New & Recommended Books Week of 10/6/14

October already! Time for Halloween preparation, sweaters and snuggling.  In the spirit  of

having a scary good time along with great reading, I will list a few Halloween books throughout this month.  This week is a book about Halloween recipes.  I must be hunger because many of our recommended books have recipes.  Enjoy.


Halloween 100 Recipes. Published December 24, 2013. Kindle book. Make Cheesy fingers, Mummy Toes, Bleeding Heart Brie and more monstrously fun recipes.



Picked to Die (An Orchard Mystery) by Sheila Connolly. Available October 7, 2014. 

Connolly is the author of Relatively Dead Mysteries and County Cork Mysteries. She writes enjoyable cozy mysteries. Give her a try. With titles like Golden Malicious (An Orchard Mystery) don’t you want to read the Orchard Mysteryseries? Recipes included. 

It’s harvest time in Granford, Massachusetts, and orchard owner Meg Corey and her fiancé, Seth, are both racing to beat the New England winter. 
Meg is bringing in her apple crop with a team of workers, while Seth is working to restore an old building in the center of town. 
But when his project is set back due to the unexpected discovery of a skeleton under the building—and even worse, a young man related to one of Meg’s former apple pickers is found dead behind the local feed store—the couple’s carefully laid plans are quickly spoiled. Meg can’t help but wonder: are they just unlucky, or is there something rotten in Granford? If so, she knows she’s got to seek out the bad apple before it ruins the whole bunch.

Trick or Deadly Treat: A Fresh-Baked Mystery by Livia J. Washburn. Available October 7, 2014. 

More recipes and who-done-it fun. Washburn is also the author of Delilah Dickenson series with wonderful titles such as Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead and For Whom The Funeral Bell Tolls help yourself to some treats. 

It’s Halloween in Weatherford, Texas—which means Phyllis Newsom is baking up a storm of yummy seasonal treats...but she’s about to get even busier unmasking a killer. While Phyllis and her friend Carolyn are preparing for a baking contest, her housemate Sam adopts Buck, an adorable Dalmatian who was hit by a car. To thank local veterinarian Hank Baxter for helping the dog, Phyllis and Carolyn bake a batch of doggie treats for his other four-legged patients. 

But when they arrive at the clinic, the vet is in the process of being arrested—for the murder of his wife! Convinced that the police are barking up the wrong tree and that someone’s been burying evidence, Sam begs Phyllis to help find the real killer. Joined by Buck, the friends engage in a dogged pursuit of the murderer, who will stop at nothing to muzzle them…permanently.

Undead and Unwary by Mary Janice Davidson. Available October 7, 2014. 
Queen Betsy is back for a 13th novel. If you haven’t read the series start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (according to Maria from The Sound of Music.) 

And the very beginning of the fun was Undead and Unwed. I loved the first book.  Betsy is a hoot and the yummy Sinclair meant I had a new series to read.  Overall Davidson has been steady in the Queen Betsy series. I cannot say that of everything she has written (and one of the Betsy books, even as a fan I struggled see review). So fans of Queen Betsy rejoice!

Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson. Available October 7, 2014. 
Marilynne Robinson returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder. Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church—the only available shelter from the rain—and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. 

She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her new found security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. 

Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves. 

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic. 

And now for a totally random and not necessarily recommended but it is quirky so here is my final, ahem, recommendation: The Pointless Book: Started by Alfie Deyes, Finished by You by (who else? his name is in the title after all!) Alfie Deyes. Available in paperback October 7, 2014.

   

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Happy Reading.