A Chocolate is Announced by Amber Royer

A CHOCOLATE IS ANNOUNCED

Bean to Bar Mystery, #7

By Amber Royer

Cozy Mystery / Culinary Mystery / Women Sleuths

Publisher: Golden Tip Press

Pages: 277

Publication Date: June 25, 2024

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SYNOPSIS

Felicity Koerber is finally getting her life together.  She has a fiancé, her bean to bar chocolate shop on Galveston’s historic Strand has become a gathering spot for the community, and she is ready to embrace whatever the future holds.  She’s ready for another launch party – despite the disaster at her grand opening, when she’d first gotten involved with solving a murder.  And this time she’s embracing her status as a sleuth.  She’s hosting a murder mystery weekend to celebrate the new Mystery Flavor line of craft chocolate bars.  She’s held a contest to choose the attendees, who will all stay at her aunt’s flip hotel and enjoy the island.  It’s all supposed to be perfectly random – only, Felicity starts to uncover connections between her guests.  When one of them winds up murdered, Felicity has to keep her aunt from becoming the main suspect.

The killer is very clearly calling Felicity out, leaving clues that mean little to anyone other than her.  But that doesn’t narrow down the suspect pool.  Her guests are there because they love the true crime podcast she’s been featured on.  And she can’t decide whether the killer wants her to catch them – or just wants to taunt her.

Meanwhile, Felicity is also playing host to her future in-laws and discovers that her fiancé’s sister, who is also a cop, is very competitive.  Can Felicity hold her own and make a good impression, while keeping her business together and her aunt out of jail?  And can Felicity solve it in time to protect the people she cares about from becoming additional victims?   

Satchmo the retired police dog turned therapy dog returns to help her sniff out a few clues, and one of the guests brings along a ferret named Cheeseburger, who keeps showing up in the most unexpected places.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amber Royer writes the Chocoverse comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series, and the Bean to Bar Mysteries. She also teaches creative writing and is an author coach.

Amber and her husband live in the DFW Area, where you can often find them hiking or taking landscape, architecture, and wildlife photographs. 

If you are very nice to Amber, she might make you cupcakes.  Chocolate cupcakes, of course! Amber blogs
about creative writing technique and all things chocolate at http://www.amberroyer.com.

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Sugar on the Bones by Joe Lansdale

SUGAR ON THE BONES

By Joe R. Lansdale

Private Investigator Mystery / Noir Crime / Hard-Boiled Mystery / Lawyers and Criminals Humor

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Pages: 317

Publication Date: July 16, 2024

SYNOPSIS

In this holy mess of a case for the “perpetual bad boy” (New York Times) sleuths in the beloved Hap and Leonard series, PI Duo Hap and Leonard investigate the untimely death of a woman whose family stood much to gain from her passing.

Minnie Polson is dead. Burned to a crisp in a fire so big and bad it had to be deliberate. The only thing worse is that Hap and Leonard could have prevented it. Maybe. Minnie had a feeling she was being targeted, shaken down by some shadowy force. However, when she’d solicited Hap & Leonard, all it took was one off color joke to turn her sour and she’d called them off the investigation. Wracked with a guilty conscience, the two PIs—along with Hap’s fleet-footed wife, Brett—tuck in to the case. As they look closer, they dredge up troublesome facts: for one, Minnie’s daughter, Alice, has recently vanished. She’d been hard up after her pet grooming business went under and was in line to collect a whopping insurance sum should anything happen to her mother. The same was due to Minnie’s estranged husband, Al, whose kryptonite (beautiful, money-grubbing women) had left him with only a run-down mobile home. But did Minnie’s foolish, cash-strapped family really have it in them to commit a crime this grisly? Or is there a larger, far more sinister scheme at work?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of nearly four dozen novels, including Rusty Puppy, the Edgar-award winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. He has received nine Bram Stoker Awards, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

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This Time Around by Kimberly Packard

THIS TIME AROUND

by

Kimberly Packard

Time Travel Romance / Contemporary Women’s Fiction / Romantic Comedy

Publisher: Abalos Publishing

Date of Publication: June 11, 2024

Number of Pages: 286 pages 

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SYNOPSIS

Most of us would jump at a chance for a do-over of our teenage years…but what if our worst mistakes lead to our happily-ever-after?

