Review: The Red Queen Dies by Frankie Y. Bailey

by Carol5 Comments
Title: The Red Queen Dies Author: Frankie Y. Bailey Category: Mystery Published: September 10, 2013 Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository The year is 2019, and a drug used to treat soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, nicknamed "Lullaby," has hit the streets. Swallowing a little pill erases traumatic memories, but what happens to a criminal trial when the star witness takes a pill and can't remember the crime? When two women are murdered in quick succession, biracial police detective Hannah McCabe is charged with solving the case. In spite of the advanced technology, including a city-wide surveillance program, a third woman is soon killed, and the police begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the loose. But the third victim, a Broadway actress known as “The Red Queen,” doesn’t fit the pattern set by the first two murders. With the late September heat sizzling, Detective Hannah McCabe and her colleagues on the police force have to race...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Chocolate Hills of Bohol

by Carol4 Comments
Those of you who follow me on Instagram or are my friend on Facebook may have noticed we spent a few days this week at Hershey, PA. I'll probably post some photos Saturday, but I wanted to share a chocolatey folk tale today. This one is from the Visayan people of the Philippines. Many years ago, at the foot of Happy Mountain, there lived a wealthy couple who had an only daughter.  The daughter was good-looking, but she was arrogant, mean, and lazy.  She was called Amada.   The couple had a neighbor, a wise woman and mother of twins.  The twins were called Ruben and Teresa.   They were kind to everyone, and they grew to love God's creatures around them.  Everyday they knelt and bowed their heads to pray. One bright morning Amada, Ruben, and Teresa were playing in Amada's garden when an old woman came by and begged for alms. Ruben and Teresa dug into their pockets but did not find anything.  So...
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Book Blast: Sun, Sand & Seances by Kathleen Ann Gallagher

by CarolNo Comments
ABOUT SUN, SAND, AND SEANCES Bobbi Collins is a caring and devoted kindergarten teacher who had her world turned upside down when her fiancé died after a lover’s quarrel. Five years later, she still struggles with acceptance. Her role as an educator fills up her week, but on weekends, she longs for something more. When she stumbles across a newspaper ad for a psychic fair in the historic town of Cape May, New Jersey, it seems like the answer. Bobbi is determined to revive her once vibrant life. Kevin Carlton a successful realtor is tired of the dating game. He doesn’t remember buying a raffle ticket, but when his co-worker announces he holds the winning number, he decides to take a chance and attend the all expense paid weekend in Cape May, at the Lady of the Sea's Psychic Fair. He hopes to find a spiritualist who has the ability to contact his late father and prove he has become a...
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Audiobook Review: Murder Song by Jon Cleary

Audiobook Review: Murder Song by Jon Cleary

by Carol2 Comments
Title: Murder Song (Scobie Malone #7) Author: Jon Cleary Reader: Shaun Grindell Category: Mystery Audio published: June 1, 2013 by AudioGo (First published 1990) Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | AudioGo A young woman named Mardi Jack is killed by a sniper's bullet in a Sydney apartment apparently owned by a wealthy businessman, Boru O'Brien, who has ties to seedy goings-on and to the Prime Minister's wife. O'Brien, the real target of the assassin, had been a cadet with Detective Inspector Scobie Malone two decades earlier, and after Jim Knoble, another police academy classmate, is also professionally shot, the mantle falls to Malone to investigate the case. Forced into hiding and afraid for the safety of his family, Malone must find a psychopathic serial killer before he, too, is stopped by a gun's explosion. Sometimes it can be difficult to review books in series, especially when they mostly fall along the same lines - good guy Malone has to solve a murder and it gets a little...
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