered with the treats and swiped the victim's allergy medication.

An expert at stealing design ideas, Yvonne had enough enemies to fill a memory album. Soon, the scrapbooking community pins her murder on Kiki's friends and our ace scrapper finds herself dealing with anti-Semitic threats at the shop, a quarrelsome pre-teen daughter at home, a meddlesome mother-in-law, and constant financial pressure. Despite help from the handsome yet annoyingly coy Detective Detweiler, Kiki has her work cut out for her in solving the crime.

The story moved along quickly and there were some interesting characters. The ending was very abrupt and a few details left hanging. Over all it was a very good first novel that set the tone and characters for more books in the series.