Josie Gardner’s life revolves around her amazing children and her career. But, when her husband threatens to take her kids in their divorce, and the business she’s put most of her passion, time and money into building is at risk of failing, a panic attack shatters her grip on reality… and the present.

Josie wakes up in her teenage bedroom, thirty years in the past. She’s forced to relive her emotionally devastating senior year of high school — the year she cut her father out of her life, caused one of her best friends to sever ties, and turned away the boy she loved.

Determined to get back to her children in her own time, Josie tries to fix the mistakes she made, in the hope that righting wrongs will send her back to the present. But when tempted by her high school crush Josie faces the real possibility of losing her future for good.

Would you take a second chance for love…even if it meant losing everything?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kimberly Packard is an award-winning author of women’s fiction.

When she isn’t writing, she can be found planning her next trip, asking her dog what’s in his mouth or curled up with a book. She resides in Texas with her husband Colby, a clever cat named Oliver and a precocious black lab named Tully. 

Her debut novel, Phoenix, was awarded as Best General Fiction of 2013 by the Texas Association of Authors. She is also the author of a Christmas novella, The Crazy Yates, and the sequels to Phoenix, Pardon Falls and Prospera Pass, and her stand-alone titles Vortex, Dire’s Club and This Time Around. She was honored as one of the Top 10 Haute Young Authors by Southern Methodist University in 2019. Vortex was the 2019 winner of the Pencraft award in Women’s Fiction, and Dire’s Club, was awarded the 2021 General Fiction of the Year by the North Texas Book Festival.

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REVIEW

What a ride! No hyperbole—I could not put this book down. Dinner was late and the world disappeared as This Time Around put me under its spell. Kimberly Packard’s exploration of a mother’s love is masterful, creative, and compelling.

Josie Gardner’s once orderly life seems to be coming apart at the seams as she navigates an impending divorce and custody battle, raising two teenagers, and running a business to either new heights or a steep dive. All of this impending doom racing at her sends Josie into a panic attack as she focuses intently on a picture drawn by her first love—the one who got away. Awaking in her seventeen-year-old body, Josie must figure out why she’s here and how to get back home.

Before reading this book, I’d have told you that the thought of reliving a year of high school would fill me with utter dread. But being able to take my older, wiser self through some of those events with a new lens of understanding is a thoroughly compelling notion. Josie knows that it doesn’t really matter if she switches from calculus to home economics or befriends a group of geeks. And one can’t help but commiserate when she realizes she can’t have a glass of wine after a rough day! This time around, she can call out a guy’s inappropriate behavior with no qualms, coach younger girls on how to stand up for themselves and have greater compassion for the hidden lives of those around her.

Packard breathes such life into her characters and has a deft hand at dialogue.  I felt like I was right alongside Josie as she interacted with the geeky guys trying to help her get back home, battles her desire for Daniel against her deep need to return to her kids, develops a new understanding of her parents’ crumbling relationship, and works to stop terrible events that happened during her original senior year.

Unlike many time-travel tales, Packard doesn’t let her story veer into the silly territory some inhabit. She infuses the novel with the perfect touch of humor—because truly, so much of high school is ridiculous–while also using the time travel device as a means of helping Josie delve into her own life to understand herself and the events that shook her foundation. Her husband’s divorce papers demanding primary custody had caused her to doubt herself as a mother. Now stranded so far from them in space and time, she knows she will do whatever it takes to return to her kids, no matter what.

With a stellar cast of characters, Kimberly Packard artfully weaves together science fiction, humor, romance, and drama in this not-to-be-missed story celebrating second chances and the strength of a mother’s love.

Jill Anderson is a former teacher and academic advisor who focused her career on helping secondary and college students find their voices and develop confidence in their own wonderfulness. A misplaced Texan, she currently lives in Tacoma, WA, but thinks the weather might keep her there permanently.

