Tag Archives: Maine

Review: Counterfeit Corpse, by Karin Kaufman

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I’m joining the First Line Friday link-up again, hosted by Carrie at Reading is My Superpower. Today’s book is Counterfeit Corpse, by Karin Kaufman.

First Line:

Minette lifted like a rocket from the kitchen table and hovered inches from my face.

Counterfeit Corpse, by Karin Kaufman (Winter Tree Press, 2023)

I don’t know if this is the best book in the Smithwell Fairies Cozy Mystery series (it’s # 6) or if it’s just the long wait since the previous one released, but I really enjoyed being back in the fictional town of Smithwell, Maine, with Kate Brewer (human widow) and her fairy sidekick Minette. They make a great mystery-solving team, along with Kate’s next-door neighbour Emily and her possibly-a-spy-but-we-don’t-know-for-sure husband. Plus a little off the record help from local Detective Rancourt.

What do you do when the wrong body turns up? A woman’s husband is missing—a man mysteriously connected with Kate’s late husband Michael—but the guy in the morgue is not him. Despite having the missing man’s ID in his shoe.

The police think Daniel ran off for a fling. But why would he leave clues only his wife could follow?

Kate, Emily, and Minette know the longer a person is missing, the greater the danger. If the police won’t investigate, it’s down to them.

These are clean cozy mysteries with enjoyable characters. There’s some progression within the series but you could start with this book and not be confused. Then go back and start with book 1, Dying to Remember, because the whole series is worth reading.

I enjoy the descriptions: characters, food, and especially scenery. In Counterfeit Corpse, the images of small-town Maine give readers a vicarious autumn getaway.

Favourite line:

She puckered her lips as though she were about to spew bits of sheriff all over my kitchen floor. [The missing man’s wife, talking about the sheriff’s lack of concern. Chapter 1, at the 3% mark on my Kindle app.]

Karin Kaufman writes cozy mysteries (the Juniper Grove and Smithwell Fairies series), suspenseful mysteries (the Anna Denning and Teagan Doyle series), as well as the Geraldine Woolkins children’s series. For more about the author and her work, visit karinkaufman.com.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

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Review: Hems & Homicide, by Elizabeth Penney

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Hems & Homicide, The Apron Shop Series book 1, by Elizabeth Penney

Hems & Homicide, by Elizabeth Penney (St. Martin’s, 2020)

Iris Buckley and her recently-widowed grandmother, Anne, are a good team. Add Quincy, a marmalade cat who thinks he’s the real boss, and their Ruffles & Bows shop could be a hit. If the skeleton they find in the cellar of their building doesn’t stop their grand opening plans.

Welcome to Blueberry Cove, Maine: a quiet, tourist town where everyone knows everyone’s business. Or at least they thought they did—someone may be a secret murderer.

Iris is a skilled seamstress with a special interest in vintage linens and designs. (Be prepared, “vintage” can mean 1960’s!) I appreciate how it’s her grandmother, Anne, who’s the more knowledgeable about online security.

Iris has been back in town for a few months and has reconnected with good friends from school. Also back is her high school crush, Ian Stewart, who’ll be doing the renovations on the new shop.

Hems & Homicide is book 1 in the Apron Shop Series, and it’s a clean cozy mystery in a charming setting. I enjoyed the descriptions of the rural landscape outside of town. As you’d expect with a main character who’s skilled with fabrics, descriptions often focus on colours and textiles. And as Iris and Anne investigate the long-ago death, Iris gets a peek at Anne’s life as a young woman. 

This is a fun read, and a good start to a new series. Book 2, Thread and Dread, releases later in 2020. For more about Elizabeth Penney, visit elizabethpenneyauthor.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Up From the Sea, by Amanda Dykes

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Book cover: Up From the Sea, by Amanda Dykes

Up From the Sea, by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House, 2019)

After I read Whose Waves These Are, I went looking for more fiction from Amanda Dykes and was excited to find two free ebook novellas.

One of those is Up From the Sea, a prequel novella for Whose Waves These Are. Reading it later let me enjoy recognizing details significant to the novel, which features the next generation. It also made me want to go back and read the novel again with this deeper understanding of the past.

Savannah Mae Thorpe was born and raised in Georgia, but after her parents’ deaths in 1925 the young woman returns to her mother’s family in coastal Maine. She doesn’t fit in with her aunt and uncle’s ways, nor with her cousins, although Cousin Mary used to be a good friend.

A local legend from the 1700s captures her imagination with a wild hope to save her inheritance. Local lumberjack Alastair Bliss agrees to help, but Savannah’s quest sounds more like a fairy tale than reality.

