Ellen Byerrum Blog Tour: Death on Heels Review and Giveaway

Comment on the blog for your chance to win a print copy of Death on Heels! Giveaway ends April 2, 2012. Please leave your e-mail address so you can be contacted after the giveaway ends!

Death on Heels is the eighth Crime of Fashion Mystery. When I received the book in the mail and saw the cover, I immediately remembered that I had read the first book in this series already and I really enjoyed it.  Synopsis of Death on Heels follows:

Never!  D.C. style scribe Lacey Smithsonian always swore she would never go back—back to Sagebrush, Colorado, that scruffy hard-luck Western boomtown where she'd earned her reporter’s spurs. But then three young women are murdered, their bodies left barefoot on lonely country roads, and the accused is her old boyfriend, Sagebrush rancher Cole Tucker. Lacey cowgirls up and heads out West (in her best cowboy boots) to prove Tucker's innocence. And perhaps to resolve the last of her old feelings for the man she had loved and left. Naturally, Lacey's plan doesn’t sit well with her current beau, private investigator Vic Donovan, who has his own history (and game plan) in Sagebrush.

Tucker takes one look at Lacey and kicks over everyone's game plan: He abducts her in a daring courthouse escape into the badlands of northern Colorado. On the run from the law with her old flame, in stolen vehicles and on horseback, with Vic and the posse in pursuit, Lacey's world turns upside down. Who can she trust? Tucker or Vic? The law or her own feelings and her reporter's instincts? Caught between two men, with a vicious killer on her trail, Death on Heels is a whole new—and potentially fatal—frontier for this fashion reporter.

I enjoyed this mystery. It’s a quick read and the characters are all well written. There is still obvious chemistry between Cole and Lacey but she’s a one man woman! The dialogue is very snappy and witty and I was entertained throughout this read.

I understand how her fashion column fits into this series but I have to admit that I skipped over those parts. It didn’t have anything to do with how I felt about the story but I’m not overly concerned with fashion and since it didn’t have anything to do necessarily with the plot I skimmed over them and continued with the story.

All in all, I recommend this book, especially for those who like lighthearted mysteries.

Overall Rating -

Ellen Byerrum writes the popular Crime of Fashion mysteries, set in bustling Washington, D.C., The City That Fashion Forgot. Featuring style sleuth Lacey Smithsonian, who solves crimes with fashion clues, the eighth book, Death on Heels, takes Lacey out of her comfort zone and into the Wild West where she confronts her past and an old boyfriend who is accused of murder. 

                                

While researching fashion, Byerrum has collected her own assortment of 1940s vintage dresses and suits, and the occasional accessory, but laments her lack of closet space. She has been a D.C. news reporter in Washington, a playwright, and holds a Virginia P.I. registration. Although she currently resides in Denver, fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian will continue to be based in Washington, D.C.

Byerrum is currently at work on the ninth book in the Crime of Fashion series, Veiled Revenge. You can find more about Ellen on her Web site or on Facebook.

http://www.ellenbyerrum.com/

www.facebook.com/EllenByerrum

http://www.amazon.com/Ellen-Byerrum/e/B001H6SB3O/ref=sr_tc_ep?qid=1324515363

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/ellen-byerrum?store=allproducts&keyword=ellen+byerrum

http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/imba-members

Follow the tour - http://www.clpblogtours.com/2012/01/death-on-heels-by-ellen-byerrum.html

