Tongue-in-cheek humor lifts this weird but fun hybrid, part knitting cozy, part paranormal romance, from romance veteran Bretton (Just Desserts). After a classy female tourist drowns mysteriously in an icy lake in remote Sugar Maple, Vt., the Montpelier authorities ask Boston homicide cop Luke MacKenzie to investigate. As Sugar Maple's temporary police chief, Luke soon notices the village's odd ambience. Originally a haven for witches who fled the Salem witchcraft trials three centuries earlier, Sugar Maple is now home to witches, vampires, fairies and trolls. Luke is also attracted to Chloe Hobbs, the half-human owner of the knitting shop Sticks & Strings, who must find Mr. Right if she's to preserve the spell that sustains the town's unusual residents. As sparks literally fly between the two, Chloe's "magickal" side stirs into life. Bretton charmingly depicts how love empowers Chloe and awakens Luke to some major surprises.
A story of three tough, courageous women who stuck together. Effa Commander is now in her 70s but she vividly remembers her youth, growing up in Butte, Montana with her best friends Whippy Bird and May Anna. May Anna eventually goes to Hollywood and becomes a famous movie star and is involved in a notorious murder trial after her boyfriend, the heavyweight boxer Buster Midnight, kills a British actor, ending both the actor's career and his own. May Anna never forgets her friends, however, and sends flowers when Effa Commander's babies die and she loses her husband in the war. Whippy Bird's husband dies in that same war. Effa Commander paints a colorful, humorous, almost innocent picture of Montana, prohibition, and early Hollywood. A book that is truly offbeat but appealing.
Ann's pick for January is:
It's the ficitonal story of Dinah, a daughter of Jacob in the Old Testament. It gives you an insight into the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood - the world of the red tent. Ann