Favourite lines:

Lord, you created the dark just as you created the light. Help me find life there, and not fear. [Chapter 3]

“She was imagination itself.” It felt good to speak of her [Savannah’s mother] with laughter, to feel the jagged edges of grief gentled with fond memory. [Chapter 7]

Vague light seeped in through a window whose wavy glass dripped with time. [Chapter 7]

Amanda Dykes’ tag line is “spinning stories, gathering grace.” As well as the historical fiction Up From the Sea and Whose Waves These Are, she’s written the novella, Bespoke: A Tiny Christmas Tale, and one of the stories in The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection. For more about the author and her work, visit amandadykes.com.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

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Review: Whose Waves These Are, by Amanda Dykes

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Book cover: Whose Waves These Are, by Amanda Dykes

Whose Waves These Are, by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House, 2019)

This is the most beautiful and heartwarming novel I’ve read in a long time. Satisfying. Peace-inducing and hope-whispering. Amanda Dykes writes with a gentle, lyrical quality that invites readers to linger in this tale and savour every page.

Annie Bliss and her great-uncle Bob (“GrandBob”) have shared a special bond since the summer she spent with him in coastal Maine as a child. Now his need calls her back to the struggling town of Ansel-by-the-Sea, away from the soul-drying big-city job where she’s been hiding.

The novel follows two timelines: Annie’s in the present and Bob’s in the past, weaving together to tell a story of great loss and greater hope. Of light in the darkness and faith in despair. Of breaking and mending.

The town and its inhabitants add a richness, evoking the best attributes of small fishing communities where the locals stand together, no matter what. 

See some of the evocative description:

There’s a strength in his stance, as if his feet are putting roots down into the very granite. [page 25]

The past uncoils like a fiddlehead fern, a tender ache with it. [page 81]

This part of Maine was a place like no other spot in the universe, and being back was like finding an old patch of sunlight in a long-lost home, and settling in. [page 86]

I won’t share my favourite line, because it’s too near the end. You’ll need to find it yourself. It’ll mean more to you that way.

I admit the present-tense narrative jarred me at times, but even with that, Whose Waves These Are has claimed a special place in my heart. I’m grateful for the experience.

Amanda Dykes’ tag line is “spinning stories, gathering grace.” Whose Waves These Are is her first novel, but readers may know her from her novella, Bespoke: A Tiny Christmas Tale, or from The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection. For more about the author and her work, visit amandadykes.com.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.]

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Review: On a Summer Tide, by Suzanne Woods Fisher

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Book cover: On a Summer Tide, by Suzanne Woods Fisher

On a Summer Tide, by Suzanne Woods Fisher (Revell, 2019)

When their widowed father announces that he’s sold the family home and bought an island off the coast of Maine, Cam Grayson and her sisters are afraid he’s losing his mind. Partly due to this fear and partly due to life circumstances, each of the women decide to spend some time with him on Three Sisters Island.

Their father, Paul, plans to renovate the rustic island camp where he first met his wife. He hopes the family project will draw his daughters closer together. In the beginning, this is a family who don’t listen to one another, who may work together but without sharing any depth of relationship.

The daughters are widely different in personality and goals. I feel they’re perhaps too much defined by their dominant traits, to the point I didn’t really connect with any of them. We have Cam the driven businesswoman, Maddie the counsellor-in-training who analyzes family members at every opportunity, and Blaine the 19-year-old who can’t decide on her future path.

Despite a bit of disconnect, I enjoyed the story. The setting is isolated and beautiful, and I enjoyed watching the camp restoration. There’s a nice romance between Cam and Seth, the island’s schoolteacher. Seth’s gentle conversations with Cam about faith are a good example of natural ways to engage with non-Christian friends in real life.

There are flashbacks sprinkled throughout the novel and I don’t think they added anything that wasn’t (or couldn’t have been) conveyed in straight story time. For me they were more of a distraction than a bonus. The bonus was watching the interaction between teacher Seth and Cam’s son Cooper.

Favourite lines:

The driveway unfurled in a lazy curl through strands of trees until it reached the clearing where the old house sat against a windbreak of pines. [page 69, Cam’s first sight of their father’s new house]

“It’s okay to start with a small faith. We’ve got a big God.” [page 220, Seth to Cam]

On a Summer Tide is book 1 in the Three Sisters Island series, and since Cam was the central sister in this story, I expect Maddie and Blaine will each be the heroine of their own book as the series continues.

Suzanne Woods Fisher is a multi-published author of contemporary and historical novels. For more about the author and her work, visit suzannewoodsfisher.com.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.]

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