Sacrificial Magic Review - Stacia Kane

Review Copy received by NetGalleyMass Market Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: Del Rey; Original edition (March 27, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 034552750X ISBN-13: 978-0345527509Purchase link: AmazonWhen I first picked up the Downside Ghosts series I didn’t know what to expect. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get through the first book. After all, what urban fantasy has a protagonist that just happens to be addicted to drugs? Certainly none that I’ve ever seen! However, I kept reading and Stacia Kane slowly sucked me in and then grabbed me by the throat with this strangely addictive series. The fourth book in this series, Sacrificial Magic follows Chess as she attempts to unravel a school haunting that turns out to be anything but ordinary.When Chess Putnam is ordered by an infamous crime boss—who also happens to be her drug dealer—to use her powers as a witch to solve a grisly murder involving dark magic, she knows she must rise to the challenge. Adding to the intensity: Chess’s boyfriend, Terrible, doesn’t trust her, and Lex, the son of a rival crime lord, is trying to reignite the sparks between him and Chess.Plus there’s the little matter of Chess’s real job as a ghost hunter for the Church of Real Truth, investigating reports of a haunting at a school in the heart of Downside. Someone seems to be taking a crash course in summoning the dead—and if Chess doesn’t watch her back, she may soon be joining their ranks. As Chess is drawn into a shadowy world of twisted secrets and dark violence, it soon becomes clear that she’s not going to emerge from its depths without making the ultimate sacrifice.If you do not like gritty, violent stories then I wouldn’t recommend this book to you. Chess is sometimes very unlikeable. She’s addicted to drugs, possesses little self-confidence and is absolutely terrible at relationships. However, instead of those traits turning me off from her, they instead make me appreciate her more. She is the most human protagonist that I’ve ever read in an urban fantasy novel.  Her boyfriend, Terrible, is not really what most people would think of as a strong male lead. He’s not incredibly attractive and he works for a drug lord. However, he shows moments of vulnerability that have you rooting for him and Chess to make it. I became completely sucked in to these books. They are highly original and incredibly disturbing. Stacia Kane has created a world unlike anything else currently residing in the urban fantasy genre. She is able to create a violent and dark Earth, devoid of religion yet ran by the Church, and still allow us to see the innate goodness in people we would never give the time of day to in the real world. Although her hero and heroine are broken, they still save the world. To me, no matter how screwed up you are, if you’re trying to save the world, I’d save you a seat at dinner. I highly recommend this urban fantasy series. Start with book one and follow Chess as she stumbles her way through one deadly encounter after the other. Overall rating -       

Guest Post: Kat Jorgensen's Becca takes on the duty!

Kat asked me to do the blog duty today.  I’m Becca Reynolds, and Kat has chosen to write about me and my friends and family in her River City Mystery series.  Kat calls me a lovable screw-up.  At first I was offended by this, but I realized that she was actually telling the truth.  Like Kat, my intentions are always good.  But sometimes things happen to us that don’t happen to other people. 

For years Kat’s friends have been telling her that she should write about her exploits, but instead she picked me out of thin air (or so it seems) and gave me a lot of those things as my experiences.  And then, like a writer, she expanded on what really happened to make it more humorous and interesting.  Suddenly, I was working in a job much like Kat had worked years ago.  Only thing is in my job, I discover a dead body in the waiting room. Gross.  That never happened to Kat - lucky dog that she is. 

I live with my granddad and his cranky cat Higgins.  The cat resents the fact that I had to move in after a marriage went south on me.  It seems I took over his room in Granddad’s house.

Kat lives with a very nice man who loves her unconditionally and a not so lovable cat named Ben.  Kat will not admit it to me, but I think Ben was the basis for Higgins.  Just think - if Kat didn’t have Ben, I probably wouldn’t be living with Higgins. 

Granddad loves to lecture me.  Kat’s husband isn’t like that at all.  But her dad is.  I think he was the inspiration behind the granddad character, but again, Kat is sworn to some unwritten code that I don’t get.  I do know her dad loves her and is always creating some kind of chaos in her life without trying.  Granddad is a lot like that.  A lot.  But both Granddad and Kat’s dad have kind hearts and would die to protect us from harm.  They’re also both career military men.  So they do have a certain code by which they live. 

Unlike Kat’s dad who has NO interest in dating at his age, my granddad seems to have fallen for one of the ladies in the series.  Yowser!  Some days granddad’s love life seems a whole lot richer than mine.  Now that just isn’t right.

I do have an interest in a couple of the male characters.  But they run either hot or cold with me.  R.J. Ryder is a hunky (oh mama!) ex-cop turned CPA who works right across the hall from the psychiatric firm where I work.  The things that man does to me!  But he seems to have a secret life I don’t know about.  I’m working to unlock some of his secrets, but so far I haven’t cracked the code. 

Then there’s Max Chernov.  Max is a mystery that I’d definitely like to solve.  Hunk doesn’t even begin to describe him.  He’s dangerous.  I know that in my heart.  And yet I’m drawn to him.  He may be mixed up in things that are bad, really bad.  But I want to believe that Max is a good guy.  Time will tell.  Because I know Kat isn’t going to tell me anything.  She lets me discover things for myself.  I really don’t like that about her.  I mean, I know she knows what’s going to happen, but will she tell me?  No.  It’s the only issue we have between us. 

This past fall I heard her brainstorming with some other writers.  I caught little glimpses of things to come in upcoming books.  All I can say is I’m going to be busy, very busy. 