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06/11/24	Ames for the Stars	Review
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Bound in Silence by Christena Stephens

BOUND IN SILENCE

by Christena Stephens

True Crime / Texas History / Nonfiction

Publisher: Stoney Creek Publishing

Page Count: 286 pages

Publication Date: February 26, 2024

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SYNOPSIS

On a nearly moonless night in October 1943, a single gunshot rang out in Littlefield, Texas. A prominent Texas doctor and his wife were found bound, shot, beaten, and murdered. The only witness: their five-year-old daughter, who was bound to silence and refused to speak about what happened for 70 years.

The heinous crime remains unsolved. For years, the courts tried to convict one suspect, but forensic evidence contradicted the prosecution’s case. Investigators, including the famed Texas Rangers, failed to bring anyone to justice.

Eight decades later, the questions linger over the plains of the Texas Panhandle: who killed the Hunts and why?

Author and historian Christena Stephens spent more than a decade researching the Hunt murders, re-examining every twist and turn in the legal process, uncovering new evidence, and drawing new conclusions about who might have been responsible. She also convinced Jo Ann Hunt to break 70 years of silence and tell her story for the first time. Armed with Jo Ann’s account, Stephens takes the reader back to that deadly night and through the years of trauma that followed.

Why did the criminal justice system repeatedly fail to bring anyone to justice? What could have scared a 5-year-old girl into a lifetime of silence? What did investigators miss? And most importantly, who killed Roy and Mae Hunt?

Bound in Silence is a true crime tour-de-force, a meticulously researched, impeccably told tale of unsolved murder on the High Plains.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christena Stephens is a native Texan growing up amongst cotton fields and spending time exploring the nature of the Llano Estacado. After earning two Master of Science degrees, she started a project to preserve ahistorical Texas ranch, thus began her interest in history, research, and writing. She did not intend to be a historian but was mentored by the best Texas historians. Several of her writings have been published in anthologies, along with her photographs. In science and history, truths need to be accurately told. That is her mission-truth and authenticity. She still resides on the Llano Estacado enjoying sunsets and chance porcupine encounters. She is an ardent advocate of wildlife conservation and her heart belongs to her dogs.

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REVIEW

More than a true crime drama, Stephens provides a rich context for the 1943 murders of Roy and Mae Hunt. With anecdotes from the lives of key players, detailed accounts of criminal trials in the Littlefield, Texas area that preceded the Hunts’, and vivid language describing the events, the author paints a picture of a tight-knit community rocked by the brutal killings. 

The photos curated for the story, including ones from the crime scene, emphasize the grim reality of the tale. Moreover, the author’s interviews with the two Hunt daughters bring the book intimacy and rawness.    

I was drawn to this book because my paternal grandparents lived in the Panhandle at the time of the murders. The history woven throughout the book gave me insight into the realities of the day and age. 

I share the author’s frustration with a lack of answers and the miscarriage of justice. Her assertions that more could have – and should have – been done ring true all these decades later.

The author’s years of meticulous research and flair for storytelling are evident in the book. Her voice resonates on the pages, including her photos and thoughts about the case.

You will enjoy this story if you’re a true crime and Texas history fan.

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THE GHOST OF WHISPERING WILLOW by AMANDA M. THRASHER

THE GHOST OF WHISPERING WILLOW

Second Edition by AMANDA M. THRASHER

Children’s Horror / Fantasy / Magic / Chapter Book

Publisher: Progressive Rising Phoenix Press

Page Count: 246

Publication Date: January 9, 2024

SYNOPSIS

Stewart sees a ghostly figure out of the corner of his eye. He and his friend, Andy, begin a ghost investigation that leads to an adventure of a lifetime.  Coming face-to-face with a ghost, the boys make a decision to join forces with a group of girls, who have encountered a ghost of their own. The kids soon find that the ghosts that they’ve encountered are in imminent danger and need their help. Can the kids devise a plan to help the ghost in time? Will they be able to reunite a ghost with his lost family? Complete with a ghost village and a feud, this story takes on a life of its own.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning author Amanda M. Thrasher was born in England and moved to Texas, where she lives with her family. She writes YA, general fiction, middle grade, early reader chapter, and picture books. She is the founder and CEO of Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

AMANDA M. THRASHER

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