Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 287

Review: HILL HAVEN CREEPS AND THE HALLOWEEN KING by Brandon Bernston

It’s October! Halloween season had begun. A group of young boys were getting ready.


The characters really didn’t sound very interesting at the first and the whole thing was very slow. I could’ve only hoped that it got better than this. It didn’t…


My rating: 2 stars

Review: FRANKIE B AND THE GHOST SHIP by Andrene Low

Frankie was a lazy witch that didn’t want to get evicted. Well, that plan worked out well when the landlady catches Frankie using her magic doing housework. Out they go—her and the dog she was not supposed to have.


Now homeless with a little cash, Frankie, along with her dog familiar, decides on her next step. Somehow she finds herself renting a houseboat. But it looked like she was rooked into it because her name was already on the lease. How did they know she would be there? It turns out that there was a vacancy in the Marina Coven, which was in need of a witch that could see ghosts on haunted ships.


This was an okay witchy story. I liked the telepathic dog and all the magic.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: EVEN WITCHES GET THE BLUES by J.D. Winters and Dakota Kahn

Haley Greco was confused and didn’t know what was going on. All her memories were gone. Why couldn’t she remember? The only thing she had was a manila envelope with a direction to Moonhaven—her next destination.


She doesn’t remember the town, but the town sure remembers her—they thought she died. There was something odd about the town. Why should she watch her back? What about demons?


Haley walks around lost most of the time, which is how the reader feels. I liked how this started, but it didn’t quite develop for me. I was waiting for the “witchy” part it.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: MAGIC BITES by Molly Dox

Katy is the owner of The Wickedly Good Sand-Witch Shop, which was housed in the corner of Normal Town and Not-So-Normal Town. Her co-worker is a spirit named Alex that lived in a cookie jar.


On bowling night, the body of Miss Priss—the most hated and cantankerous woman in town—was found dead, and everyone (including Katy and her friend) was a suspect. Murder was one thing, but it was quite another when witches were involved.


Proving her innocence might be tough, especially when you’re married to the Chief of Police, who doubts if you had anything to do with the murder. After all, the lady died eating Katy’s sandwich.
Katy and Eve were both witches, but they were out of practice and can only do small stuff like move things. Time to go back to Witch School.


Meanwhile, the witches do their own investigation as the four close friends seem to turn on each other, doubting their own stories. This made for good drama and tension.


With a gossipy spirit and a secret agent cat, Katy will get to the bottom of this twisted murder case.


A good witchy mystery!


My rating: 4 stars

Review: THE HOCUS POCUS MAGIC SHOP by Abigail Drake

Grace O’Leary has been suspended from her university job for cheating. Raised by a detective father and a teacher mother, she was raised to be hardworking and honest. She wouldn’t even think about cheating. The question was: Who could’ve set her up and why?


Her reputation, her career, her relationship ruined because of this. Now she was the campus pariah. Blackballed.


Grace takes this opportunity to visit her Aunt Lucy, who’s been hospitalized, and help her run her magic shop. Could ghosts have pushed her aunt down the stairs?


I thought this story would be better, but it was too slow and the characters were too strange. I thought the magic shop would have….oh, I don’t know…magic!


My rating; 2 stars

Review: MISS SPELLED by Morgana Best

A bad batch of nachos ended her relationship. She also lost her job to India and was just evicted from her apartment. Yep, things were looking up for Amelia Spelled. But, wait, they may just be looking up when she finds that she inherited her aunt’s house and store.


I thought this would be an interesting “witchy” read, but I was surprised at how slow it was. It also wasn’t as “witchy.” It was just a disappointment.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: SEVEN PETS FOR SEVEN WITCHES (Anthology)

A sassy, smart-mouth raccoon for a familiar? A wedding for a rat?
As you can tell, these stories involve the witches’ pets—or their familiars. Although some contained a level of wit, they really weren’t that great. Some had a far-off attempt at being too cute while others were just plain dumb. Really, it felt like a waste of time.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: HEXES AND OHS (Anthology)

Two men vying for a woman’s attention. Perhaps a magical matchmaker can help? But when the spell goes awry and makes the two men fall in love…with each other. Oh, that’s just too, too funy.


A potion switches a man with a dog. Another spell gone awry.


These stories have a mixture of love and magic. Some were a little too “witchy”  with fantasy objects and names that were just a tad too silly for my tastes. There was a woman that was half witch, half-Cupid with an inexplicable obsession with pancakes. “Hungry Cat Café” was all about cats and way too long.  Most of these tales were far-fetched and unimpressive.
The best stories were “Witch, Please” and “Witcheroo.”


My rating: 2 stars

Blog Tour: The Charlie Henson Series by Louy Castonguay

My Neighbor's Keeper
Charlie
Henson Book 1 by
Louy Castonguay Genre:
Cozy Mystery 




"My Neighbor’s Keeper," the first in a series, is centered on retired paramedic Mrs. Charlotte Henson, aka Charlie or Mrs. H. She’s sixty years old and a widow. Her husband, a former police officer, was run down by a drunk driver three years before. Charlie befriends shy six-year-old Bert, from next door. One evening, Bert comes to her door, dirty, tattered and crying. His mother won’t wake up and his two younger sisters, he says, are hungry. Charlie runs to the rescue,
and ends up embroiled in a murder. Bert’s mother is crumpled at the foot of the cellar stairs. When Charlie realizes she’s under surveillance, she sneaks out the back door and down to the river,
where her canoe is kept. She gets out on the river, at night, in a rainstorm, goes upriver and travels to a cabin hidden in the woods in order to buy time to solve the crime. Along her journey, she makes
friends, and also gets help from her husband’s niece, Louise.




