I Wanna Be Like Her--Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death by Mark Reutlinger

Blurb:

Move over, Miss Marple—Mark Reutlinger’s charming cozy debut introduces readers to the unforgettable amateur sleuth Rose Kaplan and her loyal sidekick, Ida.

Everyone knows that Rose Kaplan makes the best matzoh ball soup around—she’s a regular matzoh ball maven—so it’s no surprise at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors when, once again, Mrs. K wins the honor of preparing the beloved dish for the Home’s seder on the first night of Passover.

But when Bertha Finkelstein is discovered facedown in her bowl of soup, her death puts a bit of a pall on the rest of the seder. And things go really meshugge when it comes out that Bertha choked on a diamond earring earlier stolen from resident Daisy Goldfarb. Suddenly Mrs. K is the prime suspect in the police investigation of both theft and murder. Oy vey—it’s a recipe for disaster, unless Rose and her dear friend Ida can summon up the chutzpah to face down the police and solve the mystery themselves.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death is told in first person by Mrs. K’s best friend, side-kick, and God-forbid-we-should-get-caught accomplice, Ida Berkowitz. And since the manuscript is peppered with Yiddish words and phrases, how could a meshggina shiksa (crazy gentile gal) like me possibly understand it? Well, first, Mrs. Berkowitz (aka Mr. Reutlinger) puts the Yiddish words in italics with the English translations in parentheses, as I just did. And second, we live in a multicultural world. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried my way through Fiddler on the Roof, or laughed as Nora Dunn declared she was, “…getting a little verklempt,” and told the audience to, “Talk amongst yourselves” on Saturday Night Live. I grew up watching comics on TV who paid their dues at resorts in the Catskills, known as “The Borscht Belt.” If you pay attention, Baby walks out of the dining room as the resort owner introduces the comic in Dirty Dancing. So, to make a short story long, I was able to hear Mrs. B’s voice in full Yiddish cadence just fine, which greatly enhanced my reading experience, nu? (right?)

Rose Kaplan is not only the matzoh ball soup maven at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, she’s probably the smartest person there, including the staff. Since Bertha Finkelstein was found face-down in her soup having choked on Daisy Goldfarb’s stolen earring, and no one else was allowed in the kitchen while Rose was making the soup, the staff and police figure they have an open-and-shut case. But Rose knows she did not put that earring there, and she’s pretty sure she’d have noticed if someone had stuffed it into the flour or one of the other ingredients. So, she sets out to prove her innocence and find the culprit with her best-friend, Ida Berkowitz in tow. Ida doesn’t always know what Rose is going to do next, but Oy Vey! God forbid they should get caught!

Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death is a warm, witty, suspenseful book that hooked me on the first page and kept me laughing and wondering along with Ida what plot Mrs. K. was going to come up with next to dig up evidence on someone else and find the real culprit/s and clear her name. They go so far as to hire a burglar to search some of the residents’ rooms during a concert, but the burglar is delayed and breaks a leg before she can get to the final room, so Mrs. K. climbs through the window herself with Ida on guard outside on movie night. I wanna be like her when I grow up!

If you’re reading this review before November 18, 2014, reserve your copy now! Otherwise, buy it now! I’m having aftershocks of chuckles just thinking about the book as I write this review. And I’m craving matzoh ball soup. Know of any place in the far north Chicago suburbs that serves a gluten-free version?

Length:  Page Count TBA

Digital Price:  $2.99

Buy Link:  http://www.randomhouse.com/book/246839/mrs-kaplan-and-the-matzoh-ball-of-death-by-mark-reutlinger/ebook

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

Mom, I’m Telling On You! by V. Kevin Martin

Blurb:

Most moms are calm, petite, soft-spoken, easygoing, tame, sane. Not my mom! She just HAD to be different! LaJoyce Martin is an accomplished author, renowned inspirational speaker and a totally unique person. She is not normal... and normal things do not happen to her! For the first time, friends and readers alike can get an inside view of the Martin house, featuring Sis LaJoyce and her "frantic antics." Join this mother and master of the unexpected as she runs from tornadoes, dodges mice, entreats angels and lives life to its fullest. This endearing, funny, poignant tale is authored by her son, Kevin Martin, who for once in his life...gets to tell on his mother!

Review by Rose Thornton:

Summer is a good time for light and fun reads—but Mom, I’m Telling On You! is not one I can recommend. It had great potential; who doesn’t want to read the intricate tattle-tales of a child on his mother? The story seeds were interesting and could have been quite amusing in my estimation. However, the writing was dry; it lacked creativity. The recounting could certainly have benefitted from more colorful and detailed descriptions. Unfortunately, this one just did not make my ‘good reads’ list!

Length: 139 Pages

Print Price: $11.99

Buy Link: http://www.wpfbookstore.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=425&idcategory

Thanks for visiting, Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Blurb:

All fifteen-year-old Marco Jameson wants is to become a Danish citizen and go to school like a normal teenager. But his uncle Zola rules his former gypsy clan with an iron fist. Revered as a god and feared as a devil, Zola forces the children of the clan to beg and steal for his personal gain. When Marco discovers a dead body—proving the true extent of Zola’s criminal activities—he goes on the run. But his family members aren’t the only ones who’ll go to any lengths to keep Marco silent…forever.

Meanwhile, the last thing Detective Carl Mørck needs is for his assistants, Assad and Rose, to pick up a missing persons case on a whim: Carl’s nemesis is his new boss, and he’s saddled Department Q with an unwelcome addition. But when they learn that a mysterious teen named Marco may have as much insight into the case as he has fear of the police, Carl is determined to solve the mystery and save the boy. Carl’s actions propel the trio into a case that extends from Denmark to Africa, from embezzlers to child soldiers, from seemingly petty crime rings to the very darkest of cover-ups.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

I would have loved to have given The Marco Effect five roses, but it was full of head-hops—abrupt changes of point-of-view. Otherwise, it was a nail-biting chase through Africa, Copenhagen, and even a glimpse of Venezuela, with well-drawn characters. At the center, we have a cop and a thief—strange bedfellows, at best, but oddly with the same goal.