Let’s hope besides murders, Kat will stick in a few dates with either one, or both, of the guys that I want in my life.  I mean, all murder and no dating is going to make me a very dull character.  And I want to have fun.  Right?  Girls just want to have fun - and solve a few mysteries here and there - and date some hot guys.  Oh, and stay off of their granddad’s radar.  But then he seems very busy all on his own. 

You can read about my earliest exploits in Your Eight O’Clock Is Dead.  Kat is busy writing the second book in the series (she won’t even let me see it yet - something about artistic temperament if you ask me.)   It’s called Your Time Is Up and should be out in the spring or early summer. 

Thank you for hanging out with me today.  Stay out of trouble.  I know I’m going to try to.



*Thanks so much for guest posting on my blog!! It was a pleasure to read this book.

Blog Tour: Kat Jorgensen - Your Eight O'Clock is Dead

A dead body.

An innocent accused.

A mysterious Russian and a hunky ex-cop turned accountant - both with deep secrets and hidden agendas.

A lovable screw-up who wants to save her job, solve the murder and increase her love life in the process.

But will she succeed before the murderer strikes again?

First in a humorous mystery series.

SUMMARY:

Becca Reynolds is having a bad day. Her grandfather's lecture (#405: Eat a Healthy Diet or Die Not Trying) makes her late for her job at Daley and Palmer, the psychiatrists' office where she works as the office manager--her title, not theirs. Then her sausage and egg breakfast biscuit creates an oil slick that takes out half her desk, along with that day's patient files. But she knows the day has taken a really bad turn when she discovers the firm's eight o'clock patient dead with Dr. Dick Daley's letter opener opening the patient instead of the mail.

With the fledgling firm in danger of an early demise, Becca appoints herself the unofficial investigator since the police seem to be looking in all the wrong places and doing a half-assed job of solving the crime. She begins a journey to find the killer, keep the practice afloat and with it, her job. In the course of her interfere--er, investigation--she finds a virtual cast of characters who could have done it, including the fancy side piece of the murder victim, his wife, his business partner, and even his psychiatrist.

The case takes Becca from the sordid depths of the Russian mob, to the upscale West End of Richmond, Virginia (known locally as River City), and even to her own backyard. In the course of the story she finds herself in hot water, hot danger, and with dreams of hot men.

Your Eight O’clock is Dead is a great mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The cast of characters was great and I really felt myself empathizing with Becca. Like so many others, she is dependent on a job where she doesn’t make a lot of money and has to do twice the amount of work to feel any sort of job security. She is also a complete mess and lives with her grandfather on top of it.

When she gets to work one morning and attempts to carry on a conversation with one of the clients already there, she discovers the man has been murdered. What follows is a hilarious mystery full of Becca’s accidental antics.

My only issue with Becca is that I occasionally felt like she badgered people to get answers out of them.  While this normally wouldn’t bother me too much, especially if I thought the characters may have been guilty, I felt she took it a little bit too far with one of the characters in this book. The cast of supporting characters was wonderful, especially Becca’s grandfather. In all, I thought this was a well-written and funny mystery. I will definitely be looking for the next installment in this series!

Overall Rating -

 

 

 

Author Bio:

 

A notorious daydreamer, Kat knew it was only a matter of time before she became a writer. She learned to read by age four and had her first library card before her fifth birthday. To this day, she can lose herself for hours among the books at her local library or neighborhood bookstore. Ebooks and online ordering have made it really easy for her to keep her To Be Read pile from ever going down. A native of Richmond, Virginia, Kat is married with children and has a cranky tuxedo cat named Ben. 

 http://www.katjorgensen.com/

 Buy the Book!

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

Novel Spotlight & Giveaway: Binding Arbitration - Elizabeth Marx

Elizabeth Marx is giving away two e-copies of her book: Binding Arbitration. Comment on the blog for a chance to win your copy! Giveaway ends March 22nd, 2012. Please leave your email address so we can contact you!

Through the corridors of the Windy City’s criminal courts, single mother, Libby Tucker, doesn’t wonder how far she’s willing to go to save her son’s life from cancer. The undefeated defense attorney knows she’ll take her case all the way to the majors.

Libby pleads her case at the cleats of celebrity baseball player, Banford Aidan Palowski, the man who discarded her at college graduation, begging him to live up to his biological duty. Libby’s worked her backside bare for everything she’s attained, while Band-Aid has been indulged since he slid through the birth canal and landed in a pile of Gold Coast money. But helping her might jeopardize the only thing the jock worships: his baseball career.

