Tag Archives: Lisa B. Thomas

Book Review: Grits, Gamblers, and Grudges by Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas

21 Wednesday Sep 2022

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Author: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Publisher: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Series: Beachside Books Magical Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 3 Stars
Medium: Audio Book

The bookstore is doing well and Paige is comfortable in the little home she’s made for herself on the second floor with the room and little bathroom. It almost feels like home. But when a plumbing problem has an inspector in, she learns she’s not zoned to be able to live on the property until she gets the zoning changed.

Add to the mix the dead body found in the basement by the Plumber, and there are now more questions that need an answer to than Paige has the time and bandwidth to explore. Was her Aunt a killer? If not, how did the body find its way into the basement?

Potential spoilers ahead

When it rains, it really does pour on Paige. Not only does she find herself having to find a new home because her building is only zoned as a commercial space with no partial residency zoning, but there’s also a dead body in the basement. Now the town is whispering about how her Aunt Nora might have been a murderer. While both take priority for her, clearing her Aunt’s name takes a major focus for her as she apartment hunts.

The last thing that she wants to do is end up in her brother’s spare bedroom. While he and his wife are kind enough to offer the space to Paige, rent-free, Paige is determined to a more than stubborn sticking point, to not end up there and find her own place. However, everything in town that might be in her price range gross, falling apart, or weirdly strict on furniture and clothes – something I’m not entirely sure is legal if you’re renting a place as your own, it’s looking more and more like she’ll have to take her family up on the offer.

The twist comes from exactly who was the killer and how the body ended up being in Aunt Nora’s bookshop basement. It’s a twist that I started to see coming as we progressed through the book. This one grated on my nerves a little, it seemed like Paige wasn’t learning or growing anymore to me. It was also a little predictable and I found myself growing bored with it as we continued. For that reason, I won’t be finishing the series, personally.

Book Review: Apples, Actors and Axes by Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas

14 Wednesday Sep 2022

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Author: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Publisher: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Series: Beachside Books Magical Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 3 Stars
Medium: Audio Book

As Paige settles into her home in Comfort Cove, Texas with her bookstore. She’s even back to trying to write again now that she’s settled in. However, things pick up because a famous director has created a treasure hunt that promises the winner a role in his new movie, and the clues seem to hint at Comfort Cove so of course actors have flocked to town. But when one of the treasure hunters ends up dead on the beach, and Paige’s Detective brother sets his sights on Paige’s new assistant as the killer, it’s a race to find out who did it before her assistant is put away for something he may not have done.

Possible spoilers ahead.

We’re greeted to Paige settling into life in the bookstore, living in the small bedroom above the shop in the building, it’s left her without having to actually find a place to live now that she’s settled in the little town. Though she can’t officially tell if the uptick of customers in the shop are because the town has an influx of treasure hunters and actors looking for a prize or the cute new guy manning the till behind the counter for her. Either way, for the most part, Paige isn’t going to complain. Or well, not as long as they’re buying stock from her shop at least.

But when Paige’s brother adds her new assistant, and several other actors, to the suspect list after a body is found on the beach, Paige decides to get involved with the investigation, with the help of her new witchy coven. Her brother, naturally, doesn’t love that she’s getting herself involved in a police matter, but she does help some in finding out the who dun it.

Coupled with treasure hunters that are claiming to have found the treasure and stirring up more trouble, the town starts to get a little more chaotic. There is a good twist at the end with the treasure, which I was pleasantly surprised by, and overall it’s another cute book. I will say that for a series that’s supposed to be a ‘magical’ cozy, I’m not getting a lot of magical. It’s mostly just a bookstore owner getting involved in her brother’s business because he’s the detective and saying she’s in a coven.

Book Review: Pasta, Pirates & Poison by Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas

07 Wednesday Sep 2022

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Author: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Publisher: Paula Lester and Lisa B. Thomas
Series: Beachside Books Magical Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 3 Stars
Medium: Audio Book

Paige is living her best life sipping wine and working on her romance novel in one of the most romantic countries in the world, Italy. But all of that changes when she gets a call and has to fly home to Texas for her beloved Aunt who falls ill.

Quicker than she’d like, her Aunt passes and she finds herself with her Aunt’s failing bookstore, cousins who aren’t happy inheriting their aunt’s house, and a mysterious message from her Aunt that hints at buried treasure somewhere on the house’s property. Before Pagie can consider returning to Italy, she has to untangle the mystery and find the treasure. But will she even survive to return to Italy?

Potential spoilers beyond this point

Overall this book started off interesting. Paige has moved to Italy because she thinks she’ll have a better chance at writing her book about love in a romantic country with a beautiful view. But it’s not exactly the life she’d thought it was, because the reality is she’s working a small job to pay rent on a house she’s sharing with others, and her novel is kind of stagnant on the page due to writer’s block.

While she grumbles about having to return to Texas for her Aunt, the move gives her life a new chapter as it were. She not only inherits her Aunt’s failing bookstore, but she discovers that there’s the ghost of an old pirate captain that’s tied to one of the books in the shop, and his long buried treasure was found by her Aunt and then hidden carefully away in the house.

Which means it’s a race against time to try and find the treasure because her cousins are selling the house because they don’t want it, and inherited it so it’s theirs to do with as they will. Naturally, others have heard of the buried treasure as well and are looking to buy it for the same reason.

By cleaning up and trying to get the bookstore on its feet again, Paige gets to learn and connect with her late Aunt in a way she hadn’t understood she could before, learns about herself, and finds a potential future if she wants to grab it with both hands.

It’s definitely a cute start to a series and it caught my interest enough to want to continue to the next book.