It is said that "the death of a single butterfly in the Amazon rainforest can cause a typhoon in Japan." In this case, Marco Jameson overhears his Uncle Zola planning to possibly maim him, because he’s beginning to look too healthy to beg effectively on the street. He learns the hit-and-run that left his adopted sister’s leg destroyed was not an accident, and decides he does not want to suffer the same fate. So he runs away from home and burrows in a hole near the grave of an animal. Marco stays there all night until he’s sure his family’s search for him has moved away from the area. Only, he’s not near the grave of an animal—he’s in the grave of a man. He eludes his family for a few years, and then comes upon a missing persons poster for a man called William Stark, and recognizes Stark as the corpse with whom he shared that night in the grave. He decides he needs to let the man’s daughter know what happened to him.

Meanwhile, Detective Carl Mørck’s assistants, Assad and Rose, pick up the missing persons case of William Stark. As the case takes them to the top of the Department of of Assistance, which would be something like the Foreign Affairs office of our State Department, and the top of one of the most respected banks in Denmark, they keep running across Marco—and wondering what this fifteen year-old homeless boy had to do with Stark. As he crosses paths with the police at one turn, his uncle’s henchmen at the next, and hit men he doesn’t even recognize, Marco tries to go deeper underground. He wants to flee Copenhagen, but he needs to do two things first. Tell Stark’s daughter where the man is buried, and get to his stash of saved-up escape money. But how can he manage to do either with the noose tightening around him?

Again, The Marco Effect was a great read except for the head-hops, which most readers probably wouldn’t notice. I highly recommend this book.

Length:  496 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $27.95

Digital:  $15.95

Audio CD:  $30.91

Audibel Unabridged (Non-Member):  $26.95

Buy Link:  http://www.penguin.com/book/the-marco-effect-by-jussi-adler-olsen/9780525954026

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the cover price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their royalties from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

After the Rain by Leah Atwood

Blurb:

Welcome to Weatherton, Wyoming, where romance is always in the air!

Rand McCade made a promise to his dying wife to one day remarry. He couldn’t imagine ever loving someone again, but he’d do anything to give his wife peace in her final moments. Two and a half years later, he begins to fulfill his vow by contacting a mail-order agency in the east. He doesn’t want to remarry, but a promise is a promise.

Lettie Morgan needed to leave Baltimore. Widowed and pregnant, she was being pressured to marry a violent man. In order to protect herself and the baby, she seeks out an agency she’d heard of which finds brides for men in the west.

How can two hearts, broken and grieving, put their pasts aside and blend their lives into one?

A family-friendly historical romance novella with elements of faith, family and friendship.

Review:

Having come off reading ALL of Suzan Tisdale’s book, and having just finished Frederick’s Queen (you can read the review here), I am in a desperate search for a book I can’t put down. Sad to say, I have downloaded about ten books, but for various reasons I can’t seem to get into them. Some of that is me, some of it is the authors.

I finally picked up a charming little Christian romance novel by Leah Atwood titled After the Rain. This is book one of her Brides of Weatherton Series. Alas, I finished it, but I was not overwhelmed. Let me say, though, that that is probably more me than Atwood.

I like angst in my stories. As many of you know from my previous reviews, I don’t like heroes or heroines who are perfect. I want them to have a temper, to say the wrong thing, to do something ugly occasionally, if for no other reason than they are afraid and it makes for interesting conflict. None of this happened, of course, in After the Rain.

Rand and Lettie are too perfect for my tastes. When they say something catty to each other, they turn right around in the next scene and apologize. Honestly, one of the only reasons I kept reading was because I kept thinking that the former suitor would eventually turn up. At the end, however, we find out he likely committed suicide. On top of that, near the end of the book, Lettie’s mother shows up at the McCade ranch and asks for forgiveness. She has simply realized she was wrong to treat her daughter the way she did all those years. Needless to say, expecting fireworks from both ends and not getting either, I was a bit disappointed.

While I sometimes appreciate these sorts of sweet stories, especially if the romance is well-done even if too chaste, this one fell flat. I can believe two young people, inexperienced in matters of marriage and love, might not have a longing or a hunger for a physical relationship. (Actually I don’t, but I think lack of experience can make them reticent at least.) I find it harder to believe two people who were as happily married as Rand and Lettie aren’t fighting the normal natural desire of a physical relationship. Yes, they were Christians. Yes, a Christian, even one seeking a second marriage, needs to work hard at being chaste. But it should be work if you are falling in love. It should not be easy to turn off that part of themselves.

I did give After the Rain 3 roses. Atwood's writing is good. The story does flow. Not only is the writing itself (sentence structure) tight, but the plot passes along at a reasonable pace. However, there is no great soul searching for either Rand or Lettie. Neither do they experience any real character growth beyond their ability to tell the other “I Love You.”

If you like sweet Christian romance with little to no angst and no hint of a physical relationship, then you will enjoy After the Rain. If you want something grittier and more real, then you might want to keep looking along the bookshelf. As for me, I’m still on that all elusive quest for a book I can’t put down.

Length:  130 pages

Digital Price:  $0.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/After-Rain-Brides-Weatherton-Book-ebook/dp/B00N2AHDHI/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415023639&sr=8-2-fkmr2&keywords=atherton+after+the+rain

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie Donna & Rochelle