My review: A crying 6-year old boy knocks on Charlie Henson’s door one night. His sisters were hungry and his mommy wasn’t waking up. There was other way to spin: his mother was dead. And the father was nowhere to be found.

All of a sudden, Charlie becomes her neighbor’s keeper (the children’s keeper,) turning her life into Baby Boom until the kids get taken away into custody. But something was odd about the whole thing. Was she a suspect in a crime? How could anyone think that she was involved in that woman’s death?
To clear this mess, she runs off to her cabin in the woods. With the help of her inquisitive niece, she tries to solve this puzzling mystery.
Story was overall well-written and thorough. Although not quite as enticing, the mystery was pretty good.
My rating: 3.5 stars
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Child's Keeper Charlie
Henson Book 2 
Genre:
Cozy Mystery



This Maine mystery tale, "Child’s Keeper," is the second book in the Charlie Henson series. Charlotte, aka Charlie, a retired paramedic, embroils herself in international intrigue when she attempts to help a friend. She discovers that Shirley, the great-granddaughter of her friend Susie, has gone missing, along with her two young daughters. She soon learns Shirley has fled to Canada and travels there to find out what is going on. The oldest daughter, Shawna, is soon in the hands of Canadian authorities, caught in a sinister plot to find Shirley. Charlie locates the daughter, steals a
snowmobile, and crosses back into Maine. The situation becomes very complicated when she herself is kidnapped by the very criminals interested in finding Shirley. When she finds herself back in Canada, on the snowmobile trail again, she is able to effect an escape for herself and Shawna. Will help arrive in time, or will the bad guys find her first? In this journey, she gets help from unexpected places and from old friend Ronny Curtis.



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I am a double graduate from UMF. My first degree in 1989 was in Community Nutrition, with a minor in chemistry, the better to plot murders. My second degree, in 1994, was for the newly developed BFA in Creative Writing but had to be fluent in a foreign language. I'm Franco American, so aced that.I have worked at various jobs throughout Central Maine, including shoe shops, egg plants, wool mills, office jobs, finally spending time as
a volunteer driver for Community Concepts. Life experiences along the way have given much material for my books.


I am currently hard at work on the series, doing promotional activities and hope to have a web site up soon. I'm also running a blog, Keeper Series, to keep my reader's abreast of my progress. I hope to have the next volume out by April.

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Blog Tour: SENNA'S SECRET by Karen Tjebben

The Flowers of Avenel  Book 3Contemporary RomanceDate Published: October 12, 2019

Senna Lang knew that fairy tales didn’t come true. There was no prince desperately searching for her to rescue her from the humdrum monotony of life. And whenever her heart dared to hope that there was, she’d shut down that line of thought because it led to the dull, persistent pain centered in her heart. Most of the time she could ignore the ache, but sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder what her life could have been if she hadn’t screwed everything up with Josh ten years ago. Would they be living in a two-story bungalow with water views and wrap around porches on the idyllic town of Avenel? Would they have a couple of kids and a rambunctious but friendly dog?
Regardless of her hopes or fears, returning to Avenel would thrust her into Josh’s realm. He was her first, and she still wasn’t over him. Even though he didn’t know it, she carried a secret from their past that could change their lives forever.
Josh Turner couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d heard Senna was coming back, but he hadn’t known when. But when their paths crossed, the curves of her body took him on a slow trip through memory lane. She’d been his first love and his first heartbreak. After high school, she’d ghosted him and cut him out of her life as if he was a cancerous tumor to be tossed aside. He’d been heartbroken and angry, but as the years passed, his anger cooled to indifference, but being in her presence again unleashed a swell of emotions that he hadn’t expected. All their ‘firsts’ crashed through him like a tsunami and destroyed the barriers he’d erected around his heart. He’d thought he was over her. He wasn’t.
Everyone has secrets, but some secrets are too heavy to bear alone. Those need to be shared.




My review: Senna Lang had lost her job at the television studio, prompting her move out of Burbank, CA, and back to her hometown. “Avenel was home to all of her ‘firsts’. Her first date, first boyfriend, first kiss, first….” (1)


But rather than looking back, dwelling on what might have been in the past (especially concerning Josh,) Senna aimed to create her own happiness, controlling her own destiny. No more screw-ups.


Still…it was strange to be back home. Of course, she would end up bumping into (literally) into Josh Turner. And, of course, the ten-year span only made him even more handsome and distinguished. Senna’s disappeared had only hardened Josh’s feelings toward, manifesting into anger and resentment. Seriously, why would Senna think that Josh would treat her as a friend at all? After the way she ran out on him? And what right does she have to be jealous of his perfect girlfriend? Clearly, there was regret written all over her, and that tension only settled when she was forced to work with him.


Can two people forget the past and find a second chance? Or would Senna’s secret tear them apart forever?


A well-written and relatable story about two characters that never forgot the past or each other.


My rating: 4 stars  
About the Author
Karen Tjebben lives in central North Carolina with her wonderful husband and twin daughters. She loves traveling the world. Whether it’s to the heights of Yosemite, the white sands of the Caribbean, or even Down Under, she’s always ready to pack a bag in search of inspiration. She enjoys creating worlds filled with unique characters that will delight and raise goose bumps on her readers.

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