If baseball imitates life, Aidan admits his appears to be silver-plated peanuts, until, an unexpected confrontation with the most spectacular prize that’s ever poured from a caramel corn box blindsides him. Libby reveals his son desperately needs him and it pricks open the wound he’s carried since he abandoned her.

All Libby wants is a little anonymous DNA, but Band-Aid has a magical umpire in his head who knows Libby’s a fateball right to the heart. When a six-year-old sage, and a hippy priestess step onto the field there’s more to settle between Libby and Aidan then heartache, redemption, and forgiveness.





Author Bio:

Windy City writer Elizabeth Marx brings cosmopolitan flair to her fiction, which is a blend of romance and fast-paced Chicago living with a sprinkle of magical realism. In her past incarnation she was an interior designer--not a decorator--which basically means she has a piece of paper to prove that she knows how to match and measure things and can miraculously make mundane pieces of furniture appear to be masterpieces. Elizabeth says being an interior designer is one part shrink, one part marriage counselor and one part artist, skills eerily similar to those employed in writing. 

Elizabeth grew up in Illinois and has also lived in Texas and Florida. If she’s not pounding her head against the wall trying to get the words just right, you can find her at a softball field out in the boonies or sitting in the bleachers by a basketball court. Elizabeth resides with her husband, girls, and two cats who’ve spelled everyone into believing they’re really dogs.

Elizabeth has traveled extensively, but still says there’s no town like Chi-Town.

Connect with Elizabeth!
Email: elizabethmarxbooks@gmail.com
Blog: http://elizabethmarxbooks.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.elizabethmarxbooks.com
Facebook Elizabeth Marx  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-Marx/294710950557778
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/emarxbooks
 
Buy the Book!
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006423DPW
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/binding-arbitration-a-chick-lit-contemporary-romance-novel-elizabeth-marx/1107084583?ean=2940013658196&itm=2&usri=elizabeth+marx
CUTTERS VS JOCKS is still FREE!
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064PJUWY
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cutters-vs-jocks-a-prequel-novella-to-binding-arbitration-chick-lit-elizabeth-marx/1107713701?ean=2940032855774&itm=1&usri=elizabeth+marx

A Perfect Blood - Kim Harrison

If you aren’t already reading The Hollows series, I definitely recommend you start. Her books were my first foray into the world of urban fantasy. Then, I happened to pick up a Jim Butcher book…the rest is history. A Perfect Blood follows Rachel Morgan after Trent saves her life. She has come out in the community as a demon but she is unable to use her magic because of the bracelet Trent put around her wrist. Synopsis as follows:

Ritually murdered corpses are appearing across Cincinnati, terrifying amalgams of human and other. Pulled in to help investigate by the I.S. and the FIB, former witch turned day-walking demon Rachel Morgan soon realizes a horrifying truth: a human hate group is trying to create its own demons to destroy all Inderlanders, and to do so, it needs her blood.

She’s faced vampires, witches, werewolves, demons, and more, but humanity itself might be her toughest challenge yet.

As much as love this series, this book dragged on. I hate to say it, but I found the first half of the book to be pretty boring. She’s dealing with mundane things like getting a driver’s license and making cookies and trying not to be helpless. Of course there are murders to be solved but it took on a little bit of a mystery/crime tone and not an urban fantasy one.

The only thing that redeemed this book was Trent, Trent and more Trent. I feel like there is never enough of him in her books. He’s broody, mysterious and sometimes completely selfish and he just happens to be my favorite character. In this book, he’s all of that and then some and we get to see much more of him. Also, the author develops the relationship between Rachel and Trent which really helped. I’ve been waiting for years for that to happen! But, that’s not to say they’re in a romantic relationship, only that their friendship is developing and that they’re beginning to trust each other.

The book before this one, Pale Demon, was freaking amazing. It was a 5 star book all the way. This one? Meh. Although I do think she had to put out a book like this to give Rachel a little bit of a break. We see Al again in this one, which I loved. There’s a delightfully creepy scene where Al meets Trent’s kids. That scene shows that Kim Harrison isn’t losing her magical touch but this book for me was just so/so. If you are a faithful follower of this series, I say go for it. If you’re a fair weather fan, wait for it at the library.

Overall Rating -